The meat of Sampler came next. I used a excerpt from one of stories in book, just a short few- page passage to whet appetite of potential horror readers. By that point, I was hoping reader would be hooked, but for good measure added a page of review excerpts and a listing of other five books I had available. I capped it off with another placement of ordering url and a brief author bio, then hit PDF button. (If your don't have adobe software, Adobe offers five free conversions on their site: www.adobe.com)

I would suggest trying to keep file as small as possible, so you can send it a number of places and not ask too much of receiver's time for downloading. Big files can be intimidating, especially on machines using lower BPS modems. Once finished, offer your Sampler free to anyone interested. Uploaded it to your webpage, and offer it in press releases.

Anyone interested in taking a peak at mine and using it as a blueprint can download it straight from my homepage in ebook section (http://howardhopkins.com) or request it from me at Yingko2@AOL.com.

You will need a microphone and a bit of practice reading to make sure you do best you can. I used a cheap sound machine to put in a few crickets (roughly $20 at Walmart) because I was reading a night scene. I call them evil crickets because scene involved vampires, but that's beside point.

I would suggest picking a small dramatic passage, one you feel comfortable reading. Shut yourself in a quiet room if possible because it will take a number of "takes" to get it right and it is amazing how recording can be a cue for dog to start barking. Size can be an issue. Wav files are fairly large--a bit over a meg--for even a minute worth of reading. You can convert it to Mp3 to save a bit on size. For mine I picked a very short passage and got it to about 500k.

Once you have your sound byte, upload it to your webpage so readers can download it and listen. Or ask your publisher to place it as a download with your book listing on their store site.

For those who would like to hear my Mp3 sample, surf on over to www.atlanticbridge.com and check out my listing for THE DARK RIDERS. Or alternately, surf to my personal webpage, http://howardhopkins.com and download a wav sample.