wolF emiT Bought By Every Day Fiction

wolF emiT is a flash SF piece that grew out of a Twitter length story. Yes, another one of those. Delighted to report that Every Day Fiction have accepted it for publication this month or next month.

As ever, the magazine have provided some invaluable feedback. In fact, their editorial input is nearly as long as the story itself. I don't know how they are able to do that, but it's fantastic they do.

The Blogging From A to Z April Challenge: Sign-Up Day

If you're taking part in the The Blogging From A to Z April Challenge, don't forget that sign-up starts today (January 30th). The sign-up page is here.




I see I'm #57 on the list. Time to start sorting out some posts ...

Write1Sub1 January Check-In

It's Write1Sub1 check-in day. I'm posting updates on my short fiction and poetry output here as well as over on the main Write1Sub1 blog.

Bit of a slow month as I've been desperately trying to tie up various loose ends on other projects. Still, writing has happened:

Written

• Ghosts of American Astronauts (flash)
• The Genehunter #2: The Zombies of Death (novelette)

 Submitted

• Ghosts of American Astronauts (flash)

Accepted

• Ghosts of American Astronauts (flash) by Caroline Smailes' 100 Word Challenge

Published

• None.

Genehunter Artwork: What Do You Think?

As you may know, one of the things I'm working on in a series of SF noir novellas about a genehunter, a 22nd century detective employed by collectors to track down the DNA of famous historical figures. For various reasons. These will be eBooks in their own right, but they've also been written with a view to creating characters and a world in which Rusty Axe games and I might want to set a computer game.

We shall see. Meantime, here's the cover artwork I've come up with for #1. What do you think? Eyecatching? Confusing?

 

Edit. Here's another version for comparison. Different subtitle and font:

Edit 2. And another go, with bigger writing and some colour ...

Edit 3. White instead of yellow text.

I plan to write three stories initially (I'm just polishing up #2) and to make the covers for all three similar so that they clearly belong together.

The Blogging From A to Z April Challenge

Are you doing the Blogging From A-Z April Challenge this year? I came across it last year but didn't join in because it's clearly insane. Twenty-six alphabetically themed posts to write and publish throughout April. Then a whole galaxy of other participants' blogs to discover and read and follow.







Yep, clearly crazy. Except that by about the 3rd of April last year I was really regretting missing out. There's such a buzz about the whole thing. This year I'm definitely in and I'm thinking about posts already. I'm sure I'll fail to keep up with all the blogs taking part, but I aim to hit as many as I can ...

There's already a lot happening on the Blogging From A-Z April Challenge Blog. April may seem a long way away, but sign-up begins on January 30th in case you're interested. Hope to see you there ...

Eccentric Orbits Now Available for Kindle

The short story anthologization continues! The SF volume - Eccentric Orbits - is now out on the Kindle (or, as we're supposed to say these days, "on Kindle"). Amazon US Amazon UK.

As with Spell Circles I've signed it up for Amazon's KDP Select scheme too, which means, among other things, that I can make it free for a short time. It's free at the moment. Not sure yet if this is a sensible approach: my hope is that lots of people will grab it and some will then review and/or rate it and/or tell their friends and maybe word will get around. We shall see.

I am seeing the books being lent quite a bit under Amazon's Kindle lending scheme. This is when a purchaser temporarily lends a book to a friend because, presumably, they think they might like it. So I guess that's good.

If you're interested, Spell Circles has been downloaded over 1000 times since the start of the month and there have been a couple of nice reviews generated as a result. Now that the book is no longer free, downloads have obviously tailed off, but it is still selling.

I'll be doing various thing to help with the promotion, but don't worry, there won't be a ton of blog posts because, well, "buy my book" posts can get a little boring, no?

And I'm also learning a huge amount about how to format and layout books for the Kindle marketplace. Getting pretty slick at it now. I think this can only be useful knowledge for the future ...

The Xbox Live TV/YouTube 100 Word Challenge

I'm delighted to report that my entry into Caroline Smailes' 100 word challenge has been selected for publication.

The deal was to write a 100 word story inspired by a favourite music video on YouTube. The collection is to be professionaly put together and releasd as an eBook, with all proceeds going to One in Four (a registered charity which provides support and resources to people who have experienced sexual abuse and sexual violence).

My selected video was this one:

... which, according to scientists, is about the most wonderful song ever recorded.