Joe Konrath and ORIGIN: Doing Well by Doing Good, and a Great Read to Boot

March 31, 2011

By Steve Windwalker

Publisher of Planet iPad

Editor of Kindle Nation Daily

Update at 4:30 PM Eastern Standard Time:  The book is now at No. 65, and a great charity putting books into the hands of kids who cannot otherwise get them has benefited.  Please click on the First Book link to see how you can help.  Tons of studies have proven that the greatest single determinant of a child's success in school and in life--at the top of the list--is if they read when young and--most importantly--if their parents read to them when they are young.  Donate if you can.  And, if you are a parent, go read with your kids today--and every day.--Tom Dulaney, Editor in Chief, Planet iPad

Sometimes it’s fun to be late to the party….

I got an email yesterday afternoon from bestselling thriller writer Joe Konrath. He wanted me to know about something he was doing that I personally think is very cool. He had recently lowered the Kindle price of his full-length technothriller Origin — “All hell is about the break loose. For real.” – to 99 cents, and it had jumped up to #109 overall among the bestselling books, games, and periodicals in the Kindle Store.

Lowering the price of such a popular book is cool enough, but what I think is pretty cool is that Joe posted a serious commitment on his blog, that he would… well, I’ll let Joe tell you:

Naturally, I’d like to crack the Top 100.
There’s a charity called First Book, which buys books for children who don’t have any.
If ORIGIN does indeed make it into the Top 100, I’ll donate $500 to First Book.

Joe doesn’t need to give anything away to be a bestselling author, and it’s not like he is a bleeding-heart do-gooder or anything. He’s just a generous, humble, and very talented man who enjoys a sporting proposition now and then.

He wrote to me because he thought that Kindle Nation might be able to help put Origin over the top, and he offered to pay for some sort of sponsorship if I could post something to help. I had two problems with that.

• First, I told Joe to hold onto his money because this is the kind of thing that we at Kindle Nation love to support — especially when there is a very good book involved — without any folding money changing hands.
• Second, at the time I heard from Joe I was literally on my way out the door to a commitment involving my 12-year-old son, and there was no way I was going to be able to post until this morning.

So now it is this morning, and does Joe need the help of Kindle Nation?

Not so much. As I write this, Origin has jumped from #136 to #76 in the Kindle Store in the last 24 hours and currently stands at #4 overall on the Kindle Store Movers and Shakers list.

Way to go, Joe. I believe that’s what we call doing well by doing good. It’s kind of an old-fashioned concept in a world where way too many people believe they are entitled to far more than they’ll ever need, but it’s a good concept that i would love to see a lot more of. I think it’s such a great idea that I figure if it’s good enough for Joe it’s good enough for Steve. I don’t have Joe’s deep pockets, but I did just click on First Book to make a small donation in Joe’s honor.

So, where we stand now is that there is no need for anyone to buy Origin for the purpose of pushing Joe to make a donation, because he’s already there.

But I hope you’ll buy it anyway if you have not already read it, for two reasons:

• First, it’s a kind of a Pay it Forward thing. What the heck, maybe Joe will spring for another $500 if Origin goes to the top 25 on the Kindle bestseller list. Like he needs me to tell him what to do with his money.
• Second, please allow me to introduce myself. I’m the guy whose major purposes in life include the desire to connect the greatest readers in the world with terrific reading.

And yep, that’s what you will find in Origin. Here’s the set-up:

When linguist Andrew Dennison is yanked from his bed by the Secret Service and taken to a top secret facility in the desert , he has no idea he’s been brought there to translate the words of an ancient demon.

He joins pretty but cold veterinarian Sun Jones, eccentric molecular biologist Dr. Frank Belgium, and a hodge-podge of religious, military, and science personnel to try and figure out if the creature is, indeed, Satan.

But things quickly go bad, and very soon Andy isn’t just fighting for his life, but the lives of everyone on earth…

ORIGIN by J.A. Konrath

All hell is about the break loose. For real.

