Book Brouhaha

I am a short story writer.  The thing is that if you are not  a short story writer this is a difficult concept to understand.  The only thing I can equate it to is music.  You find the instrument that you consider to be your voice.  I can play both the violin and viola very well but I consider myself to be a violist.  It's my instrument.  It's me. The same goes for short stories.  The precise, compact writing style is my voice.  It's me.  Even before I started writing my brain would constantly think of new ways to streamline the story I was reading.  And now that I've been writing for a few years the problem is even more pronounced.  It's aggravating for me to read long, drawn out sections in a novel that serve no purpose whatsoever. Is it really necessary for the heroine to be looping around in her head why she can't be with the hero a FOURTH time?  We know their issues.  Address the issues.  Maybe readdress...

Ok I've seen some discussion lately about the issue of short stories and KU. Lots of talk on whether or not the 10% marker is fair because it takes way less effort for the reader hit the 10% mark in a short story than it does in a novel. Now I'm not trying to bash anyone. And I'm not trying to point fingers or accuse people of being right or wrong. Because you know what? It'snot fair that someone can just go through the title page and be 10% into a short story. But you know what's also not fair? I have to pay the same amount for cover art no matter how long or short my novelette is. You know what's also not fair? I get one-star reviews solely because a story did not exceed X number of words (not even a mention about the actual content). You know what's even less unfair? Short stories are really hard to sell. For every 100 people that read novels maybe one likes the occasional short story. And an even smaller percentage of that one actually goes out ...

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 .

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 s...

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 s...

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...

Amazon is like Disneyland.  It just does everything bigger and better.  Other groups try to do parades.  Disneyland does parades better. So the latest change to the book industry is an increase in subscription based book reading.  In other words, books are following the Netflix/Hulu model.  You pay a flat monthly rate to read any of the books available in the site's electronic library. In response to a few of the book subscription places that have been popping up such as Scribd, Amazon has started a new program called Kindle Unlimited.  And, like Disneyland, they just do everything better.  They already have a huge library of books and now they are giving authors a legitimate reason to be exclusive to Amazon. Frankly, I think this is awesome.  In my opinion, this is the future of ebooks.  This will completely eliminate the debate as to wether or not ebooks should cost the same as hard copies.  And it is also HUGE for short story wr...