A number of indie authors have one or more of their books available as free downloads at Smashwords or are running discounts this month in the Kindle store. Most are contemplating raising their prices to $2.99 starting in July, due to the new royalty structure that Amazon will implement then (their rate doubles if they stay between $2.99 and $9.99), but for now many are still looking for readers (and reviews). In addition to the royalty change, Amazon is making another change effective March 1st - no books can be listed at prices under 99 cents, including those from Mobipocket (which many authors have bee using to list books from a penny up and sometimes even for free) or any other outside pubilshers. This won't affect truly free books that Amazon is offering in conjunction with major publishers, but will affect most of the independent authors and small publishers. So, you might want to check out
this list
to see if there are any you have missed (such as
The Kiribati Test (
$0.01), by Stacey Cochran), before the prices increase.
The Horns of September (
$1.00), by Wendy Potocki . Use coupon code
RU44P to get this free
at Smashwords, thru the end of this month.
Book DescriptionDate: September 1961
Place: Longview, South Carolina
Nickname: Shucktown
Unofficial Motto: Someone is always shuckin’ something in Shucktown
Dilemma: All is not right in Shucktown. Just ask Chuck Beckett. He’s young, in love and readying his group to audition for Motown Records. He’s sure his will be the first interracial group signed by the emerging recording giant. He should be on top of the world, but he’s not. For despite living out his dreams, Chuck feels as if he’s headed for certain disaster. Repressed memories have begun to surface in the form of dark, paralyzing depressions. These debilitating episodes convince him of one thing – that he is soon about to die. Chuck tries his best to shake it off as so much teenage angst. He finds it increasingly difficult to do so after the good friend who warns him about “the devils in Shucktown,” winds up murdered. Her death is the catalyst that leads Chuck Beckett to step out of his comfort zone to confront cabals, demons, monsters knitted out of darkness and all the horrors that arise from the curse known as The Horns of September.
Amsterdam 2012 (
$0.99), by Ruth Francisco, has been recommended highly by several readers on the Amazon forums. For non-Kindlers, the book is still $3.99
at Smashwords.
Book DescriptionA young woman witnesses a murder in Amsterdam that touches off a Muslim rebellion and leads to the Great Eurabian War—World War III.
During her summer break, Ann Aulis travels to Amsterdam with her boyfriend Peter to visit the Anne Frank Museum. They befriend a hip Dutch couple who invites them home for dinner. They spend the night, and the next morning discover their hosts have been murdered by Islamic extremists. Ann and Peter flee to London only to discover the murders have touched off a Muslim rebellion in Holland that spreads to England. They flee to the US, where Peter is detained at Kennedy Airport, then taken away by FBI agents.
Ann returns to her family in Los Angeles, horrified as she sees Muslim rebellions in Europe spread to civil war. With her lover in Guantanamo Bay Prison, Ann watches the United States slowly get dragged into the Eurabian war. As the Muslim world establishes a new caliphate, the United States falls into a major recession caused by high oil prices. Then a major flu epidemic. The only thing keeping Ann sane is her deep attachment to Anne Frank, and her love for Peter. Finally, Ann throws off her passivity, and decides to act.
The Gateway (
$0.99;
$3.99 Paperback
), by Glenn G. Thater, the first in the The Harbinger of Doom series, is free
at Smashwords.
Book DescriptionWhen mad sorcerers open a gateway to the very pits of hell, releasing outre demons of darkest nightmare upon the world, only the intrepid knights of House Eotrus stand in their way. Claradon Eotrus takes up the mantle of his noble house to avenge his father and hold back the tide of chaos that threatens to engulf the world and destroy mankind. Claradon recruits Angle Theta and Gabriel Garn, mysterious knights of mystical power to stand with him. Theta and Garn take up their swords one last time against the coming darkness - a darkness from which only one will emerge.
Ricky Sides, author of
The Peacekeepers (Amazon) series, has dropped the price of the series down to
$1.00 per volume, thru the end of the month. The books will go up to $1.99 to $2.99 next month. I've already finished the first two books and have the next three waiting on my Kindle (although I'm taking a break to read another genre for a bit, so I don't burn out on the series). The sale price is also in effect at Smashwords:
The Birth of the Peacekeepers,
Some Gave All,
Liberty or Death,
Eternal Vigilance and
Descent into Madness.
Book Description (volume one)Centered around a series of natural disasters of biblical proportions that are occurring on a global scale, tens of millions have died as a result of the earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, gigantic super cell thunderstorms and tornados that are ravaging the earth. A rogue nation decides to take advantage of the chaos at this time to attack America with nuclear weapons. The American intelligence network learns of the plan and the government decides to launch a first strike at this rogue nation. This information leaks out to other nations and soon the world is poised on the brink of all out nuclear conflagration as the nuclear nations choose sides in the coming conflict. As the militaries of the world go underground in preparation for the attack most of the world is blissfully ignorant of what is about to happen. There are a few exceptions to this. The civilians that are aware make plans to try to survive the attack as well. As the moment for the attack draws near, the disaster plagued planet is beset by earthquakes of unprecedented intensity and numbers. Oddly the epicenters seem to be located at every major military installation around the world. (It is implied and hinted at that divine intervention has saved mankind from nuclear war, though it is never outright stated.) When the survivors of the earthquakes look around them the next morning they see a world drastically changed. A few men and women struggle to cope with the devastation as best they can but many turn to marauding as a means of survival. Preying on any people they encounter they slaughter any that oppose them as they take anything they want. A few of the survivors band together to protect those weaker than themselves.
