Audio "I am the Wendigo" Is Here...

Like horror? Like audio-books? In that case, you should check out the audio version of my short horror story "I am the Wendigo" on Amazon, Audible, and on iTunes.

Awhile back, I posted about how I might Kickstart an audio-book, specifically "Wendigo" since it was my best-selling story at the time. Not a lot came of it for awhile, until I decided to just shell out the cash myself and put together an audio version. After all, according to science-fiction legend John Scalzi, a significant chunk of his income comes from audio books and according to some of the writing podcasts I listen to, not having audio versions of one's books is "leaving money on the table." In addition to being my top seller it's fairly short, so it'd make a good test project for audio books.

My friend Loren narrated, while Dudeletter Podcasting handled the production over Christmas. After some tinkering so it matches Amazon's quality standards, it's available today.

If this is a success, I'm considering an audio version of my short Viking horror story "Nicor," which you can read online for free here. I've got the audio rights to "Nicor" and "Melon Heads," since the former was published three years ago and "Melon Heads" exists solely in independent Kindle form. My other short stories I'll be able to put in audio format when their exclusivity period with (Digital Fiction) ends.

So watch this space. I'll keep you all posted about future audio projects here.

Free Stories! Happy Halloween!

I know it's not Halloween yet, but I get up really early in the morning for work and so I figured I'd put this out there now, lest I forget. As a Halloween gift for all my fans out there, I am setting TWO of my Kindle stories FREE on Amazon.com for that day only.

The first one is "I am the Wendigo," my first professionally-published story. I sold it in 2006 to a webzine called Chimaera Serials that no longer exists. Like many authors whose work has gone out of print, I found it quite nice to have an easy republishing route and I've made about as much if not more as an indie that I was paid for the first rights.

The second one is "Melon Heads." I wrote that one when I was in college after reading about the Melon Heads, an urban legend centered in rural Ohio, on the Internet. I tinkered with it over the years and ultimately revised the story to be a dark comedy based on suggestions from Katherine Mankiller.

Both of these stories bear the Sean C.W. Korsgaard stamp of approval.

"I am the Wendigo," "Melon Heads," and the Long Tail

I've got a substantial commute to my day job and one of the podcasts I listen to (usually on the way home because in the morning I'm concerned I'm too tired to listen carefully) is the Sell More Books Show. The podcast's two hosts Bryan Cohen and Jim Kukral have provided lots of useful advice on how independent authors can sell more books. Much of their advice has not been applicable to me--I've only got a few short stories and one collection thereof--but some is, and the time may come where I self-publish something more substantial.

In any event, I was listening to Episode 96 on the way home today and they discussed the concept of "the long tail." It's basically the idea that one's earnings are more lucrative in the long run than in the opening burst of sales, especially if one has an extensive backlist. Here's one article explaining how Amazon, e-publishing, etc made this possible. Here's another, the first in a series explaining the process. This article here points out that the theory may not be all it's cracked up to be, but it's something I've noticed in my own sales.

I published my rather gruesome horror tale "I am the Wendigo" in 2012 alongside the less gruesome (but funnier) "Melon Heads." Both stories serve as examples of "the long tail" in action. "Melon Heads" started with a bang--16 copies in the first month--and sold seven copies in 2013, six in 2014, and four copies in 2015. So far I've sold one copy in January and one in February. That's 19 sales so far, with three years, one month, and two weeks' earnings nearly equal to the opening explosion. Meanwhile, "Wendigo" has proven a bit more jagged--14 in 2012, 23 in 2013, 14 in 2014, 19 in 2015, and three so far in 2016. Although it's not the classic "long tail," it's still a case of later sales exceeding the premiere. And this can go on and on and on for years...

So long as Amazon stays running, of course. But I don't anticipate it going anywhere.

