So Diamonds in the Sand, my fourth book, sat on my hard drive for many years.  Until I decided to try self publishing.  A friend who helped others to put out music CDs on the net, as well as his own, told me that the more in your online portfolio the better, as it got people to look at you as a serious artist who could produce.  He also managed a few authors and said the same thing worked for them.  So I decided to give it a shot and there was Diamonds in the Sand just sitting there waiting patiently.  I went over it a couple of more times and decided to post it as a free eBook, to making get some interest going in my work.  It was easy to make it free on Smashwords.  In fact they have a button to check that makes the book free.  Unfortunately Amazon does not allow that unless it is KDP Select, and only for five days during a 90 day period.  I didn’t learn that until I had already uploaded the book and cover to Amazon, and it appeared three months later on their site as a $3.99 eBook, at the same time it was free on Smashwords.  There were almost a thousand downloads of this free eBook on Smashwords, and I actually got two reviews posted, both five star and both from people I didn’t known.  The write-up was kind of short for both, but they are both five stars.

I then decided to charge for the book and put it on Amazon, but at $0.99, which seemed more reasonable than $3.99.  It is not as good as what I am writing now.  That said, it’s still a good book, as good as many others I have read on Amazon.  I feel like I had climbed a steep learning curve from my first three books to reach to this one.  I have learned a lot more since, and in the rewrites I corrected some obvious POV mistakes and dialogue.   I am glad that this book finally made it to publication, and was given a chance to be read by others.