Day: February 7, 2013

Sneak Peek: Through a Dusty Window

Today we have a sneak peek from author Delancey Stewart’s  new collection of short stories, Through a Dusty Window.

Through a Dusty Window is a collection of ten short stories spanning a century of lives inhabiting one New York City brownstone on the Upper West Side. They are the culmination of the author’s experience in that city, during which she wondered constantly who had occupied her apartment before her, and what stories they might have lived.

Ten vignettes offer historical perspective on real events from Prohibition to World War II; the Vietnam-era Summer of Sam killings to John Lennon’s murder. Through a Dusty Window allows us to be voyeurs, seeing the fascinating lives of others as they experience the history that New Yorkers today hear whispers of around every corner.

Through a Dusty Window is available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from Through a Dusty Window:  Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Through a Dusty Window”

The Writers’ Conference

Guest post
by Marian D. Schwartz

The first week in January I received a brochure from an annual writers’ conference I attended over thirty years ago. Brochures from this conference have followed me from move to move, from the North to the South, and they have changed considerably since I first started receiving them. The staff fiction writers are no longer big “literary stars,” and the mention of editors and literary agents is done carefully, promising nothing other than their presence and some interaction with the people who are paying to attend.

The suggestion to enroll in the conference I had attended had come from a former professor, who had become my mentor. I had finished writing my first novel, Realities, less than two months before the conference was scheduled to start. I had also found an agent. By the end of my second day there, I had stopped taking notes at the lectures and had begun taking notes on what I was observing. I had never been in an atmosphere so intense, not even in graduate workshops I had audited when the professor/poets teaching them lost control of the discussion. Continue reading “The Writers’ Conference”

The First-Ever IU Flash Fiction Anthology

Originally conceptualized to be the first digital coffee table book, the Indies Unlimited 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology was redesigned after we realized nobody had yet invented digital coffee tables.

The good news is that you don’t have to own a coffee table (digital or otherwise) to get your hands on this outstanding collection of works from flash fiction all-stars.

Photographs by K. S. Brooks. Prompts by Stephen Hise. Authors with stories in the anthology include: David Antrobus, Gabrielle Baer, Brian Beam, Robert K. Blechman, Laurie Boris, William C. Busch, Sandra Campbell, Lynne Cantwell, Kent Chapman, Ed Drury, E.J. Fechenda, Terveen Gill, Yvonne Hertzberger, Jacqueline Hopkins, Chris James, Jerriann Law, Bob Lock, Pam Logan, Monica Baguchinsky Lunn, JD Mader, Brianna Lee McKenzie, Teirrah McNair, Donna B. McNicol, Rich Meyer, SP Mount, J. L. Murray, Stephanie Myers, Angela Rigley, Betsy Riley, Marc Emile Samuel, Irina Serban, Shiri Sondheimer, Dianna Stover, Krista Tibbs, Dick C. Waters, Sally Whitney, Renee Pierce Williams, and Carol Wyer.

The Indies Unlimited 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology is AVAILABLE NOW at Amazon for the outrageously low price of 99 cents. Don’t be the last kid on the block to get one!

The Price Point Problem

Now that you have finished your magnum opus, you are faced with the dilemma all independent authors must address. How do you decide the price for your masterpiece?

Traditionally-published authors don’t have to worry their pretty little heads about such things. Their publishers set the price, just as they also lift the burden of selecting cover art and distribution channels.

Indie authors have to do all that for ourselves. With print books, you know you have to set the price over the cost of production. At least you have a beginning point.

With your eBooks, you have to weigh the supposed virtues of the KDP Select program against whatever you could make if you risk testing the market appetite with some sort of price. Continue reading “The Price Point Problem”