Cindy Gold

Sailing an Alien Sea now available at the Tattered Cover

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TatteredCoverBookstore

If you've ever visited Denver, and you love books, you've probably been to the Tattered Cover Book Store.  When I first moved to Colorado I had never seen a bookstore like the Tattered Cover and I spent many hours in the old Denver store looking at, and buying, so many great books.

They now have three stores, one on Colfax, one in lower downtown and the third in Highlands Ranch.  If you haven't been, I have a reason for you to go – my wife's book, Sailing an Alien Sea, is now in stock at the Tattered Cover.  I think we're going to go down to Denver this weekend just to see it for ourselves!  Don't worry, if you buy the last one before we get there, we'll try again next week.

Seriously, it's a really good book and it is getting great reviews.  Out of respect for the Tattered Cover, I won't say where you can find those reviews right now, because if you're going to buy a book this weekend, go to your local book store and give them some love.  If you don't live in Colorado, that's OK, your local book store can order it.  That's Sailing an Alien Sea, by Cindy L. Gold, ISBN-13: 978-0988520004.

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this book to review, and most weekends the author buys me breakfast.  If she gets famous, (how many authors get rich after all?) I could possibly benefit from her success.  Mostly I'm just really, really proud of her ability to tell a great story.  The book is fiction, but it is loosely based on two people that I admire greatly.  One more disclaimer, the book is not about aliens or sailing.  It's a metaphor.  It does however show Santa Fe in a very different light than you might get from the Santa Fe Tourism website.  I hope one day they forgive her for that.  And because the book uses terms that you might not be familiar with unless you are from Santa Fe, such as Arroyo, Toolies, and Zozobra, Cindy has provided a glossery on her website here:  http://www.cindygold.net/?q=glossary

Waitamo Caves – Wonderland or Weirdoland – Kindle update

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kindle story

Back in October I wrote about my experience publishing on the Kindle ebook from Amazon.com.  My wife Cindy had written a short story about our experience doing something called Blackwater Rafting a few years ago, and she donated it to me for my publishing experiment.  I published it to the Kindle and mentioned it once on my blog, expecting that maybe one or two of my friends with Kindles would buy it.  It’s only about 10 pages long, so I priced it at the minimum price of $1 and Amazon discounts it 20%.  At 80 cents a pop, we weren’t planning on being able to fund a return trip to New Zealand.  I think I get maybe 8 cents for each copy sold, but the joy that Cindy gets every time someone buys a copy has turned out to be worth way more than 80 cents.

I checked the stats on Amazon.com today and I’m very proud to report that my wife’s story is now ranked #66 in the Rafting category, and #85 in the Adventure travel category.  She will be horrified if she finds out I’ve written this, because she would first point out that it’s #66 ON THE KINDLE, not in all books, and besides she’s kind of shy about this sort of thing.  Seriously though – 80 cents.  I’ll personally refund your money if you don’t like it, but you will – it’s a funny story and pretty much told at my expense.  There are a few four letter words in the story – the ones you would use on your husband if you were coerced to ride down a river in an inner tube, in a cave 300 feet below the surface, in a tight wet suit with a miner’s helmet on your head.  And there are “Enchanting Glowworms” on the ceiling of the cave.  “Glowworm” is a nice tourist-term for maggots with poop that glows in the dark.  Oh, and you are a tad claustrophobic.  You know the words I mean.  :-) 

The experience, and the reaction from some very kind readers, has encouraged her to write more.  Just a few weeks ago she finished the first draft of a novel.  I’m biased, but I think it’s a great story.  If you want to take my word for it, and you are an agent representing fiction novels, PLEASE contact me.  I’ll get SO many points if I can help Cindy get her book published.  And it really is a great story.  So far I haven’t been able to convince her to let me publish it on the Kindle – she’s kind of traditional about some things.

Thanks to everyone who bought Cindy’s story.  If you haven’t yet, here’s another convenient link.  I get double points if you go write a nice review on amazon.com.  Once again, that link is right here and here, or you can just search for Cindy Gold on amazon.com  Can you tell how proud I am of her?

Cindy doesn’t read my blog, so let’s just keep this post between us, OK?

Update 1:  She found out about this post, and has called me "Ridiculously Supportive."    I'm so lucky.