MMWUC - Free Versus Paid
Yesterday, I took a look at the top 20 mystery novels on Amazon by sales ranking. It was interesting to see so many FREE books with 4.0, 4.5, or 5.0 ratings, while so many books that had to paid for had rankings of lesser stature. In fact, the book ranked 18th overall, OVERALL for all Amazon mysteries had a rating of "2" out of 24 reviews.
How does a novel, with mostly scathing reviews, end up as the 18th overall best selling novel on Amazon?
It snowed for the first time this winter here. I need to set a story in the bitterness of a harsh and unexpected winter snowfall where everyone is inappropriately dressed and have forgotten the ability to drive and people sit on hoards of bread and milk going to waste while others survive on sardines, the only food left in the emptied southern grocery stores when the "s" word is mentioned in the forecast. Why is it that my memories of snowfalls in my youth weren't this traumatic to the structure of the world? We shoveled. Dad's went to work. School sometimes closed. We played. Built igloos. Sled on unplowed streets, down small hills, or off the low-hanging roof of a shed down at the end of the street. Heck, maybe I should write a snow memoir instead. So, what wintry mix story invades your frozen brain on a snowy day.
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1 comment:
I wrote a love story based on the first snowfall of the season. May have been the very first piece of fiction I deliberately wrote.
I think your memories of less traumatic snows in youth are handicapped by the adults not sharing with you the trauma. There likely was panic and hording and fret and woe among the adults, but kids were kept blithely unaware of that and just had fun.
No doubt the youngsters in your community don't key in to the empty store shelves of now either. They'll look back on these days and remember the fun and frolic, not knowing the adult concerns of that time and only seeing the concerns of the time when they are adults.
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