Okay, hands up. Who doesn't love a good sale? I certainly do. There's just something satisfying about saving ten cents on a pound of chicken or eighteen dollars on a sweater. Books are no different. Yesterday, I read an ad about Bookbuh, claiming to be THE new hot spot for readers. A book bargain bonanza. https://tinyurl.com/yam6fzez
Signing up is easy; just give then your email and chose four or five genres you love to read. You'll get a daily email with a list of free or deeply reduced ebooks for a day or a week.
One lady claims she's gotten more books for free from this site than she'll ever read. OUCH! Not what a writer likes to hear.
On the other hand, books put on sale there for a day or more make authors money due to volume sold. It also helps us build a reader base YAY!
A few of my books have been put on Bookbub by the publisher. One book with Harper Collins sold over 2500 copies on the day it was featured on sale. This was a book in a series of four. All benefited from that one book's sale day. That is to say, my rankings shot up on all of them over the next month.
When Random House places one of my books on Bookbub, that book will shoot to the top one-hundred and higher rankings on Amazon and the top twenty or higher on Barnes & Noble. My books typically sit in the 100,000 to 350,000 rankings. So this boost, even for a few days, is a boon for me.
But how hard is it for an independent author to place his/her book on Bookbub? First, you have to come up with the money. Calvin's checked into it for me and costs run between $400 to $800. per day, depending on the genre. For example, the romantic suspense I thought about trying to get listed would cost us roughly $500.
The numbers of reviews play into your chance of getting a spot, too. Not for a publisher, it seems, because my book with Harper Collins barely had 30 reviews. The last time I tried to get one of my independent books on Bookbub, I was told it didn't have enough reviews. But I was never told
what the minimum was. How come, I wonder.
So, I'm slowly trying to get more reviews of Book One of my Paris Intrigue series in hopes of one day getting it on Bookbub.
CHAPTER
ONE
A grim-faced guard stepped in front of Alyson
Moore when she raised her camera to take a picture. “Madame, in the Louvre, we do not photograph the Mona Lisa.” His lips fashioned a thin line of
disapproval.
Alyson’s eyes scanned the crowd, for even as
the security guard admonished her, scores of other tourists, their arms
upraised, used cell phones to snap photos. “Am I the only one trying to take a
picture here?” Without waiting for a reply, she pocketed her camera, and the
snippy, tight-assed guard moved on.
She
shouldered her way through the early morning crowd in the Salon Carrẻ to get a closer look at the painting encased in
bullet-proof glass. Seeing Da Vinci’s masterpiece was a dream come true. No
one, not even an overzealous guard, would spoil her time with Mona.
Once
the museum opened its doors at nine sharp, and Alyson passed through security,
she hurried to see this woman of mystery. The throngs of people already crowding
the gallery surprised her.
She slipped
between two men and stepped closer to the leading lady of the gallery. Alyson’s
nose twitched from the sweet and sour blitz of assorted perfumes and various
degrees of hygiene. Murmurings of adulation echoed off the gallery walls as if
the Mona Lisa were a five-hundred-year-old rock star. How had one painting
achieved such stardom?
If
the ever-present guard wouldn’t allow photographs, she’d sketch some of Mona’s
fans standing, spellbound by her enigmatic smile. When she finally tugged her
large sketchpad free from the tight confines of her yellow leather bag, other
items fell and scattered.
Alyson
crouched to retrieve pieces of charcoal, just as the man standing next to her
bent to place a black backpack, the style European men were so fond of
carrying, on the marble tile floor.
Their
eyes locked.
“Excuse
me, you’re standing on my things.” Alyson pointed to his shoe. The man, face
damp with perspiration, scowled, raised his foot and snatched her navy scarf,
hotel keycard and passport, crushing them into a ball. He stuffed the wadded scarf
into her outstretched hand and stood.
Alyson
reached, fingering for the last charcoal pencil that rolled beyond her reach. She
straightened and realized the man in the dark green t-shirt was walking away.
The tattoo of a scorpion on the back of his neck. “Sir? Sir, you’ve forgotten
your bag. Monsieur?”
He
didn’t respond.
She
called after him again.
The
man disappeared into the crowd.
The
museum guard approached. “Is there a problem, Madame?”
“Yes,
that man left his backpack here.” Alyson indicated the black canvas bag on the
floor. “He set it down at the same time I dropped some things.” She held out
her navy scarf to show the guard and suddenly it hit her that her scarf was
empty. She shook it out to make sure. “My hotel key and passport!” Pulling
apart the sides of her shoulder bag, she rummaged through its contents, hoping
against hope she’d shoved them inside without thinking. Still, with her
passport the same shade as her scarf, she assumed it was wrapped in the scarf’s
folds.
“I
don’t believe this. He took my keycard and passport. Why would he take my things and leave his bag behind?”
The
guard’s eyes widened for a second. “Madame,
you are sure the man left this bag?” He pressed a button and spoke into a
speaker attached to the lapel of his uniforme, a scowling gaze intent on
Alyson.
“Yes.
He…he was setting it on the floor at the same time I squatted to retrieve my
fallen items. I asked him to move his foot since he was standing on them.”
Alyson groaned as realization sunk in. She was in a foreign country with no
passport. Oh, hell!
The
guard cautiously unzipped the backpack. Yellow wires. The man stepped back, depressed the communications button again, and
spoke rapid-fire French. Pandemonium erupted. Armed guards rushed toward the
abandoned black bag. Once the word “bomb” was uttered, visitors screamed as
they stampeded from Mona Lisa’s room.
Suddenly,
Alyson stood in the eerie deafening silence with only the pounding of her heart
and the cocking of guns reverberating in her ears—she and the black bag
containing explosives surrounded by eight armed guards.
Holy effing shit!
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