Category: Short Stories

Breaking the Top 10, and a big thank you

As I’m writing this, “Memoirs of a Snowflake” holds the #8 spot in the Kindle Store for the general short story category — #150 overall.  Almost 1,000 people have downloaded it since it went free over the weekend, and it’s already garnered some fantastic reviews!

All this positive attention makes me want to thank all those who have taken the time to post reviews of my work, so I thought I’d do that here.

Specifically, I’d like to thank L. Christensen for the early 5-star review of Genesis Earth, and her very favorable reviews of my other work.  Full disclosure: L. Christensen is one of my first readers; however, I did not solicit any of her reviews–she posted them on her own.  Also, I’d like to thank Katie Armstrong for the other 5-star review of Genesis Earth–I have no idea who you are (well, a vague idea maybe), but thank you!

Another reviewer who’s been very kind is EA Younker over at goodreads.  She’s posted some glowing 5-star reviews for “Memoirs of a Snowflake” and “Decision LZ1527” on that site, as well as a more critical but still encouraging 3-star review for “From the Ice Incarnate.” Thanks for taking the time to read my work!  I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Over on Smashwords, Ernest Winchester posted a nice 5-star review of “Decision LZ1527,” only a couple hours after I uploaded it.  More recently, Michelle Glorioso and Annie B posted some extremely gratifying reviews of “Memoirs of a Snowflake.” Thanks so much!

Of course, not all the reviews have been glowingly positive. “From the Ice Incarnate” has garnered some criticism from readers who feel that it was missing something, either sufficient character depth or a satisfying ending.  I appreciate the feedback; short stories aren’t my forte, so I’ll be sure to keep that in mind as I work on my short form.  Also, Genesis Earth has garnered a couple of critical yet well-reasoned reviews, most notably from the review site Science Fiction Addiction.  Once again, thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully.  And thanks to all the other generally positive reviews which I haven’t mentioned specifically here.

So far, Bringing Stella Home hasn’t gotten any reviews, so if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, I would appreciate it very much if you would take the time to do that.  In the meantime, thanks for all your support!

“Memoirs of a Snowflake” is now free!

So I come back from my camping trip, and what do I find?  Amazon has made my short story “Memoirs of a Snowflake” available for free–and it’s at the #16 spot on the fantasy bestseller list!  Awesome!

Camping was fun, as was the road trip down there.  The stars out at Huntington Reservoir were absolutely amazing–man, when I have the money, I’m totally going to take up astro-photography as a hobby.

Didn’t write a whole lot, but now that I’m back, I should be able to get some work done today.  But first: time to shower!

Should authors respond to reviews?

In the last six days since it went free, “From the Ice Incarnate” has had almost 2,250 downloads, and with so much attention, reviews are starting to trickle in.  Amazon has a very elegant system, which not only allows other readers to vote on whether a review is helpful, but to comment and start a discussion.

This raises a question, however; when is it appropriate for an author to respond to a review?  I’ve seen answers that go all over the board; some readers love it, while others are adamant that writers should never respond in any way–that to do so would be consummately unprofessional.

From an indie writer’s perspective, this is especially tricky.  On the one hand, we want to engage with our readers, since that’s a crucial part of making this into a viable career (Seth Godin makes some excellent points on that subject).  On the other hand, because reviews are so subjective and judgmental, there’s a very real danger that any discussion involving the author could turn very nasty, very quickly.

Whenever anyone posts a positive review of my work, I want to thank them.  If I only respond to positive reviews, though, that could make me look like I’m ignoring the critical ones.  But if I acknowledge the critical reviews that are thoughtful and well reasoned, what do I do with the inevitable one star reviews written by someone who’s just plain crazy?

The last thing I want is to be forced into taking a reactionary position in a public discussion.  While I’m confident I can keep my ego in check and avoid outright argument, that’s not the only danger I foresee here.  Besides, I believe very firmly that the story should speak for itself, and for that reason I think it’s better for the author to be as invisible as possible.

At the same time, I really do want to thank those who take the time to post a glowing review.  Perhaps the best option is to acknowledge them here or on twitter instead of Amazon?  I’m not sure.  And sometimes, questions arise that aren’t related to the story, where responding directly to the review is the most efficient way to handle it.

