Most Useless Freebie and Most Outrageously Priced Bundle on Kindle?

As most of you know by now, I oppose the move by some publishers to put single chapter free "books" in the Kindle store, as they already have the ability to mark the portion of their book that is downloaded as a sample (it's a feature of the mobi format, which few in the DTP side take advantage of). Having any title available for free, however, gets the author and title more attention, as it turns up in searches that sort by price and can even catapult an author into the Kindle "bestsellers" list. It can also backfire and garner so many 1-star reviews that a few authors have had to ask Amazon to decouple the free title from their higher priced full volume, so that the bad reviews don't show up there. Today's freebie, however, doesn't give you the intro and chapter one, but chapter two of the book. Perhaps the $9.99 full volume will give you the intro material missing before what looks like a short biography of a female serial killer. Of course, they could have set the sample to give you the same amount of material, including all of chapter 2 (I've had up to four chapters in some samples, while others never managed to get past the preface), but that would not have gotten them any of the publicity they'll get from a "free book" being offered.

The other listing I'm highlighting today is one that was recently promoted on the Kindle blog, a compilation of nine titles from Jean Plaidy. A (deceased) UK author whose backlist has been re-released on the Kindle (presumably by heirs or her estate), at fairly high prices (discounted to $9.99 on the Kindle). This bundle claims to be the "complete Tudor" series, but the Fantastic Fiction site lists 11 titles, mostly written in the 1940's and 1950's (and one in 1982). The titles listed in this omnibus, however, don't match up to the list for the Saga (and one title has apparently been changed for the US market, as I don't see To Hold the Crown even on her credits page. All that aside, the biggest problem I have is with the pricing. In keeping with setting the list price of the individual titles at $13.95, the list price for the bundle is $127.65 - which actually works out to $14.18 per title ... a surcharge for the convenience of having the bundle (assuming, of course, that the bundle also has a good table of contents). The standard 20% discount given to Kindle titles that are over the cutoff for automatic discount to $9.99 results in a pre-order price of $102.12 for this bundle; yet, you can buy the nine individual titles (all of which are already available in the Kindle store) for $89.91.

So, tell me. What do you think of these free chapters pretending to be books? Do you want me to include them in my blog when they show up? Or ignore them, as I have been doing?

What about bundles with negative discounts or high priced backlists? In this author's case, I don't see mass market paperbacks at a discount (no doubt due to being a UK author, although I also don't see any import paperbacks; were this a US author, the lack of a lower priced book option would be negative indicator of popularity, especially after 60+ years in print, that might indicate that >$10 list prices are not such a great idea). But I've seen the same type of pricing attempted for some US authors -- asking much higher prices for ebooks that their (current, in-print) paperbacks are selling for. Do you buy these (to me) overpriced backlist titles?

The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer - Free Preview Chapter 2, by M. William Phelps

Book Description
In the second chapter of this tense account of America's most prolific female serial killer, the deadly heat wave of 1911 is engulfing the Northeast. In that suffocating heat, reporter Carl Goslee finds the first concrete evidence to confirm his suspicions, and faces a fierce backlash as he pursues the story.

The Complete Tudors: Nine Historical Novels, by Jean Plaidy

Book Description
The nine Tudor novels by beloved novelist Jean Plaidy are now available as one complete series spanning sixteenth-century England. This exciting collection includes a brand-new character guide, along with reading group guides for seven books. Read all nine novels in order for the first time digitally and delve into the lives of this fascinating dynasty—full of intrigue, betrayal, marriages, and deaths, in a complete package, never before available.

To Hold the Crown
In this sweeping tale of marriage and power, love and heartbreak, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s troubled ascension to the throne of England ultimately launches the Tudor dynasty.

Katharine of Aragon
Katharine of Aragon held her husband Henry VIII’s affection—but only for so long.

Murder Most Royal
One powerful king. Two tragic queens. Sophisticated Anne Boleyn and innocent Catherine Howard meet with the all-consuming—and fickle—passions of tempestuous King Henry VIII.

The King’s Confidante
The King’s servant, but God’s first. The English lawyer Sir Thomas More rises to become King Henry VIII’s most trusted advisor, but his refusal to recognize Henry as the supreme head of the Church of England ends his political career . . . and leads to his trial for treason.

The Sixth Wife
Dangerous court intrigue and affairs of the heart collide during the story of Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s six queens.

The Thistle and the Rose
The story of Princess Margaret Tudor, whose life of tragedy, bloodshed, and scandal would rival even that of her younger brother, Henry VIII.

Mary, Queen of France
The story of Princess Mary Tudor, a celebrated beauty and born rebel who would defy the most powerful king in Europe—her older brother.

