Stephen L. Thompson's Blog, page 14

Free story idea – Elf Cop

Ihave a lot of ideas for stories.  Like,if I wrote a novel’s worth of them every month, I’d still most likely diebefore getting through them all.  I willadmit that some of the ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that agood writer could make something of them. I’ll just never get a chance to. So, I give them to the world.  Ifyou can make something of these, go right ahead.  And

Too much data

Forthose of you who just read Kindle ebooks, you might not know how much datathose of us who wrote those ebooks get. Every month we get a report.  Thisshows how many of our ebooks were bought, how many we gave away in freepromotions, and how many pages were read. (If you don’t know, if you grab an ebook with Kindle Unlimited but onlyread part of it, the author still gets paid something

Free story idea – Wild Powers

Ihave a lot of ideas for stories.  Like,if I wrote a novel’s worth of them every month, I’d still most likely diebefore getting through them all.  I willadmit that some of the ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that agood writer could make something of them. I’ll just never get a chance to. So, I give them to the world.  Ifyou can make something of these, go right ahead.  And

Moon landing sale!

I ama big supporter of returning to the moon; I think it’s our best way of becominga spacefaring civilization.  And eventhough it happened before I was born, I love Apollo 11, even thinking that July 20th should be a holiday.  So to mark this year’s anniversary, I’mhaving a sale on four of my ebooks.  Twoof them deal with the moon, but I’m including the other two as a bonus.  So between

Judge a book by its cover

Ihave an idea for a book app.  Authorsupload an image of their book’s cover, and readers get to go through them.  If the reader doesn’t like the cover, theyswipe left.  But if they find the coverinteresting, they swipe right, which opens up a page with the blurb as well aslinks to buy it. Soif you know how to make an app, there you go. Or if this already exists, let me know.

Fourth of July Sale!

Forthe last several years, I’ve had a free sale for my ebook of political stories,Political Pies, around the Fourth ofJuly.  Normally, I’d just have one ebookfree at a time, but last year I started doing big sales with four or five at atime, which seemed to work better.  Sohere are the four ebooks that will be free to download from Thursday July 1st,through Monday July 5th.  So grab them

Writing Newsletter Second Quarter 2021

 Towardsthe end of last year, I decided to restart posting a quarterly newsletter.  I unfortunately completely forgot about doingit for the first quarter of this year until about a week into April.  At first I was going to do one – better latethan never – but then I realized that I didn’t really have anything to talkabout, so there wasn’t much point.Tobe honest, there isn’t much to talk

Random Writing Tips – Social commentary

Ihad the idea for this post some time ago, and at first it was going to bepretty lighthearted.  But as I thoughtabout it, it took more and more serious turns, until I wasn’t sure what I wastrying to say.  Hopefully, this tenth orso version will make some sense.Weall have ideas on politics, or religion, or whatever, and as writers there isthe temptation to use the platform of our writing

Random Writing Tips – The Memory Sock

Howoften has this happened to you?  You’vehad a long day at work or dealing with your kids or whatever, and you snuggledown into your blankets, and just as your about to drift off to sleep yourbrain finally figures out the last puzzle piece that ties your noveltogether.  Do you assume that the idea isso profound you’ll clearly remember it in the morning, or do you get up, findsome paper

Random Writing Tips – blog mining

 Itseems that if you want to sell your books – especially if you self-publish –you need to find and engage with an audience. That’s great an all, if you’re someone who can hold a conversation.  One time in college, I was walking somewherewith a woman and she said, “So, tell me about yourself.” I thought for a bitand replied, “I was born.” She laughed, and then started talking aboutsomething