I earned $8 a week for walking Rusty, a very old beagle. I spent most of my money at the Hobby Shop. I started buying plastic car models. I bought one gas powered U-control plane, before discovering Estes Model Rockets.

I built and launched dozens of rockets, usually in Marine Park. I started with kits, then designed my own. I read the Estes “Technical Reports” to learn how to balance them and create fins. I aspired to be an aeronautical engineer, so I could design “real rockets” like Robert Goddard.

Estes Rockets were powered by disposable engines, rated by size and power. The engines were filled with gunpowder, ignited by a glowing coil of nichrome wire.

Where Have All The Rocket Engines Gone?

My salary rose after my fourteenth birthday, because “working papers” allowed me to work at Rose Seal Pharmacy after school. I wanted to use my additional income to build multi-stage rockets. I designed my first multi-stage rocket and brought my parts list to the Hobby Shop. Sadly, the clerk informed me that he could sell me the parts, but not the rocket engines. He explained that the engines were now illegal in New York City. I was supposed to order the engines by mail, and launch rockets in Nassau County, outside the city limits.

Bad Science

I ordered a few engines from the Estes mail order catalog. However, they were more expensive and took a week to arrive. After checking a map, I asked Dad to drive me to Eisenhower Park on Long Island, to launch them. Dad replied, “Forget about it. I will test it with you.”

We tested my multi-stage design in Marine Park. Nevertheless, model rocketry had lost its charm. I did not want to break the law or wait a week for new engines. I stopped building rockets.

Evil Science

I would like to buy a 3D printer. I am not sure how I would use it, but I would like to try building a gun.

I do not want to kill anyone. I never imagined creating a gun from a printer. I would like to try it.

However, I should have downloaded the design before yesterday. When I checked the site today, I found:

This file has been removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information.

I would still like to try building a gun from a printer. I expect to find other designs.

If my daughters asked me about the law, I would give them Dad’s answer, “Forget about it. I will test it with you.”

My best results came from offering it free for five days, using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select service.

Sociopathic Surgeon was free from February 26 to March 2, 2013. It was downloaded by more people in five days, than the previous year.

I will explain how I promoted my eBook. I hope you find my experiences helpful.

Free Book Days with Kindle Direct Publishing Select

I removed my book from iTunes and Nook to join Amazon’s KDP Select for three months. KDP Select allows me to offer my book free for five days out of every 90 days. However, my book can only be sold on Amazon during this period.

NOTE: KDP is set to renew automatically. I learned about this when Amazon notified me that I was violating KDP Select Terms because my book was available on iTunes.

Clear Auto Renew

Login to your KDP Dashboard.

Clear “Automatically renew” to prevent unwanted renewals.

Manage Promotions

Click “Actions” -> “Manage Promotions” to open “Promotions Manager.” Select your free book days. It is helpful to select days at the beginning of your KDP Select period, because you must wait 90 days for your next promotion.

My Brief Best Seller

I wrote Sociopathic Surgeon because I wanted to write a Best Seller about alcoholics.

Sociopathic Surgeon was a pseudo–best–seller while it was free.

How To Be Number One on the Kindle Store

OK, not the entire store. I was tops in in Medical Thriller and second in Medical Fiction for a few hours. My sales rank plummeted after my free book days.

Getting Started

I support myself as a Web programmer, so it seemed natural to create SociopathicSurgeon.com to use on emails / links. I added it to search engines, hoping it would appear in search results. I added pages and “Like” buttons for Facebook and Google+.

None of this was helpful.

I sold more books after I started using my Amazon link on emails, Tweets and comments.

I opened an Amazon.com Associates account to earn more on each sale. I created a link with my associate’s code to the link and used bitly to shorten the link.

Blogging

Impaired Doctors, a topic related to my novel, did not receive much traffic.

More potential readers visited My Kindle Book Is Free For The Next Five Days. Sadly, readers ignored:

I need reviews. Sociopathic Surgeon has one four star Amazon review. More reviews and sales will encourage me to finish the sequel!