The Perma-Free Plan for FLASHING STEEL, FLASHING FIRE

Over the next couple months, I'm going to be revamping my Kindle short-story project considerably. I have already removed two stories and have set several to leave KDP Select when the 90-period they're committed for expires. Once that happens, I will remove several from Amazon completely and make the remainder--my three best--permanently free.

It started out with the podcast Sell More Books Show, which I started listening to within the last year or so. Bryan Cohen, one of the two podcasters, discussed how he made the first book in his Ted Saves the World series permanently free to gin up interest in the later books in the series. I took the concept and decided to apply it to my Andrew Patel supervillain-protagonist stories. If everything goes according to plan, the collection Consequences: Four Tales of Andrew Patel should be out by the end of the year.

The thought occurred to me that this could work for Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire, my short-story collection, as well. I decided on a little experiment. I had recently put my historical-Lovecraftian horror tale "The Beast of the Bosporus" back on KDP Select and decided to make it free for yesterday (9/5/15) and today (9/6/15). Muslim fantasy writer Saladin Ahmed and the good people at Promote Horror tweeted the news over their networks. Not only did I move many free copies of "Beast," but I also sold a copy (possibly two) of FSFF.

I had initially thought to remove all the non-Patel short stories from Amazon except for my best-seller "I am the Wendigo" and make that my freebie, but that would limit my range as a writer. "Wendigo" is creature horror, but my stories run the gamut from espionage to cosmic horror to high fantasy. So I'll leave three up for free instead of one and hopefully drive traffic to FSFF, where you can get ten stories for what used to be the price of three.

I'll let you know how that works out. The KDP Select program with its new pricing system is very good for novels ($0.006 per page for a 400 page book that the reader finishes comes out to be close to book purchase price), but not so much for short stories ($0.006 for a 35-page story isn't much). Short-story collections, however, might split the difference a bit.

Kickstarting an Audio "I am the Wendigo"?

The other day, my friend Nick suggested I use a crowd-funding mechanism like Kickstarter or Indiegogo to fund audio versions of some of my short stories. It would be (relatively) low cost and provide an additional source of funds and exposure. He also suggested I fit the stories into a singular universe, much like how the X-Files managed to fit mutants that ate people's livers, a living garbage avatar enforcing HOA rules, werewolves, a humanoid fluke creature, a shape-shifter who abused his powers for sex, and various other critters into an overarching plot involving a coming alien invasion.

This might not work for all of them, but since many of them are scattered throughout time (Nicortakes place during the Viking Age, while Melon Headstakes place probably around 2003-4), it's surprisingly doable. And there wouldn't even really need to be an overarching plot like the X-Files alien colonization thing--it's just that there's a lot more weird stuff going on the world than we're aware of. Stories that are part of a larger plot of their own like Illegal Alien would need to be left out, but it's not like I'm lacking for material.

My first thought was to do "Nicor," because it's one of my more thoughtful stories and because it has already been professionally published. However, then I did some research about recording audio fiction and came across ACX, which is basically the audio version of Amazon KDP that resulted from Amazon acquiring Audible. I created an account and did some poking around on the main page. ACX will get people in touch with voice-actors, after which one can negotiate a fee-for-service arrangement or royalty split. For the latter, having the sales to attract voice-actors is especially important.

That forced a revision of the plan, as "Nicor" has been a poor seller (probably due to still being available on the Heroic Fantasy Quarterly website and being part of Flashing Steel, Flashing Firecollection). Furthermore, creating an audio version would require either a large cast to play multiple roles or a smaller number of people doing many different voices.

However, I am the Wendigois my single best seller and requires only one voice actor, to play the wendigo itself. Hell, I could narrate it myself rather than hiring a professional voice actor. I could set a "stretch goal" to include a longer project like "Melon Heads" or The Beast of the Bosporus.

Possible incentives to give to people include a PDF of FSFF, print copies of FSFF, signed and personalized copies of FSFF, prints of the cover art, signed prints of the cover art, getting listed as a producer in the credits, etc.

