Links to all of my stories

The other day I was looking around the web for new ways of promoting my books.  On one of those “Ten tips for better sales” types of pages, one of the tips was to have a blog post with clear links to everything you’re trying to spread the word on.  Having one spot with everything makes sense because then you only have to link to that one thing.  So this just has links and short descriptions for my main stories online.  If you’re really curious for all of my stories you can find online, you’ll need to wade through my webpage.

 

Print anthologies

I have three anthologies that I self-published.  The links take you to the page on my webpage that has links to where you can buy the paperback versions, as well as the Kindle version.

A Man of Few Words

Fifty stories, all under 1,000 words.

The All-You-Can-Read Buffet

Forty stories giving you a buffet of my style.

Political Pies

Forty stories with political themes.

 

Mini-anthologies

These mini-anthologies contain five short stories that are to give a sample of my writing.  All of them are on Kindle, and the links take you to the US site for them.

Brain for Rent and other stories

Five scifi stories.

The Most Powerful Man in the World andother stories

Five scifi stories.

A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and otherstories

Five scifi stories, all set upon the moon.

 

Single stories

These are single stories available on Kindle.  The links take you to the US site for them.

“Rise”

A story about a tragedy at a space colony

“Lonely Phoenix”

A tale about a surprise on an interstellar colony ship.

“Duty”

Who cleans up the mess when the time machine malfunctions?

“The Only Certainty”

What’s the only certainty in a body swapping world?

 

Essays

 

The Future is Coming

This is a collection of ten, short essays dealing with science fiction ideas I believe will soon be science fact.

 

Stories on Patreon

I’m working on a series of stories that I am posting on my Patreon profile.  Patreon is a place where patrons can help content creators.  Eventually, I plan to collect them into an anthology which will be available on Kindle.

 

Stories on QuarterReads

QuarterReads is a site where you can buy short stories for only $0.25.  The best part is that $0.22 of that goes to the authors.  Here is my author page with links to all the stories I have on there.

 

Some miscellaneous stories

I write for several sites where I get paid for page views.  Every now and then, I’ll publish a story on them.  This link will take you to a page on my website where I’ve listed these stories from the various sites.

Let the mayhem begin

Earlier this morning I posted my story "Cleansing Fire" on my Patreon profile.  This is the first story of my Solar System Stories where I plan to write twelve stories set at various locations around the solar system.  This story is set nearish the sun and is about a guy who does dangerous stunts.  To read the story, you either have to become a patron at the low, low price of a $1 a story, or you can wait over a year until I collect them all into an ebook which will probably sell for $2.99.

Jumping into Patreon

So several months ago I heard of this Patreon site where creators of videos, comics, stories, or whatever can raise funds with the help of patrons.  I thought it was a great idea, but I wasn’t too sure how well it would work for someone like me.  But after thinking about, I decided to join.

My first project I’ll be working on is to write twelve, short science fiction stories of a few thousand words at least.  These stories will be set in twelve “locations” in the solar system, the sun (well, near the sun), Mercury, Venus, Earth/moon, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud.  My plan is to write a story a month, and at the end of the year I’ll polish up the stories and publish them as a Kindle ebook.  Anyone who finds this interesting, and especially those who’d like to help out financially, should check out my Patreon Profile. 

My original plan was to write the first story or two, and then start posting them in January.  But recently I’ve been trying to force myself to write more, so I decided to start a few months early.  The first story, set near the sun with the working title “Cleansing Fire,” should (I’ll say 95% likelihood) be up sometime in November.  Right now I’d say it’s about a third done, but I hope by giving myself a deadline I’ll get around to finishing it.  We’ll just have to see.

Thinking about Patreon

For the last several months, I've been hearing a lot about Patreon.  For those who don't know, Patreon allows people to pledge money to creators.  I first heard about it with webshows who use the money to buy new equipment and stuff like that.  I think that's a great idea and if I had extra money, there are several shows I would support.  But I don't have money, which is why it would be great if I could get some patrons.  But I don't have a webshow or make videos or anything like that.  I write stories.  And I would hate to ask people to pay me to write a story when I give away stories every week for free.  So for a couple of months now I've wanted to get in to Patreon, I just haven't figured out how to go about it.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I had an idea we'll call Plan A.  The plan starts with a poll.  I don't know if you can do polls in Patreon, but I'm sure I could find a poll site somewhere.  The poll would list various scifi things like aliens, alternate dimensions, Andromeda Galaxy, etc., all starting with "A." People would vote on this poll, and then I would write a story (probably in the 1000 word range) dealing with that topic.  And I'd go through the entire alphabet.  I figured if I could write a story every other week, I could be done in a year.  But the thing I would do with those stories is to then revise them and put them out as a Kindle ebook.  My patrons - who pledged at a certain amount - would receive a copy of it, and those who pledged higher would receive a copy of all of my Kindle ebooks. 

It's a good idea, but there is one problem with it.  When I first start out, not many people would know about it and only a few people would vote, which kind of defeats the purpose.  To get around that, I came up with Plan B, which is what I'm thinking of actually starting with before going back to Plan A once I have some followers.

Several years ago, I read a collection of stories by various authors with each story set on a different planet.  I thought that was a great idea and that I should do a story for every planet.  So I had the idea, but until now I never really sat down to go about it.  My Patreon Plan B is to write a story for twelve bodies/regions in the solar system: the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth/moon, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Kuiper Belt, and Oort Cloud.  If I could do a story a month, it would take me a year to go through them all.  And then I'd do the same thing of putting them in a Kindle ebook and giving out copies to those who pledged.

The one sort of issue I still have, is I don't really like the sound of "Give me money, so I don't have to get a job." Because the webshows I watch talk about if they can raise X amount of money they'll get new microphones or a new camera or whatever.  For me it would be, "Help me raise X dollars and I'll ... get a tank of gas?" I couldn't think of a way raising money on Patreon could directly help my writing, only indirectly by me having the time to write and not worry about paying bills.  But then I thought of something.  I've put out several ebooks on Kindle, but one thing I haven't done for any of them is a big promo.  There are sites that will send out tweets about your book to their 100,000 followers ... for a fee.  I haven't felt comfortable enough risking my money on one of these promo deals in the hope it would end up making me more money through sales.  But I think that will be one of my Patreon campaign goals.  If I raise enough money, I'll pay for one of these promo sites to see if it's worth it.  And I'll hopefully pay some of my bills. 

Anyway, next month I will be busy with my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge, and then I'll probably need a break in the beginning of October, so maybe by November I'll start getting serious with this Patreon stuff.  Watch this space.