Another of Ricky Sides' titles,
The Ultimate in Women's Self-Defense, is also a dollar at Amazon and on
Smashwords. For those reading on a Kindle, I'd recommend the one at Amazon, as the Smashwords mobi version is missing the illustrations (they are in other formats), but you can also read the entire book online at
the author's web site at no charge. You may also want to check out the free book
No Man Has the Right at Free-eBooks.net (requires registration, PDF is free, other versions require paid membership).
Book DescriptionEven if you never do a single exercise in this book, the information contained within its pages could save your life.
The author is a master in the arts of Wing Chun Kung Fu and Chinese Ninja. He studied martial arts from 1980 to the early 1990s under the private instruction of Grandmaster Tony Ragasa Fong.
In the mid 1980s, the author decided to teach a women’s rape prevention seminar. As he delved into research to utilize during the course of that seminar, the author discovered the true scope of the problem women faced. He decided it was time for him to take a more active role in helping women avoid becoming a victim. But when one of his students related to him the details of her own abduction and rape, it took on a more personal aspect for him.
The author, already committed to helping women, dedicated a significant portion of his life toward that goal.
During an intensive private training course with his Grandmaster, the author learned the secret techniques that the masters teach their own families. With the blessings and assistance of his master, the author developed a comprehensive training course for his students.
This book reveals the secrets that Grandmaster Tony Ragasa taught Master Sides. These are the secrets that martial arts masters have taught their own families. The author believes that it is time to share these secrets. To that end, he undertook the challenge to write a book, which would be
The Ultimate in Women’s Self-Defense.
The Weight of Blood (
$0.99), by David Dalglish, is the first of his planned
Half-Orcs series. You can pay any amount you want (including nothing)
on Smashwords.
Book DescriptionHarruq and Qurrah Tun, half-blood exiles of elves and orcs, have sworn their lives to the prophet of a death god, gaining power and magic in return for igniting war between the race of elves and man. Harruq's love of an elf may save him from his dark path, but to protect her means he must turn against his brother and fight the killing nature with which he was born.
No matter his decision, someone he loves will die.
Love, Lust, and Petty Crime (
$1.99), by Harclubs Bartag, is free with coupon code
KU63A at Smashwords, thru March 15, as is
Symposia: Short Stories About Life In The Modern West (
$0.99 Kindle) with coupon code
YM27F.
Book DescriptionA humorous look at love and lust in the modern West where consumerism runs rampant and integrity can go and get stuffed.
Emmet Storch was an unemployed sponger who thought he had no calling in life. All that changed when he landed a job in the call centre at the monolithic Star Insurance where, from the very first day, he was magnificent. It was as if the very essence of insurance ran through his veins and he and his telephone were as one. Irate policyholders found comfort in his soothing words; recalcitrant contractors became polite and respectful.
It would have been perfect if not for his lecherous and treacherous hormones. Ignoring the available and sexually adventurous River, Emmet falls in love with Voula, who just happens to be in a committed relationship with the career obsessed Jurgen. Unable to control his hormonal impulses, Emmet plots, plans, and eventually turns to white-collar crime in an effort to win the woman he loves from the man she loves.
Haven (
$0.99), by Justin Kemppainen, is free
at SmashwordsBook DescriptionBefore Proposition 172, being a Citizen was a way to separate one’s self from the rest of society. After Proposition 172, the rest of the world truly was separate from you. It was such a simple answer, really. How could one keep every undesirable part of society away from the parts that deserved better? Move it.
In the city of Haven, the dreams of the Citizens have been realized in the Separation project. No longer will people of good stature and breeding be required to interact with the working class, the filthy and disease-ridden rejects that fill the streets. No longer will real people have to suffer junkies, criminals, and thieves. Instead, a cleaner and purer world has been crafted to suit your every need. The best part? Well, all those undesirables had to be worth something, after all. Why not just use them? Give them a short re-education and make them docile workers.
This is the world that a young woman named Kaylee lives in. One where Citizens, the aristocratic elite, capture and enslave ordinary people to suit there needs. This is the Haven of constant fear, where any moment you might be brutally beaten by a gang, stolen by a squad of Citizen “recruiters,” or you might simply starve to death. It is a world of darkness, hidden far below the bright and shining city where the Citizens and their ilk live in splendor. It is a world without hope.
Yet in these dark slums beneath the city of Haven, things are being set in motion. Plans are being carried out, forces are being gathered. The powerful and reclusive slumlord, Elijah, starts a chain of events which will swallow everyone in the city - Citizen and undesirable alike.
Stuck in the middle, Kaylee and her companions will be forced into the horrifying realization that is at the core of life in Haven: no action is without consequence.
I know this is a bit more than my usual $5 cutoff, but JD Robb's Fantasy in Death is available for $6.39, just days after it was released in hardcover and as an ebook. The paperback has been announced for pre-order, with a $7.99 list price and the pricing genies at Amazon decided that the Kindle version shouldn't list for more than that. Combined with their 20% off discount, that means the ebook is available at paperback prices.