So, my loyal readers, do you think crowdfunding an audio production of "I am the Wendigo" is a good idea? If it is, you'll probably see me digitally panhandling pretty soon...

Review of My 2014 Kindle Sales

Looking back on my Kindle short-story project, here are the lessons I've learned in 2014. Hearken to my words, aspiring e-book authors, and let's see what you can gain my from my experiences...

*For starters, short-story collections sell better than individual short stories. I've sold nearly 30 copies of my collection Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire, which debuted in June. In contrast, my most successful short story has been I am the Wendigo, which had 14 sales or borrows this past year. My supervillain-protagonist tale Übermensch had 12 sales or borrows, while The Beast of the Bosporushad 11. This is something "the rock star of the small press" William Meikle has experienced as well--he's consolidated his short stories into multiple collections like Flower of Scotland, which I own, rather than selling them individually.

*Needs Must, the sequel to "Ubermensch," wasn't a strong seller (six buys or borrows), but it exceeded Illegal Alien and equaled Melon Heads. I'd posted before about how I worried that my Patel stories weren't selling well, so this is a pleasant surprise. I've got a partial for a third Andrew Patel story written, so maybe it'll see the light of day.

*If your product is cheap enough, you'll actually get more royalties per borrow than per buy. My royalty for a borrowed short story is nearly six times per that of a purchased short story. However, if your royalties are relatively high (say 70% of a $10 book, like FSFF), then a borrow rather than a buy is a significant step down. This might explain why so many authors more successful than I have been complaining about Kindle Unlimited I didn't put FSFF in KU because Nicor, one of the stories in the collection, is available elsewhere online. Unless the borrow rate goes up significantly (which Chuck Wendig has suggested in his recent blog post), it's going to stay where it is.

*I have made zero sales with "Nicor," possibly due to it being available online elsewhere for free. I was gambling on the cover art and the portability of a downloaded e-book vs. a website (you'll be able to read it whether you have an Internet connection or not) as something one couldn't get just by swinging by a website, but it looks like that gamble didn't pay off. Still, I'm not taking "Nicor" down anytime soon. Things might change.

*If you really want to make money, do what my friend Jeff Baker suggested and generate sales through volume. Most of my income lately has been coming from setting a story or two free for a couple days, which encourages the occasional buy or borrow. This risks becoming a source of diminishing returns if I don't keep supplying new material. However, posting FSFF on Amazon spiked my revenues for months. "Nicor" fizzled, but there are extenuating circumstances. I've got a kind of bizarro story I'm working on now called "Little People, Big Guns" that might be my first independently-published novella (I don't anticipate it being very long), since it's more goofy and comedic rather than the thoroughly-twisted stuff a lot of the bizarro markets seem to want.

(That said, maybe I should consider Eraserhead Press first--their novels Shatnerquest and Shatnerquake seem goofy rather than grotesque stuff like The Bighead. "Little People" might be too short for their purposes, but I haven't written too much of it yet.)

Search Called Off For Missing Dolbeau-Mistassini Family

DOLBEAU-MISTASSINI--The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have called off the search for a missing Dolbeau-Mistassini man, his wife, and son.

Jacques Plante, 35, his wife Hettie, 25, and their newborn son Achille were first reported missing Jan. 12, but heavy snow and storms prevented the search from beginning until Jan. 15. Searchers in snowmobiles, helicopters, and even on horseback searched the countryside surrounding Dolbeau-Mistassini all the way to Normandin. Bloodhounds found a trace of his scent at one point, but it was soon lost. The RCMP combed the countryside for two weeks before another winter storm forced them to pull back.

"Mr. Plante and his wife trapped animals in the countryside, but during the winter came in to work at the ski resort," said Corporal Andrew Johansson, who oversaw the search. "The Plante family cabin was empty when we found it."

The only evidence of recent habitation, however, was the fire ring out front. There had been a fire there during the last week or so, but not evidence of cooked food.

