About Me

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I received teaching and engineering degrees and have traveled extensively, living ten years outside the US. I moved from the big city of Houston to a small sleepy community in North Carolina, which has been a tremendous change and a great inspiration for my novels, full of the local color. My time has been filled with writing and helping to physically construct three additions to our former farmhouse. I have a great view of the mountains ten miles away across the broad valley and the sunsets are breathtaking. I am an avid reader of all kinds of mystery and contemporary fiction.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Value of a Free Book

Value of a Free Book


Over the last several months, I have downloaded a number of free eBooks onto my Kindle Fire. I read all but one of them and found that one in five were worth reading. The other four out of five were a waste of time. I've decided to stop reading the free books. Why were these books a waste of time? A big reason is the lack of editing. Too many distracting errors interrupted the flow of reading the book. If people aren't willing to spend the time to edit their book, I'm not willing to spend the time to read it. Free or not.

After reading a lot of posts on forums, I believe that the reading public has come to the same conclusion. In addition, I've seen a number of posts saying that $0.99 is the same as free. Also, a number of posts say that authors should not sell themselves short. How many times have you gone to Wal-Mart and been given a free hammer? People say, if you give away one book in a series, people will buy the rest. But Wal-Mart is good at selling things and they do not give away a hammer to get you to buy other tools.

I have decided not to give away my books or sell them cheap and I've decided not to waste my time reading free or $0.99 books.

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