Troll evictions! Secret compartments! Dwarf pirates! Daring rescues!  Angry gods! Unknown technology! Pissed-off ogres!  The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is currently– holy shit— #15 in its genre on Amazon, and #2952 among all free ebooks.  Free, you say?  Yes!  Free today only, unless I decide to extend the sale an extra day, which… actually, I’m pretty sure I might do.   You can take this as either good news for me in terms of exposure or bad news in terms of whether people are willing to pay me for my nonsense, but I’ve moved over twice as many free books today as I had books purchased during the entire time the book has been on Amazon.

And here’s the thing: this book was never gonna make me rich.  That’s obvious, right?  It wasn’t, and isn’t.  I am pretty sure at this point (and I need to be, because I’m supposed to be starting in a few weeks) that this summer’s book is gonna be a full-blown BA novel.  And I’m thinking once that’s down and available, Vol. 1 is going to become perma-free, as a way to give folks a quick and easy intro into the world I’m working in.  I may even attach it to the end of the novel as backmatter; we’ll see.  But I think the goal for this thing needs to be not making money, but getting eyeballs on my work and the name “Luther Siler” into the backs of people’s heads.  And Skylights is gonna be up soon, at something more resembling a novel price; if people like BA and get it cheaply maybe they’ll be more likely to shell out the $5-7 I’m imagining pricing Skylights at once it’s available.

Then I can get rich, right?  🙂

One caveat, of course:  I’ve gotten a half-decent number of people to download the thing today.  It remains to be seen how many of them read it.  Or, say, post reviews, or if they do post reviews, post reviews of the fine quality of the couple I’ve received and not, say, “HURR DURR I HATE SWEARS AND SCI FI IS DUM ONE STAR.”  Because that’s what a lot of the gripes I’ve seen about the program have said– that the free days cause your book to get downloaded by a bunch of people who don’t read it, and then if they do they put up a low-quality bad review.

(Note: Not saying non-sci-fi people can’t or shouldn’t read or review my book.  In fact, both of the reviews I’ve gotten are from non-sci-fi people, and I’m looking forward to the first read I get from an actual genre aficionado.  I’m just repeating what I’ve heard from other writers here.)

Anyway.  Yeah.  This is fascinating.  And, again, feel free to go forth and download.  Tell your friends!  (No.  Really.  Tell your friends.)