Sneak Peek at the Midnight Brain

 Short stories? 

Check out The Midnight Brain.  Short stories & sneak peeks at upcoming novels. 

Share, comment, enjoy! 

Discovering Patreon

Still working on The Midnight Brain and figuring out Patreon. Truth? I've been busy with another project (so many projects!) and haven't invested the time I need to get all the answers.

Today I'm doing more research. One of the things on Patreon is setting up tiers for donations. So if someone wants to donate $1 per month they get X, if they donate $5 per month they get X and Y. So, this is not what I thought, but I'm not giving up. I think I can still set it up as donate whatever you want and I'll keep writing. I've been exploring other author sites on Patreon to see what their set up is and how it's working for them. Here's a good article on those authors.

Should I offer a once a month short story for the higher tier? If so, what genre? Maybe an autographed copy of something I have up on Amazon?  Would that be something anyone would want? (personally I love autographed books and have a bit of a collection) I write in a few genres and I'd want whoever donates to get something that they'd like, so should I shift the Brain to just one genre? Decisions, decisions. Of can I just keep going with my multi-genre plan and write whatever comes down from the universe?

The story on the Brain  now is something I wrote a few years ago and it's a fully finished piece. I have more fully finished pieces in the desk that can follow this and have done quite a few short stories. Most of the shorts were more toward the romance genre as I used to write for the confessions. (So sad they went out of biz!) And of course there are plenty more unfinished pieces lying in the dust around here, too. So now, what to give if I set up tiers?

Any Patreon people around here? Advice? Your experience?
Anyone here a Patron on Patreon? What do you look for? Why do you give?

Inkbok Launches!

I came across Inkbok a few months ago and thought it was an interesting concept. Writers put their books and short stories up, Inkbok charges for the read (check out their very reasonable fees here) and writers make money. I know there must be other places like this, but one of the things that drew me in was that a percentage goes to charity. I like the thought that here at Inkbok, it's not all about the money. Something good is here, too.

(Inkbok, if you happen to read this...I volunteer for a non-profit animal rescue...they would love to be on your charity list; Castle of Dreams Animal Rescue)

Today Inkbok goes live! So if you're looking for a good read with a very wide range of genres and subjects in both fiction and non-fiction check out Inkbok!

While you're there you can read my short stories; No Redemption and Escaping Pigwell. Warning! They're darker than my usual writing, but I'm glad they found a home on Inkbok.

Short Story Sales

Investigating short story venues and finding a lot of places to submit these babies, too. However, in reading about the volume of submissions they get, I  have to wonder if collecting these stories and publishing them as a book of shorts on Amazon would be more lucrative.

I'm seeing some writers who sell them on other websites that specialize in shorts and considering submitting to them, too. Nokblok is a new one, (the editor responded to one of my posts here) there's a Sci-fi one that sends me emails with a new story every week. I'm sure there's more that I'm just not thinking of right now.

I crashed on Constant Content this week. :(
Over two years ago I sold a few articles there and did okay. Had one rejected.  Then got a new job and stopped using them. Last month I resubmitted my rewritten rejection and it was rejected again. Then submitted two and both were accepted. Yay! Both those were on cooking. My next submission was a How-to art project. It was rejected so fast I don't think the editor had time to actually read it. The reason for rejection was grammar/punctuation. A blanket response I've seen other's complain about on the CC forum. Its like the editor's lazy response for "I found a mistake/don't like the subject/its 1 a.m. and I'm tired" excuse. That doesn't sound like "editing" to me. It really upset me at first because I work hard on these articles. Then I went into the forum and found a lot of questioning about the editor's responses. Mostly it seemed they just had cut and paste responses that they tossed out haphazardly. Some even questioned if there was a new editor on staff that wielded a reckless sword even on writer's who had 100's of accepted articles. After the third rejection in over two years they suspended my account. Three strikes you're out. Blah.

That experience got me thinking. Do I really want to write that stuff? Sure, it's money and I can find another place to sell, but really? Is that what my soul wants to write?

No.
Simply, no.

I want to write stories. Which brings me back to the short story questions. Where and how to sell.
I also thought of another idea which might be toooooo ego driven, but hear me out.
What about a blog to post these stories with a note; If you liked this story please help keep the stories flowing. Contribute $5 via paypal here.

Would something like that work? Would it make more or less than the few bucks a short story place would pay?
Pros;
I could write what I want. Any genre, any time.
Blogs are timeless. You can write something three years ago and it's still crawling around the internet today.
$5 isn't much so people might think, sure, why not.
Blogs are free...where's the risk?
Adsense could be added to this blog (not that Adsense ever made me much anyway, but hey, a nickle is still a nickle.)