Famed English Author Catherine Cookson's 91 Novels Exclusively In Amazon's Kindle Store: Plus What Amazon Didn't Say--A Bit About Cookson's Hard Life & Its Impact On Her Writing

By Tom Dulaney, Editor-in-Chief

A treasure trove of 91 books by the one-time bestselling British author Catherine Cookson is exclusively available and bargain prices in the Amazon Kindle Store as of today.

Click here to see the full list of the specially priced Cookson books.

Amazon's announcement, reprinted verbatim below, omitted what may well be the heart and certainly the soul of today's event.  That is the brutal hardship into which the author was born, the shattered family of her childhood, the grinding life she led before turning to the craft of writing as as antidote to depression in her middle years.

Cookson's mother was an unwed alcoholic, and Cookson grew up thinking her mother was really her older sister.  She was raised by her grandparents.  At 13 she quit school, served as a domestic, then moved into a "workhouse" where she exchanged labor in the laundry for room and board.  "Workhouses" were known as "poorhouses" in the US.

At 34, she married Tom Cookson in 1940.  After a series of miscarriages, she sank into depression.  She began writing as a therapy.

In time, she produced nearly 100 books and became the most-read author in England.  Over 150 million copies of her books have been sold--so far.  Their addition to the Kindle Store heralds a renaissance for the author, though she passed away in 1998 at the age of 91.

Her novels focus on downtrodden characters, their youngest years crushed by circumstances from which effort and events eventually lift them to better lives.  In these hard, dark days of worldwide economic recession and overwhelming unemployement around the globe, her tales arrive at a time when a large audience is in need of them.

Several of the titles in the collection are autobiographical, for those who wish to know more about the author's background, life, and beliefs.  Those include Our Kate, Let Me Make Myself Plain,  and Plainer Still.

A biography, The Girl From Leam Lane:  The Life And Writing of Catherine Cookson, was written by Piers Dudgeon, who had worked with Cookson on her memoirs, titled Catherine Cookson Country.   Sadly, the book is out of print (for the moment), but some 30 used copies are available on Amazon. 

Also out of print at the moment is My Land Of The North, in which Cookson writes of the hardships of her upbringing, and how they influenced her writing.

A second "unspoken headline" of today's announcement is the continuing role Amazon.com is actively playing in bringing wonderful books to the global reading public.   From the availability of the Cookson body of work, much of it out of print, to the new authors from abroad presented by the AmazonCrossings program to the resurrection of books out of print in the AmazonEncore program, Amazon continues to be much more than just a bookseller.

Here is the announcement from Amazon:

Amazon.com today announced that 91 titles from Dame Catherine Cookson are now available as e-books for the first time, exclusively in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). 

The collection of titles, including some which are out of print, represents the majority of the full-length novels from one of the UK's most-read novelists. These books, which are published by The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust in conjunction with Peach Publishing, are available from $1.50-$5.99 and can be downloaded exclusively by Kindle and Kindle app customers. All 91 titles are available exclusively to U.S. and international customers on Amazon.com, and to U.K. customers on Amazon.co.uk.

Dame Catherine Cookson sold over 150 million books during a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. Translated into over 20 languages, her work was often adapted for the big and the small screen as well as for the stage and radio.

"Dame Catherine Cookson is one of the most popular British writers, and no doubt many American readers of mysteries or romantic thrillers are also familiar with her name," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We hope that her longtime fans and new readers will enjoy discovering her entire body of work, now available in the Kindle Store."

"For a long time, Dame Catherine Cookson was the U.K.'s most celebrated and successful novelist. Now, for the first time since her death in 1998, the vast majority of her titles will be available throughout the world," said Sonia Land of Peach Publishing. "We are delighted that both new and loyal fans can view, at a glance, the majority of the full-length novels that Catherine has written and buy one or more of her e-books in less than a minute."