Creative Vapors

This week I submitted The Stuttering Bard of York to both Amazon’s Search Inside The Book and Google’s Book Search. So long as there was no problem with my submission, the novel should come up on both services in the next several weeks. I hope this will allow more people to discover my story.

I don’t know which of these services will give me more exposure, but I appreciate the greater choices Google offers. With Amazon you upload (or mail in) the book and that is it. Google gives you options . . . all of them good, and worth commending, but I particularly appreciated being able to allow people to look at all of my book. The more people can read the better, I say.

First little bit of good news is that last week I contacted Bowkers about the error in my ISBN logbook and they sent a prompt reply saying they had fixed the problem. I checked today and my ISBN logbook now shows the correct publisher information. Prompt service is so nice.

Of more interest to my readers, you can now download the complete The Stuttering Bard of York in PDF format. To download a copy to read, go here. Be sure to share it with all your friends!

Also, I am beginning to release The Stuttering Bard of York for reading on this website. You won’t have to download a PDF, you can read it right on the website. I have converted the first chapter, and you can read it online here. I will continue to post updates as I get more chapters online.

Enjoy your reading!

Amazon corrected the error in my name listing, so now it properly R. Purdy. I thought they put in the correction quite promptly. The cover image is also showing up and now Amazon is also offering a 20% discount on The Stuttering Bard of York so you can order it for $11.20.

The error in my listing wasn’t Amazon’s fault. I discovered that the information in my printer’s digital catalog had the erroneous comma so Amazon had picked it up from them. I contacted the printer to correct the digital catalog error and I learned from them that their system had been adding commas to a number of names, so the problem was on their end.

I am also in the process of signing up for Amazon’s Search Inside The Book program. If all goes well it will be at least a couple of weeks before searching inside The Stuttering Bard of York will become available on Amazon.

Finally, I’ve seen a ranking surge on Amazon. As of this morning The Stuttering Bard of York is up to rank 188,983. A week ago it I was running somewhere over 1,000,000. This might make someone think I’ve sold a lot of copies. This isn’t the case. Not sure how Amazon calculates ranking, but I’ve only sold a few copies. It’s fun to say, “Wooohooo! I’m ranked 188,983–that means only 188,982 books are selling better than mine!” But in truth it makes me realize that any book ranked higher than the lower thousands probably isn’t selling much at all.