Month: October 2012

Weekly Flash Fiction Poll

Step right up and cast your vote for this week’s winner in the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge!

You can check out this week’s entries here. The entrants did a great job with the writing prompt and the merciless constraints of the exercise.  Vote for your fave and then use those share buttons at the bottom of the post to spread the word that the vote is on.

Which author wrote your favorite entry in this week's flash fiction challenge?

  • S P Mount (38%, 31 Votes)
  • Robert K. Blechman (21%, 17 Votes)
  • Yvonne Hertzberger (11%, 9 Votes)
  • Chris James (10%, 8 Votes)
  • Lynne Cantwell (9%, 7 Votes)
  • J. A. Cunningham (5%, 4 Votes)
  • Brian Beam (4%, 3 Votes)
  • S. E. Myers (4%, 3 Votes)
  • Timothy Hurley (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 82

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How It All Began

We’ve been expecting you

To mark the 1st anniversary of Indies Unlimited, the Evil Mastermind allowed some previously sealed records from the IU bunker to be released to historians. Among them, this rare transcript of the first ever IU meeting…

Stephen: Right, settle down, I’m calling this meeting of the Writers Unlimited Finding Force to order.

Ed: Hang on, who are you to call us to order? Why can’t I call us to order?

Stephen: Because I’m the Evil Mastermind, so I’m in charge. Continue reading “How It All Began”

3rd Annual Avondale Writer’s Conference

Avondale Writers ConferenceThe 3rd Annual Avondale Writer’s Conference is a literary event which will be held at the Avondale Civic Center in Avondale, Arizona on November 3rd 2012.

This one-day conference allows you to connect with agents, editors, and other writers. The theme is “Pen, Polish, Pitch, Publish, Promote”— steps that lead from an idea to a published book that is successfully marketed. In addition to sessions with authors, editors, and agents, there will also be an Agent Pitch Slam.

Proceeds benefit The Friends of the Avondale Libraries, a Not-for-Profit (501c3) organization. Sponsored by Friends of the Avondale Libraries and the City of Avondale.

Conference Registration Fee: $99

Registration Deadline: November 2, 2012

For more information, please visit the web site.

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Information and announcements such as these are provided from time to time by Indies Unlimited in the way of a public service. We strongly encourage interested parties to exercise due diligence in researching and evaluating all such opportunities of interest before choosing to participate.

Indie News Beat with Chris James

IU Ace Reporter Chris James

The big publishing story over the last few weeks has undoubtedly been the sock-puppet scandal. First broken by the New York Times, suddenly we were drowning in stories, articles and opinions from it seemed everyone in publishing. But just as suddenly as the elephant in the room was acknowledged, so it disappeared.

The general outrage that a few bad apples in the Indie movement would actually pay for multiple, glowing reviews on Amazon, soon diffused when stories appeared reporting that some mainstream authors were also not averse to puffing their own work, while sticking the knife into their competitors. Likely the mainstream authors will suffer more in the short term, given their higher profile, but all this summer flurry really did was draw more attention to the intense competition on Amazon, and the shortfalls of its rating and review system. Continue reading “Indie News Beat with Chris James”