Read an (INDIE) eBook Week

Read an eBook Week is an annual event to promote e-books.  This year is particularly special because it marks the 40th anniversary of the first e-book, a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was the first document in what would become Project Gutenberg.

Of course, one of the most exciting things to come out of the e-book revolution is the new opportunities for distribution it allows independent and self-published authors.  So while you could read another formulaic mainstream McBook this week, why not pick up one of these exciting new works by some of my favorite indie writers instead?

View the full list at Amazon.com.  Many of these books are available in paid and free editions.  Please consider paying if you can afford it to show your support, and if you can't, you can still show love by writing a review.

Broken Bulbs by Eddie Wright
A compelling meditation about the intersection of art and addiction and the way that both are essentially born of our need to feel like our life has meaning.  It's gritty, it's ugly, it's brazenly experimental in both form and style, it's allegorical, it's satirical, it's as darkly engrossing as staring at someone's disfiguring wounds, and yet it also manages to be profoundly cathartic.
$2.99 @ Amazon
Free @ Feedbooks
You set the price @ Smashwords

The American Book of the Dead by Henry Baum
A writer works on a novel about a religious zealot who gets elected POTUS as part of a conspiracy to immanentize the eschaton, only to realize that his story is coming true. Apocalyptic lit in the tradition of Wilson & Shea's Illuminatus!, TABOTD explores the double-edged roles that religious faith and warfare play in the human drama.
$0.99 @ Amazon
Free @ Feedbooks
You set the price @ Smashwords

This Unhappy Planet by Marc Horne
This Unhappy Planet is a satirical dramedy about two guys who hatch a scheme to open a chain of spiritual fitness clubs, hoping to get rich quick off of bored yoga moms and affluent New Age seekers.  The characters are imbued with such depth and shading, they are rendered so completely believable, that you can't help but empathize with them even while laughing at their foibles.
$0.99 @ Amazon
Free @ Feedbooks
$2.99 @ Smashwords

The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes by Dan Holloway
Like all of Dan Holloway's work, this novel is unflinchingly experimental and evocative.  A father unable to get over his missing daughter gets drawn into an obsessive subculture built around a beautiful celebrity whose death became a YouTube phenomenon.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$0.99 @ Smashwords

(life:) razorblades included by Dan Holloway
An essential primer on the work of Dan Holloway, this generation's answer to the beats.  Simultaneously visceral and transcendent, these stories celebrate the richness of all life's experiences, especially the ones that leave scars.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$0.99 @ Smashwords

The Dead Beat by Cody James
A story about self-sabotaging meth addicts that manages to be at once painfully honest, defiantly hopeful, and laugh-out-loud funny.  Its characters include a suicidal hypochondriac, a hopeless Polyanna with a venereal disease, a guy who pokes holes in his condoms so he'll impregnate the girl he's stalking, and the passive-aggressive narrator they all look to for a salvation he can never deliver.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$2.99 @ Smashwords (50% off for Read an eBook Week, Promo Code: RAE50)

Charcoal by Oli Johns
Possibly the most twisted, audacious, and brilliant book you'll read all year, Charcoal tells the story of an angry young intellectual obsessively researching the best way to kill himself.  But when he learns of the suicide of a beautiful model, he slips through a magical realist tear in fictional space-time to go back in a misguided attempt at salvation-by-proxy.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$2.99 @ Smashwords (50% off for Read an eBook Week, Promo Code: RAE50)

Back(stabbed) In Brooklyn by Lenox Parker
Brutally funny, this story about an aging actor spurned by Hollywood who tries reconnect with his roots in Brooklyn is irresistibly beguiling with an acerbic edge that makes that cuts through the sentimental lies and bs we tell ourselves after the dust settles.
$2.99 @ Amazon
Free @ Feedbooks
Free @ Smashwords

Why They Cried by Jim Hanas
Jim Hanas is the master of the slow burn.  These short works appear unassuming at first, then swell with a skilled balance of humor and humanity to a powerful resonance.  They are simple stories, elegantly told, that stay with you long after you've put them down.
$7.96 @ Amazon

Loisaida by Marion Stein
A nonlinear, multi-perspectival tale of murder set amidst the backdrop of the Tompkins Square Park riot in New York's Lower East Side during the late '80s.  A lyrical ode to life lived outside the mainstream.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$0.99 @ Smashwords

The Death Trip by Marion Stein
The Death Trip is a controversial new end-of-life medical treatment that promises a chemically-induced spiritual catharsis.  Mixing politics, philosophy, and science fiction, this novella manages to weave together questions of euthanasia, assisted suicide, drug counter-culture, and corporatized medicine into a compelling narrative without feeling preachy or heavy-handed.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$0.99 @ Smashwords (FREE for Read an eBook Week, Promo Code: RE100)

Trapdoor by Vixen Phillips
At times reading this tale of star-crossed lovers can feel like gorging yourself on dark chocolate truffles, it's intensely sensual and undeniably indulgent, yet still made the bitter by the knowledge that it can’t lead anywhere pretty.  If beautiful tormented boys are your thing, this book could become your next guilty pleasure.
$2.99 @ Amazon
$2.99 @ Smashwords (50% off for Read an eBook Week, Promo Code: RAE50)

Snapdragon Alley by Tom Lichtenberg
A supernatural urban mystery about a vacant lot, a phantom bus route, and a trio of curious youths unfolds with a relentless pace that makes it impossible to put down.
$0.99 @ Amazon
Free @ Feedbooks
Free @ Smashwords

Freak City by Tom Lichtenberg
The sequel to Snapdragon Alley that stands as an engrossing mystery in its own right.  A strange parcel appears containing a number of seemingly-random objects that turn out to be pieces of a puzzle that draw a young man out of his shell and into an uncanny supernatural conspiracy.
$0.99 @ Amazon
Free @ Feedbooks
Free @ Smashwords

Password Incorrect by Nick Name
I love how these stories show an understanding of the nuanced relationship between human beings and technology, which is often belied by the absurdity of the humor. Technology is presented not as a boogey-man, but rather as the tools human beings create to fill real needs.  The problem, of course, arises from humans' preternatural abilities to epically eff up even the best intentions.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$0.99 @ Smashwords (FREE for Read an eBook Week, Promo Code: RE100)

Failure Confirmed by Nick Name
The second volume from Polish tech-absurdist Nick Name, bite-sized fiction for people too smart and snarky for their own good.
$0.99 @ Amazon
$0.99 @ Smashwords (FREE for Read an eBook Week, Promo Code: RE100)

The Butcher Shop by Neil Austin
An old-fashioned whodunnit set in the underground party scene.  Hard-nosed hipster Claire St. Claire has to track down her estranged boyfriend's murderer to clear her own name.  It's a familiar story adeptly told with a sense of sheer anarchic bliss, the literary equivalent of drunken karaoke, utterly irresistible.
$1.99 @ Amazon