Stephen L. Thompson's Blog, page 42

A Man of Few Words

Coming up with ideas for stories, writing them out, polishing them up, putting them together in a manuscript, getting a cover, and publishing a book is a lot of hard work. But that���s only half the battle of writing, because then you have to sell your book. In many ways, that���s the harder part. I have several books and ebooks out, and while I send out tweets about them on a regular basis, few people know they exist. So I���ve decided to take one day each week and really push one of my book...

I���m not doing much blogging, am I?

It���s been a while since I���ve posted to my blogs. It���s not that I don���t have ideas, it���s just that there are these other sites where you can post articles and earn money. While part of the reason I started blogging was so people would learn of my existence and maybe buy my books, I can do the say with these sites and earn money while doing it. So that���s where most of my article writing energies have gone in the past few months. But I do have some ideas for my regular blogs, so I���...

I’ve started posting stories on Patreon

Earlier this morning I posted my story “Cleansing Fire” on my Patreon profile. This is the first story of my Solar System Stories series where I plan to write twelve stories set at various locations throughout the solar system. This story is set nearish the sun and is about a guy who does dangerous stunts. To read the story, you either have to become a patron at the low, low price of a $1 a story, or you can wait over a year until I collect them all into an ebook which will probably sell for...

Download Political Pies for free!

What’s scarier than all the ghosts and goblins at your door? There’s an election next week.

To try to blunt the horror of the season, I’m offering my anthology of forty, short, political stories Political Pies for free! You’ll be able to download it to your Kindle now through Wednesday November 5. Download it early, and you can read it while waiting in line to vote on Tuesday.

If “free” isn’t enough to entice you, check out the cover and blurb:

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone...

Jumping into Patreon

So several months ago I heard of this Patreon site where creators of videos, comics, stories, or whatever can raise funds with the help of patrons. I thought it was a great idea, but I wasn’t too sure how well it would work for someone like me. But after thinking about, I decided to join.

My first project I’ll be working on is to write twelve, short science fiction stories of a few thousand words at least. These stories will be set in twelve “locations” in the solar system, the sun (well, near...

Check out QuarterReads

QuarterReads describes itself as “A short read at a fair price.” Basically, you read short stories or poems for a quarter. What’s really interesting is what happens for writers. Of that $0.25 you spend on a story, the author of said story receives $0.22. Having things the other way around where the author only gets $0.03 is more common. But that’s not all. If you enjoy the story, you can tip the author an additional, $0.25, $0.50, or $0.75, and all of the tips go to the author.

As someone who...

Recap of my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge

So it’s halfway through October and I’ve just realized that my last post here was at the end of August announcing that I would be trying to write thirty stories during the month of September. I had planned to make updates about it, but I never got around to it. And I had planned to do a recap with links to all the stories, but I just kind of forgot about that. Well, better late than never.

First off, I didn’t reach my goal of thirty stories, I only wrote twenty-one. Part of it was I had severa...

30 Stories in 30 Days

Just moments after midnight, I’ll be starting my 2014 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge. In case you can’t figure it out, that’s where I try to write thirty short – sometimes very short – stories in as many days. In previous years I have posted the stories on my website or here on this blog, but this year I’ll be posting them on my Bubblews page. To get a little more information, check out this post which should answer any questions.

Wish me luck.

A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories

A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea of putting out minianthologies – collections of five to ten stories – on Kindle as a way to use up some of my stories and to let people know I exist. Well, I have just put out my latest minianthology – “A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories.” It contains five stories set upon the moon. The blurb I have for it is as follows:

Hopefully, in the not too distant future humans will return to the moon. We will build bases and colonies, create far...

The Dog Did What?

Today’s the day. Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Dog Did What? is out today. As you can see by the picture above, you can find my story “The Reluctant Host” on page 293. And while it would be nice if you read mine first, I won’t mind if you take your time and read all 101.

I hope you’ll check it out, and I hope you enjoy.