Book Brouhaha

Summary: Two short stories straight from a writer's nightmares and two scrumptious, original recipes. In Out of Character, a novelist who prides herself on creating realistic characters, is writing a gritty murder mystery. Unfortunately, her story takes a more personal turn when her villain is bent on making her his next victim. To what lengths would a highly successful novelist go to overcome her writer’s block? In Idea Man, Lucinda’s muse materializes in his thong bathing suit and offers her a story she can’t refuse. Review: An amusing story about an author that has finally hit the end of her rope but help arrives just in the nick of time.  Despite the somewhat unconventional appearance of Lucinda's muse, what else is a writer to do but go along for the ride? I found myself enjoying this story quite a bit.  Fowkes has a charming style of writing that may not make you laugh out loud but will definitely keep you smiling throughout.  I found myself getting ...

KDP Select hasn't been treatin' me well.  I've tried to make the relationship work!  Every time we break up I think maybe I could have done something different.... maybe we should try again.... But no. I just can't seem to get any short stories to catch on with KDP Select.  I've tried: -Collections -Various genres -Altering the level of promotion I do on free days -When I do free days There's more.  I've even tried putting stories on there that sell regularly.  They continue  to sell regularly without any noticeable difference in sales numbers.  But I've yet to have a single copy borrowed.  Which means the only pro is five free days. Is this worth it? Ehhhhhhh...... I'm thinking not.  iTunes, Sony and Kobo are turning into three of my main sources for sales.  Frankly, that's worth way more to me than five freebie days.  If someone is shopping online, comes across one of my stories and then is...

Summary:   Albert's an aging rock star who escapes the big city to kick back on a lake in the wilderness . . . no manager, no groupies, no tour bus . . . when out of the blue a hunter blasts the living chopsticks out of his shoulder. Instead of finding himself in a nice cushy ambulance, Albert wakes up in a remote cabin with the man who shot him. The shooter guards the lake, standing by it into the late hours of the night, staring at a strange a light in the depths that only he can see. Review: Another excellent story by House.  This author continues to display her clear strength in creating deep, interesting characters with surprisingly few words.  We barely have a chance to meet Albert before he is thrown into his hair-raising adventure but immediately there is sympathy for him as a character. I really enjoyed "Albert."  If you actually take it at face value it's a science fiction horror story.  But it's written with such whimsy that you fin...

Books are a product.  Yes, they may transport you to other worlds and absorb your time for hours but they are a product nonetheless. This means that someone created this product, packaged it and then put it up for sale for your buying pleasure.  While the seller's job is to sell, he or she is also obligated to inform the general public what kind of product is being sold.  That is the seller's legal and moral responsibility.   But this is a two way street! It is the buyer's job to be educated in order to make informed purchases.  If the seller says their cereal is 100% sugar, it is the buyer's job to do a few minutes of research to find out if eating all-sugar cereal for breakfast every morning is a good health choice.  It would be foolish to rely on the seller for the total picture.  Sure, that cereal could be part of a complete breakfast.  But which part?  Dessert? Therefore, if ebooks are something that interest you as a buyer,...

I write short fiction. Very short fiction, typically. I have a terse style and I enjoy writing short tales. Particularly flash-fiction. I love very-short stories. My favorite author is Fredric Brown. However, my following thoughts are uncharacteristically verbose, so I warn you now. It’s been discussed before, but I’m new to the game. So I’m going to bring it up again. Join me, if you wish. I’ve always written stories. In high-school and college I wrote all the time. But I never got picked up by traditional publishing. Sure a short-story here or there in some small lit mag or science-fiction zine. But I was never going to be the next big, breakout writer. So I largely put it away, focusing instead on more productive things. Work, family, you know… “real life”. And then I bought my wife an e-reader last Christmas. She wanted one so I got her an Amazon Kindle. I was high-brow, so I wasn’t interested in an e-reader; I preferred “real” books. But when my wife wa...

Summary: Maude Barrow smokes too much, drinks Wild Turkey, and desperately needs a job. When she sees a classified ad for a nanny in the wealthy Munford home, she fakes her resume and references, lies her way into the position, and seems to have it made. . . until they ask her to sign a contract with a mysterious, ominous clause. Review: This story is fun though not exactly subtle.  House does an excellent job creating a likable antihero with the nanny.  Sure, the nanny lied a little on her resume.  But it was all for the noble cause of personal comfort!  On some level, we can all relate to that. And so our intrepid nanny gets hired by a too-good-to-be-true family to watch the children.  It's at this point that the hints start to cut in like a butter knife.  There is the ominous clause in the contract (which I won't state here but suffice to say once you read it, you have a pretty good idea as to what's up with the kids).  The ominous ...

So I may be crazy.  But I did it anyway. I started a new pen name.  Even worse, I changed the author name on stories that have already been out on the market for two years .  There is a high probability that this could turn into a gigantic headache.  Nothing lost, nothing gained, right? And so world I would like to introduce you to the Western story branch of the Alain Gomez corporation: Annie Turner. Will this help with sales eventually?  I have no idea.  But it was not a decision I came to lightly.  I've been thinking about it for quite some time.  I've talked to friends and family, discussed it on forums, etc.    The pros and cons seem to be equal in number. What helped spur me into action was reading Dean Wesley Smith's blog about things authors do to shoot themselves in the foot.  One of them happens to be being shy with pen names.  He flat out states that pen names help to define reader expectations.  Yo...