What are you having with your cereal?

Sorry for the pun in the title. Couldn't refuse myself at leat one today.

Starting Monday morning, my twelve-year old novel, The Uncivil War is going to be released as a serial novel at Venture Galleries. This is the third release of a serial novel for me and a few of my writer friends have asked, “Why do it?  Aren’t you taking money out of your pocket?”  The answer is at once both yes and no.

Yes, the books are free to read at the publisher’s web site.  And daily you can get a new chapter— or in the case of long chapters, at least a meaningful portion to keep you going until the next day. And should you miss a day, or a week for that matter, you can always go back and pick up the sections you skipped.  All free. No charge.

But the no part of the answer comes in from the increased sales of books that the serial novels deliver. It seems that when a serial is running, readers discover me and my other works. And they go to the appropriate retailers and buy them. So while we give a few words away for free, they seem to whisper into the readers’ ears to buy more. God bless America. Marketing works.

But speaking of America, I was blown away to discover recently that my work has gone to something like 47 foreign countries. (Now I am sure that I have bastardized the English language well enough to confuse some very well-meaning folks out there. Sorry.) I have even sold books in China. Not sure Mao would have approved, but then again I was never impressed with his Little Red Book all that much.

I thought The Man on the Grassy Knoll would be one of the favorites overseas, but Stuff is leading the way. Go figure.

So the freebies coming to you by way of my publisher, Venture Galleries, are also a good marketing tool to get folks, like yourselves reading my work (and by the way, other authors listed with the publisher that you can find on their web site, as well.) As my good Friend Stephen Woodfin says, “Keep publishing, Crawley. You’re helping my sales.”  And so it goes.

Look for The Uncivil War starting Monday, March 25^th. On this Sunday will be a blog at their site (http://venturegalleries.com/blog/) about how the story and the research all came together. Enjoy.

And keep Reading.

Just as a bit of news, look for a new novel from me later this summer – Fishing Lessons. It will be something quite different from me, I promise.