In any case, I’m going to be cautious for now, at least until I find a position that makes sense.  If you have any suggestions for how I can balance these concerns, please let me know.

And for those of you who have posted kind reviews: thank you!

Holy Amazon rankings Batman!

So about 24h hours ago, Amazon noticed that I was giving “From the Ice Incarnate” away on a number of other sites, and decided to drop the price down to free.  What happened next was INSANE.

Almost immediately, the downloads started pouring in.  Within a matter of hours, it cracked the #1,000 spot in the Kindle Store rankings, breaking into the top 100 for horror.  By noon today, it was at the #14 spot for Horror and #256 overall.

Holy crap!  That’s a jump of three orders of magnitude from where it was in the rankings before–more ebooks downloaded in just a matter of hours than I’ve sold across all platforms since April!  The really cool part is that it’s driving some interest in my other stuff.  Not a whole lot at this point, which is fine, but more than I was expecting, especially in my other short stories.

One thing I’m a little worried about, though, is that it seems to be selling with a different crowd than my target audience. “From the Ice Incarnate” definitely has some prominent horror elements, but it’s essentially a science fiction story.

I changed the category in KDP and republished the ebook, but I’m worried that the act of republishing will set the price back to $.99.  I like having it free; I’m hoping it will generate more interest in my novels, which is where I hope to make my bread and butter.  To jump off the free train right now, just as things are starting to take off…

…well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  Still, holy cow!  It’s a wild and crazy ride!

In other news, I recently did an interview over at my cousin Angela’s blog.  Angela is a mom, a writer, and an all-around awesome person, and she publishes a bunch of poetry on her blog, both her own and by others.  The interview covers why I feel drawn to science fiction, themes in Genesis Earth, and how studying political science influenced my writing.  Good stuff; check it out!

Fighting for a Homeland

For the past few weeks, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for my next big novel project.  One of the ways I’ve been doing this is to by trawling tvtropes and putting together a mashup of the story tropes I’d like to play with.

By far, the one that’s struck me the most is Fighting for a Homeland.  This is basically when a band of displaced warriors is wandering the Earth, trying to find their own promised land.  There are a lot of examples of this on the tropes page, but the coolest one is probably this from real life:

The first Czech legion, after World War one. Their country was then merely a province of Austria-Hungary, who started the war and teamed up with the Germans. The Czechs had very little reason to fight for them, and surrendered to the opposing Russians whenever they could. Through a lot of political scheming, the Russians were convinced to raise a Czech legion of 60,000 men to fight against the Austrians.

Then the Revolution broke out, and with the peace treaty between Russia and Austria, and the vicious warfare and politicking in Russia, they would not get their goal, an independent Czechia, so they turned to the western allies. They could not leave the country through the western side, so the allies chose to rendezvous with them in the port of Vladivostok, on the other side of Russia.

They crossed the country in three years, using the railways that they hijacked, joined with the Russian White Army (anti-communists) and the allies, stole the Tsar’s gold, traded it for free passage to Vladivostok with the advancing reds when they lost, and safely sailed home, to the newly founded country of Czechoslovakia.

Isn’t that friggin awesome?  What’s even cooler is that I might have ancestors who fought in the legion.  My great grandfather emmigrated from Moravia right around that time, perhaps a little before.  Man, if I ever write a historical novel…

But yeah, the trope almost perfectly characterizes Danica and her band of mercenaries, who feature prominently in Bringing Stella Home.  Their homeworld, Tajjur V, was fighting for independence right before the Hameji conquests began, and the New Gaian Empire put down the rebellion rather forcibly.  Later, when the system fell to the Hameji, their homeworld was bombarded and slagged into oblivion, leaving them with nowhere to call their own.

Long story short, the story of the Czech Legions and their epic journey across Siberia has totally inspired me for this next novel.  I’m going to make Roman (Danica’s NCO) a major viewpoint character, bring back the old mercenary team, throw in a few new ones (including a character from Desert Stars)…man, it’s going to be AWESOME!

In other news, “Decision LZ1527” and “From the Ice Incarnate” are both available for free from Diesel Ebooks.  Genesis Earth is also up there too, so if you feel inclined to post a review, I would certainly appreciate it!

