Soon, I will produce a second edition of The Scent and Other Stories, adding my short story “Bye Bye” to it. To reinforce the idea that this is a new edition, I am changing the cover. Below are my latest two designs. Please let me know your thoughts on each and which you recommend. Both are images from the public domain.
Soon, I will produce a second edition of The Scent and Other Stories, adding my short story “Bye Bye” to it. To reinforce the idea that this is a new edition, I am changing the cover. Below are my latest two designs. Please let me know your thoughts on each and which you recommend. Both are images from the public domain.
I am considering collecting all my short fiction published to date into one volume. This would include all the works in A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, The Scent and Other Stories, and Click (Alien Embrace and Diablolical are already included in A Tale of Hell and Other Works).
The working title for this collection is Les Danses Macabres. According to The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (J.A. Cuddon, Penguin Books, 1991) the danse Macabre is:
Also known as the Dance of Death…The Dance of Death (in art and literature) depicted a procession or dance in which the dead lead the living to the grave. It was a reminder of mortality, the ubiquity of death and of the equality of all men in that state. It was also a reminder of the need for repentance. Apart from its moral and allegorical elements, it was very often satirical in tone…Death is, as it were, presented as a kind of sardonic joke.
Notice that the title of my planned work is Les Danses Macabres, which is the plural of danse macabre. I chose this variation for two reasons:
I have rearranged the stories, somewhat, to start with “The Scent”, which is a very pleasant, poignant, but a little spooky story. From there the stories gradually increase in intensity until the collection ends with the intense, violent microfiction at the end of A Tale of Hell….
The total word count of the collection is over 87,300, which puts it into the same size range as a novel. This should make it more marketable as people like to buy longer works. In fact, I have read that Stephen King likes to write long works, so that his readers get something for their money. This seems to bear out in my sales, as my longest work (A Tale of Hell…) has accounted for 43% of my sales since January, 2018. it is 62,054 words in length, which puts it in the range of shorter novel. According to my research on Duotrope, most small publishers are looking for novels to be about 40,000 to 100,000 words in length with the majority being around 40,000 to 50,000.
I am designing this work initially to be marketed on Amazon Kindle, but I am also keeping it simple to make it easily converted into a hard copy book.
This planned work will include only prose. Nocturne, therefore, will not be included in this collection. However, I am planning a second edition of it that will include poems that were not included in the current edition.
.I have started designing covers for Les Danses Macabres. Here are the possibilities I have come up with so far. Let me which one you think most suitable. For easy reference, I have put a name below each. Let me know your thoughts on my other plans too as well, if you will.
Hasta luego.
Soon, I will produce a second edition of The Scent and Other Stories, adding my short story “Bye Bye” to it. To reinforce the idea that this is a new edition, I am changing the cover. Below are my latest two designs. Please let me know your thoughts on each and which you recommend. Both are images from the public domain.
Soon, I will produce a second edition of The Scent and Other Stories, adding my short story “Bye Bye” to it. To reinforce the idea that this is a new edition, I am changing the cover. Below are my latest two designs. Please let me know your thoughts on each and which you recommend. Both are images from the public domain.
Soon, I will produce a second edition of The Scent and Other Stories, adding my short story “Bye Bye” to it. To reinforce the idea that this is a new edition, I am changing the cover. Below are my latest two designs. Please let me know your thoughts on each and which you recommend. Both are images from the public domain.
On Thursday the 5th, I made use of a new Kindle author’s feature called X-Ray. X-Ray links characters and terms in an author’s work to either links (written by the author) or to Wikipedia Articles about the character/term. It is very easy to use. An author goes to his/her KDP page for the work and selects a button to enable X-Ray. After a short time of a half-hour or longer, when the author comes back to that KDP book, a drop-down menu of characters and terms from the work are displayed. The author goes through each and decides whether to include that character/term among the links, choosing a radio button for his/her choice. He/she can then either write a short description of the character/term or select a Wikipedia article on it. After all characters and terms have been reviewed, the author can publish the ones chosen. Then, after about a half-hour or so, links will appear in the Kindle ebook, which a reader can click and which will take him/her to the author’s or the Wikipedia article.
I think this is a neat service to provide to readers. It is also something an author can advertise about his/her works, which may give an advantage over non-X-Ray-enabled works in the marketplace. Simply writing an article about it, as I have done here, will garner a little more publicity for the author.
I tested this on The Scent and Other Stories tonight. Get an e-copy when you can and check it out. You can purchase a copy from Amazon at anytime or you can wait until Christmas Eve, which, if I recall correctly, is the next time that The Scent and Other Stories is offered free.
If you are a Kindle author, be certain to check out this new feature.
I will be doing this for my other works as time permits.
Hasta luego.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 29th, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
On Friday, November 22, and the following Friday, November 29 (Black Friday) I will have four of my works free on Amazon Kindle: Click; A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror; The Scent and Other Stories; and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover.
I am doing this primary as an experiment in marketing and publicity. Yesterday, I offered the same four books as free and I got more takers than usual.
If you noticed, I have new covers for three except The Scent and Other Stories. I hope to have a new cover for it by Friday the 22nd, however. This is another marketing tactic. Because I love black and white photography and often find it captivating and powerful, I have used it for most of my covers, trying to express something I see in each book. But I see that most, more experienced authors use full color, flashy covers to grab the buyer’s attention. So I decided to give that a shot and see if sales pick up. I tried to make each cover grab the attention of a passing buyer by making it not only in full color, but also expressing something powerful and exciting about the experience I hope to get across in my book. I would like readers, not to judge my books by their covers, but maybe get a taste of
my books from their covers.
Anyway, I have included the three new covers in this article. If you would like to find out more about each, please go to my Amazon author’s blog. You can sign up for updates there or go to philslattery.wordpress.com and follow me there.
Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering where I got the covers, I downloaded some royalty-free public domain images from Pixabay (and maybe Pexels) and manipulated them in Pixlr. Each one took a few hours to make.
Hasta luego.
I am sitting here right now (Saturday night, 8:47 pm CST, at home in Arkansas Post, listening to Carlos Nakai. It sort of makes me homesick for New Mexico. Beautiful, slow, peaceful, Native American flute music that sounds like it’s coming across a mesa or from some Anasazi ruins. If you ever need to seriously relax I recommend listening to Carlos.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 