For a Queen’s Love
Power-hungry monarch, cold-blooded murderer, obsessive monster—who could love such a man? Set against the glittering courts of sixteenth-century Europe, the Spain of the dreaded Inquisition, and the tortured England of Bloody Mary, this is the story of Philip II of Spain—and of the women who loved him as a husband and father.

A Favorite of the Queen
Torn between her heart’s passion and duty to her kingdom, Elizabeth I must make a decision that will shape her country and place her name in history forever.

Game of the Day - Build-a-lot 3

Amazon's Game Download of the Day is a $2.99 download of Build-a-lot 3: Passport to Europe (normally $6.99).

Book Description

• Restore Many Different Houses.
• Paint And Landscape To Increase Curb Appeal.
• Play Campaign Or Casual Mode.
• Construct Service Buildings.

Build-a-lot 3 is your passport to fun! Travel all over Europe as you restore rundown houses, develop friendly services and beautify neighborhoods with picturesque landmarks. The changing needs of the neighborhood will definitely keep you busy--you may need to brave the rain and snow, deal with noisy neighbors, or even put out a small fire to get the job done on time! Pack your bags and let the fun take flight in the exciting sequel to Build-a-lot 1 & 2!

2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

This morning, Amazon added 500 free "books" to the Kindle store, which are excerpts from the quartefinalists for the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Amazon.com, along with Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace, is pleased to announce the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, the international competition seeking the next popular novel. For the first time, the competition will award two grand prizes: one for General Fiction and one for Young Adult Fiction. The 2010 competition is open to unpublished and previously self-published novels waiting to be discovered. Each winner will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $15,000 advance.

Last year's winner, Bill Warrington's Last Chance ($16.47 Hardcover), is now available for pre-order (but not yet announced for the Kindle).

A magnificent debut about a man's odyssey toward family redemption- with his granddaughter along for the ride

Bill Warrington realizes he has Alzheimer's and his lucid days are numbered. Determined to repair a lifetime of damage to his estranged adult children, Bill takes off with his fifteen-year-old granddaughter April on a cross-country drive, bound for San Francisco, where she dreams of becoming a rock star. As the unlikely pair heads west, Bill leaves clues intended to force his three children-including April's frantic mother-to overcome their mutual distrust and long-held grievances to work together to find them.

In this dazzling road trip novel, James King masterfully explores themes of aging, sibling rivalry, family dysfunction, and coming of age, against a backdrop of the American heartland. Unflinching, funny, and poignant, Bill Warrington's Last Chance speaks to that universal longing for familial reconciliation, love, and forgiveness.

You can get more information on the award and download an extended excerpt [PDF] from last year's winner, HERE.

Free Game - Slyder Adventures

The free game this week at Sandlot Games is Slyder Adventures ($6.99 Amazon Game Downloads), a "topsy-turvy" puzzle adventure game.

Game Description

• Crazy Topsy-Turvy Adventure
• Secrets Around Every Corner
• Unique Toe Tapping Soundtrack!
• Over 150 Challenging Levels
• 4 Dazzling Worlds To Explore
• 2 game modes: Exploration & Timed
• 30+ interactive objects and items

The spherical hero Slyder returns in his latest topsy-turvy adventure. Guide Slyder and three of his friends through worlds packed with fun, excitement, peril and danger! Explore more than 150 increasingly challenging levels in four vast worlds in two unique game modes, each with unique characters and distinctive items, and collect unique items to help you in your quest! Play with simple controls using only the mouse to tilt and turn Slyder's world around him.

Click HERE to sign up for the free download. For step by step purchase and installation instructions, see this post.

Author Spotlight - F. Paul Wilson

F. Paul Wilson's The LaNague Federation Chronicles is now out and exclusive on Kindle. Each volume is $2.99 and several contain an exclusive, bonus short story (or two) in addition to the main title. I've included them below, in series order. Wilson is perhaps more recently known for his Repairman Jack series; his novels and short fiction have been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award, and the Bram Stoker Award and he was the first winner of the Prometheus Award!

Healer

Steven Dalt should have died in that cave on the planet Kwashi. After all, as the natives say, of a thousand people attacked by the cave-dwelling alaret, one will not die. But Dalt is that one. He survives, but not without personal cost: he has picked up a passenger: an alien intelligence transferred itself from the alaret to take up residence in his brain. Steven Dalt will never be alone again.

But Pard, as Dalt names the alien who shares his life, doesn’t believe in freeloading. He pays his rent by using cellular-level consciousness to maintain Dalt’s body in perfect health—no disease, no aging. And now Dalt appreciates the full meaning of the Kwashi natives’ saying: Of a thousand struck down by an alaret, one will not die . . . ever.

