Earlier this year, I published a short story collection, Fluctuation in Disorder, which is available in both print and e-book versions. The stories reflect both changes in my approach to writing over time (they span a period of approximately 20 years) and some of the range of genres and styles in which I write. I am very happy with this in one way, but it does make it hard to market in the focused way all the helpful advice for independent authors stipulates: not everyone who likes fairly conventional fantasy will find literary experimentation to their taste, and vice versa. Someone might be intrigued by the language or premise of one story while feeling the rest really aren't their cup of tea, and thus not unnaturally feel that buying the whole book would be a bit of a risk.
Mulling over this conundrum, I suddenly remembered that, as an indie author, these are my stories, published under my imprint, and that basically I can do whatever I like with them—this is the good part of the indie vs traditional publishing trade-off. So I decided to publish all of the collected stories individually, as standalone (very short) e-books. Think of it as a selection box where you can take all the nice sweets while leaving the rest in the box, and all without any feeling of guilt! This approach has the added benefit of allowing me to publish uncollected stories as I write them (or dig them out of some lost corner of my notebooks or laptop).
You can have a look at the available short stories here; over the coming week or so I will be posting about each individually.
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