In a recent email conversation with fellow author David Drazul, I mentioned that I’d grown tired of large fantasy/sci-fi “door jam” novels (books so big they could prop open a heavy door) due mainly to their emphasis on minutiae world-building over fast pacing. When I think back to what I’ve read over the last year, […]
Read MoreZERVAKAN – Free Fantasy Novel – Prologue
Cover by TJ Lomas. I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday. It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com. If you’re uncomfortable getting something for […]
Read MoreMy kind of diet
Lately I’ve been a follower of the notion that if I’m writing for my blog, I’m not writing my novels. As a full-time employee and a full-time father, there are only so many writing hours in the day, and the novels will always go to the head of the “writing time” line. So to avoid […]
Read MoreReview for ASPECT OF PALE NIGHT
I just got a nice review of my mystery novel ASPECT OF PALE NIGHT from the Good Book Alert review site. An excerpt: Rob Steiner describes mystery ASPECT OF PALE NIGHT as having a similar voice to Stephanie Plum, which drew my interest right away. Plum is a quirky character with a lot of spice […]
Read MoreEbook Pricing Wars: Episode 1,209,843
Zoe Winters wrote a thoughtful and reasoned post on ebook pricing yesterday that’s worth the read for all you indie publishers struggling with the pricing question. An excerpt: I am bolding this next part because if you don’t hear any of the rest of this, please hear this: 99 cent and free ebooks are not […]
Read MoreHan? Chewie?
Treasure hunters recently took a sonar image of a strange object on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. It’s 197 feet in diameter and looks like the Millennium Falcon.
Read MoreThe longest-running experiment ever
The pitch-drop experiment at the University of Queensland in Australia has been running for 85 years. There’s even a live webcam where you can watch the pitch drop at a blazing one drop every 10.6 years.
Read MoreNew short stories!
I published two short stories as ebooks back in December without announcing it to anyone, just to see what would happen. Would I get sales through sheer discovery, or would my stories sit online in undiscovered limbo? I haven’t checked my January sales (one of my New Year’s resolutions is to only check my book […]
Read MoreBook Review: Lacuna: Demons of the Void by David Adams
Just posted my review of Lacuna: Demons of the Void by David Adams on the New Podler Review of Books. Fans of straight-forward alien invasion stories will like this one. I liked it, too, despite some copy editing issues and dubious economics. Here’s an excerpt from the review: Adams has written an action-packed story that […]
Read MoreResponding to Comment spam
Like most blogs, I get my share of spam in the Comments section of each post. My spam blocker does a good job of eliminating most of it before I even see it, but some comments make it through the filter and end up in my “pending” folder. I don’t want to let them through […]
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