Do give-aways really work? But first, the BIG give-away is set for next autumn

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. I've been hip-deep in election coverage in my regular job, and I've been writing and editing fiction quite a bit as well.

The big non-writing news in my household is that my oldest daughter (who just turned 21) is now engaged. She and the young man have been friends since their early teen years, and have been officially dating for five years. He asked me for permission and the whole nine yards, and overall we're all really happy. I wish they would wait until my daughter is finished with school – she'll have another year left at the time – but otherwise I think they're going to do just fine. They have tentatively set a September wedding date.

And now for the writing news.

Well, actually, I don't have much. A few things in the works, but nothing to announce just yet. I know a few of you have been curious about how my Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror series went, so I’ll address that today.

A brief recap – starting on Sept. 2, and every Sunday afterward until Oct. 28, I released a horror short story at Amazon.com. I went into the plan viewing it as an experiment, and overall I'm pleased.

I had a decent amount of sales in September, but they really picked up in October, when about three-quarters of the sales took place. Of course, that's what you would expect for a couple of reasons – first, it's October, when people really start to think Halloween and horror; and second, with each passing week another story was added, giving more variety of available titles.

Most of all, though, I believe joining Amazon's Select program helped with the short stories. For those of you who don't know about that program, it's one in which you agree to list your story on Amazon exclusively for 90 days – that means no Kobo, no Smashwords, no Nook – only on Amazon. In exchange for that exclusivity you get two things. First, Amazon Prime members can borrow your work for free (they have a limited number of monthly borrows they can use as Prime members). You get royalties for each borrow, and since my Halloween Horror shorts were only priced at 99 cents, I actually earned more from a borrow than from a sell.

Second, you can have up to five days to give away your book/story for free during the 90-day agreement period. The idea behind a give-away is twofold. First, if you story gets high enough on the Amazon ranking system, hopefully it attracts more attention even after your free give-away is done. And second, the idea is that a lot of folks will download your story, like it so much they seek out – and buy – additional work you have.

Does any of that really work? Some writers will tell you it's been a major factor in some big-time success, while others will say it's a pointless exercise. For me, it definitely bumped up sales.

I did a two-day give-away for my story The Dark Secret of Warren House. I like Warren House, but going into the Nine Weeks campaign if you had asked me which one of the stories I like best, I would have said first would be A Mother’s Love, second would be The Journal, and third was probably Patron Saint. The Dark Secret of Warren House would have been next.

Readers definitely took more of a liking to Warren House. Before I did the free give-away promotion, it was already the best seller of my Nine Weeks stories, and during the give-away it shot all the way to No. 2 on the Amazon horror list, passing work by a few well-known authors that were on free give-away promotions that weekend. It even got some downloads in the UK and Germany.

Curiously, I didn’t see a single sale of any of my works that weekend, nor did I sell anything the day after the promotion ended. At this point I was wondering if the freebie idea had killed my sales rather than helped.

Then sales picked up again, in a pretty big way. I’m not giving raw numbers here, but over the following four days more than a third of the total Nine Weeks sales took place, with Warren House leading the way. Even as October ended and we drifted into November, I continue to pick up a few sales of Warren House – that single work accounted for nearly half of all my Nine Weeks sales.

We’re well into November now, and sales for horror have slowed to a crawl. I still have a few plans for my Nine Weeks stories, but the Nine Weeks experiment is largely over, and as I said earlier, I’m pleased, both with the overall numbers as well as my first foray into experimenting with free promotions as a way to drive traffic to my work. At least in my limited experience, it definitely works.

John Peters is the author of the paranormal romantic suspense novel Claiming Moon, as well as the Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror series of short stories, which can be found here.

Halloween, horror, and religious fervor

This is week seven of my Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror, and my story, ANYTHING FOR THE CAUSE, is now available for download to your Kindle.

This is the eighth story I’ve released in the series (just so you know my math isn’t all wonky, one week I included two stories), but it’s the first one that does not deal with any supernatural horror. It’s also the one that’s most likely to get me in trouble.

