It’s about that time

I’ve fussed with my book of short stories all weekend. I believe it’s time to seek out advance readers. I’m looking for three or four people who will read an arc, and offer some feedback. There is a time limit, so make sure you can commit. If you’re dedicated, it will take no more than a day. (I’m sort of hoping you can’t put it down.)

Here’s what you’re getting into. This is a short book, approximately 29,000 words of actual material. I added a free sample of Will O’ the Wisp and didn’t count that. It consists of a mixture of micro fiction and short stories. They run the gauntlet of my speculative style in science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal.

My goal is to release this sometime in September. With the Wisp promotion in back, I’m hoping to catch some of the Halloween vibe.

Readers have a month to get to it, giving me a week or so to touch up any critical failures.

This book will price at 99¢, and is an attempt to tie together some of my other marketing pushes. As an example, there is a new Lisa Burton story. I included a link to the paper dolls, that sort of thing.

I have a preliminary cover that I will also provide, but we are still working on one aspect. If you are interested, drop me an email. If we haven’t already exchanged email, let me know in the comments.

I’ve done a bit of research, and there are shorter 99¢ reads out there. I think I’m offering something of value at 99¢, but advance readers are welcome to weigh in on that too.

Amazon is really playing Big Brother these days about reviews. I’m not asking or refusing reviews when I actually push the publish button. I’ll leave that up to my advance readers to decide.

I may hit my advance readers up to help with the cover reveal, and the release.

Let me know if you’d like an advance reading copy of The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack.

Update: Your response was overwhelming. Thank you everyone, but I have enough volunteers now. I think there must be a market out there for short fiction.

Writing my little black heart out

I spent a large part of the day writing promotional posts for Will O' the Wisp. I want them all ready before hiring the blog tour organizer. I have six finished, but would like to have about ten. I only intend to try a one week push, but it's nice to have a spare. I still haven't written a character bio, or a Muse interview. Those should be pretty easy.

I sent out individual emails to everyone that got an advanced reading copy of the book. All the feedback I've received so far has been encouraging, and this was just a heads up that I intend to push the publish button next weekend. This way if they are going to post a review they have time to write it. My intention was to be as polite as possible to those who helped me. I sent these emails one at a time, because I never share email addresses without permission.

Note to self: send them the link where they can post a review after the book goes live. Make it easy for them.

The rest of the time was spent at my son's house. He smoked a tri-tip and invited us to dinner. The food and company were wonderful. He even bought me a nice Alaskan smoked Porter to wash it down with. My daughter-in-law made a wonderful apple dumpling dessert too.

I feel like I should have gotten more accomplished. It's just too hard to give up family time, and I won't do it. We even made plans to go fishing the next time he gets time off. I probably won't accomplish much then either. Spending time with them is important. It's good for me too.

When we got home, I downloaded Turbo Tax. It's going to be ugly, but I have to get it done sooner or later. It's in the other room, snarling at me on my Mac.

Tomorrow is all about calling my parents first thing. I may manage some more promotional posts. My critique group work has to get done too. I also have fruit trees to prune. My son already hit me up for the branches. They are good in his smoker.

If it all goes really well, I may start a short story about a biplane. Somehow, I doubt I'll get that far.