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I Held My Breath as Long as I Could

I Held My Breath as Long as I Could

Because I love October and love the fall and love giving my book away for free, for the next five days, I Held My Breath as Long as I Could is free on Amazon. If you haven’t already picked up a copy, now’s your chance.

I Held My Breath as Long as I Could is my attempt to put together the least marketable collection anyone has ever seen. It’s got flash fiction in between longer, more substantial pieces (I was thinking of the book as a meal with lots of courses and lots of side dishes). It’s got nonfiction personal stories slammed up against absurdist vignettes that make no sense to anyone other than perhaps me and David Lynch. It’s got funny stories, horrifying stories, stories that’ll make you think I’m a giant asshole — really, I practically guarantee you will love at least one story and absolutely hate at least one other one.

In other words, it’s the horror-collection equivalent of putting the collected works of Frank Zappa on shuffle — by which I mean, it’s a great goddamn time.

So a while back, I signed up for Amazon’s Kindle Select program, thinking to take advantage of the ability to give my book away for free for five promotional days. I didn’t like making the book exclusive to Amazon for the required 90 days, but I did it because I wanted to give it away.

After the 90 days expired, I decided no, it’s not the best to go exclusive with an ebook. Since none of these stories even have the imprimatur of being Kindle Singles, what was I thinking? I put it back on Barnes and Noble and iTunes. Then I made it free on iTunes, because it was easy to do.

Now, it seems Amazon has made my book free. Why?

Price-matching! They will match the competitor’s price.

So, while I can’t technically give it away for free on Amazon without being exclusive (and then only five days for everyone who doesn’t have an Amazon Prime membership), I can give it away elsewhere and thereby force Amazon to drop the price.

So now the book is free on iTunes AND Amazon. Who knows how long this will last.

I’ve done the impossible!

(For Nook fans, don’t despair — I’ve got an idea how to get this out there for free for you, as well. It the meantime, it’s still just $0.99 on Barnes and Noble.)