Michael Poeltl's Blog, page 10

Book Trilogies End. But Sometimes the Author will Revisit it in a Short Story

Life, spelled out in a name, is the official - 'what happens after The Judas Syndrome Trilogy' has been told - story.
Spoiler Alert
It’s a difficult thing to leave a trilogy alone. Some readers want to be left to ponder the character’s prospects, while others want more! This is how I imagine Fan-Fiction took off. In this story Poeltl offer a brief yet surprising look into the events following Revelation; the third book in the wildly popular post-apocalyptic...<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]>

Not every story is meant to be a novel - read a Short Story.

Not every story is meant to be a novel, and with so many stories circling an author’s head at any given time, a short story is sometimes the best format in which to package it. Bang for your buck! Condensed story-telling.
This collection of shorts and flash fiction features fourteen multi-genre stories offering the reader a range of opportunities to slip away while on their commute, a day at the beach, or their lunch break. Short stories offer real-time entertainment in a world that demands in...

Book trailers act just like movie trailers, only for books!

I like book trailers for their ability to offer short visuals with enough information and story-telling to give the viewer a reason to go pick up the book.

I don't necessarily want the trailer to give away too much, especially where the characters and settings are concerned, as I like to conjure those images up on the merit of the writing. In this, my most recent book trailer, I decided to offer each title of the fourteen short stories included within the anthology in a unique, whimsical, yet...

Books are an adventure! Short Stories offer more!

Where will your book take you?  Novels are great, but a collection of short stories can put you in danger, insane, in love, the far future, the past, exotic locals, behind the eight ball and everywhere in between within minutes. A multi-genre collection like Waning Metaphorically does just that.
A short or flash fiction story is designed to take you out of your head and into someone else's for a brief, yet intense trip into their lives. The short story covers every gen...

Happy Canada Day, Readers! Free Books!

Canadian Author Michael Poeltl is giving away the second book of his wildly successful dystopian/post-apocalyptic trilogy; The Judas Syndrome, on Canada Day.

"Rebith; book two of the series is arguably my favourite of the three." When we asked Poeltl why, he had this to say, "because book two demonstrates my growth as a writer, a more defined story line and characters who were already developed. I didn't need to build them anymore, they had a life of their own."

He tells us that the last few sc...

Books on Your Commute Can Take You Further Than Your Stop

Every commuter has that one person they can’t stop staring at, or the reverse. Both are kind of creepy, so stop staring! Immerse yourself in a book. Even if the book is only going to act as cover for the staring. If that’s the case it might as well be an attractive book. One that might make others start noticing you, in a good way. A book immediately makes a person more interesting, you immediately have layers. Instant intellect. Perhaps in time, the object of your affection will return your...

Amazon's Kindle Select Payment Plan Has Changed.

So, what`s Amazon up to now, Indies?
I see they’ve made an announcement about their new concept where they only pay authors of self-published Kindle books enlisted in the Kindle Select program based on the amount of content – or pages – the readers actually consume.
As an author with eight books on Amazon, and several in the Kindle Select program, it will be interesting to see whether this concept fails or not. I think it will be different for every genre. Short stories should do well, while n...

Enter to Win New Anthology of Short Stories Today! Book Contest on Goodreads!

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A New Collection of Short Stories and Flash Fiction Released - Summer Reading List

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald“A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.”
– Neil Gaiman“I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up.”
– Alice Munro
The short story is once more in vogue. After Alice Munro, a short story author from Canada, won the Nobel Prize for literature at age 82– the short story seem...

Short Stories and Their Relevance in Today's Market

So I've been asking a few writing and publishing groups on LinkedIn about their opinion of the short story.  I wanted to research this subject before committing to a published anthology of my own shorts and flash fiction. This post will cover a few things my research has unearthed, and from it you can draw your own conclusions on the short story's relevance.

There was a time when newspapers published serials. The greats like Charles Dickens and Poe were fond of these. Money was to be made...