A year ago, around Xmas time, I released Hornets Attack Your Best Friend Victor and Black Dog: A Biography as reader magnets for Brain Jar Press.
For those not immersed in indie pub terminology, reader magnet is short-hand for books/stories I give away for free, so as to entice readers into paying for other work/signing up for your newsletter. Nick Stephenson has an entire book about the strategy which you can download for free (and I’ll let you put two and two together about the reasons behind his choice).
The two stories have served me well since then—Hornets Attack, in particular, has picked up a couple of hundred downloads on various sites—but Amazon has been a sticking point. Unlike every other site, the big river isn’t a fan of letting you upload a book and making it free straight off.
They are willing to price-match with other stores, if a book is available for free elsewhere, but it’s at their discretion and you largely have to ask for it to happen. For a long while, that wasn’t happening with the two stories above. I’d point an suggest bringing the Amazon price in line with everyone else, and they wouldn’t budge. Not a big deal, but it made for an awkwardness—it’s hard to do a “hey, free stories!” post when you have to add a caveat about Amazon being the exception.
Fortunately, the latest request seems to have paid off (or the ‘zon’s price-match algorithm finally seems to have kicked in). After a year, both stories are now, finally, available for free via Amazon stores and apps.
To borrow a quote or two from the West Wing:
Josh Lyman: Victory is mine, victory is mine. Great day in the morning, people, victory is mine.
Donna Moss: Morning, Josh.
Josh Lyman: I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land.
Donna Moss: It’s going to be an unbearable day.