In response to questions about whether the family had been stranded in the countryside without food during the winter, Johansson reiterated the need to keep adequate supplies as well as emergency radios to call for help. In the event of an emergency, it's always best to stick together. Oftentimes when a person strikes out alone seeking help, they run into trouble and cannot help themselves.

So what happened to this Canadian family? Find out by reading "I am the Wendigo," available on Amazon.com.

My eBook Experiment: Successes And Failures

Here's my third post on the e-publishing experiment I first embarked on in September 2012. Here are some lessons I have learned...

For starters, my initial hypothesis that I could earn more money by posting short fiction I have been unable to sell on Amazon and/or Smashwords than by sending it to print or online markets offering nominal fees (like $5 per story or $10 per story) has borne out so far. As of April 2013, I have been paid by Amazon approximately $24 with the four short stories I've got posted there. That comes out to be an average of $6 per story. This already covers the markets that offer only exposure or the lowest of payment.

(That being said, I have spent a large sum on advertising on both Facebook and Google that has eclipsed the revenue from the project, so I might not see a real profit for some time. Although this advertising in all likelihood played a role in the sales I did make, no money on advertising and only one quarter or one third of the sales equals profit, albeit a tiny one.)

Secondly, spiffy cover art does not necessarily translate into sales. Three of my four stories had cover art done for credit or for help on future projects and they have sold decent numbers, while Illegal Alien had a beautiful cover that I paid $45 for--and it's been the worst seller. Obviously you want to avoid the sucky cover art that plagues so many self-published works, but there is such a thing as overdoing it.

Thirdly, one way to generate sales of other product is to give some product away free. My Amazon sales have thus far dwarfed my Smashwords sales ($24 vs. $2.07) in part because I had all of my stories on KDP Select at various points. This allowed me to give stories away for free for several days at a time. In one specific case, I remember making my short story I am the Wendigo available for free for a time and making a few sales during this same time. Although my friend Jeff Baker has given away some of his fiction for free on Smashwords via the use of coupon codes, I never pursued this.

So beginning today and running until May 5, you can get "Illegal Alien" for free off Smashwords using the coupon code ND72T. Let's see if this generates any additional sales of my other Smashwords stories "The Beast of the Bosporus," "Melon Heads," and "I am the Wendigo."

Fourthly, self-publishing short fiction is something that will only make money in the long run. My story "Nicor" recently went online at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and I will be paid $100. That's more gross income than my self-published stories will make for years at the current rates. No need to spend so much time marketing, playing with sales rates, etc.

E-Reader Publishing: Three Months In (UPDATED 12/29)

This post was originally published on 12/25, but due to a sudden problem, I felt the need to go back and revise. Read it and you'll see why.

On September 3, I self-published my story "Melon Heads" on Amazon.com for the Kindle, thus beginning my experiment in self-publishing for e-readers. September 20 saw the second coming of my previously-published story "I am the Wendigo" and November 16 saw my Lovecraftian tale "The Beast of the Bosporus." My most recent self-published story, "Illegal Alien," debuted on Amazon December 11. At some point I created a formal Amazon author page as well.

At first, I enrolled all of them in the Kindle Direct Publishing Select program, which allows members of Amazon Prime to borrow my stories for free (I still get paid through a fund set up for this purpose) and allows me to release my stories for free on certain promotional days. However, being part of KDP Select is conditional on not having the stories available online anywhere else.

KDP Select proved to be a mixed bag. The promotional days allowed me to move large numbers of copies free, which I had hoped would generate more reviews and build buzz, leading to more sales later. The increased number of reviews I expected did not come through (most reviewers are people I already know), although there's no way of knowing the long-term effects of having dozens if not hundreds of readers having seen my content for free. Maybe I'm creating a fan base that will pay off in the future when I have real books available. After all, I did once get some traffic to this blog from a Google search for "Illegal Alien Matthew W. Quinn." The number of free copies moved on the first promotional day tends to be significantly higher than the number moved on later days, and I recall only actual borrow.

