| Author |
Message |
    
Mary Erickson
Wandering Member
Post Number:
248
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 01, 2005 - 04:55 pm: |   |
Jay, thanks so much for downloading and reading my story. Your praise means much to me since I know the caliber of your own writing. I would love if you'd do a review. If you go to the place where you downloaded the story and keep scrolling down you'll find customer reviews. It says "be the first to review this item. If you click on the item there's a box to write a review. 
I hope you'll decide to submit a story to Amazon Shorts. They highlight your books so it's another marketing tool. The small vender's contract they ask you to fill out is a bit cumbersome, but John Hart at Amazon is helpful in getting you through it.
www.merickson.org
www.behlerpublications.com |
G W Squires (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: ip24-254-80-212.sb.sd.cox.net
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 01, 2005 - 07:47 pm: | |
Mary~
I reviewed your piece there this morning. They say it should show in about a day. We'll see. I did submit a story to them. It was right at their max of 10,000 words (in fact, if they put it on word count they may disqualify me for that reason). It's one of my better short stories, so keep your fingers crossed.
Jay
Here we go again with another nickname... |
Mary Erickson
Wandering Member
Post Number:
249
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 02, 2005 - 08:28 am: | |
Jay, your review is there. Thanks so much and good luck on your submission. I'll be looking for it.
www.merickson.org
www.behlerpublications.com |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2394
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 10, 2005 - 10:58 pm: | |
Mary,
here is the review that I just posted to Amazon for your story. Sorry that it took so long, but the mail delivered it today. Thank you for a wonderful read.
***** A journey of growing and loving, November 11, 2005
Reviewer: Claudia VanLydegraf "Claudia" (Reno, NV) - See all my reviews
Learn about your Mother/Father before it is too late. Know a bit about the person that brought you into this world. The Girl Known As Gulli is a poignant story about a grown daughter coming home to bury her mother only to have to finally learn about who her Mother really was. Death is final and the person can't tell you anymore about who they really were inside, so you (the grown child) have to learn by memory and instinct about who that person was in the glamorous picture that doesn't really resemble the one known as Mother in your mind. All people have so many different facets to them, many that we as children never start to understand until those loved parents are no longer in this world and our daily thoughts. Read this story and you will have a new appreciation of those people that we are sometimes prone to feel are a burden to overcome. The Girl Known as Gulli will give you a much deeper understanding of the lives and dreams that all people have before they become parents.
It made me cry because I never got to know my Mother at all as an adult person, only from a child's point of view as a parent who was always trying to make and mold me into the best I could become. I sincerely wish I would have been given the chance to know the real woman instead of just the Mother.
Claudia
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
|
Mary Erickson
Wandering Member
Post Number:
254
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 11, 2005 - 03:49 pm: | |
Claudia, if anything will make people want to download my story, your review will do it. Thanks so much for a wonderful review. I might just have to come to Nevada and wash your dog for you.
www.merickson.org
www.behlerpublications.com |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2395
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 11, 2005 - 05:01 pm: | |
thank you, Mary...... for wanting me to read it.
Claudia
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
|
Jay Squires
Awareness Member
Post Number:
36
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 14, 2005 - 04:02 pm: | |
Hi again, Mary. You said in an earlier post (on this thread) that you came home from out of town and found your memoire was posted. How long was it after you faxed and emailed back their required information? I sent mine in last Thursday, the 10th. I'm sure it takes a couple of weeks, at least, but I was just curious how long it was for yours. I want to work up a newsletter to email out, but I'll need to make sure my story shows on Amazon first. And, directing this to the rest of you, has anyone else submitted anything to them?
