Just to let anyone know who reads my stuff that I have a new short story out. It’s called Judge a Book by its Cover.
Unusually for me its a contemporary fantasy story – I tend to base most of my writing either in the historical past or a fantasy world. I feel its kind of on the edge between fantasy and horror – that’s sort of the theme of the story.
Anyway, here’s the blurb and how to get it. You can read a brief extract from it here.
A creative writing student wonders what the difference is between two genres of fiction: horror and fantasy. Like his new girlfriend says: “Perhaps it’s like the difference between pizza and a grilled cheese sandwich?” But when he asks his tutor the answer he gets leads to a truer definition of “Horror” than he ever expected.
Judge a Book by its Cover is a fantasy/horror short story.
You can buy Judge a Book by its Cover in eBook format from the following retailers and several others to numerous to list!
Sometimes giving stuff away for free can be a good way of getting publicity for something. We see it all around us as a common promotional tool. In the field of publishing its a common ploy – some authors have done well building up a fan base in the past by giving away free content, and free previews of content are a key way for readers to decide if they like something before they buy from an online retailer.
With eBooks, a lot of self-publishers have used Amazon’s Kindle Select programme to promote their books. The strategy being that if you get lots of downloads you’re going to get some reviews and also more “Others also bought/viewed” type related sales after the free promotion has finished. There is evidence out there that this strategy can work, but it seems that it’s getting more difficult.
Amazon only allows you to give 5 days free content for your book over a 3 month period (during which you can’t distribute your eBook with anyone else). In the past you could get a good number of downloads without really having to do anything – I’ve done this in the past and as soon as the free promotion period starts the free downloads start tallying up. However, I tried this with Hell has its Demons recently and hardly anything happened until I started unleashing some pretty serious promotion of my own – blog posts, email campaigns etc. Having read a bit more about this now online it seems that as a bare minimum you have to start using promotional sites like Bookbub and others to get your book out there.
What’s going on? Are Amazon simply trying to hush up free content on their site in order to get people to buy things? Is there such a large micro-market of publicity services available that Amazon feels they don’t need to to it.
In contrast if you want to give away free eBooks you can still do this in fairly good numbers on other retailers and get some stats on how many – such as Barnes & Noble and Sony for instance. I use Smashwords to distribute to these retailers and they provide monthly stats usually. Unfortunately you don’t get starts from Apple’s iBookstore or from Kobo – but your book is still free there as long as you want it to be.
Seems like a lot of things in self-publishing are changing – it’s actually getting harder to promote and get your work out there – and potentially more costly if you need to pay for advertising so that anyone notices. You can’t even give it away unless you pay!
Is self-publishing still a nirvana for the aspiring writer, or a money-making opportunity for the middlemen?
I’m pleased to announce that the first issue of the historical fiction and alternate history magazine Alt Hist has now been published. See below for details. The magazine is edited by yours truly!
You can either buy a print copy via Lulu, or an ebook via Smashwords. As the ebook retailers get hold of it you will also be able to buy via the Kindle Store, iBookstore and others!
Alt Hist Issue 1, published October 2010
Alt Hist is the new magazine of Historical Fiction and Alternate History. Lovers of historical fiction for too long have been denied outlets for short pieces of fiction, as the number of print and online magazines for historical short fiction is very limited compared to the popularity of fiction set in past times. Alt Hist’s mission is to provide readers with entertaining and well-written short stories with a historical setting, whether portraying actual events or events that could have happened. If you read and enjoy historical fiction, alternate history or historical fantasy then we think you will like Alt Hist.
The first issue of Alt Hist features six short stories:
“The Silent Judge” by David W. Landrum “Easter Parade, 1930” by Rob McClure Smith “Holy Water” by Andrew Knighton “Lament for Lost Atlanta” by Arlan Andrews “The Bitterness of Apples” by Priya Sharma “Travelling by Air” by Ian Sales
Alt Hist Issue 1 also includes an interview with Brandon H. Bell, co-editor of Aether Age, and information about the alternate history anthology Columbia & Britannia.
Just to let anyone know who reads my stuff that I have a new short story out. It’s called Judge a Book by its Cover.
I’m pleased to announce that the first issue of the historical fiction and alternate history magazine Alt Hist has now been published. See below for details. The magazine is edited by yours truly!