Author: Phil Slattery

Publisher, Rural Fiction Magazine; publisher, The Chamber Magazine; founder, the Farmington Writers Circle. I have written short stories and poetry for many years. In my careers as a Naval officer and in the federal government, I have written thousands of documents of many types. I am currently working on a second edition for my poetry collection and a few novels.

Phil Slattery’s #Books are Free on #FictionFriday

As a promotional campaign, my e-books available on Kindle will be free on Fiction Friday.  On some days only one will be available, but on most two will be.   Here are the works and the dates as they stand as of March 13, 2017.  I will endeavor to keep this campaign rolling on past May 19 as far as possible.

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The Scent and Other Stories: The Dark Side of Love — March 17, April 7, April 28, May 5, and May 19.  In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.  Available at https://www.amazon.com/Scent-Other-Stories-Dark-Side-ebook/dp/B01N7AA1E4.

A Tale of Hell and Other Works: Stories of Wizards, Werewolves, Serial Killers, Alien Worlds, and the Damned — March 24, March 31, April 14, May 12, and May 19.

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In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, Phil Slattery offers a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the Old West to the present and on to alien worlds in the distant future.  Available at https://www.amazon.com/Tale-Hell-Other-Works-Horror-ebook/dp/B01N1K0CHV.

Click: A Police Thriller of Murder and Conspiracy on a Small Texas Island — March 17, March 24, March 31, April 21, and May 12.  Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge

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chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they

after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Reader Charles Stacey gave “Click” five stars and commented: “Author has a wonderful ability to develop the characters using few words. Great foreshadowing to build suspense. And then a really outstanding twist at the end that left me smiling.”  Available at https://www.amazon.com/Click-police-thriller-murder-conspiracy-ebook/dp/B01N0F6Q2X.

 

 

 

🌛🌕🌜#Diabolical, a collection of 3 Jack Thurston stories of revenge, is available in e-book & paperback at Amazon.com/author/philsla…. 🌛🌕🌜#IARTG https://twitter.com/jthurston666/status/851980414952521728

Superfluousmind’s Website is Beautiful

Source: Home

I love the minimalist look of this website.  Very direct and “to the point”.  Nothing wasted. The organization is streamlined and takes you to where you want to be.  Admittedly, I have not read the fiction yet, but I intend to do so soon.  It looks interesting.   And that’s a lovely painting on the front.  Very colorful.  Being set against a black background really makes the colors pop out and makes the website more eye-catching.  Truly, a terrific job in website design.

#Marketing Myself as a #Character

                    Circa 2005-2007

For the last few weeks I have been contemplating how to market my works.  Of course, I wander through the local bookstore studying how each book markets itself,  Also, I analyze everything else I see on line and in person for patterns.  I think back on the famous authors of the past and wonder how they achieved their renown: how were they marketed and how has their fame spread since.

It occurs to me that readers are as fascinated by the lives of their favorite authors as they are by the characters in their novels.   My favorite author is Hemingway.  Hemingway’s life fascinates me at least as much as that of any of characters.   His life probably fascinates me more than that of any of his characters, because there is more to learn about it.   Frederic Henry (For Whom the Bell Tolls)  is interesting, but his life has none of the detail that his author’s does.  Henry is shallow by comparison.  None of the characters of any of Poe’s works have the same depth and complexity of his own life.  When authors of biographies market their works, they have to show how fascinating their subjects are just as novelists have to convince their readers of how fascinating their characters are.

Therefore, I am beginning to believe that to sell my works, I need to sell myself, my story, just the same as I would that of any of my characters.  If my readers find my characters interesting, they will naturally want to find out more about me.  This is not blatant egotism; it’s simple fact.  Readers are as fascinated by the lives of their favorite authors just the same as they are fascinated by the lives of the characters of those authors.  Instead of writing the same standard bio notes for readers on my website and elsewhere, I will start writing those bio notes the same as I would the bio of a character: bringing out my own flaws, contradictions, ironies of my life, and so on to demonstrate how complex I really and hopefully attract readers who find my life so compelling that they have to investigate the characters I write.   Writing a autobiographical note, then, becomes another chance to show how well I can write and to give potential readers another sample of my work.

#Weird Coincidence? #Synchronicity? 

I just arrived at Ruby’s restaurant in Aztec planning on a breakfast of pappas con carne adovada and the waitress seated me at a booth next to a man that looks very much like the photo of the fictional character Jack Thurston I posted on Twitter (@jthurston666).  Of course, the photo is a public domain photo I got from Pexels.  Nonetheless, the coincidence seems uncanny.  Has anyone else had a similar coincidence?  I suppose this falls under the category of synchronicity.

Update on My Blog & #Marketing Strategy. 

If you keep up with my website and social media posts, note that I have changed my website on most from this WordPress site to my author’s page at Amazon.  This is simply so that readers have a direct link to where they can purchase my works. I will still blog from here and my posts will show up on the Author’s page.