So I bought some Facebook advertising for the short stories, remembering how successful it had been in attracting readers to my blog in the summer of 2011. This provided to be a major bust--I'd spent upwards of $70 on advertising, but gleaned few if any sales. This not only applied to my ads for "Melon Heads" and "Wendigo" that received relatively few views and clicks, but even my ads for "The Beast of the Bosporus" that received over 100,000 views and over 100 clicks. Paying $45 for a much nicer cover for "Illegal Alien" didn't generate much sales either. So far, "Illegal Alien" has made 1/4 of the sales "Melon Heads" made in its first month, although since it was published mid-month, I won't be able to make an accurate comparison even after four weeks pass.

This meant more drastic measures were needed. I turned off the KDP Select auto-renew for all four stories. The other stories were either still in their first term or I'd allowed them to renew for another term, but "Wendigo" would no longer be Kindle-exclusive come December 21. This would be especially useful because an ad I'd purchased for my Facebook fan page increased my fan count from 80 to close to 1,400 (as of 12/29), most of whom apparently are from Turkey or other Middle Eastern countries. As far as I know, people from these countries cannot buy from Amazon (except through tricky means like getting a UK e-mail address to access Amazon.co.uk). People from India can access the same Amazon as Americans, but that would exclude Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.

On Christmas Eve, I made the leap to Smashwords, putting up "Wendigo." Soon afterward, I "greased the wheel" a little bit by paying $5.00 to "promote" the post announcing the story was now on Smashwords. The number of "likes" I've gotten from my Middle Eastern fans indicated the move was much appreciated. Within 24 hours, I'd sold ten copies of "Wendigo" in two batches of five. I figured Smashwords' sale of stories in multiple file formats (to allow people using different e-readers or not using e-readers at all) and not being limited by country had paid dividends.

Then when checking my Smashwords Dashboard, I noticed my royalties had been cut in half. I queried Smashwords and looked at the Excel spreadsheet and found that five of the ten sales had been refunded due to "fraudulent payment method." I wrote Smashwords and learned that thieves use Smashwords to either test out stolen cards or "max out" said cards. My remaining five sales were refunded as well for the same reason.

(Smashwords limits purchases to five at a time to minimize the impact of fraud--some poor author "sold" 1,000 copies to a fraudster and then had his purchases refunded.)

Rather than earning $7.85 in a day, I'd earned zero--and my royalties remained zero as of 12/29. I'm not going to complain too much, since it's just one short story and I've only been a Smashwords member for a week or so. Some discussion on LinkedIn indicates that "premium status" (which ensures one's writing is marketed on other sites) on Smashwords is where the real money comes from, and that's still pending. Before I pass judgement on Smashwords as a whole, I'll wait to see what happens with that. I might even buy a Facebook ad for "Wendigo," since it's much, MUCH less limited than Amazon KDP and that might have been a reason behind the first Facebook ad campaign's failure.

My strategy for the moment is to publish the three remaining stories on Smashwords as soon as their KDP Select periods end, which will be in February and March. Any future stories I self-publish will be on KDP Select for one term (to allow for one or two promotional days) and then placed on Smashwords. Maybe I'll post my stories on lulu.com as well.

Most-Reviewed Story So Far: "The Beast of the Bosporus"

My experiment in publishing short fiction for e-readers has entered into its third month. So far, although "Melon Heads" remains my top seller with a combined 200 sales and giveaways, "The Beast of the Bosporus" has gotten the most reviews on blogs.

Here they are:

Matthew Stienberg

Matt Mitrovich

Sean Korsgaard

It warms the heart to see my work so well-received, especially when Matt S. said I inspired him to blog and write.

However, blog reviews don't necessarily translate into large numbers of sales, at least at first. I've sold six copies of "Beast" so far and given away around 82 for promotional purposes. This is not to show a lack of appreciation for these upstanding gentlemen and the help they've provided, mind, but it is a lesson.

