{"id":22719,"date":"2026-01-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=22719"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:16:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:16:57","slug":"the-new-and-improved-vasicek-free-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/the-new-and-improved-vasicek-free-library\/","title":{"rendered":"The New (and Improved) Vasicek Free Library"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For several years, I would publish a new, free short story every month, keeping about six of them up at a time and unpublishing an old one every time I published a new one. I was able to do this because I was constantly writing short stories, in order to submit to the traditional short story markets (Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, <\/em>etc). Typically, each story would go on submission for a year or two, and if it didn’t get picked up by a professional or semi-pro market, I would just publish it myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that changed in 2023 when I decided I was done trying to pursue the traditional short story markets. When I landed a story in the conservative (or at least anti-woke) anthology Again, Hazardous Imaginings,<\/a><\/em> and that story (“The Promise of King Washington”) was reviewed favorably on the conservative review site Tangent Online<\/a>, I saw a marked rise in my rejection rate\u2014and all of them form rejections, too (about 10%-15% of my rejections were personalized before this, which typically indicates that an editor likes your writing but doesn’t want that particular story). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was at that point that I realized that every professional short story market (and most of the semi-pro ones) is ideologically captured, and that my odds of getting published as a straight white male conservative were essentially zero. So I stopped writing short stories, and in 2025, after cycling through the last story from the submission queue, I unpublished all but one or two of my free short stories and discontinued the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The free short stories used to make up the backbone of what I like to call the “Vasicek Free Library.<\/a>” I patterned it after the Baen Free Library, and it’s basically a list of all of my free books, including permafree first-in-series like Brothers in Exile<\/a><\/em> and, of course, the free short stories. It’s basically a way for readers to sample my writing, and hopefully go on to buy some of my other books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long story short, I have decided to bring back the Vasicek Free Library, this time not just with short stories, but with a rotating selection of standalone longer works, too. I’ve got about half a dozen standalone novellas and novelettes, plus a couple of novels like Queen of the Falconstar<\/a><\/em> where I’m currently writing the sequels. I’m going to rotate slowly through those, keeping each one free for a few months, and also rotate through my back catalog of 60+ short stories similar to how I was doing it before. And I plan to do this for the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the current selection:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Queen\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Get the ebook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
FREE ebook with purchase of audiobook!<\/a><\/div>
FREE ebook with purchase of paperback!<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Lord\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Get the ebook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
Get the audiobook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
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\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
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<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Sex,\t\t\t\t\t\t
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$1 off the ebook with coupon code: BUY DIRECT<\/a><\/div>
FREE ebook when you buy the audiobook direct!<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Get the ebook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
Get the audiobook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Quantum\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Get the ebook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
Get the audiobook FREE from my online store!<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Buy direct from my online author bookstore!<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
\"Buy<\/a><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Check back each month for new stories!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For several years, I would publish a new, free short story every month, keeping about six of them up at a time and unpublishing an old one every time I published a new one. I was able to do this because I was constantly writing short stories, in order to submit to the traditional short… Continue reading The New (and Improved) Vasicek Free Library<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1542,984,981,1278,170],"tags":[584,502,186,2267,670],"class_list":["post-22719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-falconstar-trilogy","category-king-washington","category-queen-of-the-falconstar","category-sex-life-and-love-under-the-algorithms","category-short-stories","tag-free","tag-self-publishing","tag-submitting","tag-the-vasicek-free-library","tag-traditional-publishing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-5Ur","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22719"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22727,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22719\/revisions\/22727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}