Cons;
Nothing could happen. No readers, no income. Readers without income. (so what? I just take the blog down)
How do you tax this? Pay taxes?
I'm not a well established enough writer to bring in the crowd.
It's on honor system...does that ever work?
If it doesn't work and I want to sell these stories to magazines, some won't touch previously pub stories. Even on blogs.

Still thinking about this idea. I have several stories in different genres, some love stories, some mayhem, some paranormal so I'm not sure if I have enough to fit one genre collection.
And I'll probably start sending to the True's again. They pay slow but pretty good. I generally score about $150 a story there depending on word count.

Where do you sell? What do you think of the Story Blog idea? Am I crazy? (or desperate...that's understandable too. :)

Short Stories on Amazon

     I have lots of short stories or stories that just never went any further than they did (if that makes sense). These are stories I feel are good and always wanted to do something with them. Now I see short stories up on Amazon so I'm thinking of going for it.
     The first one I want to put up is a vampire story. I've been working on it a while and I'm hoping it goes up this week. So now I second guess myself? Are vampires over? Am I wasting my time on this while I should be working on something more timely? Then I think, are vampires ever over?
     My daughter tells me to go back to the zombie story because they're popular right now, but my zombie story is really long and will take a long time to get ready. Because it's so long I needed a break and that's why I started poking around at the shorts.
     The one thing I did do with this story is I left an opening at the end. Meaning I can write a part two to the story if: 1. It sells well and I see readers might be interested in reading more about the character. 2. I get bored with another book and want to take a break.
     I like this vampire I created so the chance to write her again will be strong. I kind of want to know where she goes from here. How does she handle her new life as a vampire? What does she do about her maker's strange sense of humor?
     Do you do shorts on Amazon? How do we price these things? I really wish we could price by size or something because every piece of advice I read on pricing contradicts the other. I'm thinking 99 cents. It's about 60 pages.
     If you have shorts, how do they sell? Will you do more?

Alternate Universes in a Writing Career

Since the damn Sequester has but a sizable dent in my unemployment income (22.5% cut!)and the job hunt in New Jersey is like banging your head against the wall (one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation), I'm searching for other writing venues while I wait for my books to hit the best seller list.

8-)~

In my web wanderings I found this site; http://writingcareer.com/

One of the places I found here is; http://pseudopod.org/guidelines/ Which accepts the darker side of writing; horror, Poe-esq stuff and the weirder side of our brain train. (Charles? Would some of your stuff fit here?)

I mostly write spiritual, light stuff but every once in a while something dark and evil falls out of my head and I just have to get it down on paper. I think the way the human brain functions will always fascinate me. I wonder what drives people to do things or why a seemingly nice person would suddenly bat a complete stranger over the head with a shovel?
How can you not wonder about this stuff? The newspapers and evening news are full of these weird happenings. And sometimes stories form and just beg to jump onto the page.

I often wonder about a pen name. If I write about God, dogs and angels, should I put my vampire, bat-crazy-shit, and evil dark stuff under a different name so my readers are warned about the dark side of the brain?

Write on, my friends...I'll see you in the pages....

Got Shorts? Where to put them?

I write a bunch of short stories. Maybe they morph into something longer, maybe they stay short. They are scattered within the doc file on my computer and now, dealing with lazy writer syndrome, I've been wandering through this stuff, looking for inspiration. This got me thinking I should do something with them, but what?

I believe my choices are hunt down mags that take shorts or look into that Amazon thing? I had a little trouble finding the information on Amazon for shorts. It looks like they sell for like 49 cents.

I write for the Trues (True Confession, True Story) and they pay about $150 a story depending on word count. These stories are easy to write and the response time to get accepted or rejected is fairly quick. And you can do it via email which I like.

So now I wonder if I can make more money on Amazon. My second issue is not everything I write is a fit for the Trues. Some is a bit darker. Trues are uplifting, happy stories. Murder and scary stuff don't fit.

So, tell me...what do you do with your shorts?

The Trues...

My story, Never Give UP, is in September's issue of True Romance.
:)
And they put in a cute pic of a dog there that totally matched the dog in my story. Yay!
Woof!

Taking a Break and Guilt

I usually have several book length projects going at a time. (And I think this is my problem-I'm toooo ambidextrous.) But lately I've taken a break from working on this sort of stuff and moved to short stories. It's like having more room to breathe. Books are a commitment. They go on for hours, days, months, but a short can be cranked out in hours (not counting the rewrite). I'm having some issues finding homes for them all, but at least they're keeping my writer's muscle flexing.
So? Do you ever need a break? What do you do?

Good News!

I made a sale! I made a sale! I made a sale!
It's a short story but ...I made a sale!
:)
Smiling now.