(Matt M. said his review got 19 "up" votes on the Lovecraft sub-reddit, so it might sell better in the long run. Things like reddit and StumbleUpon are avenues I've not really touched.)


At some point, I'm going to buy some Facebook advertising. When I did a Facebook ad campaign in the summer of 2011, it brought large amounts of traffic here, both as a result of direct ad-clicking and from people who'd linked my blog pages to the Starcraft Wiki, ensuring a continuous flow of hits (1,500-odd so far) from there. One of the downsides of self-publishing is that you've got to pay for advertising, not your publisher. I've run the numbers and I'd need to sell three copies (I get $0.35 per story sold as royalties) to justify every $1 spent on Facebook ads.

I'll keep you posted on how this goes.

Got an Amazon Author Page and Sold a Story

In addition to the premiere of "The Beast of the Bosporus," November has seen a couple more strides in my speculative-fiction writing career.

1. I now have an Amazon.com author page, which can be found here. I'm told it's a good way to increase sales. I haven't noticed any increase in the sales of my older stories, "Melon Heads" and "I am the Wendigo." Then again, the page has only been in existence for a few days.

Given how blog posts and Twitter updates appear on the page as well, I'm thinking this could be a good funnel for traffic to both. That of course, depends on how many people visit it.

2. The other night, I received an e-mail from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly telling me that they've accepted my short story "Nicor" for their January or March editions. I first wrote "Nicor" in 2006, possibly around the time I studied abroad in Great Britain. I definitely remember sketching a doodle in my notebook entitled "Intruder in the Hall" based on the Beowulfstory.

HFQ posts its stories for free to all on its website, so you all will be able to read "Nicor" at no charge.

Now I'm seriously wondering if I should start writing a screenplay, just like I'm doing now for "Coil Gun" and "Melon Heads." "Nicor" is the sort of story that could make a good monster movie, with the protagonist losing his enthusiasm for war providing it some additional thoughtfulness.

Character Interview: The Wendigo

(I sit on a moss-covered log deep in the Canadian woods. Across the clearing from me, on another log, sits the Wendigo. He reaches into his mouth with a foot-long finger and picks some meat from between his fangs with a black claw. He greedily licks it off with his long tongue.)

Author: So, how are you feeling today?

Wendigo: Hungry, as always. You're lucky I've just fed and can talk with you without risking your safety.

Author: What is a typical day like in your life?

Wendigo: I don't sleep much. I spend most of the day hunting. I can run as fast as one of your, what's that word, automobiles, so I cover a lot of territory.

Author: You don't know what a car is?

Wendigo: When I was a man, people walked or rode horses. There were ships that sailed on the seas using steam engines, but these "cars" of yours were a distant dream. These "all terrain vehicles" even more so.

(sigh)

Someone actually got away from me on an "ATV." That was embarrassing. The authorities no doubt thought he was drunk, but I had to hunt elsewhere for awhile lest men with guns come looking.

Author: You fear guns?

Wendigo: Of course! What predator doesn't fear guns? Guns make even the smallest and weakest prey able to hurt or kill the greatest manqueller. There are only two ways to kill a Wendigo, and a firearm can manage one.

Author: What are those ways?

(The wendigo snorts.)

Wendigo: I was most assuredly not born yesterday.

Author: You're the boss. Are there any other creatures like you?

Wendigo: There were, once. Long ago, it was a lot easier to get snowed in out in the woods and have to feed on your fellow humans to survive. We can sense that. If we don't find you and kill you, there's a good chance you'll end up becoming one of us.

(Pause.)

Now there aren't many trappers or Indians left. A lot more tourists, but they don't stick around when the hard winters come. I doubt if there've been any new wendigowak born since that "Second World War" I've heard of. And even we can be killed or simply die of old age, even though we generally live many of your lifetimes.

