It’s taken some time and it’s taken some thought and it’s taken a fair amount of procrastination and dithering but as of now Laikanist Times is permafree. To be read, shared and, erm, declared (?) by anyone who clicks ‘download’.
My initial plan was to put a token price on it, in an attempt to get an idea of how the whole spectrum of Indie publishing works. But after a few hundred downloads (on the free promo) I sat back and realised that having those few hundred people read (or at least have) my work was a big enough step to take in itself. Plus, unsurprisingly, getting people to part with their hard earned pennies for an unknown and unrated author smells like an impossible task, even before I started trying to do it. It also fuelled a shift in thinking from trying to sell a book, to trying to build something bigger than one thing. After all, Crashed America is already written and ready to go and there’s plenty more to come so for now I just want to share as much as I can with as many people as I can, rather than be a salesman faced with an almost vertical challenge. Which is no fun at all.
Anyway, to the good bit, I’ve added Laikanist Times to Smashwords where’s it’s already available for free download and in coming days that should extend to Nook, Kobo and any other site which pedals in literary genius. It’s also available for free on this site if you look over here.
And why should you download it? Because your life is at least 0.00152% worse for not doing so – and that could make all the difference. You only regret the things you didn’t do as they say, and wouldn’t it be a kicker to look up from your death bed, a bright white light hovering before you and think ‘damn, too late to grab that novella now’? Of course that’s a pretty ridiculous saying, especially if the things you do include taking a load of crack and whoring yourself out to truckers while losing your job and family all to pay for more of that sweet sweet rock. But I can 99% guarantee that reading Laikanist Times won’t leave you toothless, emaciated and on your knees servicing Billy Bob on his run out of Podunk, Ohio for five bucks on a rainy night. Just don’t hold me accountable for that remaining 1%.
P.S.
Due to Amazon having a beef with permafree books it’s still listed there at .99ยข – there is a workaround for this which relies on price matching from other sites and I will be getting it sorted as soon as their systems let me. Although if you have an account there and fancy pointing them towards the Smashwords page to help make them change their ways then please do so.