Posted on 02/04/2012 9:10:25 AM PST by Travis McGee
Over the last two weeks I've totally overhauled and revamped my website, especially the home page and author page.
The last step was adding this bit, which I hope you will find worthwhile reading.
What the books are about, and why I wrote them:
I began writing Enemies Foreign And Domestic in 2000, after too many years of watching our constitutional republic morphing into a police state. These novels, based upon nearly a half century of carefully studying historical patterns, are my attempt to shine a light forward in time. My goal is to warn my compatriots that we are inescapably losing our freedom, one step at a time.
The Muslim terror attacks on 9-11 kicked the process into high gear. But instead of new laws targeting our actual enemies--radical Islamists bent on the global spread of their Sharia Law nightmare--the new police powers were aimed equally at all Americans. Projecting forward, the inevitable outcome will be to turn the United States into a dictatorship--the USSA, if you will.
The federal government, under the rubric of fighting a generalized terror threat, has for many years been providing local police departments with high-grade military weapons, equipment and training. The quid-pro-quo for this federal largesse is unquestioning local cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies, turning thousands of local police SWAT teams into force multipliers for burgeoning federal police power. In the name of fighting a murky and undefined "war on terror," we have allowed the creation of a militarized national police force, something which our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against and tried their best to prevent.
During the same period, our debt-based economy has nearly reached the bitter end of the road. It is only a matter of time until America experiences an economic crisis on the level of what is currently taking place in Greece, or even far worse. If and when federal entitlements, food stamp payments, housing allotments and all the rest are curtailed, I believe our major urban areas will explode in riots beyond anything America experienced in the 1960s. This will cause a breakdown in the national distribution of food, fuel and other commodities necessary to sustain life. At that point, some form of martial law will be put into effect, and our newly-militarized national police forces, along with active-duty military units, will be called upon to "restore order." In so doing, the last nails will be hammered into the coffin containing our legacy of American freedom.
Obviously, I don't desire to see this happen, but if such an outcome is preordained, I want at least to provide a beacon into the future. My goal is to provide my readers with some alternatives that will be less horrible than the worst-case scenarios, which otherwise shall be arrived at by chance and happenstance.
This is why I prefer to write what I call semi-dystopian novels, set in the near future. The post-apocalyptic genre has been beaten to death, and life in the rubble at a bare survival level provides few practical lessons. To me, the slide is more instructive than the post-collapse period. The often-repeated historical process of economic collapse and the loss of freedom is what interests me the most, and that is why I am driven to write these novels. I hope that you enjoy them, and that you gain some insights which might prove of value during the tumultuous years ahead.
I just noticed Amazon.com has used copies of Castigo Cay for ~$90 per copy.
Got any idea what’s driving the markup?
Wondering if I should order a case and advertise them “Used” for $50. ;-)
Matt’s books are well worth the time.
Bless you!
I’m at least a year away from finishing DK2.
I purchased a Kindle Fire for each my wife and myself. The battery charge lasts eight or more hours, it charges in an hour or less.
I have all four of your books in soft covers and and I’ve been talking about (for some time) reading them all again, so a couple of weeks ago, I purchased all four from Amazon to reread on the Kindle.
Looking forward to DK2!!
Great books Matthew!!
Hub finally is a vol. fireman, had to take two vicious online FEMA tests consisting of gobbledygook that he will never need to know; still one more to go. He’s learning the actual ropes now and since he likes fire, water and machinery, I think he’ll be good at stuff. Plus he has a head for heights if need be. I think your books will find some very interested readers at the fire station.
I just hope the economy is still chugging along in a year or so, when my next novel will be finished. It’s a leap of faith to write novels in this environment.
I see "paid" Kindle titles running from $0.99 to about $15. Generally famous authors charge more, unknowns less, but this does not always hold true.
I'm charging $9.99 per Kindle e-book, which is half the price of my dead tree versions. But would I serve myself better to charge less, in order to entice more first-time readership?
Any thoughts on this?
That’s got to be some kind of glitch or fluke.
5.56mm
I purchased “Raylan” by Elmo Leonard, it was $12.99, his other two older Raylan Givens ebooks are $9.99...
So you are in the ball park.
There is a guy named John Locke who sells his e-books for 0.99 to 2.99. I just bought one of his 99 cent novels, and his booke entitled, “How I Sold a Million E-books in 5 Months.”
I wonder if “giving away” one of my books for, say, 3.99 might pay dividents, in expanding my circle of readership?
Already, I have posted 100s of pages of my novels for free, but to get to my website, you have to have heard of me already.
Even a million times a buck would be a lot better than a few thousand times ten bucks, that’s for sure.
Experiment, lower the price and see what happens; you can always kick it back up.
I just ordered Hal Lindsey’s: “The Everlasting Hatred” [Kindle Edition] $8.77
Hi Travis,
I can only speak from my own experience. The trade paperback cover price for Pursuing Liberty is $16.95, although Amazon discounts it by varying amounts. Our initial Kindle price was $7.99 (based on the fact that it’s a release by new authors and on the paperback page count (~250).
We did a two-week-only Kindle special of 99 cents - we had terrific results from it. One advantage of the 99 cent Kindle price is that the title ends up on a separate list of $1 and under - some are free, but that didn’t seem like a great idea compared to 99 cents. It’s also a good way to boost your Kindle ranking and visibility, and hopefully the resulting word of mouth.
When we ended the special, we discounted the Kindle price slightly to $6.99, which has worked fine as well.
I would suggest a lower regular Kindle price, and maybe give the 99 cent special a shot. If you can precede it, and accompany it, with plenty of online buzz, you should see a bump in orders.
Please Freepmail me if you have any questions or want more info!
You know, I’ve seen similar situations, and I guess they’re trying for the rare jackpot. We had an Amazon reseller listing Pursuing Liberty for $130 or something. I don’t recall slipping a gold ingot in there... ;)
Tomorrow I am going to start work on my FIRST Kindle article. Nothing political. Just an article about how NASCAR fans can ECONOMICALLY go to the races and even come out of it with money in their pockets. How To article.
You might try that with EFAD, that being the starting point.
Those are some great ideas. I might try a month for EFAD, my first novel, at 99 cents to see what happens, and then raise it back up to something like 3.99 for good. It’ll be easy enough to compare metrics to the other titles and the print editions.
I didn’t even know I could raise the price of a Kindle e-book, once it was lowered. I thought it only worked one way, down, like a ratchet.
Are you going to post it for free, or for .99 cents?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.