Free Fiction Preview and Another Prison Break from Amazon

Just a quick note on new re-releases:

Puppet Theatre is out again, this time including not only the fun, 60's-Batman-esque short story "Puppet Theatre", but also the first four chapters of Hungry Gods.  You can find this ebook FREE just about everywhere except Amazon ('cause they don't play free without strings attached).  Here's a few links where you can find it now.  You might also find it elsewhere soon enough, as it spreads even further to where good ebooks are sold (and given away):

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Kobo

My gritty, coming-of-age, fantasy novel Tarnish is once again free from the Kindle Select pact that I'd signed in blood.  Which means you don't have to get it from Amazon anymore, you can find it just about anywhere else you buy books or ebooks too.  And the audiobook is well over halfway done, richly told by a master of voices, Todd Menesses.  (Click his name for a link to his own website.)  Here's a few links for Tarnish, too, though you'll find it at some more locales as news of its freedom spreads throughout the land:

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Apple iBooks

Series Reveal: New Identity Crisis Super Hero Universe

Series Reveal: IDC versus IDCU

Because there’s too much superheroic adventure for just one series!

The IDENTITY CRISIS series centers on events and characters surrounding the Phenomenal Five, past, present, and future.  This will consist of at least the original IDC Trilogy.  (Did you catch that at least in there…?)

Hungry Gods:  Third-string superhero Spitball is recruited by the Army to save a small Midwestern town from the zombie apocalypse.

The IDENTITY CRISIS UNIVERSE is a free-flowing series of individual stories and novels peripheral the IDC storyline, featuring heroes and villains across the breadth of time and space within this rich spandex-sporting universe.  Some tales will interconnect like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, while other will be completely free-standing stories in their own right.  In the IDCU, the possibilities are endless!

Dreams of Flying:  Three tales exploring the past, present, and future of the Identity Crisis Universe.

“Invasion” – A trio of heroes go into space in a preemptive strike against an alien attack.

“Puppet Theatre” – A different kind of vigilante fights for justice from his recliner. 

“Dreams of Flying” – A grocery store manager has special gifts and fantastic ambitions, but his first encounter with real thugs teaches him a life lesson.

Both series may expand beyond all boundaries in the years to come.  So strap on your capes, adjust your goggles, and enjoy the ride!

2016 UPDATE: The info in this post is now dated.  Dreams of Flying has been taken down and will return in 2017 with a few new stories.  I pulled Invasion out and made it its own stand-alone book.  The ending that developed naturally through story evolution demanded another book. It will eventually be the first in a series of three.  (And as I am still a slave to the 50+ hour-a-week day job, "eventually" cannot be yet defined.)

Writing in 2015: February Recap

It is my intention to set my writing career on an upward course this year, as mentioned in my 2015 News Years Resolutions post.  So as part of my accountability and tracking toward this goal, I have been keeping better stats on my progress.  This helps motivate me to strive for better scores and to show my progress in the long term.  Of course, this is 99% for myself; most of you who may happen to be reading this won't especially care.  But some of my fellow indie writers may take an interest or find some inspiration for building their own efforts and careers.  These monthly posts will be cumulative and largely repeating of the same intro/premise with new numbers toward the end.  The December post will, therefore, be a nice picture of the entire year.

To read the full deal on these monthly posts, including how I count words and how I set my goals, you can read the January post here.  Otherwise, the rest of these monthly reports will be truncated to the stats alone, as below.

General Goal: 12,000 words per month (derived from 3,000 per week average)

February:  15,400 words (9550 words on the novella Invasion)
                    redesigned my blog
                    submitted stories to magazines
                    ebooks of Hungry Gods also sold very nearly every day during this month

January:  12,650 words (8550 words on the novella Invasion)
                  published The Prince and the Darkness
                  published Hungry Gods
                  Hungry Gods release sold well beyond my goal, had a nice halo effect that reached pretty much all my other books, and all the accumulated sales were spread across SIX different countries!