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Showing posts from August, 2014

Review of "Lilies," a single story in a collection by Torrance Calder

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Summary: Three stories all focusing on relationships and loss in different stages of life: A Broken Camera The most horrible events in our lives stick in our minds like images in a camera. But, what happens when the camera breaks? Lilies Do flowers respond to our feelings? The Waterfall Why is his father's nose crooked? Review: I hate to say it but there really wasn't much to this story.  Two people go out on a date and they didn't suit.  With no conflict, no character progression and no real sense of any emotions the end result was, unfortunately, boring.   The story came to its conclusion with the main character realizing that the flowers her date gave her wilted.  Was this supposed to be symbolic of something?  There was so much opportunity for plot subtleties that were missed out on.   2/5 stars Reviewed by Alain Gomez Buy this collection on Amazon .

Looking Good with Kindle Unlimited

I realize it's still early days.  Kindle Unlimited is still smells fresh and everyone is in that lovely honeymoon period called "the free trial."  But so far I've been liking what I'm seeing. Let me first say: I hated Select.  I tried it several times.  No luck.  Not a single borrow.  Maybe it was because Prime members didn't utilize the service.  Maybe they couldn't figure out how to borrow books.  I have no idea.  But it was so not worth being exclusive to Amazon. But I'm always one for experimentation.  As a controlled test, I added a few titles that have been getting zero attention.  Like, not one sale since their publication on any channel and they've been on sale for several months.  These titles comprised of multiple pen names across multiple genres.  My logic being that I had nothing to lose and if I got any sort of sales it would be obvious as to who gets the credit. Since adding the titles I've definitely seen an uptick in atten

Review of "Infinity," a single story in a collection by Carla Golian

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Summary: Journey through the Magical and Enchanting world of "Dreams of Love." 19 Poems dispersed throughout, act as interludes and are complimentary to 13 short stories; Tales of love, passion, romance and erotica. It reads like a novel. This book is not for the fainthearted. Review: Infinity  is the story of a chance (fated?) encounter between two authors.  It's a classic love-at-first-sight tale.  The story is sweet and the writing style is easy to get into which makes for a promising start. I liked everything about this story except for the end.  It kept going when it should have stopped.  Part of the charm of short form fiction is that it's a snapshot.  It doesn't have to go into a happily ever after or all the nitty gritty relationship details.  It just is . Still, it's an enjoyable read and the collection has bits of poetry interspersed which makes for a nice variety.  Perfect for a summer afternoon of light reading. 3.5/5 stars Reviewe

A Snippet on Short Fiction Money Making

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I was lurking about the KBoards Writer's Cafe (which is an awesome place) and came across possibly one of the most inspiring things I've ever read about the business of short fiction. The forum thread was discussing Amazon's new Kindle Unlimited program and people got to discussing how whether or not this could lead to a flood of short stories and, basically, put an end to novel-length works. Short story author EelKat (yes, that's the name she writes under if you're curious) gives this epic reply: But there are already 5 shorts for every 1 novel in Select, and there has been right since Select began. Predictions like this occurred when Select/Prime/KOLL first rolled out and that was what 3 years ago? Amazon has no need to change the prices and you want to know why? Because for every 10,000 novels sold only 10 short stories sell. Do you realize I'm listed by critics as one of the world's top selling Short Story writers and I'm lucky if one of my tit