Sunday, December 22, 2019

The stories will be back up soon

Just a mock cover...
Because of pirates and bots, we had to take down the first four shorts, but they'll be back up soon, likely with links to download them rather than reading them here. An eagle-eyed reader spotted them on another website--something I was reasonable sure would eventually happen--and while that's been dealt with, we need to find a better way to distribute them.

On the plus side...there are several shorts in the bank, possibly enough for two printed volumes. This might take some time; as published here, the stories were somewhere between first and second draft and need work, and need to be threaded together (which was always the goal.) stories 5-10 are with a beta reader now and my editor has her eyeballs on them, but the rewrites probably won't start until after the holidays.

When ready for download, they'll be in formats for Kindle (.mobi), Nook and similar readers (ePub), and likely PDF. You don't need a digital device to be able to read them; I know the Kindle app is available for PC and Mac, and Adobe Reader is on most computers already, but also available for free online.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Wick Shorts #5

Our fifth Wick Short, Rhys, is now available. It's a bit long and not broken into parts yet, but hopefully we'll get around to that tomorrow. Our paws are stiff from formatting this and we need to rest for a bit.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Fourth Wick Short: Becoming Blackshear

This is a long one, so it was split into four parts to make it easier. If Hyrum is your jam, you're gonna love it.


Some of the future shorts will be just as long, so eventually they'll be available to download to your favorite digital reader, probably using Book Funnel. And when there are enough, there will be a print version, too.

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Because I Need To Explain...and Vent

Let's talk.
I've been going back and forth with a few people, one on Facebook, and a couple in email, about how inconvenient the way I'm offering up the short stories is. There are complaints that I'm not offering them in print, complaints that I'm not offering them as a download, and complaints that the formatting here is not book-standard and it should be.

So, I'm addressing these issues.

  • It's cost-prohibitive for the reader if I sell these in print. Who wants to pay $5 for a 5-10 page short story? I don't. That would be seriously unfair of me.
  • Also, my editor said no
  • I've been accused of wanting the money (? I don't get this one) because I apparently won't earn enough from print. No...I don't want to charge you for these shorts. I want you to get them for free.
  • These stories will appear in print at a later date, in a single volume. Right now--and it's right there in the sidebar--I'm offering up things that are just barely 2nd draft material. They're almost where I want them, but the final draft will wait until all the stories have been finished and the order determined.
  • I can offer them as a download via Bookfunnel. If there's enough interest, I absolutely will do that. 
  • It's not easy to format here and have it book-standard; I went with what will look decent across multiple browsers. If the font is too small (and I get that, I'd like it bigger, too) you can hit CTRL + scroll and the size will increase. That works on pretty much every web page. 
Look. Anyone who has stuck with me this far knows that my royalties go toward buying as many toys at Christmas as we can, and those toys either go to Toys for Tots or toys for foster kids. (Despite my frequent whining about the people spending my money...the Man really does pay for the care and feeding of the creatures in the house, thusly can I afford to use the royalties that way.) This isn't and has never been about the money for me. But I also can't spend money out of pocket to print these and give them away (as has been suggested) nor can I offer print copies as donor gifts (as has been suggested) to dozens of people.

All I really wanted when we started kicking around the idea of a Wick website was to give something for free, something for my readers, and not as a way to make a lot of money. This site isn't monetized. I could have done that; we thought about doing that by way of advertisements, to generate the purchase of a few more toys. But damn, doods, I really wanted to do this because so many of you have been there since the beginning of The Psychokitty Speaks Out, you've bought my books, you've followed me on Facebook, and you've made doing all of this so much fun.

I want to continue doing this. But at this moment, the fun has been sucked out of it, and I feel like I'm banging my forehead on the keyboard.

I know I can't make everyone happy.

And you know what started the worst of this? The Woman's nephew is doing a charity walk, and she made the offer on FB that if he hit X-number of dollars by the end of the weekend, we'd put Wick After Dark up for free as a download. And the complaints started. One woman wanted print copies (though she didn't donate a damned thing.) Someone else complained that they'd read those already so why can't they have something else...and it went on. And on.

I have tried really hard to not lose my chit over this, but tonight someone declared they are done with me because--and I am not even kidding--I'd answered her question but apparently not the way she wanted. And all I did was explain why I can't do the shorts in print yet.

Doods, I'll bend over backwards to make things easy when I can, but I'll only take so much.

So. 

If you would like the shorts available as a download via Bookfunnel, speak up. I can do that.

If you want them in print, please be patient. I have to write them all first.

And if you think I suck, well, sorry. Not much I can do about that.

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Second Short is now up!

Melody of Hope, the 2nd Wick short is up! Just click on the title in the menu bar (above) or in the right sidebar.

That title will probably change someday. Or not. We'll see.

But we're really getting rolling and I have a lot of stories to tell.