Sociopathic Quotes

I copied and pasted 300 quotations into a database, and wrote a WordPress plugin to use them.

I sent “Sociopathic Quotes” to Twitter with a link to Sociopathic Surgeon on The Kindle Store. I wrote a WordPress widget to display the Tweeted quotes on my blog.

For example, I recently Tweeted:

I could stop your heart in a second, and do it so it would never be found.

I think it is cute, but it has not increased sales.

Free Book Announcements

I was not sure which days of the week were best. My free days included a weekend.

I submitted an announcement to the following sites:

Other sites found my book from these sites, and a few Tweets / reTweets.

Author Forums

I posted a “free book announcement” on the KDP author forum and two LinkedIn groups: Writers and Bloggers and Ebooks, Ebook Readers, Digital Books and Digital Content Publishing.

My first review came from the KDP forum.

What’s Next?

I want to renew KDP Select for another free promotion. I would like to try different days and submit to more sites.

I will update this article after my next promotion.

I wrote Kiddo Drives Home a few months ago. I decided to add it to my blog today.

My novel, Sociopathic Surgeon, has more drinking stories.

Kiddo Drives Home

Men of all ages smile at her. Her smile cost more than I earned last year. She accentuates her figure and height with plunging necklines, tight jeans and four inch heels. She is always prepared to be photographed.

Her jeans have changed. The legs were baggier seven years ago, when we met in Grand Central Station on a frigid New Year’s Eve. Those jeans were the lowest, so she could display her adorned belly. She protected her torso against Winter with a silk blouse under a mink jacket, which stopped a few inches above that belly.

Her belly was covered three years ago, when we met outside her favorite bar. Salads and crunches were replaced by many free drinks, because she was living next door with the bartender. Unlike Kiddo, I do not like bars.

I used to like bars. I met her Mom in a bar. We were regulars until Kiddo was born. I drank alone after Mom left with Kiddo. I quit after Mom died of liver failure. Quitting was awful. My brain needed alcohol to function. I was unable to write, solve crosswords, focus. I attended AA meetings with an enthusiastic sponsor for a couple of months. I read The Big Book and The Small Book. I quit.

I avoided alcohol and drinkers for a year. Nevertheless, people drink. I moved to Kentucky, where residents collect commemorative bottles of bourbon.

A few guys encouraged me to wait on a very long line, to buy a collectible Coach Cal bottle. We waited for hours. My bottle entitled me to visit a Web page for a number, to wait on a longer line, for Coach Cal to sign this magnificent bottle.

I did not receive a number. I placed the bottle on a shelf. I examined it about twice a day for a week. I read the label. I looked at the seal. I wondered what it weighed. Inevitably, I wondered what it tasted like. A moment later, I wondered what my AA sponsor would say if I described the taste to him over the phone. I called someone else and sold him the bottle.

I forgot about drinking until I met a woman on Craig’s List. She asked for a drink as soon as she arrived to play cards. A drink? In my house? I excused myself and returned with an $18 pint of imported vodka. She drank most of it. I deleted her from my contacts after I put her in a cab.

I met Linda, her frugal successor, in a grocery. I prepared for her visit with a $9 pint of domestic vodka and free trials of Hulu and Netflix. Linda finished the import and half of the domestic during three visits. I sniffed the vodka while I prepared her drinks. It was not appealing. We watched several movies together until her son convinced her to move to Colorado with him, so he could grow legal marijuana.

Kiddo visited me last week. I met her outside to see her new car. I was the final stop on her vacation. She wore skinny jeans, no heels or bare midriff.

Kiddo found Linda’s bottle. I pretended not to hear her open it, or smell it on her breath. I found an empty bottle in the freezer when she went to the bathroom. She did not see me cringe when she drove away.

Copyright © 2013 Mitchell D. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Personality disorder characterized by disregard for social obligations, and callous unconcern for the feelings of others. There is gross disparity between behaviour and the prevailing social norms. Behaviour is not readily modifiable by adverse experience, including punishment.

