Hint's First Review

As the official release date for the anthology is only a few weeks away, the reviews are starting to stream in. Well, actually there has only been one review so far which came out last week and which I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook but sort of forgot to mention here. Anyway, the book has gotten a pretty positive review at the blog Becoming A Fiction Writer and which this is an excerpt from:

Now, I must admit that before the review copy arrived, I was skeptical. I’m not a huge fan of the whole flash fiction thing because I find it hard to believe you really can tell a story without using at least a few pages. And 25 words seemed like a ridiculously low number. You may know that famous Hemingway six-word story:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Some say yes, poignant, telling, what a story, and I say, I’ve got at least six pairs of baby shoes I was given for my own baby that he never wanted to wear, and I could sell them too, without having any sad story behind it. So yes, I was very skeptical before Hint Fiction arrived on my doorstep.

However, I’m also man enough (woman enough?) to admit that I’ve changed my tune.

Hopefully this is a good sign of things to come. Fingers crossed ...

An "Incomplete" Contest

The Best of Every Day Fiction Two is now available, which features my story "Incomplete" along with 99 other fine stories published last year at Every Day Fiction. I'm honored to have been included. My thanks to Jordan Lapp, Camille Gooderham Campbell, and Steven Smethurst for not just putting together this collection of stories, but for keeping EDF running strong into the future. You can order a copy of the anthology here; it comes in two formats, trade paperback and hardcover.

Or, if you'd like to test Lady Luck, you can win a free copy signed by me.

In the past, I've asked readers to put something in the comments section of a post and then picked a random winner. This time around I've decided to mix things up. This particular contest will be strictly done via Twitter.

I like Twitter a lot. It's a great platform when used correctly. The best part about it is you can get information out to a large amount of people very quickly. And how is this done? Why, by the almighty retweet button, of course.

So here's what I'm going to do. Some time Monday I will post something on Twitter (you'll be able to tell when it's for the contest). All I'm asking is for you to retweet that particular post (preferably the "new" version retweet, as it'll be easier to track). The contest will end Tuesday at midnight here on the east coast. Then I'll pick a random winner from everyone who retweeted and announce it here Wednesday. That person will receive a free signed trade paperback copy of The Best of Every Day Fiction Two.

But wait -- there's more!

Right now I have almost 300 "followers" on Twitter. You have to figure that at least 90% of them are spambots. So that leaves about 30 people who are actually paying attention me. So if at least 30 people retweet my particular post (they don't even have to be "followers"), then I'll up the ante and send the winner a signed hardcover copy instead.

Yes, yes, there is the chance that nobody retweets, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. In the past year I've been playing around with different forms of self-promotion, and maybe this will work, maybe it won't. Guess we'll see come midnight Tuesday, huh?