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.
New 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 sales on the last day of the month), but my December sales were a delightful surprise. Seems to validate many indie publishing theories that a unique title, interesting premise, and attention-grabbing cover do more to bring in sales than constant Facebook/Twitter blasts.
Now time for the next phase of my experiment — what kind of sales spike (if any) will I get from a blog/Facebook/Twitter blast? I’ll let you know on 1/31/12.
A Goblin Seeks a Career Change
What’s a poor goblin to do when a life of pillaging, barn burning, and general mayhem has lost its luster? Find out in this short story about Gorko, a goblin who wants to discover the world outside his Cave and Kin.
My attempt to see how well YA e-short stories sell. Verdict — I ain’t gonna get rich, but better than I expected for a short story from a no-name author who didn’t market the thing.
Kindle | Nook | Smashwords (all e-formats)
About Those Probes…
A short story with a humorous and somewhat insensitive take on alien abductions. Harry Hindman has been repeatedly abducted by aliens since he was sixteen. Now, with the end of the world approaching, he finds out just what was up with those probes…
This one is really popular with the Nook crowd. Not so much with Kindle and Smashwords readers. Do Nookers just have a sicker sense of humor than Kindlers and Smashies?
Book 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 doesn’t get bogged down in detailed descriptions of the science behind his contraptions. To many SF readers, that’s a bug and not a feature. But I’m among the SF fans who feel story trumps gadgets, and Lacuna does that with just enough plausible science when it’s appropriate to the story.