Yesterday marked the end of the first week for my Kickstarter project to create a book with a year’s worth of pictures of Franklin Park. I was wondering if people were waiting for someone to be my first backer before they pledged. If that’s what you were waiting for your wait is over. And what a first backer it is!
The other day I was looking at the countries that have gotten my ebooks and I was amazed at some of them. more “A map of countries that have gotten my books”
Two weeks ago I posted that my ebooks are half price 
for the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale. But I was thinking about it yesterday after I logged off for the night and decided to give my readers an even better deal than half off. How about free? more “Get all my ebooks for FREE!”
I’ve lived in Boston for 25 years now and didn’t know a lot about Franklin Park, part of the Emerald Necklace of public park space Frederick Law Olmstead’s firm designed back in the late 1800’s. But earlier this year I discovered Julie Arrison’s book Images of America: Franklin Park (Arcadia Publishing), about the design and creation of the park. There’s a whole lot more park than I had any idea about.
That’s how I start describing the book I’d like to make on the project’s Kickstarter page. Over the next 30 days I’m looking for people to help me raise $2,900 to fund the purchase of a new laptop and a smartphone to use to take pictures of Boston’s Franklin Park over the course of the next year.
Of course there’s more to pay for in that $2,900 bucks, like some really great premiums for people who help me fund the creation of the book. If you back me with as little as $25 US you will get a free copy of the ebook version of the book as well as access to a funders’ area that will have a lot of the pictures for the book as they’re taken. If you can donate more there’s some great added goodies waiting for you, including a signed copy of the paperback edition of the book when it comes out if you back me at the top level with $250.
The book will be published as an ebook in Fall 2015 both as an ebook via Smashwords (and their partner stores) and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, as well as a print on demand paperback through Amazon’s CreateSpace. But you can get a free copy if you’re one of the book’s backers.
There’s only 30 days to get this done so if you can help you can’t wait too long to do it. Head on over to the project page and see what you can do to help make this book real. I promise there’s going to be a lot to like in it, even if you don’t live in Boston and don’t plan to visit. Our park really is that beautiful.
Back in March Smashwords, my ebook distributor, ran their annual Read an Ebook Week promotion and I made two of my ebooks half price for the occasion. I didn’t see the notice about it yesterday it this morning I learned that they have a Summer/Winter Sale every July to help people find ebooks they didn’t know they’d love, and as with Read an Ebook Week many of the ebooks on Smashwords are discounted if not completely free. Once again you can get my ebooks at a 50% discount but instead of just being for a week it’s for the entire month of July! more “Are you ready for another Smashwords sale?”
A few days ago I wrote about some amazing news I got from Amazon’s Australian store and tucked in at the end a question for my readers that I want to give its own post at the top of my site for a while. It turns out that as I’m working on a rewrite of He’s With the Band I’m noticing how little romance is in the story.
My question for you is simple: Should I change how the book is categorized to simply Christian fiction? I’d love to hear what my readers think I should do.
[polldaddy poll=8145174]
You can vote once per day and if you’re welcome to post a comment as well as vote if you want. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
As I was doing my daily numbers check I saw I got a download of He’s With the Band in Amazon’s Aussie store and I realized I had never checked the Amazon worldwide stores to see what my rankings look like. It’s a good thing I wasn’t getting a drink of water when the page loaded. I might have owed the BPL a laptop. more “Holy crap! Thank you Aussies!!! And a big question.”
A week ago I posted that my ebooks were available on Blio but I didn’t have direct links to my books there. Thanks to the help of Raylene at Smashwords I have direct links for you, plus you can now find my ebooks on yet another store: ‘txtr! more “I have fixed links for Blio and I’m now available on ‘txtr!”
I’ve been kicking around an idea for a book to write after I finish the rewrite of He’s With the Band. It’s a book of photographs of Franklin Park here in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. I’ve seen some nice books about Franklin Park but the ones I’ve seen have older pictures, and while there’s some nice sites with pictures of the park there’s no book of recent pictures. The idea is for it to be partly a travel book, but more a book for Boston residents (and former residents) to use to get more out of our beautiful park.
My biggest problem: I need some new gear to make the book and my budget for it is nonexistent, so I’m going to turn to Kickstarter to try to fund the equipment I’ll need to make the book. more “Coming Soon: J.M. Hardin: The Kickstarter Campaign?”
I just wanted to post a quick note to say that my ebooks are now available on Blio! It’s one of the latest stores that Smashwords has gotten my ebooks into. I’ll update the individual book pages soon but I did want to give everyone the links to each ebook on the newest store to carry my ebooks. more “Quick Hit: My ebooks are now available on Blio!”
