Yes, the date of this entry is Thursday, August 20 2014.
And it has just turned Friday, August 22nd, 2014 there.
Huzzah!
It means someone in those parts of the world can now (in theory) download a copy of The Cicada and the Deep, Deep Dark for FREE!
Yay! Let four days of promotion begin!
I am equal parts excited and terrified. Excited because I can now offer the book for free to anyone and I am eager to see how many people will actually take up the offer to have a read of it. I ran a similar promotion about a month ago, though it was only for one day (Kindle only allows you 5 days during a limited time period to run promotions or giveaways) and it was relatively low key, being mostly family and friends who took advantage of the deal. Terrified because of the same reason, to be honest. I have now placed some sense of expectation on myself and on the book.
What if no one downloads it?
What if no one reads it?
What if they hate it?
I imagine these are the sort of usual questions that tend to keep self published writers and authors awake at night with a stomach churning sense of dread.
This time around I've been routinely tweeting about it for the past two weeks, trying to build some form of momentum. I also created a public Facebook Page for the event, inviting everyone in my friends list to it. I suspect for my efforts I may have lost one or two friends on Facebook who upon receiving the invitation probably wondered 'Why am I still friends with this weirdo?' The public event page has thus far proved of some success, with quite a few friends sharing the promotional poster on their walls (and I really cannot thank you enough for that!).
Tomorrow morning begins the frenetic, frantic and frenzied promotion in earnest, with lots of contacting of people and groups on Twitter and Facebook.
A friend and coworker, David McGowan, who was one of the reasons I made the choice to self publish, jokingly challenged me to get 19,121 downloads over the promotion (the number he achieved on his first promotion). I don't expect to reach those lofty heights. Truth be told if I reach 120 downloads for the weekend I will be happy. David writes fiction novels, which, while a niche readership, is still considerably larger than the readership fan base for fables.
Granted, it is a fable that forms a part of a larger world and mythology and is an element of a wondrous Fantasy Fiction adventure.
But it is still a fable.
Now, I chose to run the giveaway this weekend for two reasons:
1- It is a Bank Holiday weekend in the United Kingdom, which means people have Monday off and may want to download something for the long weekend (though it is not a terribly long read, but I think it is interesting and well worth the free download).
2- It is the tail end of the 'Feria Internacional del Libro de Panama.'
Yes, you heard the last one right.
You may ask, why would I bother? particularly given that CDDD has been written in English (and is therefore not called La Cigarra y la Profuna, Profunda Oscuridad).
I guess it comes down to a sense of perhaps silly patriotism.
I just like being both Panamanian and a writer.
Who knows, maybe someone in Panama reads it and likes it so much they recommend it to friends who then recommend it to friends who then recommend it to friends and it snowballs into a wonderful thing.
And just in case you thought I wasn't going to take this time to yet again insert the poster for the Free Download, think again!
The downside to all of this promoting and tweeting and hooting and hollering about the giveaway is that for the past fortnight I have had virtually no chance to do anything else writing related (I sit here writing this during my lunch break at work. An...extended lunch break).
Plenty of ideas are swirling around in my head, which is a good thing.
But none are being put down on paper.
This promises to be an interesting weekend.
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