Author: You said earlier you fear guns. If men with guns can kill you, wouldn't a body be proof of your existence?

Wendigo: We tend to crumble away quickly after our deaths. As you can see, there's not really much substance to us.

(The wendigo rises to his feet. Although he's around ten to twelve feet tall, he's absolutely emaciated. Each muscle stands out beneath pale skin and I can count each rib. Through his abdomen, I can see the faintest traces of his spine.)

If some lucky shot was able to bring a wendigo down, he'd fall apart when someone tried to drag him away.

Author: That would explain the lack of physical evidence.

(The wendigo steps forward. Drool trickles past ruined, chewed-away lips.)

Author: Could you please sit back down?

(The wendigo closes his huge eyes for a moment, then retreats back to his log.)

Wendigo: I would leave soon, if I were you. My hunger sometimes makes it hard to control myself.

Author: Thank you for your time.

Wendigo: You're most welcome.

The Wendigo is the protagonist of my short horror story "I am the Wendigo," which is available here from Amazon.com. I got the idea of a character interview from Malissa Thomas.

My eBook Experiment, Success and Predictions...

Per my earlier post, I posted two pieces of my short fiction on Amazon.com for the Kindle.

They are "Melon Heads" and "I am the Wendigo", both of which had cover art done by Udo Wooten. One of the reasons self-published works don't do well is because they often have really bad cover art, and thanks to Udo, that wasn't a problem.

Here's what I've learned so far. Both sales and free giveaways were highest in September, the month they were released. I made 16 sales of "Melon Heads" and 6 sales of "Wendigo," gaining me $7.70 in total revenue, along with a combined 300-ish in giveaways. However, come October, "Melon Heads" sales had drastically declined, with one sale (and a refund) and "Wendigo" sales had vanished entirely. I've set them to be given away free today (Oct. 14) and tomorrow (Oct. 15), and so far I've given away five copies of "Wendigo" and eleven of "Melon Heads" (the latter mostly in Britain for some reason). Hopefully word of mouth would generate some sales after the free period ends.

My friends Jeff Baker and James R. Tuck both had offered advice on the matter. Jeff said people he knew who were living off self-published eBook revenues made money on volume. James agreed with his point--his advice on making money by Kindle-publishing short fiction was "churn and burn."

(I have seen at least one cross-purchase--someone who purchased "I am the Wendigo" also purchased "Melon Heads." I imagine the more I write, the greater this effect will be.)

I do have a fair bit of unsold short fiction inventory, although some of it is unsold for a reason. I've got a Lovecraftian Western called "Old Daniels' Mine," for example, which is a mess whose length makes it problematic to revise. I've heard short stories aren't really worth the time you put into them, so I would probably be better-served working on my longer stuff rather than tinkering with this even if I could make a few bucks in the short run on the Kindle.

However, I do have some unsold stories that are in much better shape.

1. "The Beast of the Bosporus"-The Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire decides to think outside the box after the Battle of Lepanto, and gets involved with the affairs of the Great Old Ones. I wrote the earliest version in 2004 and have been cutting it since then, removing excessive description--an earlier version was described as "Toynbee with monsters"--and even one entire character. Like "Melon Heads," although it's now a much stronger work, I don't have many places left to send it.

2. "Illegal Alien"-Also a college story, this one tells the tale of a group of undocumented immigrants who stumble into the middle of an alien war in the Arizona desert. It also shows off my propensity for awful puns. I've been revising this one for awhile and have been running out of markets to send it.

3. "Breeding Pair"-The title alludes to the practice of collecting male-female pairs of endangered species to ensure there's a safe, viable breeding population somewhere. As applied to humans, this risks venturing into rather raunchy territory, although since I have no interest in writing trash, things don't get very far. The story also ventures into the idea that Christ visited alien races as well, as expressed in C.S. Lewis's essay "Religion and Rocketry," which is contained in his book The World's Last Night, and Alice Meynell's poem "Christ in the Universe."

