At the end of this month I'm going to release another short story in Smashwords. The last story I released has been averaging one download a day which is the best I've seen so far. I think part of the reason for this is I've seven stories posted there now and people can see I'm not a one-hit wonder.
Another reason is I'm making all my short stories free, at least for now, so that people will come and read and learn my name. That will make it easier to sell Book 1 when it releases. At least I hope so. My thinking is if they like my short stories they are more likely to put down money for my novel in a few months.
That's another reason why I'm releasing stories on a regular basis. To get folks in the habit of checking for my stuff. If they do, they should find out about my book was it releases.
Of course, I will advertise. There'll be a press release in May that the book is available for presale and I'll be going around to post notices in various web sites that will let me do that sort of thing.
Prior to that I should have some marketing material ready. The tricky part here is I don't know exactly when I'm getting the artwork from the publisher. They said April without giving a specific date. I don't think they know yet.
Now I have the difficult task of picking the story to release. That's hard because I only want to release a story that's ready and sometimes that's hard to know. I've been known to rush a story out only to find out the ending needs works or a scene in the middle needs revision.
But this is how a writer learns what is good and what is not. And to go slow. So now I let stories sit for a time, like dough for a pie. When it rises again, I will read it and see if it is ready.
This time I've got a story in mind. I'll be reading it next week to see if it is really ready.
In the meantime, Book 4 beckons.
Keep writing everyone.
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