Amazon notifying Kindle book purchasers of upcoming refunds from class action suit | ZDNet

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Several major publishers were sued in a class action by the Attorneys General of a number of states due to collusion resulting in price fixing. The court has approved a settlement granting refunds to buyers of ebooks from those publishers. Amazon is sending notifications to purchasers of qualifying ebooks that two other publishers have now joined the settlement, which should result in bigger refunds for its customers.According to the Amazon notification, customers dont need to do anything to qualify for or receive the refund. The court will conduct a hearing on December 6 of this year to approve or reject the two new pubishers joining the settlement. If approved, Amazon customers should expect an estimated $0.73 to $3.06 for every qualifying ebook purchased between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012. The refund can be used to purchase ebooks or print books. In lieu of a credit to the Amazon account a paper check can be requested as detailed in the Amazon notification.The publishers joining in the settlement are Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Macmillan. The refunds are being paid out of a $162.25 million pool the publishers have established for the refunds.

via Amazon notifying Kindle book purchasers of upcoming refunds from class action suit | ZDNet.

Book Marketing – 50 tips for marketing a book – The Digital Marketeer

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How many ways are there to skin a cat? Loads. If you’re an author wandering lost and lonely in the baffling world of marketing, without the faintest clue about how to go about selling your work, here are fifty cool tips for you.  It’s not extensive by any stretch, but I hope it gives some food for thought.Obviously every item on the list contains a wealth of expertise and detail behind the scenes. But this gives you a view from ’30,000 feet’ of the potential actions you can take.

via Book Marketing – 50 tips for marketing a book – The Digital Marketeer.

 

Four Sleepless Nights – new fiction available

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Just this week a new (long) short story of mine was published through Apokrupha Publishing.

Four Sleepless Nights is a collection of four novelette-length tales of horror.

Authored by Gerald C. Matics, Michele Mixell, G.N. Braun, and William Meikle and edited by Jacob Haddon, this looks to be great value at $12.99 for the print and $3.99 for the ebook.

PRINT HERE

KINDLE HERE

EBOOK (SMASHWORDS) HERE

Four novellas. Four sleepless nights for you to enjoy.

Gerald C. Matics, Michele Mixell, G. N. Braun, and William MeikleFour_Sleepless_Nights_ebook_cvr-682x1024

‘Double Vision’ – Gerald C Matics

Henry has been having problems with his sight. What his doctor calls ‘floaters’ instead seems to be something much more sinister.

‘End of the Night’ – Michele Mixell

It is the ’60s, and a young girl leaves her past to find the ocean. She finds something else on the way first.

‘Chimera’ – G.N. Braun

The Cantrell Company has a dark secret on Chimera Island and when the alarm sounds, and the communications stop, a small group of elite soldiers is sent it to find out what has happened.

‘The Auld Mither’ – William Meikle

David returns to his father’s estate after a brutal murder. David looks to finally rid himself of his father’s legacy, only to find it went deeper than he knew.

Four Sleepless Nights

Publication Date: Oct 13 2013
ISBN/EAN13: 1492979236 / 9781492979234
Page Count: 178
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Trim Size: 6″ x 9″
Language: English
Color: Black and White
Related Categories: Fiction / Horror

Purity | Kaaron Warren

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‘Therese was clean on the inside, but her mud-slapped, filthy, stinking home – with its stacks of newspapers going back as far as she was born, spoons bent and burnt, food grown hard and crusty – kept her skin dirty.

from “Purity” in The Gate Theory

This story first appeared in the anthology Scenes from the Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar for Morrigan Books. It’s a gorgeous concept; each writer was asked to write a song inspired by the album of the same name by The God Machine. My story was Purity.

At the same time, I became fascinated with the sort of hysteria that leads whole towns to dance or laugh for days, sometimes to the point of death. What is it in us that causes us to follow blindly sometimes? When I saw an old man in a supermarket (I’m often inspired by the things I see in the supermarket queue!) who was dressed beautifully but was wearing a baseball cap that seemed to be leaking blood, I knew I had my cult leader.’

via Purity | Kaaron Warren.

Telling Yourself the Story (to the End)…

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Have you ever been writing and everything is coming along smoothly until…it isn’t? Some people might call it writer’s block, but I don’t actually think writer’s block is a thing. There are, of course, many reasons someone might be unable to write, including depression/emotional issues, lack of time, etc. but when “writer’s block” means “I don’t know how to proceed forward,” then I have a few tips.

I am one of the rare people who finds beginnings and middles fairly easy to write, but endings? Endings are the bane of my existence. I generally know what the ending ought to be, but how to get from the middles I’ve written to the words The End is something I find myself having to sit down and think through again and again. For me, this “roadblock” generally happens around 60,000 words.

via Telling Yourself the Story.

Making Mistakes in drafts…

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“First drafts never come easy. They rarely turn out exactly how you’ve planned them, if you’ve even planned them at all. The other day, fellow pantser and Pub Crawler JJ posted about endings being one of the most challenging things for her, and offered useful advice on how she deals with the inevitable wall blocking her way to the goal.I’m the total opposite. I always know my endings. I know from the start how everything will turn out, which characters, if any, will die, and what kind of world order will be in place. If I don’t, then I have no will to write. I can have the perfect world constructed, but if I don’t have an ending to suit a story, I may as well have never created it.”

via Exploring Mistakes.

Social Media and Writers

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Some great posts on social media and book promotion, courtesy of Alma Katsu’s blog.

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“In this week’s social media news for writers: new and improved at Twitter and Facebook; the state of blogging; sell more books online; and is the day coming when books will be sold everywhere?”

via Social Media News for Writers: What’s new, sell more books online & everywhere else, social fiction.

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“In the digital book marketplace, individual authors fight in the same ring with legacy publishers. The big publishers have an advantage: the power of their reputations grabs the notice of readers. Indie authors and publishers struggle for any attention at all. The “little guys” can overcome this disadvantage if they build their careers around three strategic pillars: brand curation, relationship marketing, and, finally, creating quality books.”

via http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/3-pillars-of-selling-more-books-online/

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Clear and Vivid Dialogue

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“He said… she said…  Shouldn’t it be easy to write clean, clear dialogue between two or more characters? But as writers, we want our dialogue to not only be clear, but also to be lively and vivid. We want our dialogue to be fresh and real, to jump off the page with life. However, in pursuit of strong dialogue, we may find ourselves over-indulging in shortcuts that should be used at a minimum.”

Read more via Clear and Vivid Dialogue.