When You Were Older is Free!

Starting today, my novel When You Were Older is free for Kindle for three days. So today, tomorrow, and Friday. Just click on THIS LINK and grab one. Free. That's it. No catch. Except that it's a fairly brief window. But it doesn't take long to click on a link, so it should be more than enough time for you to get your copy.

Well...one other catch. U.S. only this time. Sorry, UK readers. It's not that I don't love you, too. It's that this book is traditionally published in the U.K, so I have no legal right to give books away in that territory. One of the upcoming promotions will be for you, too. Promise. 

Now. I say this a lot, but there's always someone who doesn't know it: You don't need a Kindle to download and read this book. Just click on the link I provided, and on the right-hand side of the detail page, look for a box that says, "Read books on your computer or other mobile devices with our FREE Kindle Reading Apps." You can download an app for your computer, tablet, or smartphone. And the total price tag is still zero.

Also, if you have a Nook, or other non-Kindle ereader, CLICK HERE for conversion instructions.

Why do I give away so many ebooks? I get that question a lot. To say thank you to my current readers, and to encourage lots of new readers to give my books a try. You get free books, I get more readers. Everybody wins.

If you want to know more about the book, you can go to my When You Were Older book page on this site. Or click through to its Amazon page and read the reviews. As of this writing, 83 reviews averaging 4.7 out of 5 stars. Or better yet, grab a copy and start reading it. That will tell you all you need to know, and you have absolutely nothing to lose.

Happy reading!

The Bet Rides Again and Again

My horse, ItsmyluckdayOkay, I'll admit it. This year's Kentucky Derby snuck up on me. I didn't realize it was coming up this weekend until I noticed this tweet from madcap fellow author and Bet Associate Brian Farrey:

BrianFarrey7:13am via tGadget To add drama to #TheBet, I'm continuing to trash talk my fellow Bettees. @cryanhyde, yo mama.

I guess you have to know Brian.

This is the third year running that four slightly unbalanced authors, myself included, will bet the writing of a short story on the Kentucky Derby. No money. All stories.

It works like this. We each choose a horse. I chose Itsmyluckyday. Brian chose Revolutionary. Kimberly Pauley chose Fear The Kitten on name alone (Fear The Kitten is 50-1, so I hope you have some story ideas, Kimberly). Andrew Smith chose Oxbow. It doesn't matter if none of our horses do well in the race. For the sake of The Bet, they are only running against each other. Even if they are the four slowest horses on the track tomorrow, somebody will come in ahead of somebody else. The author whose horse comes in first doesn't have to (get to?) write a story, but gets to assign a story title to the second-place author. Second-place author writes a story to that title, and assigns a title to the author whose horse comes in third. And so on. The big loser gets to write a story, but not stick anybody with a title, which is a big part of the fun.

It's all rather odd, I know. But it's become tradition.

You can read the first year's (2011) stories by following the links in this blog post. 

2012 stories here.

Wish me luck!

Update on Saturday, May 4, 2013 at 7:32AM by Catherine

Slight correction. Fear The Kitten was scratched, and Kimberly is taking Charming Kitten instead. This kitten has slightly better odds. Though, as she noted, "apparently, cats aren't great runners, eh?" Mine is, but I doubt he'd win the Kentucky Derby. Stay tuned for results. And stories.

Update on Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 8:10AM by Catherine

Okay, here's your winner's list follow-up. Brian's horse came in first. His story title for Andrew, who came in second, is "Journey, Crimson, Nightmare, Name." Andrew gave third-place finisher Kimberly the title "The Druggist and the Apostrophe." Kimberly gave me--yes that's right, I came in dead last--the title "Even Pigeons Can Sing."

Give us about 30 days.