FREE! ON KINDLE! YUP!

When I began to write with a serious eye toward publication my first ventures were in the short story form. I figured that the way to learn to write was to start with short stories and move beyond that as I became proficient in that form. Scripts, articles, and novels followed. It was the way to go.


One thing that I always wanted to do was to make money through writing. I wrote anyway, for my own pleasure, but the main thing was to try to learn how to write well enough to earn spending cash from my efforts. So when I began to send my stories out into the market I would begin with the highest-paying markets I could find. If a story failed there I would down-climb the ladder of paying markets until I reached the folk near the bottom who paid 1/2 cent or so per word.


What I did not do was give my stories away for free. If I couldn't sell one, it went into the trunk where all bad little stories go to sleep forever. Or, if they're lucky, to be dusted off and rewritten or cannibalized into something that can be sold.


One of the things I dislike most about the current self-publishing scene and the accompanying micro-publishers is that there is often no promise of payment. I see ads from online magazines asking for submissions of fiction--and yet these markets ask that stories be submitted for no payment. The author receives absolutely nothing in return for publication! Worst of all, there is no shortage (apparently) of idiots willing to give their work away.


Recently I recommended a novella to an online fan. The novella was by a professional writer and the work is quite good. The person to whom I had recommended the tale balked at buying it. Why? Because the writer was charging $2 for it! "Most stuff I get is either free or only a dollar," they wrote back. "I can get novels for less than $3. I'm not going to pay $2 for a novella."


I really do wish this self-publishing ebook market would implode. It's loaded to the gills with idiots, fools, and just by-Jove lousy writing. The purveyors of this monstrosity are, quite frankly, a bunch of jerks. I hope they all get ass-cancer and die horrible, painful deaths.

We're gonna self-publish our own novels on KINDLE! Yup!