And here’s Eric and Matt…
The Pithdai Gate is now live on nearly all sales channels: Amazon (ebook; paperback), Smashwords, Barnes & Noble (ebook and paperback), Kobo, and Apple (in the iBookstore).
We have opted into Amazon Matchbook with all our titles, including this one, which means that if you buy (or have ever bought) a paperback copy of the book from Amazon, you can get a copy of the Kindle edition for free. Grab it for your Kindle library (I love having multiple formats of books I’ve read) or give it to a friend (whether as a gift or a way to share our writing with others).
One caveat on Matchbook: As of the time I am writing this, Amazon hasn’t quite linked the two versions of The Pithdai Gate together, so this might not work yet. There are a couple ways to handle this if you’re planning to buy a paperback from Amazon to take advantage of this program:
1) If you’re planning to buy the paperback, wait a few days while Amazon gets things sorted out.
2) If you don’t want to wait, buy the paperback from Amazon now and email me (dayzdark at gmail). I’ll make sure you get a copy you can sideload onto your Kindle ASAP. You can then get the nicely-integrated-into-your-Kindle copy once Amazon fixes this little hiccup.
3) Buy both and take advantage of Amazon’s generous return policy on ebooks within 7 days of purchase. You can then use Matchbook to re-download the ebook for free. I promise it doesn’t bother or hurt us at all if you go that route. We know POD books are more expensive than the ones you get from mainstream publishers, and we value your readership. Besides, I always thought it was silly to expect people to buy the same book twice. As I said earlier, I love having my personal library in multiple formats (usually audio + ebook, but ebook + print is a popular one).
Are you still reading in hopes of finding out if there’s anything you can do to help this book launch succeed? We don’t expect our readers to do nice things for us. “We give you a book to read in exchange for money” can certainly be where our relationship begins and ends. But…
If you like what you read and want us to let you know the next time we release a book, please take a moment to join our mailing list. We will only use it to notify readers of new releases and will not do anything with your information other than that.
Back when we created our Four Moons Press Facebook page, we could rely on it to let our readers know about new books. However, Facebook recently changed their algorithms such that even if you Like our Four Moons Press page, chances are you will not see most of our posts unless you regularly interact with them (share/like/comment on our links to the current week’s blog post). So if you want notice of new releases without fussing with Facebook, join the mailing list.
Still reading? Want to help spread the word? If you insist…
Spread the word on your social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit, smoke signals from the back of your truck – every little bit helps. We know a lot of people, but we don’t know all the people you know. We’ve never done a release this ambitious before, and the more people we have boosting the signal the more we can leverage the time and money we’re putting into marketing (we seriously have an advertising/marketing budget and everything!).
Reviews: We’re not gonna lie. Honest, helpful reviews make it a lot easier to sell a book. A review that weighs strengths and weaknesses fairly helps a reader decide whether they’ll enjoy our book – whether it is a 5-star review, a 3-star review, or even a 1-star review. Sure, we want as many readers as possible, but we want them to be readers who might actually enjoy our book(s). A 5-star review that sounds like we paid someone to write the most hyperbolic praise they could rings false to people deciding whether to give us a chance, and the last thing we want is readers who felt that they were “tricked” into spending money by sham 5-star reviews. Remember that ultimately a review exists to help the reader make a buying decision, not to help the author make a sale.
Word of mouth recommendations: The most effective way to make a book succeed is to have people talking about it. If you like our work, tell people about it who are also likely to enjoy it.
If you’re still reading after 750+ words of manic Eric-babble, thanks from both of us for your readership, support, and friendship. We sincerely hope you enjoy The Pithdai Gate.