The first proof of the Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet ebook arrived today… Just a couple of minor tweaks and it’ll be ready to go. This is your last chance to get a FREE copy of my science fiction novel, Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet. I’ll be giving everyone on my mailing list the book for free TOMORROW! If you’d like a copy, just sign up here – I’ll give you FOUR of my other ebooks as well. [Almost there… by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 10th August 2015]
Five Reasons I Built My Own Ebooks
Over the past three weeks, I’ve released three short stories as Kindle ebooks – a science fiction story called Bottled Lightning, an urban fantasy story called Saviour and Curfew, a supernatural thriller. The three stories are my first dip of a toe into self-publishing waters and I chose them because a) I like them and b) they gave me a playground in which to learn. Coming straight out of the gate with a full length work would have made any mistakes I made more costly. I did most of the work of making the ebooks myself, the exception being the covers. I can put together a cover but it takes time and the quality can be hit and miss. I found some premades for all three of those titles that worked well (from Go On Write for Curfew and Bottled Lightning and from The Cover Collection for Saviour) so I went with those. I handled all the other tasks associated with building the actual ebooks and I did it manually (although I then automated one part of it to avoid making mistakes). And when I say manually, I mean manually. I didn’t use Scrivener or a Word file. I took the raw text … Read More
In Defense of eBook Pricing
This is the latest in a series of Meaty Monday posts – longer posts where I ramble on about writing related topics. You can find the first Meaty Monday post here. Authors are almost legally required to hate ebooks. After all, those cold, soulless packages of bits and bytes can’t compare with the tactile and olfactory delights a real book provides. In a lot of ways that’s true and as my heavily overloaded shelves will attest, I’ve always had great difficultly resisting the lure of the bookshop. In fact, until a couple of years ago ebooks held no interest for me at all but then I bought my wife a Kobo reader for her birthday and then I borrowed it to read William Gibson’s Zero History. I was hooked. Sure, the first generation Kobo reader is slow and doesn’t have wireless or any other bells and whistles but it was so convenient and – for some unknown reason – fun. I quickly bought myself a Kindle and I’ve never looked back. I do still buy physical books, usually Subterranean Press or Cemetery Dance limited editions, or books by my favourite authors (Caitlin R Kiernan, Haruki Murakami etc.) but generally I choose the digital version if I can. The biggest advantage … Read More
Out Now – So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains [Kindle]
So Long, and Thanks for All the Brains is now available on Kindle. In it you’ll find my story – The Z Word – plus fifty other tales of the undead. Here’s the full table of contents: Remembering Human – Bint Arab Necropolis Burning – Robert Forrester Blissfully Ignorant – Michael C. Dick An Undead Night to Remember – K. A. Masters Quality of Life – T. Fox Dunham Remember Me – Kenneth E. Olson Undead Surveillance – Jason Papke Oh, the Dreadful Wind & Rain – Richard Jay Goldstein The Secret to Survival – T. L. Barrett Mikey – Theresa Derwin The Beginning of the End – Jack Bantry Old Louisville – Bruce L. Priddy The Return of Dale Corby – Jonathan Wood For Audrey – Nicky Peacock The Army of Al-Din – Douglas Moore Zombies are Dead – Iain Rob Wright Fractions – Dale Elster Complete Ignorance – Michael C. Dick Diary of Gerhard Koblenz – Trevor Smith The Z Word – Philip Harris A Quiet Night, a Perfect End – Annie Neugebauer The Day Danny McAllister Decided to be a Hero – Matt Nord Dry Rot – Jamal K. Luckett The Food of Love – Marc-Anthony Taylor Behind … Read More
Daily Science Fiction
I’ve recently signed up to the Daily Science Fiction mailing list. As the name suggests, they email a new science fiction story to subscribers every weekday. Most days the stories are short (less than 1000 words) but Friday’s story is longer. Stories are also posted and archived on the website a week after their email publication and published as a monthly ebook anthology. Obviously, with so many stories nobody is going to love all of them but the short length makes them very easy to read. I’ve made the daily email one of my daily rituals and I look forward to seeing a new tale in my inbox every morning. Highlights for me over the last couple of weeks have been Butterfly Shaped Objects by George Potter, A Stitch in Space-time by Nicky Drayden and Gifted and Talented by Sadie Mattox. Well worth a look, there’s a wide variety of science fiction there so you’ll probably find something you like.
Zero Buck Horror
If you’re a horror fan you may have come across One Buck Horror in your travels. It’s a series of ebooks, each one featuring five new horror stories. I picked up volume four over the holidays and enjoyed it – well worth the 99c it cost. The good news is that Volume One is on offer at the moment – for $0. You can get it on Amazon or SmashWords.
It Means Nothing to Me
Our new Kobo Vox arrived yesterday. I resisted the eBook revolution for a long time but Ann persuaded me to buy her one for her birthday last year. I borrowed it to read William Gibson’s Zero History and was immediately hooked. She has her first generation Kobo, I have a 3rd generation Kindle. I see the Kindle as the Rolls Royce of ereaders, high quality and until recently, a bit expensive. The Kobo is nice, very light, although the first generation is a bit slow to start up, particularly compared to my Kindle. Maybe the newer ones have improved, I don’t know. Even though I have an ereader, I still buy physical books. I love the look and feel and smell of real printed books and I’ve spent over $400 on them over the last 3-4 weeks* but the ereaders have rekindled (do you see what I did there?) my love of reading. I’m reading a lot more books since I got my Kindle and I’m reading more broadly. In particular I’m picking up random self-published books by authors I’ve never heard of. Some of them I enjoy, some of them I don’t but either way I’m discovering authors that I … Read More