My third author-published short story, That Which Dwells Beneath, is now available on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Nook and via direct sale.

Here’s the description:

Detective Elliot Winter believes an innocent man may hang, framed for murders he didn’t commit. He’s convinced the condemned knows too much, and even if the man escapes the hangman’s noose, powerful people want him dead.

On the grounds of the abbey at the edge of town, the catacombs conceal terrible secrets. There are whispers of murder, ritual sacrifice, and worse. Winter cannot abide a world where such crimes are allowed to go unpunished.

In a race against time, Detective Winter risks his life and sanity to unravel a conspiracy concealing something far more sinister than even he can imagine.

That Which Dwells Beneath was first published in Lovecraft eZine, December 2014 (Issue #33).

I hope you enjoy the story, and look for more soon!

Tags: fiction, self-publishing, short story

My second author-published short story is now available exclusively on Amazon.com.

Here’s the description:

Amelia and Robert Burke are traveling along a lonely stretch of highway in the Australian Outback, in search of the mysterious Min Min lights.

Their progress is halted by a blinding dust storm. Then Robert goes missing.

Trapped in their car and with little hope of survival, Amelia begins documenting their investigation and the horrors that lurk beyond the windscreen.

Night Lights joins my other recently author-published story, Back Again, which I talk more about in my earlier post.

Why the Amazon exclusivity, you may be asking? This is all part of the experiment. By making the story Amazon-exclusive, it’s not only available for sale, but also means it’s automatically enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (KU) . Readers who sign up for a KU subscription (currently $9.99 / month) get to read it for free.

For short stories, the current economics of the program mean it’s possible to earn substantially more per download from a KU borrow ($1 or more) vs direct purchase at 99 cents (35 cents or so), provided the reader reads more than 10% of the eBook. It remains to be seen how long this will be true, but I’ll be watching how things go with interest.

I’d also like to point out my initial cover design was greatly improved with the help from a reader on the kboards forums. Thanks, cagnes!

I hope you enjoy the story, and look for more soon!

Tags: fiction, self-publishing, short story

My first author-published short story is now available on Amazon.com and for sale direct from my website.

Here’s the description:

Tom Granger, a prisoner trapped in Kingsworth penitentiary, finds himself defending the prison against an alien invasion.

He soon discovers the situation is even worse than he’d realized when he encounters the enemy’s most terrifying weapon yet…

I’ve been planning this publishing experiment for quite awhile now, but put things on the back burner to focus on apps this year. When I finally finished a flurry of app updates, I decided it was time to work on this project.

To prepare, I watched some cover design video lectures from WMG Publishing and read the fantastic Zen of eBook Formatting by Guido Henkel.

I also found a great stock illustration on Dreamtime to use as the basis for the cover. I used the Mac image-editing software Acorn to complete the cover design.

This is all very much an experiment, but I’m planning to publish more of my stories in future. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to submit my work to publishers, as I have for much of the past decade. Look for another new short story soon in the next issue of Lovecraft eZine.

Enjoy!

Tags: fiction, self-publishing, short story