Also, if you REALLY want to help, drop by the Amazon pages for “Decision LZ1527” and “From the Ice Incarnate” and fill out the little form where it says “tell us about a lower price.” I’m trying to get Amazon to offer my short stories for free, but the only way to do that is to make it free somewhere else and get Amazon to price match.

Hopefully, by making them free it will get me more exposure and drive more interest in the novels.  Moses Siregar did a guest post on that just this morning.

Also, I think I’ve found a new template that might work well for this blog.  What do you think?  Obviously, I would tweak the background and header (and possibly the color scheme as well). The main thing is that it has multiple sidebars, which will make more room for my books.  But if you have a better suggestion, please let me know.

Arrrgh Smashwords!

So I go to upload “From the Ice Incarnate” to Smashwords as a free give away, and this is what I see. Arrgh!  Why do I have to wait??  Why can’t my book be up nowww…?

Okay, seriously, it’s not that big of a deal.  I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to start spamming everyone sharing it.  And unlike last week, I’m going to be more open about the fact that I’m giving this story away for free.

I decided last week to put up “Decision LZ1527” and “Memoirs of a Snowflake” for free on Smashwords, mostly to see if I could get Amazon to price match.  So far it hasn’t worked, but it has given me some very interesting insight into the minds of ebook buyers.

The results aren’t scientific, of course, but so far it’s confirmed what I’ve heard elsewhere: that there’s a HUGE difference between people willing to pay more than $1 for an ebook, and people who will grab anything because it’s free.  So far, 62 people have downloaded “Decision LZ1527,” 33 people have downloaded “Memoirs of a Snowflake,” but only 2 people this week downloaded the free sample of Genesis Earth–and no one has bought a copy.

Of course, this is only after one week.  Perhaps the people who downloaded the free stories are just taking a long time to read them.  Perhaps they just can’t afford to buy many ebooks right now, but because they read and enjoyed my stories, they’ll check it out when they have more time/money.  Maybe some of them will run across my ebooks years later and remember “oh hey, that’s the guy with that crazy sci fi dating story” and check me out then.  Or maybe they’re all cheapskates who only read stuff they can get for free.  I don’t know.

But I don’t think it’s the last one.  A friend from my apartment complex walked up to me today and told me he’d read and enjoyed my story.  It was pretty cool.  That’s what I’m really after at this point: exposure and readers.  So I think it’s a good idea to give at least some stuff away for free, even if it doesn’t push people to buy your other books in the short term.

Speaking of which, I’ve tried out something else new: raising the price of Genesis Earth from $2.99 to $3.85.  Why in the heck would I do that?  Mostly because of value perception; I want people to know that I have confidence that my book is worth at least #3.85, that I believe they’ll feel it was worth what they paid for.  The kind of books I want to write are the kind that people will want to read twice, and I want to see if changing the price to reflect that will build the kind of readership that is looking for that sort of thing.

I might be totally wrong, of course, but hey it’s worth a shot.  I’ve sold two copies so far this month, so at least it hasn’t totally killed sales.  I’ll probably keep it at that price for at least a couple of weeks, just to see what happens.

But I can tell you one thing I don’t think I’ll ever do: price a novel higher than $5.  I’ve always thought that $6.99 and $7.99 for a paperback is a little steep, even if the book completely changes my life.  That’s not something you can put a dollar value on, and even if you could, why would you want to charge that much?  If your book was so deep and meaningful, wouldn’t you want to give it away for free?

So yeah, I’m trying to suck my readers dry, only to find a business model that works.  And if you think $3.85 is too steep, please let me know.  I’d like to give my books away for free, but at the same time, I want to eat without spending my life as a wage slave.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out my free stories!

Hmm…short stories?

Kris Rusch has another excellent Thursday post up on her blog, and this one deals with the effect of the ebook revolution on the short story format.  Synopsis: short stories stand to EXPLODE in the next few years, and this is good for everybody, especially indie writers.

Getting a story published in a magazine 1) builds a writer’s cred, 2) attracts new readers to the writer’s other works, and 3) pays decently well without giving up copyright for longer than a couple of years.  Basically, it’s like getting paid to advertise.

