FREE!

I browse the net when the world weighs heavy on me.

* I see where 500 Chinese worshippers of the sect, Eastern Lightning, who believe Jesus has come back as a woman were arrested for handing out leaflets in prelude to Doomsday.

* How well you can get up from a sitting position on the floor indicates how long you will live.

* Megan Fox was surprised that the first months of pregnancy was not pleasant.

* Hucksters charge you high dollars to tell you in a vid:

 *  What makes a compelling e-book and/or series.   *   How to use social media as an e-book author to build your platform.
 *   How to increase your e-book sales and make money

If you've been reading my series of FREE posts, you have learned much of the above.

I. EBOOKS HAVE ADVANTAGES -

     A. Your books never go away like they do in brick book stores.

          1.) A reader discovers your latest book and goes to Amazon to buy more of your books.
          2.) Series books are great for this - but you will have to work to make each volume stand on its own.

     B.) Your money is not held in reserve to pay for your advance.

          1.) You get your money in 6 weeks with no agent getting 15%.

          2.) Rumblings ...
               a.) Rumors have it that Amazon's 70% cut to you might soon be dependent on joining the KDP Select.
               b.) Some authors have been complaining of the tardiness and incorrect amounts coming to them from Amazon.

          3.) Still even 35% of sales coming to you within 6 weeks beats waiting years, if ever, for your sales to surpass your advance.

     B. HOW TO WRITE A COMPELLING SERIES:

          1.) Be original.

          2.) Take END OF DAYS by me  -- No, I am not hawking it -- well, maybe a little  :-)
               a.) How to make this book different than the other 3 Victor Standish adventures?
               b.) I changed the narrator.
               c.) I took Victor primarily out of the action.

          3.) Alice Wentworth, the Victorian ghoul, became the teller of the tale and basically the last hero standing.  (After all, how many Asgardians were left after Ragnarok?)

          4.) What did I get?
               a.) A stronger, more deeply portrayed Alice Wentworth.
               b.) Different facets of supporting characters exposed ( New ways of seeing old characters.)
               c.) Original, surprising ways to assail enemies and crises since the old dynamic had been tossed away with Victor's death.
               d.) New secrets of Victor revealed with the entrance of his soul echo.
               e.) New regions of the French Quarter exposed along with new enemies who had always lurked in them.
               f.) When Victor returned in THREE SPIRIT KNIGHT, the stakes were thus raised, the dangers even deadlier, and fates of friends to be changed or die in the trying.

          5.) Take IRON MAN 3:

               1.) New Director, Shane Black, had to make the movie different, better than the other two that went before it and THE AVENGERS which set the bar high for the Marvel movies to come.

               2.) How did he do that?

               3.) Read the plot:
                    Tony Stark uses his ingenuity to fight those who destroyed his private world and soon goes up against his most powerful enemy yet: the Mandarin.

               4.) Black takes it all away from Tony Stark until he is left as he was at the start of the first IRON MAN with only his wits and his heart to save himself and the one he loves.

C. HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON YOUR EBOOK?

          1.) Think sideways.
          2.) Go to CREATE SPACE and produce a print version of your book.
          3.) It will make the $3.99 you charge for your eBook look attractive compared to the $16.95 price to your print book.

D.) HOW TO MAKE A MEDIA PLATFORM THAT WORKS IN 2013:

          1.) LEARN FROM ALEX CAVANAUGH!

               a.) He works HOURS each day on the net, visiting the blogs of others and guest posting on them.
               b.) Does he ask to guest post?  No.  HE IS ASKED TO DO THEM.

               c.) Why?  HE HELPS OTHERS NOT HIMSELF WITH HIS BLOG.

               d.) Facebook, Twitter, book tours, prizes, contests
                    they all continue to diminish in effectiveness and will continue to do so.

          2.) MARKETING takes HOURS DAILY like writing takes MONTHS.

          3.) If you are like me, you don't have hours to invest into it.
               a.) What time you do have, invest wisely.
               b.) Don't fritter it with Twitter or Facebook (which now charges you to hawk your books.)
               c.) On your blog, be caring, funny, and focused on helping others.

NOTE:
          1.) I am not promising that within 3 years, you will be a self-supporting author.
          2.) But you will have grown as a writer and as a human being, making good friends along the way.
          3.) How cool is that?