Baker’s Dozen – coming soon to Kindle

On the advice of…well, at least 13 people, I have compiled 13 of my stories into a self-published ebook and have formatted it for the Kindle.

Why 13?  Well, that makes a Baker’s Dozen.  It was a title suggested by my friend Greg and I couldn’t resist the pun.  Guilty as charged.

Why self-pub?  I can’t see shopping this thing around for forever just to wind up self-pubbing it anyway. I am a long way away from giving up on traditional publishing (novels and magazines), but I’m convinced this is the way to go for a single-author collection.

Why just Kindle?  Okay, it’s not just Kindle.  By the time I release the thing, it may well be ready for Smashwords and Nook, too.  But I’m new at this and there’s a learning curve.

What’s in it?  Oh, I’m so glad you asked!  There’s quite a variety, but stories mostly fit into one of four categories:

• Space opera like my Writers of the Future winner “Poison Inside the Walls” and my fan favorite “Leech Run”
• Urban fantasy including my middle grades story “Faerie Belches” and the full version of the Uncle John’s Flush Fiction story “Excuse Me”
• Near future science fiction like my flash piece “How Quickly We Forget” and the unpublished dystopian tale “Secondhand Rush”
• Zombie fun like the sports riff “ZFL” and my play on the Pied Piper, “Not Rats”
• and five others!  (I sound like a Time Life Music infomercial.)

Includes 9 of my greatest hits as well as 4 never before published stories; well over 40,000 words of fiction.  Tiny little flash stories to the top end of the short story scale; dark and gritty to farcically hilarious; hard science to impractical frivolity.  There is something in this collection for absolutely every reader of short speculative fiction, all for the low price of…

Okay, I confess, I’m still waffling on the price point.  When I see individual short stories from writers at similar places in their career selling on Kindle for 99 cents, a fairly high number isn’t hard to envision.  But then I consider the role that low price point plays in getting a reader to try a new writer and something bargain basement makes more sense.  I’m considering splitting the difference (high basement?) and also maybe releasing some of the longer stories for $.99 as single stories plus a teaser for another story in the book.  That’s my best impression of a marketing strategy, folks.

Anyway, I don’t quite have the release date set.  I’ll post it as soon as I do.  I’ll also Tweet it, Facebook it, and do whatever else I can think of to get the word out.

I’m pretty excited about this, excited enough to pull four very solid and promising stories out of my submission cycle to make sure my readers get value for their money.  It sure isn’t everything I’ve ever written or even sold, but this is a sample of my best.  If you’ve ever wondered how good I actually am at this writing stuff, here comes your chance to find out.

Check back soon for the latest.