Tag Archives: self-publishing

Something new coming out – THE CAVE

I am finally ready to publish something new! I’ve finished up a 25,000 word novella called THE CAVE and we are putting the finishing touches on the cover. When the cover is done, I will be publishing it as an ebook for Kindle. This is probably the first book that I’m going to try for a wider release. I’m also planning on publishing it (not immediately but as soon as I have time to do the extra work) to the other ebook platforms, either through Smashwords or Draft-2-Digital. I hope to have it eventually available for Nook, iBooks, and Kobo.

The story has been through my personal editing wringer (for what it’s worth) and a first reader (Tom McAlister) who gave me some very good input. To me (and to Tom), it reads nicely. But then today I had my confidence shaken as I looked at the notes that one of the editors of QUANTUM ZOO sent me on my story. Most were copy-edit types of corrections, like repetition of a word too close together or wrong use of an m-dash. But some were just clarity edits, and when I read them, I realized that her suggestions (the copy-editor was J.M. Ney-Grimm) did clarify the writing in those areas.

But then I remembered Dean Wesley Smith suggesting that you can be paralyzed by such doubts, and I don’t intend to allow it to paralyze me. So here it comes. Maybe by the weekend, more likely sometime next week.

I’m working on the blurb right now, but here’s a bit about what the novella is about. Four boys discover a cave in a forest preserve/park near their homes. They decide that they are going to explore it by themselves, because they know that if they let the authorities know about it, no one will let them go into it. So they start to excavate the entrance out, and are joined by the cutest girl in the neighborhood, who, to their surprise, is very interested in caves. But the cave has dangers — not all from the physical challenges presented by their exploration.

It’s a story about young love, about trust, about learning to care for others, and about friendships. It’s also a story about something strange that has it in for them and wants something from them that they’re not really prepared to give.

While I’ll classify the tale as horror, I don’t know if it is strictly horror. There isn’t a fright around every corner. Mostly it’s just a story about kids discovering the world around them, and discovering themselves.

It was inspired, in part at least, by Richard Laymon’s THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW, and I tried to create the feel of the kids’ experience with something very strange that I found in that novel.

I’m thinking that I’m going to make some pricing moves with all of my works. The short fiction can’t go any lower, but I think I’ll probably lower the price of all my collections to $0.99 for a while. See if I can lure any new readers in.

As soon as this one is out there, I’ll move on to working on my band trip horror novella, a 35,000+ word story with the working title THE INN. And a second, short novel called RECIPROCAL EVIL, clocks in at about 45,000 words and is currently being read by a first reader. I would like to get them all out before fall. Hopefully my dental mystery, tentatively called DEATH BY APPOINTMENT, will get finished up and I can look into editing it and polishing it.

More information to follow. Watch this space (and Facebook) for release notes…

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My second free promotion results…

So my promotion ended yesterday. It ended with a slight uptick on the downloaded copies of my two short story trios but it still was unimpressive. Thank you to everyone who DID download the stories. Hope you find something you like. Even more, I hope you’ll maybe try something else I’ve written. DIE 6 has some pretty good stories in it….I think…

So how did it compare to my first giveaway, where I promoted my titles SOLE OCCUPANT and DEAD OR ALIVE? Well, that time I gave away 144 copies of the two titles. The first of them did better. I don’t think it’s surprising. The cover for SOLE OCCUPANT was done by a professional, while the cover for DEAD OR ALIVE was done by…well, by me.

This time I gave away 71 copies in total. Forty nine copies of JACK’O’LANTERN and 32 copies of THE GATEWAY were given away (by zombies…no, not really…by me). Half the number of copies, though almost as many copies of JACK’O’LANTERN were given away as of DEAD OR ALIVE. Anyway, why so few this time? I have a few theories.

First, I did not have the opportunity to tag my giveaway with another giveaway. In that case it was QUANTUM ZOO, with the giveaway promoted by all twelve authors (to some degree) and D.J. Gelner shared my status update, where I plugged both my own stories’ free status as well as that of QUANTUM ZOO. This time, no shares from any authors. (One offered but didn’t follow through, far as I could tell.) I did have two friends share it with their own friends, and there is not much overlap between our groups of friends. Anyway, when D.J. shared it on FB, my post views approached 300. This time my post views were around 150 (maybe a bit more). Half the page views, half the downloads. Plus, people who were downloading QZ might have theoretically searched out works by the other authors in the collection and found a couple of mine on promotion, and grabbed them that way. I’ll never know.

