I don’t fully understand it, but here it is.

After thousands of downloads, after Amazon’s continued refusal over a span of many years to price-match, I’ve had to unpublish one of the short stories of my heart, Mannequin.

Why?

Because four years ago, Smashwords changed the requirements for the size of their covers. And the cover for Mannequin was no longer compliant.

Faced with the choice of spending money on a perma-free story that wasn’t leading to increased sales (and, despite the downloads, I don’t remember the last time I saw a review of it! See, folks? Reviews MATTER) or… doing something else, I chose the latter. I suppose I could have left it at Amazon, gone exclusive with it over there (although I don’t believe in exclusives) or taken it out of Smashwords’ premium catalog and left it at Smashwords itself, since so many of those downloads came from there. But… nope. That felt like doing something halfway, and I don’t like to do things halfway. Not when I can help it.

So I was conflicted. What to do with this little story I love so much?

Credit my teenaged daughter with a creative solution: she created an account for me over at Wattpad — yes, the domain of the young and the unpublished and the hopeful and the experimental and the fan-based — and slapped Mannequin up over there.

You can go read it.

If you have a blog, you can talk about it. Reviews matter. Reviews help drive sales. And the benefit to you? If someone reads a review you wrote and agrees, you’ve just become a tastemaker. Go, you.

I’m sad about this. Like I said: story of my heart.

But on the other hand, the girl is going to fill my shelf with stuff. She’s going to talk to cover artists she knows. She has plans for her mom, with the promise that if there’s any revenue to be made, she’ll get some. I’ll get that kid through college with only large, instead of insurmountable, debt yet!

So stay tuned. You just may see some fiction up there that you’ve never seen from me before. Like I said, the girl has plans. And I have a hard drive that’s full of stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day.

Why do I have a feeling there’s a lot of revision in my near future?

I know it’s not quite the middle of the month yet, but the Smashwords Summer Sale is turning up some interesting results. (Go visit my profile page, if you haven’t yet)

Not surprisingly, Trevor’s Song is my top seller. This reinforces the common belief that novels sell better than short story collections.

Demo Tapes 3 comes in second, having sold one fewer book than Trevor’s Song.

Demo Tapes 1 is next

then Demo Tapes 2

and finally, Mannequin.

I know what you’re saying: “Hey, Sooz, what about King Trevor???”

Yeah. Exactly.

I know we live in a world where free is the way of life. I noticed that in the early days of the sale, when Demo Tapes 3 and Trevor’s Song, both set to free for the first time since I published them, were outselling the other books, 2-1. It was like people had been waiting to get their Trevor fix until I did the inevitable and set them to free.

Okay. I get that.

But… I’ve got bills to pay, folks.

So here’s what I’m asking, and it’s really no different than what many others are currently asking: If you like what you read, why not leave a review someplace? Leave it on the sale page at Smashwords. Post it around wherever you have an account: B&N. Amazon. Powells. GoodReads. If you have a blog, send me the url and I’ll link to it from my reviews page for each book.

Even if you write, “I liked this because…” (and fill in the blank!) and that’s your entire review, it’s a help. No one said you had to be a professional reviewer. In fact, sometimes, it’s better that you’re not. Your reaction is going to be more honest, more real. There’s an authenticity that I lose when I write for the people who pay me. Take advantage of the power that gives you, friends.

It’s also a nice way to say thanks for the freebie.

I’ll share the saga of a week mostly without Internet (and the 150 mail messages that got nuked. Not good. Very very not good) later, but for now,

to celebrate the holiday season and to entice all you e-reader users, new and old, I’ve dropped some prices around town.

The Demo Tapes triplets are now 99c each.

Mannequin is now FREE (at Smashwords only for the time being).

If they sell well, I’ll leave ’em low, especially if they stimulate sales of Trevor’s Song. This is a good time for you already familiar with the Trevolution to gift some e-books to your friends, as well. King Trevor is still slated to be released on April 12, 2012.

Because Smashwords is my favorite retailer, here’s the link to my page there.

You Kindle users can use this link. Or the Smashwords one; you CAN get Kindle format from Smashwords, you know.

Here’s hoping you all had a great day today, regardless of what or how you celebrate.