I've never even sent this to my critique groups, so this might be a bit premature. However, it is set in the same universe as "Illegal Alien," which I'm much more likely to Kindle-publish, and given the content and subject matter, it risks being too risque for the Christian markets and too Christian for the secular markets (on Critters, someone complained about "alien snake Jesus"), leaving self-publishing my only option.

To provide cover art, I may expand my repertoire of artists to include Alex Claw, whose work can be found here. Alex seems more focused on depicting human beings than Udo is, and I've already put some thought into what he might be able to do for "Illegal Alien" and "Breeding Pair."

"Melon Heads" Available Now

I have just dipped my toe into the waters of self-publishing.  I have made my short story "Melon Heads" available on Amazon.com for the Kindle.

"Melon Heads" is based on an urban legend I read about in college.  The gist of it is that back in the 1950s, a doctor in Ohio offered to treat some hydrocephalic children in his rural home.  Unfortunately for the kids, he was an abusive sadist who experimented on them.  One day they rose up against him, killed him and ate him, and fled into the surrounding woods.  They've been living there ever since, killing animals and (according to legend) attacking people.

I figured nobody had actually done a horror story based on the legend and started writing.  It's gone through many drafts and although still a horror story, now has some touches of black comedy.  I'm writing a screenplay based on it now.

I've set it to be free for the Kindle today and tomorrow, sacrificing two of my five Amazon Prime free promotional days.  If you could read and review (definitely review, even if you don't like it), that would be awesome.

This probably won't be the last one either.  I sold a short story in college called "I am the Wendigo" to a webzine that paid me $20 and then went under a few months later.  Now the original market is gone, I can do with it what I'd like, but the market for horror reprints isn't that strong.  Amazon.com provides a perfect solution.

Self-Publishing, E-Readers, and Markets That Don't Pay (Well)

I recently made the decision to self-publish my two short horror stories "Melon Heads" and "I am the Wendigo" on Amazon.com (for the Kindle) and Smashwords (for the other platforms).  "Melon Heads" is a piece I haven't been able to sell anywhere else, but "I am the Wendigo" was my first fiction sale back in 2006-2007.

(A now-defunct webzine called Chimaera Serials paid $20 for it. CS didn't last long after it published the story and after a couple of years, the website vanished entirely.)

I picked "Melon Heads" to be fodder for my self-publishing experiment because it's among my best stories, but I haven't yet found a publisher willing to pay professional or semi-professional rates.  "Wendigo" has a different problem--there aren't very many markets for horror reprints, at least those that pay much.

In the past, I might have been willing to submit to a market offering a low rate or even for free simply to get exposure.  However, the Internet and the rise of e-readers has changed that.  I could sell certain rights to these stories for a one-time payment of $5, $10, or $20, or I could put them on an e-reader.  My friend Jeff Baker has posted a few stories to Amazon and Smashwords and he's made more money than if he'd sold them to many lower-paying markets.

If this is representative of any kind of trend, it bodes ill for the lowest-paying markets. 

However, self-publishing short stories has its pitfalls like self-publishing a novel does.  I need to create my own cover--a recent article I read attributed one reason self-published books fail is bad cover art. The problem is, good cover art costs money. I doubt I'm going to make a whole lot of money once I put them online, at least in the short run, so spending a lot on cover art defeats the whole purpose. There's also the matter of editing, which I think my stuff won't have a problem with given how many times I've had friends and members of my writing group pick over it. And then there's formatting them properly for e-readers. I've downloaded the free e-publishing software Calibre, which should help me format the stories, but I haven't actually started using it yet.

That's a ray of hope for the lower-paying fiction markets. It's a lot easier to simply write and polish a story and submit it than to self-publish, even if the monetary returns are higher. After all, one's time has value. However, even if self-publishing short fiction for the e-reader market doesn't obliterate markets offering only a token payment or exposure, it will certainly make life more difficult for them.