I have to admit, I’m not much of a short story writer, but if Kris’s predictions are right (and they sure make a lot of sense), I might have to take some time and rework my short form game.

To start, I should probably read short stories voraciously.  Fortunately, I have like twenty back issues of Leading Edge on my shelf (the best short story I have ever read is “When She Grows a Soul” by Patrick Weekes in issue 46; I reread it on my lunch break today and it made me cry.  Seriously).  I’ve also subscribed to Clarkesworld magazine, which is only $1.99 per month on the Kindle.

Once I’ve finished the current draft of Desert Stars, I may or may not take off some time to focus on writing short fiction.  I’m a little hesitant to do that, though; novels are my first love, and will probably be my bread and butter as this writing career takes off.  Still, I need a lot of work on my short form, so maybe it would be worth taking a month or so…not sure yet.

In any case, I discovered via the Kindle Boards that if you release an ebook/estory for free on a competing vendor’s site, Amazon will price match and drop the price to free.  Since I probably won’t be able to sell the short stories I’ve epublished, I figure I ought to give that a try.  I never really planned to make much money off of them, and “selling” them for free will hopefully attract readers who will buy my novels.

In the meantime, I really should get back to writing.  Whether novels or short stories, my bread and butter lies with putting words to paper–electronic or otherwise.

The blog tour rolls on

I’m writing this post from Leading Edge (the internet is down at my apartment), so I don’t have much time, but I did want to take care of a few items of housekeeping.

First, my next guest post in the Genesis Earth blog tour is up, this one at Charles Millhouse’s blog.  Charles is a fellow sf writer whom I met on the Kindleboards, and the post basically explains my writing routine since last year.  Of course, since I’ve technically been unemployed since graduation, my routine is a little wacky, but I think you’ll find the post interesting. Check it out!

Desert Stars is coming along.  I took yesterday off to finish drafting the revision notes, but I’ve still got the last three chapters to go.  It’s going to be awesome, though–I’ve got so many ideas for how to improve the story.  Many thanks to all my first readers for your feedback!  It’s been immensely helpful.

Also, I decided to take down “From the Ice Incarnate” from Amazon.  I still think it’s a good story, but I don’t want someone to buy Genesis Earth, love it, then buy the story and feel ripped off.  Also, I think I might have more luck with my short stories if I send them out to print markets instead.  I’ve submitted “Decision LZ1527” to Escape Pod; if it sells, hopefully that will drive readers to my ebooks.

And on that note, if you’ve read Genesis Earth and enjoyed it, I would like to ask you to please post a review on Amazon.  I don’t want to be one of those guys who secretly boosts his stats by coercing people to write fake reviews, but if you did enjoy the novel, I would appreciate it a ton if you would take the time and share your experience.  At this point in my career, that’s probably the thing that would help me out the most.

So anyways, that’s what’s going on here.  Hopefully, the internet will be back before the weekend.  See you around!

First review and an announcement

So shortly after I joined the Kindle Boards, Michelle from Red Adept Reviews contacted me for a blog interview to go along with a review she was doing for “From the Ice Incarnate.” The review and interview were posted over the weekend; you can find them here.

The review is generally positive, though I think the criticism is pretty fair; I’m much better at writing novels than writing short stories.  It was a pleasant surprise, however, to have a reviewer come to me, and to come so quickly.  I honestly wasn’t expecting that, so thanks!

“From the Ice Incarnate” is based on a scene from my novel Genesis Earth, which I will be epublishing very soon.  I just got the initial sketches from the cover artist I selected, and they look really good!  The only other holdup is my copy editor, and he should be finished by Wednesday, so hopefully the novel will be out in a week or so.

In order to spread the word, I’d like to put together a blog tour.  If you have a blog and would like me to write a guest post, that would be awesome!  Just email me with a subject to discuss, or a list of interview questions, and I’ll let you know when I can fit you in.  I’ll also post a link on this site, so my readers here can find your blog.

So anyhow, that’s what’s going on here.  I’m very excited to get Genesis Earth out, and also that my work is starting to get some attention.  Hopefully, that will continue to build; in the meantime, I’ll keep on doing what I always do: write.