Second, these two covers are probably my worst covers. I did them myself, and they were the first and second covers I ever did. I’ll probably try to redo them sometime when I have the time. But I don’t want to spend any actual money on them. At $0.99 per download (which means $0.35 to me) it just does not make sense to spend the money on them.

It’s a shame, really. I’ve had really good feedback on some of the stories. Annetta Ribken once said of JACK’O’LANTERN (seen in a less edited form on the Friendly Fiction forum on Journalscape) that she could totally see it in a YA Halloween themed collection. J. Michael Major listed AMERICA’S PASTIME (part of THE GATEWAY trio) as one of his favorites of the 14 DARK WINDOWS collection. THE MOMENT also received good comments when I posted it on a blog a few years back. And SARAH’S PUPPY won a contest on The Book and Candle Pub several years ago. I think they’re decent stories.

Here’s Annetta’s quote (about JACK’O’LANTERN):

I can so see this in a YA Halloween anthology.
Cute and interesting premise. nicely done!

Author Eric Mayer (of the John the Lord Chamberlain mysteries) said this about THE MOMENT:

I enjoyed the story. From what I recall of eighth grade it seems true to life. Although I only wish I could’ve been bright enough to ever come up with a ruse like that. I’m surprised you could concoct this from six words not of your own choosing. Out of curiosity, do you recall what the words were?

I couldn’t, by the way. I remembered “pirate” and “tommy gun” and “black cat” once I read it and looked for them.

And J. Michael Major’s Amazon review of 14 DARK WINDOWS:

It’s always fun to discover a new, talented author, and Scott Dyson is my latest find. The fourteen creepy tales here range from wistful and romantic (“The Moment” and “Ghost of Love”) to the horrific (“Hot Spot” and “The House at the Bend in the Road”). My personal favorites are “The Only Solution” and “America’s Pastime,” but all are wonderfully written and there is something here for everyone — just don’t read these hair-raising stories when you are alone at night! I look forward to reading more by Dyson. Buy a copy today and tell your friends about this exciting new author!

So there you have it. The results of the giveaway.

I had been debating whether to put ODD MAN OUT on promotion next month. It’s my best cover, and I like both stories. But I don’t know if it’s worth it. Maybe I’ll just schedule it for a two day giveaway or something like that.

Better get something new written and published. And soon.

Take care! Thanks if you downloaded them. Heck, thanks if you’re reading my blog!

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Free Promotion is here!

Started today, January 29th. For five days only, ending February 2nd (Monday).

Two of my titles are free for Kindle on Amazon via KDP promotion.

Here are the links:

and

Please download them, read them, if you like them, consider leaving a review. There are SIX (!!!) short stories contained in the two titles. See the previous post for a description, or check out the Amazon book page for that same description. They’re more or less flash fiction pieces. The longest clocks in at something around 1800 words, if I recall correctly.

Thanks for grabbing them!

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Another KDP Select promo coming up…

I’m running a promotion on two of my titles, THE GATEWAY (with AMERICA’S PASTIME and HOT SPOT) and JACK’O’LANTERN (with THE MOMENT and SARAH’S PUPPY). They will be free starting on Thursday January 29 for five days. The promo ends on Monday, February 2.

An imaginative boy discovers that the gateway for all evil has been opened, and his neighbor has been possessed! The fate of the whole world, or at least his neighborhood, is in his hands now. He must act to destroy the Gateway.

A 1500 word short tale of horror.

(Also found in the collection 14 Dark Windows.)

Contains two bonus stories:
America’s Pastime – a 1300 word short horror story, &
Hot Spot – a 700 word short horror story (dedicated to Dale Vincent Schwitalla)

As four young wanna-be Halloween vandals terrorize the far side of their neighborhood by smashing pumpkins, they encounter a jack’o’lantern that is by far the biggest and ugliest pumpkin they’ve seen this night. But this pumpkin is more than it appears.

A mild horror short story of about 1300 words.

