Weekly free stories, email, and confusion!

Hi everybody!

Dean Wesley Smith is an inspiring guy. Today I’m devouring his videos on motivation for writers. Good stuff! And in combination with the challenge he’s issued himself for the next year, he’s pushed me over the edge…not so hard to do, as you probably realize if you’ve been here a while.

So I’ve decided to publish one short story a week for the next year, starting a week from tomorrow. And I’m telling you about it in advance, so any flakiness on my part will be fairly obvious. And yes: I’ll also continue writing novels.

Now…I also had an idea about posting book covers, asking you guys to write blurbs or rude comments, and then offering a few things (autographed print copies, character names, stuff like that) when I use or am inspired by your notions. I love this idea, and we may very well do it. Some of the weekly stories may get their start that way. But that’s a separate notion…I’ll need to come up with something every week regardless.

Here’s how it’ll work:

1. I’ll put up a new (or at least never-previously-published-on-its-own) story every Wacky Wednesday, starting tomorrow, which you can read for free. The wiggly bit: I do have six stories in the What Happens in September… collection that aren’t available individually. But I’ll save them for emergencies. Tomorrow, for example? You’ll get something new.
2. Each following Tuesday, I’ll take down the previous week’s story. On Wednesday something new will go up…and I’ll provide live links to listings at Amazon’s various sites for the previous week’s freebie (plus a very dignified request for a review…no begging here…unless that actually works…er…I’ll think about it).
3. I may or may not publish stories elsewhere than Amazon as I go along, but the timing is harder to control.

 

Here are a few facts that complicate things:

• I have a mailing list for new releases (only).
• It’s just barely possible to subscribe to this blog via email (though RSS should be simple?)…right now most people manage to subscribe via a checkbox when commenting on a post. I kinda hid this because I thought it might be confusing to have two mailing lists available at the same time.
• However, some folks are signing up for the new-release list while thinking they’re subscribing to the blog.
• I promised not to use the new-release list for anything but new releases, aiming for people who sometimes like my fiction but don’t have the time/interest for the blog.
• For the new-release-only crowd, I think sending them a message every week is probably counter-productive.
• But I don’t want to shut the new-release people out of the weekly freebies. That’d be mean.

 

So here’s what I think I’ll do:

1. Keep the new-release list relatively pure, and send out one email a month, generally on the last day or thereabouts (starting in August).
2. Make subscribing to the blog itself via email somewhat easier…sometime in the next few days. Maybe even tonight. Who knows? It kinda depends on stuff.
3. There will also be limited-time freebies on Amazon.com. I’ll disclose them in advance to new-release list subscribers (only).

How’s that? If you’re getting here via a web browser, you’ll get freebies each week as long as you choose to do so. No problem. If you subscribe via RSS, nothing will need to change. But if you prefer email…will this work for you? If not, and if you can take the time to tell me why not, I’ll appreciate the heads-up.

Expect something or other to happen tomorrow. Chances are good it’ll include a free story you’ve never seen.

Meanwhile…have fun out there.