Into the bargain bin: Books for a buck

I’ve always loved to browse bookstores, especially those with used books and bargain bins. After I published a couple of print books, however, I kinda hoped I wouldn’t find one in the $1 bin. Although, I’ve seen Stephen King, Lewis Grizzard and Mark Twain all wind up in the $1 bin, so I guess I’d at least be in decent company,

Now, it’s happened. I’ve wound up in the bargain bin. Now, I’m no Mark Twain at a whole dollar. Mine are available for just 99 cents — and it’s an online bargain bin, at Amazon. Both “The Best of Chris Johnson” and my first novel “Oya’s Wake” (under the pen name Bo Hunter) are available for download on Kindle devices and apps.

I actually called “Oya’s Wake” my “practice novel” as I wrote it in 2000 while I was laid up at home with a broken femur, hip and pelvis after a car wreck in Columbus that should have killed me — a 16-year-old was playing with his radio and didn’t notice a red light before t-boning my car. He never hit the brakes.

But I did hit the brakes on releasing that novel. In fact, it was a dozen years later before I did, only after cleaning it up a little. I wrote the novel to give me something to do while I recovered, so I associate it with a little pain — probably why it’s full of angst. Guess I felt like I have to put my lead character through hell while I was going through it, too. But if I went through all that pain, you should have to go through the pain of reading it.

As for “The Best of Chris Johnson,” well, that’s kind of cheating as far as books go because it’s just a collection of columns that some folks liked and some folks wanted to kill me over. All I had to do was assemble the collection.

I’m not too offended at my books being 99 cents now. I put them in the online bargain bin at that price. Obviously, I didn’t write them for the money.  If it was about the money, I’d be a hedge fund manager.

So, go download a cheap book, and I’ll sit back and wait for my quarter, dime and two pennies of royalties to roll in.

Download “Oya’s Wake” for 99 cents

Download “The Best of Chris Johnson” for 99 cents

If you would like to order an autographed, print copy of “The Best of Chris Johnson,” click here.