Maybe trouble is a little too strong – no one’s going to burn down my house or toss firebombs at my car over it, but I know some people are going to be a little miffed over the subject matter. ANYTHING FOR THE CAUSE is a story about young love, a visit to a Halloween haunted house, and what happens when religious fervor is perverted by those who stoke the flames of fanaticism.

No ghosts. No vampires. No werewolves or zombies. Just a theologian and a few young people too easily swayed.

And that’s about all I can say without spoiling the story. ANYTHING FOR THE CAUSE is, at its core, just a spooky story meant to entertain. If it makes readers think a little bit, so much the better.

ANYTHING FOR THE CAUSE is available for download to your Kindle for just 99 cents. If you don’t have a Kindle you can download a free Kindle reading application for your PC, Mac, or mobile device right here.

Finally - Dark Secret of Warren Home available for your reading chills

I’m nearly two days late (and always a dollar short) with this posting, but THE DARK SECRET OF WARREN HOUSE, the fourth story in my Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror series, is now live at Amazon.com.

Here’s the little book blurb I’ve posted at Amazon: Kevin Franks has been fascinated – no, obsessed – with a large vacant home at the edge of Warrentown ever since moving to the small North Carolina town. Everyone has a different story about the structure, but two things he learns is that Warren House is ancient, perhaps the earliest structure built in the 300-year-old town, and the townspeople believe it is the center of their existence.

Kevin is thrilled when he is invited to attend a Yuletide Gathering at the home and has a chance, hopefully, to get some answers about the house and why it is so important to the folks who live in Warrentown. He also has a fantasy come true when librarian Marcia Jones reciprocates a long-simmering flame he’s carried for her. Together, they learn an awful, ancient secret about Warren House, and that knowledge may carry an eternal price.

Warren House is a thrilling tale of dark secrets and ancient evil. It is the fourth story in the Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror series.

And here’s what a few readers have said about WARREN HOUSE: "Very cool haunted house story…is Shirley Jackson meets Lovecraft…very entertaining read."

"Plays out like a Twilight Zone episode."

"This felt a lot like a gothic ghost story. It would have been good if it was just a ghost story. But the introduction of something else living in the house was a nice twist that made the story truly original."

Of course, the first three stories in the series, SUMMER’S END, PATRON SAINT, and THE JOURNAL, are all still live, and each of the stories is available for 99 cents.

A few readers have been downloading the stories, and that traffic seems to have picked up over the past week or so. One even wrote me to say how much he enjoyed THE JOURNAL, and another left a 4-star review in which he called parts of THE JOURNAL sadistic—but in a good way, of course.

If you haven’t downloaded any of the stories yet, now that the weather is turning cool and autumn is here, this would be a perfect day, or evening, for a creepy read. And while I like all of the stories, if I had to offer you just one or two, I’d suggest downloading either THE JOURNAL or PATRON SAINT. Of course, any of them will give you more than a few chills.

John Peters is author of the murder mystery romance novel CLAIMING MOON, available now for download to your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No sweat – you can download a free Kindle reading app right here.

One story I hope you don't miss

Have you ever read a story and at the end you just said “Wow, that was something.”

For those of you who are writers, have you had the same experience after finishing one of your tales?

Today marks the release of my story PATRON SAINT, the third in my series Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror. As a writer, every once in a while I sit back and think Did I write that? Last week’s tale, THE JOURNAL, was one of those, although with time that feeling has faded a bit. PATRON SAINT is another one, although I have to say this tale excites me, as a writer, more today than when I first wrote it. That’s pretty rare.

What do readers think? Well, I’ll give you a few comments from those who have read PATRON SAINT:

“The only bad thing that I can say about this story is that it made my teeth tremble and I would want to give a health warning to any reader before they read this.”

“Teeth – yikes. I was hooked by this story. I was really hoping for there to be a great twist at the end. And I wasn’t disappointed.”

“Great stuff, got me hooked from the start and never let go. I didn’t see the twist and it was so good it made me smile even though it was horrific.”

Clearly, PATRON SAINT touched a chord with a few readers, and I think it can with you, too, if you like scary stories with a twist.

PATRON SAINT is just 99 cents, and is available for download to your Kindle. If you don’t own a Kindle, you can get a FREE Kindle reading app for your PC, Mac, or mobile device right here.