*Also contains TWO bonus stories (NEITHER IS HORROR):
THE MOMENT (about 1500 words) and SARAH’S PUPPY (about 1000 words)
And a short author’s note.

(These titles can also be found in the collection 14 Dark Windows.)

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Please feel free to download them, starting Thursday January 29. Thank you!

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Kindle Giveaway (via KDP Select) – Success or Failure?

So the giveaway is over. I put two of my titles, SOLE OCCUPANT and DEAD OR ALIVE, on free promotion from Wednesday 12/10/14 to Sunday 12/14/14. How did they do, you ask? Well, between the two of them, I gave away 144 copies of the two short stories. I really didn’t know what to expect as far as numbers, but it was mentioned to me by SF/Thriller author Steven M. Moore that giveaways used to be measured in the thousands and now they’re measured in the hundreds.

I piggy-backed this giveaway on the concurrent giveaway of QUANTUM ZOO, hoping for a few shares of my posts promoting both giveaways on Facebook so that I would be exposed to other authors’ fans, but the only share I got was by D.J. Gelner, the editor of QUANTUM ZOO. (Thanks DJ!) It did help, because instead of around a hundred people seeing my posts, close to 300 saw the first post with the links in the comments.

SOLE OCCUPANT got more downloads than DEAD OR ALIVE did, in the US by 75 to 50. It’s a much shorter title, with two stories adding up right around 3100 words, while DEAD OR ALIVE is a single story of about 7800 words, something like that. DEAD OR ALIVE is part of a larger “trilogy” of vampire detective stories, which I hoped might work in its favor. SOLE OCCUPANT has a cover made by professional Rich Siegle, while DEAD OR ALIVE features a home-made cover. I don’t think it sucks, but no way is it as good as Rich’s cover.

My hope was that perhaps I might get a paid download or three of one of the collections. I haven’t had a paid sale in a month. My other goal was to get a review or three. But so far, out of 144 titles given away, there are no additional reviews, either good or bad. I don’t know if that means that most of the downloads haven’t actually been read, so I suppose there’s still some time.

A third goal was simply to get some of my work into the hands of readers, who may or may not like it, but I figured it was worth a shot. Tastes vary, and out of 144 tries, you’d think that maybe I might get a new reader or three.

It’s sort of depressing. A commenter, John Ellsworth (I think) on one of my other posts suggested that I focus on writing something longer. I have longer pieces out there, nothing approaching 80K words (the length he suggested) but maybe closing in on 50K for a couple of them. Nothing under 23K, I think. Mostly horror, though one of them is a mystery.

It’s sort of one of those catch-22’s, in that I want this to be a self-supporting hobby. I am willing to pay for covers and editing, but I want to see enough earnings to suggest that it’s worth it for me to do so. I hoped to sell enough short stories to make enough money, even if it was just a hundred bucks a month, to pay for cover art for some of these longer projects. But it’s been a no-go.

So what should I do? Keep writing? (I’ll do that anyway.) Keep publishing? (Not as certain about that one.) I’m dismayed by the lack of reciprocal promotion I get from authors whose works I’ve promoted on my FB page and here on the blog. Not even a “Like” from any besides D.J. and J. Michael Major, who has also reviewed a few of my stories on Amazon.

That’s okay. I have to admit, however, that it makes me less enthusiastic about supporting (via promotion on either here or on my FB page) other indie authors. I’ll still support the ones I like to read by buying their books, and possibly reviewing them if the mood strikes me.

Maybe this giveaway experiment will result in sales down the road. Maybe it will result in a few reviews, positive or negative. But right now, I have to come down on the side of “failure” when asking myself if it was a success or failure.

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Successful giveaway?

Just a quick post to update the KDP Select promotion for two of my titles.

I’ve given away 114 ebooks in 3 1/2 days (today being the 1/2). It’s scheduled to run through tomorrow. (12/14/14)

Here’s the links: SOLE OCCUPANT

DEAD OR ALIVE

It will be interesting to see if getting these two stories in the hands of readers results in any reviews of the stories or better still, any increase in sales from them. Crossing my fingers…

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Sales report

All I can really say is, it’s a good thing I’m a dentist! Haven’t sold a book or had a short story bought since October 23rd.

