About The Two Short Stories

Recently, I published a small e-book: two short stories packaged back-to-back for the low, low price of $0.99. Already I’ve had a small but respectable trickle of sales, which isn’t so bad for a guy just beginning to make forays into the world of online publishing. Not so bad for a guy who’s had to do all or most of his marketing all by himself.

Consider this little write up to be more of that: me, basically asking you to consider the purchase of my stories. And if you’re one of those whose already downloaded the stories (Thank you!), then this is me asking you to give me a review on Amazon.com. Or at least LIKE the stories using the LIKE button there. LIKES and reviews (and sales) usually mean that the stories will show up higher in the online “catalog”, making it more likely that someone untouched by my marketing efforts will see the stories and possibly make a purchase. There’s a snowball effect, basically.

Now I’d be remiss, as well as a poor salesman, if my entire pitch was “please buy my shit.” So let me tell you a little bit about the stories, without giving away too much.

Both stories are what you’d call genre pieces, which sometimes means they’d fall into the realm of pulpy, fun-for-the-moment-but-not -really-memorable one-offs. Eye candy, as it were. Thing is, genre fiction often isn’t so shallow - and neither are these two stories.

“The Giant” is a science fiction story, previously published in a magazine called Lynx Eye back in 2005. It starts with a premise familiar to a lot of science fiction readers - the crew of an orbital shuttle finds something remarkable on the other side of the moon. Thing is, the captain of the ship has baggage that seriously affects his or her reaction to the discovery. And what the crew discovers, well….

You’ll notice that I referred to the captain in both genders. That’s because of the approach I took to the story: the captain could be anybody, because the captain is you. Just get it and read it and you’ll understand.

On the surface, “The Littlest Goblin” reads like a fun, farcical romp through a typical fantasy world, where the goblins live underground and the elves live in a  faraway magical forest. The goblins are gearing up for an assault on the elven kingdom so that they can steal a powerful artifact. Enter Emys, a precocious little girl goblin, who questions her brutish dad’s motives and the goblins’ overall approach toward the elves.

When I was writing it years ago, the War in Iraq was ramping up, and I think a little bit of my feelings toward the U.S. government at that time leaked into the story. Consequently, ”The Littlest Goblin” is somewhat of a political allegory. It’s also a morality tale.

Oh, and it’s also a fun, farcical romp through a fantasy world full of elves and goblins.

The stories will only be available online, as far I know. Right now you can buy them in the Amazon Kindle Store, or at Smashwords.com. At Smashwords, you’ll see a variety of different formats to download. If you have a Nook or iPad, you should download the Epub version. In the coming days, once I get an ISBN in place for the stories, they’ll appear directly on the ebook sites for Sony, Barnes & Noble, and Apple iBooks. The material you get will be the same. The only difference is that you can review and rate the stories, just like you now can on Amazon. I’ll probably post again here when that happens.

So there you go. Some fruits of my labor. I hope you enjoy reading them as much I did creating them and making them available to you. One last thing before I sign off: the cover illustrations (above) for the stories were drawn by my friend Jason Snape. He’d appreciate your purchase as well, and if you need something similar for your book or CD or movie poster, I hope you consider him for the task. He’s up to it.