Thanks,
Jay |
Tom Elkins
Wandering Member
Post Number:
264
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 14, 2005 - 07:33 pm: | |
I e-mailed them about three weeks ago expressing my interest. I got an e-mail reply thanking me for my interest and promising a reply in about two days. After another week I e-mailed them again, repeated my interest with a copy of my original e-mail, and got an identical reply. Still no contact. How did you do it?
te
Tom Elkins
NORTH of TEXAS |
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
125
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - 09:23 am: | |
Yes, Jay, I've contracted with Amazon for publication of one of my stories. I returned materials to them just yesterday. Will make it known on this thread both the title of the story and when it appears.
Spine
The Buckseller |
Jay Squires
Awareness Member
Post Number:
37
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - 10:20 am: | |
Hey, Tom, I didn't bother with the indirect route. I handled it like any other submission, by sending a cover letter with a little interest-getter in the first paragraph and an attachment of the story. I got back a "congratulations" email in about a week and a half. Now I'm just wondering if they will be notifying me about when I can expect to see it or am I to just keep looking every day? Like F.E. Mazur, I'll let everyone know when it appears. Meanwhile, all my good friends can start clawing through the couch cushions for fitty cents cause it should be any day.
Jay |
Mary Erickson
Wandering Member
Post Number:
255
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - 04:15 pm: | |
Jay, I checked back and I think it was two to three weeks after I sent back the contract before my memoir appeared on Amazon Shorts. I save change for trips to Las Vegas, so I'm all set for when your story shows up. Congratulations to both you and F.E. Mazur!
www.merickson.org
www.behlerpublications.com |
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
132
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 08:31 am: | |
Fellow Mindsighters, my short story, 'A Bigger Case' is now available on Amazon as an Amazon Short. You can download it for pocket change. Only $.49. If you wish to check out the page, here is the link...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CNF82A/qid=1133882442/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6782651-9490436?s=books&v=glance&n=551440
Spine
The Buckseller |
Jay Squires
Awareness Member
Post Number:
44
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 12:36 pm: | |
Hey, F.E., congratulations -- and I do plan on downloading it. But please help me through my confusion. I have been searching for your story and mine just about daily since we both reported having been accepted. When I read your good news, today, I went right over to Amazon and checked under the catagories of Mysteries and Literary Fiction and couldn't find "A Bigger Case." I checked under your name. Nothing. Title: Nothing. Finally, I went through all the "shorts" one-by-one. Still no luck. Frustrated, I went back to your posting (to see if I had misspelled anything) and saw you had their URL, clicked it and ZAM, there was your story! Doesn't that disturb you? How are people who don't have the URL you provided get to your story. And... importantly TO ME... Is my story tangled up in some obscure URL, too? Never ever to be found? Never ever read? I mean...
Jay |
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
133
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 12:52 pm: | |
Hi Jay,
I remembered you were waiting on a story just like me. So after I found mine, I typed in Jay Squires and up came your book, followed by your short story. I clicked on it and hey, it's there. Maybe you need to empty your cache so your 'puter goes hunting for new stuff. I didn't want to announce yours because it's your thunder, but since you asked... HEY EVERYBODY! Jay's story is also available as an Amazon short just like Mary's and mine.
Spine
The Buckseller |
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
134
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 01:01 pm: | |
Jay,
Here is the URL to your story...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CNF82U/ref=pd_rhf_p_1/002-6782651-9490436?n=13998591&no=%2A&s=books&v=glance
I noticed that our stories do not yet appear in the table of contents, but perhaps they will in a day or so. We'll keep checking.
Spine
The Buckseller |
Jay Squires
Awareness Member
Post Number:
45
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 01:05 pm: | |
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CNF82U/qid=1133897971/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-3173652-6088121?s=books&v=glance&n=551440#biography
AND IN CASE YOU DIDN'T SEE IT:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CNF82U/qid=1133897971/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-3173652-6088121?s=books&v=glance&n=551440#biography
I went back to Amazon and did a more general search, F.E. (may I call you Effie? -- Okay, after seeing your picture, I'll stick with F.E.) under ALL books and found "A Bigger Case" there with the rest of your novels. So, quick study that I am, I tried typing in Jay Squires (and after a couple of corrected misspellings) I came up with "The Mumph Legacy" right there with my overpriced and unprolific offering of "The Dead of Winter." Okay, I'm happy to see it. I'm just a little unhappy that you and I have to sit out in the hallway with our little "read me" placards while all the fun's going on in the Amazon Shorts banquet room. I mean, puh-leez!
