My novella, "A Reason to Hope" is now available on Kindle.

If you don't have a Kindle, you can purchase in other electronic formats including PDF HERE.

You can read the first eight pages on the Smashwords site.

Kindle costs (for a limited time) $3.99 and Smashwords is $4.99.

December 2nd marks two events.

1. Contest winners will be selected and announced. I will post winners here (the first part of email addresses only), on the contest page, and the winners will also receive a private email.

2. My order of fifty books are due to arrive. If you're a winner, or have purchased one via the products page, expect your book to be sent out on December 3rd.

If you still would like to enter the contest, there is still time.

And if you order by December 15th, you'll receive several other small items as an expression of my gratitude.

Speaking of gratitude!

I wish to thank my father-in-law for taking the time to read "A Reason to Hope", and relaying his thoughts to me via email. His review was quite a boost to my confidence I didn't write a piece of crap.

You may be thinking since he's a family member, he would not have been completely honest in his assessment.

I know he was honest, because he focused on specifics, and shared what he didn't like about it. He would have preferred the book contained wider margins and more white space between chapters. I noticed the same after I received my proof. Changing it at that point, however, would have cost me more money, so I left it.

If I self-publish another book, or decide to resubmit a second addition of "A Reason to Hope" I'll make those modifications.

Until then, I'll make my readers suffer with narrow margins.

Muahahahahahaha!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving day. I won't recommend you don't stuff yourselves stupid, because we all end up doing it whether we want to or not.

Don't forget to wear elastic-waisted pants!

I decided to sell my book on my website and via Paypal.

It took much research and tweaking, but after three days I managed to make it work.

At first I didn't think I could, because I didn't purchase the merchant package through my website host (Yahoo). Doing so would cost me almost $40/month whereas now I'm only paying $12.

I then realized I have a merchant's license through Paypal for when I sell items on eBay.

Okay, now how do I set up my website accordingly?

What do you know, on the insert pull-down menu of my website software (Serif's WebPlus X2) I saw an eCommerce button. After clicking on that, it walked me through everything I needed.

Software is so cool!

Since I haven't ordered the 50 copies of my book to start selling (though I will after work tonight), you can still pre-order them. By doing so prior to the 15th of December, you'll recieve a few other items as a thank you for buying.

All information and options for purchase (including Amazon) can be found at www.almarquardt.com/products.

A few people have expressed interest in purchasing my book (signed) direct through me instead of Amazon.

I researched into it, and I am capable of selling items via Paypal, and setting up a page on my website where you can purchase as many copies as you like. I can even add other items such as bookmarks, pens and magnets if, again, enough people are interested. 

What do you think? Should I go for it?

I ask only because, though I can buy copies of my book at a reduced rate, the more I purchase, the less I spend per copy. I don't want to buy a bunch of books, and end up not selling them.

My novella is now available for purchase on Amazon!

I don't know for how long, though. I kept searching under my name and title, but came up with nothing, or so many hits I didn't want to search through them all.

So I finally advanced searched under the ISBN number. What do you know, it popped right up!

Anyway, you can purchase it at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Hope-L-Marquardt/dp/1439216266/

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!