Month: July 2016

Which “Don’t Mess with Mom” Flash Fiction Story Gets Your Vote?

Vote5It’s that time again…time to choose your favorite flash fiction story of the week! It’s all up to you now – only one can win Flash Fiction Readers’ Choice Champion honors. It’s super easy – choose your favorite and cast your vote below.

Check out this week’s entries here. Make your decision, then use those share buttons at the bottom of the post to spread the word.

Voting polls close Thursday at 5 PM Pacific time. If the poll doesn’t close on time, any votes received after 5 pm will be removed.

Which "Don't Mess with Mom" Flash Fiction Story Should Win the Readers' Choice Award This Week?

  • A. L. Kaplan (37%, 7 Votes)
  • Dusty May Jane (26%, 5 Votes)
  • Karen Hopkins (11%, 2 Votes)
  • S.Nageen (11%, 2 Votes)
  • Luigi Silvestri (5%, 1 Votes)
  • Biswajit Mukhopadhyay (5%, 1 Votes)
  • Joe Wocoski (5%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 19

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NOTE: Entrants whose submissions exceed the 250 word limit will be disqualified even if they win. ONE VOTE PER PERSON, please. Duplicate votes will be deleted. The results displayed above are unofficial until verified by administration.

Maximum Effort, Minimum Profits for an Author Event

Louisville Comic ConSometimes, despite the best planning and execution, stuff doesn’t go right. As an indie author, you should always keep this in mind. It’s especially true when doing book events. In March, I attended a large local comic con. Deciding that wasn’t enough punishment (we minions are hard-headed!), I signed up for one in Louisville, the Derby City Comic Con, which is three hours from my home.

Comic Cons are a longshot for authors because most folks are there to see celebrities and get comics. Not many are looking for their next great novel. But it’s a good venue to meet and greet thousands of people and hopefully get your name out there. Despite the March con being financially painful, I thought I’d take lessons learned and see if I could shave $$s off this one. The price for the booth was $100 less than Lexington, which made me happy. I already had bookmarks, business cards, a banner, and a good stock of books. My illustrator invited me to crash on his sofa (he lives in Lexington and Louisville is roughly 1hr 20min away), so I’d be driving more, but not having to pay for a pricey hotel. And I’d stocked up on munchies so I didn’t have to buy expensive concession foods. I thought all was going to be good. Continue reading “Maximum Effort, Minimum Profits for an Author Event”

Amazon Suspends Authors! Promo Sites Closing Down! How to Deal With These Calamities

Dont-Panic1A couple of major and somewhat jarring events took place in our self-publishing community recently. An author had her books banned because Amazon detected a one day increase of her page-views from a couple of hundred to 25,000. They’re investigating the situation, but the author’s books have been withdrawn for sale and her agreement with KDP has been terminated.

In other news, Pixel of Ink, one of the major eBook promotion sites, shut its virtual doors. Many of the promotion sites we use have been in contravention of Amazon’s terms of service for some time. Amazon is now taking measures to make them comply or they’ll cease doing affiliate business with them.

Tons of bandwidth has been devoted to discussing these two topics. Authors, readers, and promoters all have opinions. I’ve put together a list of things you should be doing to deal with these situations. Continue reading “Amazon Suspends Authors! Promo Sites Closing Down! How to Deal With These Calamities”

Is Editing a Book Like Home Repair?

editing and home improvementMy mind wanders when I work at something manual. And often it wanders in the direction of writing. So perhaps it’s not surprising that when I was working on a house repair, it occurred to me that the process could be compared to editing.

Our little cottage was built in 1883. The previous owners had done some repair to the brick, much of it badly. Restoring it to its original state was out of the question.  Leaving it unattended was also out of the question unless we wanted it to fall down around our ears. Well, maybe not quite, but you get the picture. Continue reading “Is Editing a Book Like Home Repair?”