Well, someone’s reading

Every now and then Smashwords.com, one of the second tier ebook providers (after industry leaders Apple Books and Amazon) holds a special sale event. So far I’ve had a handful of emails asking me to take part, which you do by just clicking a link and selecting a discount tier for your book in your account.

Anyway, I first did it ages ago now, promptly forgot about it and got a very pleasant surprise a few months later when I received an email titled ‘Purchase notification’.

Someone had bought Falling!

That I logged into my account and realised I’d somehow accidentally set the discount at 100 percent (which means someone was curious enough to download Falling because it was free, not that they decided it was worth the money) was secondary.

My intended audience, someone I don’t know who has no investment in me or the book and doesn’t care how hurt my feelings are if they don’t like it, had bought it. Or… acquired it. Whatever.

Since then another few sales events have come up on Smashwords and now, rather than discount Falling to 50% or even 10% of the price, I’ve set it to be available for free. And without exception, at least one person’s bought it (acquired… whatever) ever time.

So now, even if Falling one day catches on and pays off my house, at least I’ll have the satisfaction that I designed it, named it and wrote the blurb correctly enough to interest some complete stranger.