Linda Nelson

Today marks the official release day of Road Salt and once again I am giving away the free eBook edition of Road Salt on Smashwords. I’m not doing this just in hopes of attracting reviews for the book. What I really want is to help create awareness of this dangerous substance that is still being sold on our streets, not just in the United States but all around the world. It was the main reason why I wrote this book to begin with.

Over the past year I have met many people that have never heard of the substance let alone know how dangerous it is, this goes for service workers as well. When I first set out to write this story I had to scour the internet in search of facts about the substance. I was hard pressed to find anything worthwhile. That was over a year ago. Then I got thinking and had an a-ha moment, which led to my next lead on the topic.

When I was in high school I did basic research but nothing to this degree. This time there was no information to be found in encyclopedias or libraries. Instead I had to find a new type of source.

Who would I know that might have some idea what this substance was like?

At first I figured my informant would be a drug rehab counselor. I was wrong. They knew even less about the substance than I did. All they knew was that it existed and it was very bad stuff.

I thought well maybe I should ask a doctor, but then I said no. They are too busy to be bothered with such a thing.

Finally after searching and searching my brain went ding. I once worked with this guy who was an EMT. He is one of my friends on Facebook and still is an EMT. He even teaches the EMT course. So I said, what the heck, why not ask.

He was so excited to hear I was looking to write such a book that he gave me exactly what I was looking for. He too wanted to help bring about awareness of the substance since he saw the dangerous effects first hand when he responded to such a call. He has been to many a call involving the use of Bath Salts and he said it is not pretty.

So here it is for all to see and read: Road Salt

Free on Smashwords in many different eBook formats all DRM free… https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/258513

Back in 2010 I came across an eBook publishing house called Smashwords. It was kind of big at the time, but not like it is today.

I remember trying to upload my very first book to the site and pulling my hair out because I kept getting vetting errors. I fussed and fretted about the meat grinder (that’s what they call their formatting tool for making all the different formats for the venues they submit to). Finally after about the twentieth try I did it. It was such a frustrating experience. I had two choices at that point. I could either give up hope of ever publishing my book on their site or persevere.

Well we can all see what really did happen.

Over the years I have heard Authors complain about Amazon. It is always the same kind of complaint. Their too big – they keep changing the rules – they don’t seem fair – but I’m making money.

Okay – yea – so – Let’s look at Smashwords:

I don’t like the meat grinder – why – because you don’t know how to format your book properly.

Once you learn it is pretty easy peasy.

What else don’t you like about Smashwords?

I can’t think of anything that comes to mind.

What do I love about them?

They distribute our books to lots of great venues, plus Mark Coker is always out there trying to find us more venues.

He never gives up. He is for the author.

Mark gives us tips and trade secrets and hope to be a great writer someday, the hope that the readers will discover us the way we discovered Smashwords.

He has given us ways to be found and not just by using SEO as Amazon does. Coupon codes are one of his great features on the site. These allow us to distribute our book for free or a reduced price to those who are part of our growing platform. This is a great way to secure reviews.

He takes part in Read an Ebook week on the site and also promotes NaNoWriMo.

The best part is, Mark Coker is always out there advocating for the authors, it does not matter if they are the little guy who has no platform as of yet or the best-selling author with millions of followers. Mark is always there for us.

So I want to say: Thanks Mark Coker for all you have done for us since 2008

Mark’s latest post: http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/03/how-libraries-can-launch-community.html