Jay
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CNF82U/qid=1133897971/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-3173652-6088121?s=books&v=glance&n=551440#biography
(In case there're more than two of you who want to drop by.)
J.S. |
Jay Squires
Awareness Member
Post Number:
46
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 01:18 pm: | |
Ummmm, Thanks, F.E. My timing sucks. I was in the process of answering myself, in my typically long-winded fashion, when you jumped right in there with a succint explanation. I hope you're right, though, about it showing up in a day or two.
Jay |
Tom Elkins
Wandering Member
Post Number:
280
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005 - 07:15 am: | |
Hey gang...I've been REJECTED by Amazon Shorts. Sent them two stories, both fiction, both satire, or whatever my type of humor is called. "Not the type of thing we're looking for at this time".
That should make those of you who've been accepted feel better. As for me, I'll just put on my dunce cap and sit in the corner.
te
Tom Elkins
NORTH of TEXAS
www.authorsden.com/tomelkins |
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
140
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005 - 08:02 am: | |
To hell with that dunce cap, Tom. Spend 49 cents and download "A Bigger Case." It'll put a smile on your face and make you forget about those rejections. I guarantee it, no money back.
Spine
The Buckseller |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2926
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005 - 03:03 pm: | |
I didn't realize there was a selection process with the Amazon Shorts program. I thought it was simply a way for authors to promote their current works while selling something shorter for a lot less money, to provide a glimpse of the author's writing style in the book they'd be paying more for.
Which is why I haven't yet submitted...
Mindsight Moderator
Check out the musings over at Aston's new blog
|
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
141
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 05:49 am: | |
Why would you think that, Todd? I know Pac started off this thread with a touch of vestigial paranioa, but I thought he was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. Amazon Shorts is cutting edge and takes advantage of the growing popularity of download devices. Why would Amazon want to pollute what it personally is offering with material that doesn't meet their standards or their needs? And the latter is likely the reason Tom's material was rejected. I suspect at the moment they want to give the train and bus riders and others on lunch break just a plain good story or memoir or other narrative to read during a winding-down time.
Two or three years back, there was a story about a young female writer in New York City who wasn't having any luck getting her short stories accepted for publication. She came up with a great idea. She printed out hundreds of the stories, then went down to Grand Central where she hawked them for, I think, a couple of bucks per story. She made out pretty well as a lot of the train riders wanted something short to read on their way home from work. Unfortunately, the police moved in and moved her out because of the expectation that sellers of the same and other goods might begin to do the same thing, and yada yada yada. Amazon Shorts legitimizes her activity and makes it available everywhere.
Keep in mind Amazon Shorts remains a relatively new program and think about what 'new' entails.
Now go write something that others and myself might want to read.
Spine
The Buckseller |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2927
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 06:10 am: | |
"Why would you think that, Todd?"
"Why would Amazon want to pollute what it personally is offering with material that doesn't meet their standards or their needs?"
Because Amazon is a seller, not a publisher or magazine?
But maybe they've become one now...
"Amazon Shorts legitimizes her activity and makes it available everywhere."
Except people visiting Amazon are expecting to be asked to buy something along the way...people riding the train to work do not (I personally thought it was a brilliant plan, myself).
I have no trouble with the Amazon Shorts program, and one day, I plan to submit (just not at the moment, considering the other material it may lead a reader to). I was simply mistaken with my first impression of the program.
"Now go write something that others and myself might want to read."
I have...my next novel...
Mindsight Moderator
Check out the musings over at Aston's new blog
|
Dennis Collins
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1641
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 12:00 pm: | |
This is a great topic with some terrific input. I just gotta come up with something to submit.
