Sunday 23 June 2013

Thinking about another free promotion for two of the 'Malinding' books ...

The first of the books, 'Empty Bananas', and the third, 'The Mechanical Girl' could be put on Amazon's Kindle ebooks free offer again. I thinking about what to do.
'Empty Bananas' was the book that started it all off. The first chapter, about an unhappy little girl, was a short story I wrote many years ago. I read it to my local writing group - Vale Royal Writers' Group - and put it back in the drawer. I kept thinking about the old man in the story and he grew into Ed, the anti-hero of the first book. I was concerned about the little girl, and she became Jodie, a world class wheelchair athlete.
I wrote the book and decided to publish it on Kindle. I was so keen to put it on sale that I published the wrong version; it contained all sorts of mistakes, and made a generally poor impression. Col gave it a very fair write-up and I was encouraged to wrestle with the technology and publish a better-edited version.

I wrote 'The Mechanical Girl' as a fictional autobiography of a youngster in one of the villages who enjoyed making toys out of scrap materials for the smaller children. She showed great ingenuity, making tools to help her in her task. I gave her a different name and wrote a fictional account of what her life might have been. She is the only one of my characters based on an actual West African. All of my other characters, and the village of Malinding itself, are pure fiction.

Right then; decision made. I'll put 'Empty Bananas' on free promotion, some time next week. Probably. I'll let you know! It won't bring any money to the charity (GOES, in case you'd forgotten) but it might encourage the sale of the other books ... hint, hint!

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