Double Time is a Free Ebook on Kindle this Week

My third book is a departure from the fantasy world of Uhrlin and the young boy named Duffy Barkley. This is the start of what I hope to see evolve as a series of historical fiction for middle grade student. Double Time on the Oregon Trail is being featured in a Goodreads Paperback giveaway from August 27th to September 4th.  Those are my brother's and my Dad's birthdays, but they could be significant to you in that you could enter to win one of five free copies of this book in which two 15 year old girls, traveling across North America, 152 year apart, sometimes read each other's journals thanks to the lap desk they both own.

to sign up to win one of the 5 copies in paperback you should be able to find the link at this address

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/29525-double-time-on-the-oregon-trail

Then if you want a for sure copy in kindle format, there will be five days when you can upload it for free as a kindle ebook from August 31 to September 4 at

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Oregon-Trail-ebook/dp/B008G3JZB8

and of course, if you have kindle prime you can always get the ebook for free, otherwise it is normally $3.99

Why would an author who has been working on one project for 13 years, be willing to give away that work? Partly because after keeping anything to yourself for 13 years, it is time to share; partly in the hope that if anyone reads it for free, they will talk about it, tweet about it, buy a copy for a young friend or family member, or post a review on Amazon or Goodreads. I know that the $3.99 kindle price is what people pay willingly for a cup of coffee but it is not easy to choose which of the many kindle books to put your money on,

 and those reviews help tip the balance in one books favor over the many others it is competing against.

Does it work?  I'm still not sure.  I've sold a few hundred paperback copies and a handful of the kindle versions of the Duffy Barkley books, and in their free days, people uploaded several hundred copies in Germany, Great Britain and the USA, I got about 9 positive reviews, mostly on Amazon and Goodreads, and I got a few nice write ups on book review blogs, but the very best reaction I have gotten was the day I went to substitute teach at Pine Grove Elementary School and the 5th grade girls ran up to me.  They quickly demanded, not that I tell them who I was subbing for, or what we were doing, but when I was publishing my next book.

Some of my friends who are authors feel that the giveaways are cheapening the market so much that no one will want to pay for the work of an author, and some feel that people who get a lot of free kindle books probably get more the next day and rarely ever read them.  They could be right.  

I love writing, I love having someone tell me that they enjoyed the story I had to tell. I rarely make enough in any given month from my books to buy more than a cup of coffee and another book for me, but i will never stop writing until I can't do anything, because who I am at heart, is a storyteller, a recorder and sharer of the beauty and wonder there is in being human on this beautiful blue planet.