Glitches

As I wrote in my last post, I’m attempting a new way of publishing a book. New to me, anyway: serialised publishing.

I wrote a short contemporary romance, To Catch a Billionaire Dragon, in three parts rather than dividing it afterwards to equal sized books, each with its own narrative arch and cliff-hanger. I wanted each part to, if not stand entirely alone, at least offer the readers a pleasurable reading experience, no matter which part they pick up, and maybe be tempted to read the other parts too. To entice them further, the first part is free.

Or it’s supposed to be.

I published the first part a week ago on Amazon and Smashwords. The latter allows books to be priced free, so no problems there, but the former doesn’t, and the book is $/£/€ 0.99 there. However, Amazon has a policy of price matching books, so that they can offer the cheapest price. It was this I counted on – in vain.

Despite my efforts – and those of some helpful people that I enlisted on social media – Amazon hasn’t matched the price of the first book to that on Smashwords and other retailers. Which puts a serious strain on the experiment.

All isn’t lost, though. The first book is moving well on Smashwords, Nook and iBooks, and I’m hoping that the other two parts will eventually too. The last part was published today, so it’s early days yet. However, as Amazon is by far the largest ebook retailer, I’m missing out on a huge number of readers who might want to download the first part free, and – maybe – buy the other two parts as well.

I still hope that Amazon manages to match the price. But I can’t do it alone. So, this in mind, I’m asking if you could help. If you have time, could you go to this page and use the ‘tell us about lower price’ link there to inform Amazon that the book is free here or here? Thank you in advance. I’ll let you know if it works.

Until then, I’m letting the book live its own life and concentrate on other things. Like the next Two-Natured London book that I’ve started writing. Coming up, Zach’s story. Stay tuned.