Moderator
www.theunrealmccoy.com |
F.E. Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number:
144
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 19, 2005 - 05:19 am: | |
I recently read where a small press is doing the same thing with short story submissions. While it will continue to publish mysteries and other works, it is discontinuing, perhaps not completely, its publication of short story collections, instead offering them at a small price for a download. This aspect of the market seems to have promise and the 49 cents price tag is grooming the patron to pay more for larger downloads. In other words, although the general feeling is that hard copy books are becoming expensive, there also seems to be a reluctance by many to fork out 5 dollars for the download of a novel. After all, if you don't want to read 300 pages on a computer screen, there's the extra cost of the paper printout and the cartridge ink, not to mention the time and effort involved in actually producing a hard copy for oneself. Getting readers in the habit of doing this is greatly helped by offering a product at a minuscule price. You can download copies of Mary's, Jay's, and my stories--3 stories altogether--for under a buck and a half. Short-term parking at an airport will cost you more. The idea here seems to be an attempt create a demand. When that demand is realized, prices will then likely rise and customers may then become more willing to download longer works costing even more.
Application of this type of marketing is somewhat analogous to what is happening in the music industry. It was always a bothersome thing to buy an album or CD for 10 or 15 dollars, or whatever the price was at the time, and discover that you really only liked 2 or 3 of the 12 songs, and these are the ones you played over and over. Today, anyone can download a favorite song for a small price and leave the others of no interest behind. In some ways, short story collections could be disappointing. Perhaps you read a story by a particular author and you liked it, so you went out and laid down a Jackson for a collection, only to discover that other stories by the same author weren't quite as satisfying. This new inexpensive downloading tends to reduce that possibility, at the same time it is allowing others a taste of authors they haven't tried previously.
It all seems like a good thing to me.
"A Bigger Case" - $0.49 download from Amazon.com
Spine
The Buckseller |
Joyce Scarbrough
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
729
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - 02:11 pm: | |
I plan to download everyone's stories as soon as I can get the blasted transaction to go through! It just keeps going back to the first step screen over and over.
I'll try again tonight, I promise!
~Joyce Sterling Scarbrough
True Blue Forever
ISBN 0-9722385-9-X
Authors Ink Books
http://www.authorsinkbooks.com
Senior Editor
Champagne Books
http://www.champagnebooks.com |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2938
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - 03:50 pm: | |
Meanwhile, Joyce's bank account has 100 withdrawl transactions of $.49 each...
;-)
Mindsight Moderator
Check out the musings over at Aston's new blog
|
Joyce Scarbrough
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
733
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - 08:21 pm: | |
Ha ha ha, Todd. I didn't give them my bank account info. I use Discover for everything, pay it off monthly and get 1% cash back, so if I have 100 .49 transactions on my Discover card, at least I'll get almost half a cent cash back on each one! (Did you see me do that math there? And I didn't even use a calculator!)
Toyce
~Joyce Sterling Scarbrough
True Blue Forever
ISBN 0-9722385-9-X
Now available to order from Authors Ink Books
http://www.authorsinkbooks.com
Read the first chapter at http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
Pour yourself a glass of bubbly and check out Champagne Books http://www.champagnebooks.com |
Tom Elkins
Wandering Member
Post Number:
284
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2005 - 05:52 am: | |
Boggles the mind, Toyce. Let's see...and if you bought 100, you'd get .49 back (did that without a calculator). What wealth! That and your Discover card would buy you a cup of coffee.
Tom Elkins
NORTH of TEXAS
www.authorsden.com/tomelkins |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2941
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2005 - 11:32 am: | |
or another download...
Mindsight Moderator
Check out the musings over at Aston's new blog
|
Jay Squires
Awareness Member
Post Number:
48
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2005 - 04:01 pm: | |
You two just leave Toyce and her discover card alone, you heah?
Jay |
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