I counted, and I have eleven titles out there. They range in length from the very short (14 pages) SOLE OCCUPANT, which is in Kindle Select and KU, and costs $0.99, to my six-story collection DIE 6, which has 123 pages and is priced at $2.99. Also there is THE STRIKER FILES 3-in-1 COLLECTION, 93 pages also priced at $2.99, and my non-fiction title (under my real name) DOING DISNEY, which is again priced at $2.99 and contains 101 pages of information about visiting the Florida resorts. 14 DARK WINDOWS is a fourteen-story collection of short “flash” fiction, 63 pages, and is once again priced at $2.99.

What could I do? Perhaps a full collection of ALL of my short stories, would come in at something around 250 pages (maybe a bit more), and price it at $4.99? I have five stories in the very early stages of readiness for publication, all need rewriting and editing, but none are ready to go tomorrow.

Anyway, I know I don’t do much to promote the stories. The only people who have bought them are people who know me through Facebook, for the most part, or knew me from my days at Delphi Internet Service when I helped run the Book and Candle Pub. I submitted a story to the anthology QUANTUM ZOO with low expectations, but it was one of the twelve that was selected for inclusion, and I’d hoped that perhaps someone would read my story there and decide to check out at least one or two of my other stories, but the problem is that very few of the stories I’ve written and published would excite the QUANTUM ZOO target audience. So perhaps my efforts for that collection are wasted.

Who knows? For me, a good story is a good story. I’ve bought several of my co-authors’ stories but I don’t know if it is working in reverse. Oh well. I don’t really NEED the income. I can just keep writing, and when they’re ready, publishing, and if they catch on, great. If not, so be it.

As the saying goes, it was worth a try.

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KDP Select and KU

I have never placed any of my works in either of these programs up until now. But as of today, all of my short stories are enrolled in both of them for the next 90 days. This means that Amazon Prime members can download any of my short stories as their “borrows” for a particular month, and Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow my stories and read them as part of their monthly subscription fee.

The stories are as follows:

Sole Occupant (and The Only Solution)
Odd Man Out (and The House at the Bend in the Road)
Jack’o’lantern (and The Moment and Sarah’s Puppy)
The Gateway (and America’s Pastime and Hot Spot)
Dead or Alive
Night Family
Rick’s Rules

If you have either of those services, and want to give my short stories a try, well, here’s your chance to do so for free. I will take advantage of KDP Select’s program where I can make my short stories free for a couple of days and will post here and on FB when I do so. Thanks!

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Quantum Zoo is free!

The 12 story anthology QUANTUM ZOO, which contains my story “Playing Man”, is free starting today and going through Saturday!

Free is good, right?

If you haven’t downloaded a copy, grab it now…

Please consider taking a look at my own new release THE STRIKER FILES (which isn’t so new – it’s actually a compilation of three previously released single short stories, all set in the same universe and telling different parts of the same story, with a bonus short story included as well). Here’s that link: THE STRIKER FILES

Thanks!

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Works in Progress

And then there were four.

Most of what I’ve published so far is short fiction. The longest is a three story series, coming in at about 24K words. The stories are roughly 7K, 8K and 9K, and they’re all about the same story but told from different points. The longest short story I’ve put out there so far is THE GHOST TRAIN, part of the DIE 6 collection. It comes in at something over 10K words.

But I’ve been working on longer stories. And I finished my fourth over the weekend. This is not to say it’s ready to publish. It isn’t. None of the four are. But the story is complete.

Here are the four:

THE CAVE – a horror story about five eighth graders who find a cave in a forest preserve and the cave is something more than just a hole in the ground… (around 23K words)
THE NEVER ENDING NIGHT – when the sun fails to come up for several days in a row, a girl’s familiar street becomes a frightening place to be. (Around 27K words)
DEATH BY APPOINTMENT – a who-dun-it featuring a young dentist as the sleuth. (around 45K words)
COLLEGE EVIL – a college kid researches the nature of good and evil, and starts seeing assaults which are happening on his campus in a very graphic way. How is that possible? And they are getting more and more personal… (about 45K words)

Those are all just working titles, obviously. I’m not great with my titles. But 45K is short-novel length, right? I’m thinking of combining THE CAVE and THE NEVER ENDING NIGHT into one novella-collection, then putting the other two out individually.

Look for them sometime after I get them edited…

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