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Quartz: Free This Weekend!

I’m running a promotion for Quartz, Book One of THE SUNLESS WORLD series, through May 31st. From now until then, you can download it for FREE from Amazon.

Forgotten what Quartz is all about? I’d be delighted to refresh your memory!

To save their world, the mages of old plunged it into eternal night. Now veins of luminous quartz provide light to a dying world, and desperate states vie to control them.

Rafe Grenfeld, junior diplomat and spy, has just learned that the legendary Tower of Light–the biggest quartz pillar of all–actually exists. The quest for the Tower is going to be difficult enough. But then lost magic, soul suckers, a maniacal foe, and an unpredictable ally with her own agenda show up…

If you like epic fantasy with a steampunk flavor, get your copy of Quartz today!

If you’re willing, please donate a tweet or a FB share to help spread the word of this sale. Thanks to the downloads that have already happened, Quartz is at #3 in Free Steampunk Books on Amazon. I’d love to keep it visible on the first page for as long as possible!

Thanks, and for those in the US, enjoy the long weekend!

Magic & Mayhem: Get 21 Fantasy Novels for only $0.99

Title: Magic and Mayhem

Number of Novels: 21

Price: $0.99

Release: August 2, 2016

Synopsis: Get ready to be swept off into lands filled with magic, mystery, action, adventure and romance with these 21 full-length fantasy novels! 22 NY Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling authors have banded together to bring you this amazing boxed set, but like all good things, it’s only available for a limited time! Grab this collection today before it’s gone for good!

Preorder it now at your favorite e-tailer!

Amazon | Apple | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Trust me, with 21 novels from twenty-two New York Times, USA Today, and International bestselling authors, you’re getting more than enough bang for your buck. Just don’t start this set late at night if you value your sleep, because I guarantee you’ll be up WAY past your bedtime! This incredible boxed set is only going to be around at $0.99 for a limited time, so make sure you grab your copy today!

the short story dilemma

Have a seat and grab a cuppa. This might get long and rambling.

It’s finally March and time to (as I promised myself) put my mind to dealing with the Short Story Dilemma.

I enjoy writing short stories. I like the instant gratification factor of them. They’re great for trying new things or for writing those kinds of ideas where a little goes a long way (unlikeable protagonists for one!).

I started my self-publishing journey with collections of short stories.

So why the dilemma?

Simply put, short stories, either singly or in collections, don’t sell well compared to longer formats. And with the anthology categories on e-tailers increasingly filled by boxed sets of novel-length work… well, short stories aren’t looking very viable to me anymore. They’re also a lot harder to promote, since so many ad sites and promotional opportunities have length requirements.

In fact, my shorts sell so poorly, I’m 90% certain that I’ll be taking them off sale at the end of the month. I’ve lowered the prices of all three collections to 99 cents across the board. There are two broken fairy tale collections, Shattered and Entangled, and one of five fantasy short stories, Singing for the Enemy and Other Stories.

Go ahead and check them out. I’ll wait.

Going forward, I’ve come up with a few options for what I can do with these and any future short stories:

Sell my collections from my site. This will take me some time to figure out, because TAXES. I’m not keen on collecting VAT or sales tax, so I need to poke around and see what places like Gumroad and Payhip have to offer on those fronts.
Blog short stories. I’d keep them up for a limited time. At one story a month, it would take me years to get through my backlog.
Patreon. I haven’t fully thought this out yet, but I was thinking of making short stories available as stretch goals were unlocked. Say, one story per quarter at the $25 mark, one story every two months at the $50 mark, one story per month at $100? And anything above that would go to fun things like chibis of popular characters.

That’s all I have so far. Thoughts? Any other options? I’d love to hear your ideas!

february update

February was another good month for me. My goal was 20K words, but I got over 28K. And I finished the first draft of Ghostlight, complete at almost 49K words. I expect I’ll add more to it when I edit, and bump its wordcount to over 50K.

The big March goal is to get 25K words on the sequel, working title Ghouldark.

That should keep me busy!

How about you? How are your projects going?