Would you like a free book?

About two years ago I watched a filmmaker talk about how they grew their audience by using a 'gift economy' strategy. Basically, they gave their movie away for free. This sounds counter-intuitive in a capitalistic society but the filmmaker actually ended up turning a profit with their work. How? Well, he invited his audience to purchase his film after they'd already watched it and a good number of them actually did so.

Why did they pay for something they'd already consumed?

It turns out when you give people gifts and offer engaging content via email and other digital platforms they end up wanting to support you.

I was fascinated by the filmmaker's experience with the gift economy and decided to try it myself. I didn't have a film I could give away for free but I did have a book. Claudette in the Shadows. It was an eBook released about five years ago to promote my publishers (now sadly shuttered) digital imprint. I own the book outright so could theoretically offer it for free if I wanted to. First, I wanted to give the story a bit of a polish, add new chapters, and most importantly design a new cover.

The initial cover for Claudette in the Shadows never sat quite right with me. It was entirely my fault, I pushed the publisher to go with a different style than they'd used for Winter's Shadow and Winter's Light, even offering an illustration of my own as inspiration. Unfortunately, they literally used the less-than-impressive drawing I gave them as the cover art which wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Now, here was an opportunity to try again. This time I designed the cover myself.

This is what I came up with:

Pretty cool, right? I like it anyway.

The revised book was different enough from the original that I gave it a new title, sticking with the 'Shadows' motif of the series. And now, I offer it to you to read. Simply click this link and you'll be taken to a landing page. After you add your email address, this will trigger a series of emails from me, the first includes the download link for Emerald Shadows. If you've already read Claudette in the Shadows hopefully there's enough new stuff in this story to make a re-read worth your while. And if you haven't read Claudette then you're in for a treat. There's some fun stuff in this book. A little bit of romance, a little bit of horror (okay, a lot of horror) and at only 30,000 words you should be able to finish it in a couple of sittings.

And, did I mention it's FREE?

Hope you dig it, MJ