MUSINGS
The March issue of PANK has gone live, featuring a slew of writers and poets, including me with my story "Crash Test Dummy." The story is literally about a crash test dummy. It was also a runner-up last year for PANK's second annual 1,001 Awesome Words Contest. So be sure to check it out. Below I have posted two videos. If you don't enjoy the story, I hope you at least enjoy one of them.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5h2NF2xMYI
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIbcqgXh5-4
Yesterday I announced the new website where you can read my pulpy horror novelette Through the Guts of a Beggar for free. Well, it's funny how things work out sometimes. I was talking to David B. Silva about him posting an announcement on Hellnotes about the new site, and we got to talking and as it turns out he was slated to appear in the same volume of Tooth & Claw as my novelette. In fact, the story in question -- "New to the Neighborhood" -- was still in a file on his computer, having not been published anywhere yet. So what did I propose? Quite simply to include his story along with my e-book, a kind of bonus if you will. So for a limited time Dave Silva's "New to the Neighborhood" is included in the Kindle version of the e-book for just 99 cents until the end of the month, when the price will go up to $1.99. (Fun fact: Dave won the Bram Stoker Award for his short story "The Calling" in 1991, back when there wasn't Twitter and Facebook and message boards for people to constantly spam you about their stories and beg for votes.)
About two years ago I had the idea to release a novella I'd written in high school online. Yes, e-books and e-readers existed then, but they certainly weren't as big of a deal as they are now. At the time I thought making a website with a decent layout for the chapters would be beneficial in a marketing standpoint, and so I found the right template and theme and went about making it work. I even had the idea to offer a PDF of the novella for those willing to donate 99 cents. Of course, not too long afterward the whole e-book thing really kicked off, and e-readers started to become as common as cell phones (well, okay, maybe not quite that common ... yet). I made the novella available as an e-book and pretty much left it at that. But you know, the strange thing is the original website still gets traffic. Sometimes a lot of traffic. It's been linked to maybe three or four places that specialize in free online fiction. Every once in a while someone will leave a comment at the site, which then in turns reminds me that the site is still there. I'd since taken off that donate-99-cents-for-a-PDF button but decided to add some links to the e-book. And since then, I've seen that people have been checking out those links. Have they been buying? Not all of them. But at least it's there. Sort of like a billboard, in a way.
That's the trick with self-promotion (something I'll talk more about later in the week): it's never really done. Sure, some authors are lucky and all they have to do is write a book or story and publish it and their readers do the work for them, linking to it on Twitter and Facebook or reviewing it on Amazon or whatever. And then you have others who aren't so fortunate and who have to bust a hump (is that even the right term?) to get people to even acknowledge that their work exists.
Anyway, so I was thinking about my online novella and how it was still attracting readers and I wondered if there were any other stories I could do that with and then I thought that if I did find the right story it would all come down to whether or not I could find the right template and theme and so late one night last week I started playing around and found a template and theme I thought was perfect and spent about two hours creating this.
And that, really, is about it. So if you've always wanted to read Through the Guts of a Beggar but didn't want to a) spend the outrageous price of 99 cents or b) pay with a Tweet or Facebook post for a PDF, then here's your chance to read the original novelette for free. And if you do read it and happen to enjoy it, feel free to pass the link on to someone else you think might enjoy it too. Gracias.
The new online issue of Bluestem has gone live. It features a bunch of fiction and poetry and nonfiction, including my story Hooligans. It also contains audio of me reading the story. So you can, you know, read the story or listen to me read the story or read the story while you're listening to me read the story or listen to me read my story while you read another story or, well, the possibilities are endless!
Just got home from the Morgantown, West Virginia area where I spoke to small group of writers last night. The drive there was hellish -- the weather was fine starting out but then, after an hour or so, it started to snow and things just went downhill from there. We were making somewhat good time until we got about 10 minutes away from our destination and then got stuck for about 40 minutes in a long pileup on the interstate because of an accident. But today on the way back? The weather was perfect and we had no problems whatsoever. Anyway, it was a good time, so thanks to Morgantown Poets for inviting me, especially those who braved the cold and ice to attend. I have a story featured today at Nanoism, which I believe is one of the best markets for Twitter-fiction. Here's how the story came about: when putting together the design for the anthology's cover, my editor asked me if I could try to write a story that had the words hint and fiction closer together. They weren't happy with the wording of the story already written, thinking those two words were too far apart. So I did, but the words were way too close together, and the designers went with a different wording, and there's today's special behind-the-scenes look at the making of the anthology. I did include the story, which I titled "Definition," in Eight Hints, which, until now, contained two unpublished hint fiction pieces. I actually have several left over and will be taking the rest with me to AWP, but since I love and appreciate all of you who read my blog, if you'd like a copy of your own, send me an e-mail at robert (at) robertswartwood (dot) com with your name and address by midnight Sunday EST and I'll drop one in the mail and you should (in theory) receive it in time for Christmas (it, like the anthology, makes a great stocking stuffer).
And speaking of Christmas, if you like SpongeBob SquarePants and Legos (because who doesn't?), then you'll love this:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLuK-QEOmcg
