Bonnye Matthews

Bonnye Matthews, prolific Alaskan author, writes prehistoric fiction. According to Grace Cavalieri, she is America’s pre-eminent author of prehistoric fiction. According to George F. Steiner, Quaternary Geology and Pleistocene Cognitive Archaeology expert, “Her stories are fascinating and the science behind them is cutting edge.” Alaska appears only in the novel series in Tuksook’s Story, 35,000 BC. The novel series focus is the peopling of the Americas and the novella series looks at very old individual archaeological sites.

That sense of satisfaction will last about 20 minutes.

Frequently overlooked, my novel, Zamimolo’s Story, 50,000 BC, inherited the middle child syndrome of virtual invisibility.  2018 changed all that!  Zamimolo’s Story counted in the top three of my sales for the first six months of the year.

Way to go, Zami!  Congratulations!

To celebrate my novella, Courage, 30,000 BC, winning First Place for YA Fiction from the National Federation of Press Women this year, I’m giving away two copies of the book. To sign up, go to booksbybonnye.com and press the contact button. In your email message, write July GIVEAWAY on the subject line. I’ll notify the winners on July 16.

Courage, 30,000 BC won first place for YA Fiction at the National Federation of Press Women’s annual communication competition. The presentation will be made in September at the National Conference. This is so exciting!

After the holidays I returned to work with vigor. By late evening, I was a bit on the fatigued side, well more than a bit. I’d have to call it full fatigue. I stopped to read some Facebook posts. I read very quickly. After going past political posts and some that didn’t grab me, I hit this:

“The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.” – Melody Beattie

When I got to “setting goals,” I read “selling goats.” I did a double take to discover my error. It made me laugh a lot. For a moment, I mused over selling goats. Would that be profitable? I wondered. Ah ha, I could make a list of resolutions of my goats for the 2018 New Year! Way too much fatigue. I sell books. I can do without a yard full of goats. For that night, time to hang it up!

From the images in Wikimedia I mused over tonight to add to this post, selling goats looks pretty profitable! Nah, not for me. I’d fall in love with each goat and be overrun with them.
(image: courtesy of Narek 75 CSA4.0)

The bags and tees arrived. Camels Can’t Carve? It’s all about the 250,000-year-old mammoth pelvis bone, where a green-carving of a gomphothere (4-tusked elephant) and large cat were found in Mexico. Camels and other animals were there, but they Can’t Carve! It must have been a human who carved the bone! People in the Americas 250,000 years ago? Why not? Bags are great for transport of things for book signings and other activities. I had them made at Kosmo Screen Printing in Colorado. My tees are my uniform for events. I also wear them when I go out, because people will ask what they mean. Kosmo Screen Printing does great work!

I’ve seen several articles  recently on the potential for people to profit on sales of promotional materials, bypassing the Publisher and Author.  These may come from promotional materials from big publishers and from various giveaways. The “buy box” program on Amazon has set off some of these articles. People who sell well at lower prices can get a “buy box” and thus become the first source of a buyer’s selection on Amazon. I do giveaways and think it’s a good promotional practice when launching a book. I cannot see a giveaway of ten books as making much of a “buy box” opportunity. Just to be on the safe side, I made a change in my giveaway practice with my latest giveaway. I simply put on the title page inside, “to name of giveaway recipient” and then sign the page. Normally I send unsigned books to giveaway recipients. I assume that giveaway recipients want to read the books not use them for sales. By putting their name on the book, it personalizes the books and  makes them less sale-able, for those books cannot be sold as new.

Audio book for Freedom, 250,000 BC is just out on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. I’m doing a GIVEAWAY of codes to receive a free copy of the audible book from Audible. I hope to build ratings and reviews on Audible and/or Amazon for the book and the reader.  Gotta admit this is great fun! It’s every bit as exciting for me as holding a new paperback! Use the form on this site to email me, if you’re interested in the code for the free book. I’ll email you the code and process.  First come, first served. The codes are limited.

To hear a sample follow this URL  https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-250-000-BC-Popocat%C3%A9petl/dp/B071LP1SW8/ref=sr_1_1_twi_audd_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1496182196&sr=8-1&keywords=bonnye+matthews   There will be an arrow that plays a sample on the left under the image.

Starting May 11 until May 31, How to Market Books to Libraries and Readers in the Digital Age: Constructing Major Email Platform Planks will be on giveaway. Now’s your opportunity to get the book mailed to you from the author at no cost. Ten books have been set aside for this giveaway. Use the Goodreads link and take a look.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

How to Market Books to Libraries and Readers in the Digital Age; Constructing Major Email Platform Planks

by Bonnye Matthews

Giveaway ends May 31, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Back in 2012 when my first book came out, a truck-driver came over to my table and asked if I had audible books. I told him I didn’t. He let me know he really wanted to read my book, but he’s a truck-driver, and he listens to audible books. I looked into audible books. Paying a producer was so far over my spending limit that I stopped looking. Not long ago I found ACX, a publisher of audible books where they hook up writers with producers. ACX offers a variety of ways authors can pay producers, and one of the ways is shared royalty. I realized that someone at my level of budget could actually have audible books. I put my books on their site and as soon as I put up my novellas, I received a request from a producer. He listened when I asked if he could make a little change on his audition tape (five minutes of reading my book); he listened; the re-do was perfect. The first novella audible book (see below) is about to come out. I’m so excited! And it has cost me nothing so far, except $30 to get the cover from my novella squared by the designer. When I listened to my novella read from end to end it was an experience that is different from anything else I’ve experienced in the writing world. It parallels the feel of a newly published book finally in your hand. If you’re interested in audible books, it’s affordable today. The producer is working on the second novella right now. (My novels may be too long for shared royalty, but I’ll keep trying.)