Spanning twelve hundred years, HEALER follows Dalt and Pard through the centuries as they become known as The Healer, an enigmatic figure with the power to cure diseases of the mind. And when a wave of interstellar slaughter threatens the civilizations of the LaNague Federation, only The Healer has the resources to face the onrushing doom.

(Bonus LaNague short story: "To Fill the Sea and Air" - plus a foreword by the author)

Wheels Within Wheels

A monstrous conspiracy is brewing against the LaNague Federation and the freedoms its guarantees to its member planets—at least that’s what Old Pete says. He's come to the offices of Interstellar Business Advisors, a firm he co-founded more than half a century before, to enlist the aid of its current CEO, Josephine Finch. Dubious at first, Jo humors the old man by promising to look into the matter.

She does not have to look far before she is convinced that something is afoot, something that will not bear the light of day, something involving a revolutionary means of interstellar travel. And when one of the trails leads to the planet Jebinose, site of her father’s bizarre death, Jo finds herself personally involved.

She is soon pitted against one of the shrewdest, most devious minds in Federation politics, and against a wild-card psi who might well destroy them both. But what Josephine Finch begins, she finishes.

Wheels Within Wheels follows her on a course that involves five planets and three alien races. Before she is through she will bring the galaxy’s largest corporation to its knees, avenge her father’s death, abort a cynical political plot, and start an interstellar war.

Don’t mess with Josephine Finch.

(Bonus LaNague short stories: "The Man with the Anteater" and "Higher Centers" - plus a foreword by the author)

An Enemy of the State

Peter LaNague’s voice was low but his eyes blazed as he spoke:

"I propose a revolution, one without blood and thunder, but one that will shake this world and the entire outworld mentality as no storm of violence ever shall. History is filled with cosmetic revolutions where a little new paint is daubed on an old face or, in the more violent and destructive examples, a new head set on an old body. Mine will be different, truly radical . . . which means striking at the root. I’m going to teach the outworlds a lesson they will never forget. When I’m through with the Imperium, the people of the outworlds will swear never again to allow matters to reach the state they are in. Never again!"

Meet Peter LaNague—citizen of the planet Tolive, devotee of the Kyfho philosophy, revolutionary agent provocateur.

But LaNague is planning a unique revolution. One that not only topples the entrenched Outworld Imperium, but fundamentally alters every outworlder’s concept of government as well. To accomplish this he must ally himself with a madman, trust the word of the last of Sol System’s robber barons, make incisive use of the consummate warriors from the planet Flint without letting them run amok, confound at every turn the omnipresent forces of the Imperium, and every now and then make it rain money.

But those are the easy parts. His greatest challenge will be to see his plan through to successful completion without becoming the very enemy he has vowed to destroy.

AN ENEMY OF THE STATE is the heart and the cradle of the LaNague series. It is the story of the apocalyptic birth of the LaNague Federation.

Dydeetown World

Welcome to the future...

Where the cream of humanity has left for the outworlds, leaving the rest behind...

Where genetically redesigned T. rexes have supplanted pit bulls...

Where population control measures have created an underclass of Urchins, unlicensed children who have no rights - not even the right to exist...

Where wireheads with chips in their brains live vicariously through the downloaded experiences of others...

Where the UN has been turned into a brothel known as Dydeetown, peopled by clones of famous personalities from history and entertainment...

Where a Dydeetown clone of Jean Harlow asks a down-and-out private eye named Sig Dreyer to find her missing lover.

Though Sig loathes the idea of working for a clone, Harlow-c is paying in gold, and that's hard to turn down. Just a missing-person case...should be simple enough.

But neither realizes that Sig's investigation will tip the first domino in a cascade of events that will turn their world upside down.

DYDEETOWN WORLD whips the classic tropes of noir fiction and far-future cyberpunk into a relentlessly paced novel about freedom, friendship, and self-esteem. Beneath its hardboiled voice, its seamy settings, and violent events, are people trying to make a human connection...and changing the world in the process.

The Tery

Heroes don’t always look the part.

He was a tery, a lean, bearish creature with no name. The human soldiers left dead. Just another dumb animal on their extermination list.

But he didn’t die.

Animals weren’t the only beings on the list. Certain humans were marked for extinction as well. A fugitive band found him and brought him back from the brink. He became their pet, their mascot.

And still he had no name. He was simply “the tery.”

He soon learned that these were no ordinary humans, and learned too that he was no ordinary tery. The humans had no idea that the creature they fed table scraps and patted on the head would soon turn their world upside down and change it forever.

By then he had a name.

THE TERY – A beauty-and-the-beast fable that only F. Paul Wilson could tell, full of wonder and horror, brimming with strange landscapes and hideous mutations from science run amok. An unforgettable tale of the extremes of the human spirit—of bravery and depravity, of innocence and evil.