Itch.io is primarily known as a great place to get weird video games but the site also hosts music, comics and books. There’s a lot of interesting stuff on there and the site takes a smaller cut than places like Amazon. Even better, it also doesn’t have all the pay-to-play problems that make selling books (or anything else for that matter) on Amazon so hard and/or expensive.

I’ve sold a few short stories on Amazon over the years, but given that I’m not a big name author like Hugh Howey, they don’t really get any traction, even at 99c and giving them away free requires jumping through a few annoying hoops that aren’t guaranteed to work.

So, I’ve decided to start offering some of my most popular short stories through Itch.io. They’ll be available in print form as a PDF and the epub ebook format for phones, tablets and e-readers.

First up is The Bone Boy. This one has been reprinted a bunch of times but first appeared in the Bones Anthology published by James Ward Kirk. It’s well over ten years old at this point but still one of my favourite stories.

It’s available on a “Pay What You Want” basis here or through this fancy widget.

The Bone Boy also appears in the free short story collection you can get by signing up for my newsletter here. I usually only email once a month (at most) and won’t share your email address with anyone else.

[I’ve Got the Itch.io by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 7th September 2026]