How To Abuse A Medical License

Sara trades prescriptions with police, to fix her speeding tickets. Sara enjoys ridiculing physicians who did not graduate from an American medical school.

Sara really dislikes nurses. She wants to kidnap a nurse, so she can dissect a living person.

But Sara can be compassionate. She helps an woman lie, so her abusive husband will be arrested. Sara also saves lives. She loves practicing medicine.

Sociopathic Adventures

My story is set in the early 1980's. I lived in all the locations and described them accurately. All the medical information, including the certification process, was correct at that time.

We are introduced to Sara in a TriBeCa bar, where she meets her husband. He is a bank clerk, who pretends to be busy on his job, waiting for an early retirement. After a few drinks, the couple decide that they are the smartest people in the world. They get married and produce two daughters.

The family moves out of their small Manhattan apartment. The sociopathic parents raise their precocious daughters in several cities of a surreal world. Their daughters are never punished because they have no rules.

Sara causes and fixes problems wherever they live. You never know what she will do.

Sara expects to be right. Nevertheless, she is human. She makes one mistake.

Why Is This Great Novel Free?

I need reviews. Sociopathic Surgeon has one four star Amazon review. More reviews and sales will encourage me to finish the sequel!

I cannot make any promises that you will enjoy my novel as much as I do. I have it read it several times.

You can read it free for the next five days.

How To Get A Free Copy of Sociopathic Surgeon

My eBook, Sociopathic Surgeon will be free on Amazon from February 26 through March 2, 2013. Download Sociopathic Surgeon from The Kindle Store now.

If you do not have a Kindle, you can read Sociopathic Surgeon with a Kindle app on most tablets, phones, computers. Amazon has more info here.

Why Should You Read My Book?

It is different. It is exciting. It is free. But hardly anyone knows about it. Now that you know: read it, and please leave a brief review.

Thank you :)

Several readers asked me this week. I wrote this article, with easy instructions, because my 2009 answer and 2012 answer are both wrong. The Web keeps changing. I added a message to my previous instructions to read this article.

It is harder to send Bear Grylls a message in 2013. Bear Grylls only has a contact page for scouting and speaking engagements.

Bear Grylls still has an Ask Bear page. However, you can only read old questions.

What Is The Best Way To Send A Message to Bear Grylls?

Use Twitter. It is easy. I will explain how to do it.

1. Login to Twitter or Join Twitter.
   • If you are joining, take your time to create a profile with a photo and your location. Your photo will be displayed with your message.
   • Anyone can join. Twitter is free and there is no minimum age.
2. Write a short message. Twitter messages must be less than 140 characters. Everything counts, including spaces and periods.
   • Check your message for spelling errors!

Is Your Message Perfect?

If Bear Grylls answers your question, a million people will see your message, because Bear Grylls has about a million followers on Twitter.

An Example from a Question I Received

A reader asked if Bear Grylls would be visiting India. If Bear Grylls was here, I would ask:

Do you have any plans to visit India?

Twitter is like email. Instead of an email address, I must add Bear Grylls’s name to the question. Like this:

@BearGrylls Do you have any plans to visit India?

An Example From a Question I Asked Bear Grylls

@beargrylls Do you have any plans to visit India?

— Mitchell Miller on January 6, 2013

Sadly, Bear Grylls has not replied. He might reply to you. You will never know unless you try!

Sadly, none of my Five Wishes For 2008 came true. I am reducing next year’s expectations with two wishes.

Two wishes ought to be easy.

1. Fiscal Cliff

   President Obama created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform on February 18, 2010. This bi-partisan committee was supposed to balance the budget by 2015. I do not understand what happens on December 31, but they did not complete their project. I wish President Obama would replace them and settle this mess.

2. New York Giants

   I usually wish for the New York Giants to win the Super Bowl.
   
   This year, they might win their final game. Giants started 2010 by firing defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan. I wish the Giants would start 2013 by replacing their offensive and defensive coordinators.

Happy New Year!

Best Wishes for 2013

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