NYT: With Kindle, the Best Sellers Don’t Need to Sell

[Jon Loomis]

Here’s a riddle: How do you make your book a best seller on the Kindle?

Answer: Give copies away.

That’s right. More than half of the “best-selling” e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-reader, are available at no charge.

Although some of the titles are digital versions of books in the public domain — like Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” — many are by authors still trying to make a living from their work.

Earlier this week, for example, the No. 1 and 2 spots on Kindle’s best-seller list were taken by “Cape Refuge” and “Southern Storm,” both novels by Terri Blackstock, a writer of Christian thrillers. The Kindle price: $0. Until the end of the month, Ms. Blackstock’s publisher, Zondervan,
a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is offering readers the
opportunity to download the books free to the Kindle or to the Kindle
apps on their iPhone or in Windows.

More here.  Witness the future--but wtf is a "Christian thriller?"

[Grant McKenzie]

My debut thriller, SWITCH, has just recently appeared on the Kindle (via my publisher Bantam/Transworld) and I was wondering how I could draw more attention to it. Nothing I can do about the price. Switch is already a bestseller in the UK and Germany, but I'm a bit stumped how to publicize its Kindle presence in the U.S. since it isn't available in book form in North America yet. It will be launching in Canada from Penguin in August as a trade paperback original, and later this year in Taiwan. Ideas, my fellow scribes? SWITCH - Kindle link

[Jon Loomis]

You could try giving it away for free. Seems to work for Ms. Blackstock.

[Grant McKenzie]

True, Jon, but even if I had that level of control, I don't think the publishers would like it until I have a few more books published.

[Jon Loomis]

Good point--Ms. Blackstock seems to have quite a backlist to her credit.

[Sue Harding]

As a side issue (re. your last sentence....) I've read "Cape Refuge" by Terri Blackstock. The answer to your question, "What is a 'Christian Thriller'?" - a thriller written by a Christian, with Christian characters in the plot. The book was no less gory for all that, concerning the murder of a middle-aged couple.

I know some Christians are thought of as kooky - but don't paint us all that way!

[Jon Loomis]

I certainly didn't mean to imply that all Christians--or even a majority of Christians--were kooky. Although it does seem as though a lot of the public representatives of Christianity in this country--the Pat Robertsons and Sarah Palins, et al--have some pretty serious psychological issues.

So, are we talking Left Behind here? Would that be considered a Christian thriller? All fire and brimstone and deus ex machina?

[Sue Harding]

Hi Jon,

I found the Left Behind series entertaining enough (see my comment in reply to Grant McKenzie further down this thread) - how someone who had never read Revelation would take to it I've no idea - I was sort of waiting for the Biblical account to be paraphrased/interpreted by the writers, and like I said to Grant, I do think some of it was contrived.

Funny how the extremes always rise to the surface (and this is no reflection on you or any other contributor to this thread, btw) but fanatical attitudes seem to get media headlines - less so, the day-to-day positive contributions made by Christians. And it is very rare (certainly here in the UK) for a TV programme to portray a Christian as 'normal' - there's always an allusion to something-not-quite-right...

I'll step off my soap-box now....sorry for hijacking your thread! ;-)

[Jon Loomis]

In my experience of internet forums, when threads get hijacked it's usually because the off-topic content is more interesting than the original post. That seems true in this case. Anyway--you didn't hijack it, Grant did.

Do you really think the Left Behind things represent some kind of extreme? Maybe they do in the UK, but here in the States their take on the rapture, etc., is pretty commonly held--millions of conservative evangelicals in this country believe in the literal truth of Revelation, to the extent that anything literal can be extracted from it, that is. I mean, Left Behind sold gazillions of copies, right? So it's hard to dismiss it as some kind of fringe phenomenon.

[Sue Harding]

The Christian Fiction industry is completely different here in the UK - very few titles appear in the 'regular' bookshops! You have to shop online, or hunt out specifically Christian bookshops!

Also, the UK is pretty well a secularised society - I don't think there's very much public view on faith, but that's my opinion. 'Left Behind' didn't have much impact here outside the Christian community, as far as I recall.

[I. J. Parker]

Hmm, were the killers also Christians? Some other religion? Was there a message attached about killers always being non-Christians because Christians wouldn't do such a thing?

Or maybe only if the devil made them do it? Or if they had sold their souls to the devil?

And what about the victims? Did they sell their souls, too?

(I should add that I was baptized and am therefore theoretically Christian).

The idea of a very violent Christian thriller does raise some interesting issues.

[Jon Loomis]

I was baptized, too, but I didn't have any say in the matter.

[Sue Harding]

One issue in the book was not necessarily if the perpetrator was a Christian - it was how the Christian community responded to the murder.

Not all Christians are fanatics shrieking brimstone and death but unfortunately that is the major tack that is often used (wearisome though it is!) - some of us are just ordinary people facing the same issues as the man next door, but trying to do so without selfish attitudes.

And I think this has sidetracked the main issue of the original post, so sorry to any who were more interested in that!