Excerpt #7 from Savage Fire

Now that Savage Fire has been out for a bit, I thought I'd post another excerpt. There have been six reviews posted on Amazon (five of them 5-stars, one 4-star), and two of the reviewers have singled out Worth Watching as of special interest. To thank then, I have included an excerpt below from the beginning:

Start of Worth Watching, an excerpt from Savage Fire:

It was a sunny day. Ned peered out at the sky, but there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Nonetheless, he slipped on his galoshes and raincoat and tucked a small black umbrella into his pocket. Ned stepped outside, checking both ways for bicycles or unobservant pedestrians.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” Mrs. Stepford smiled and waved, and Ned gave a half-hearted wave in her direction. In his opinion, it was the ones who smiled and waved who were most likely to trip you, steal your wallet and leave your battered carcass in the alley behind the dumpster. People like that needed watching. He glanced back several times to check on Mrs. Stepford before turning the corner.

“Morning, Ned.”

“Hey, Ned! Dressed for the weather, I see. Ha ha.”

“Ned, need a paper today?” 

It was like any other day, and after placing his rain gear near his office door, Ned scrubbed his hands for a good five minutes. The germs you don’t see are the ones that kill you.

Using a tissue to hold the mouse, Ned scrolled through his new messages. Two spam messages and an email from his mother went into the Trash folder, but he read one titled Twenty Thousand: Thursday with interest. He checked his calendar, nodded and typed a short reply. A quick squirt of hand sanitizer and Ned was ready for business.

Ned carefully planned his approach. It was essential that no detail be left to chance; danger lurked around every corner. Ned wrote nothing down. One never knew who might snoop.

Satisfied, Ned left for home after putting on his galoshes and raincoat, and checking that the umbrella was in its place. He stepped back out into the bright sunshine, looking both ways as he did.

Would you like to read more of this and the fifteen other stories in Savage Fire? Pick up a copy on Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or Smashwords or most other digital bookstores. You can also buy it here with Paypal or a credit card, and have a personal dedication added if you like. (See right sidebar)

Want to star in a published horror story (for free)?

I recently introduced the option to buy a copy of Savage Fire and have it include a personalized dedication to you (or to the name you request). I am intrigued by the idea of customized stories, so I am making an offer to you, my loyal readers.

Pick one of the stories below, each taken from Savage Fire, and tell me which character you would like to be, and what format is easiest for you, Kindle (.mobi), Nook (.epub) or PDF. In stories with multiple characters, you can choose names for any secondary characters listed if you like. Post in the comments (or via Facebook, Twitter DM or email, whatever) the story and name(s), and I'll send you that story with the names altered appropriately. No cost.

If you want to go one step further, order the book from this page (see Buy Now on right), and I'll include the customized story in the full set, as well as dedicating it. Otherwise, if you don't order, you will get a single story.

"Savage Fire": In this tale of Victorian England where the undead walk, Richard Galworthy is the protagonist behind the Alchemy, and the subject of his experiments is Sir Julian Wattford. (Full male names only, one or both of the two characters can be named)

"Awake in the Age of Lizards": Tommy Gwen’cher is the only named character is this short, bizarro piece with religious undertones and large bipedal lizards. (Either male or female, full name)

"An Island Never Cries": In this story of bloodthirsty urges, Kate is the young lady who is bitten, and goes out to wreak havoc on the people in her life, her friends Jasmine and Carla, a football hottie named Sam Taylor, and an innocent man who suffers anyway named Tim Davis. (Female first name for Kate and first name of either of the two girls or full names of the two males)

"Unfinished Business": Pamela is dead, but horny as hell. Her partners in the story are Robert Wilson, Jimmy and Becky (yes, they all get some), and her enemy is Jacob. Would you like to star in this steamy zombie story? (female first name for Pamela and first names for one or more of the other three males or the female)

If anybody has a special favorite among the other twelve stories, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Please let friends know as well, as I'd like to have some fun with this.

Does your ebook come with a personalized dedication?

There's something special about a book signed by the author, especially when he or she writes it to you specifically. I've been thinking about whether there is a way to sign copies of Savage Fire, and I have come up with a way.

If you buy a copy of Savage Fire through this blog, you can specify the format you want for the ebook, and also a name to be used to personally dedicate the book. For example, imagine that Alice Rasmussen (a purely fictional character, not meant to be any specific individual) wants to buy a copy dedicated to herself. Alice has a Kindle, so she picks the Kindle format and writes her name in the text box, "Alice Rasmussen", and then clicks on the Buy Now button and pays with her Visa card.

About an hour later, Alice notices in her mail that the personalized copy has arrived. She opens it with her Kindle for PC application, and sees the following as the first page that appears. Alice is so excited, she orders another copy, this one dedicated to her father, Frank Rasmussen. She then sends it to him as a late Father's Day gift.

Click to show full size.

Update on pricing at $2.99 vs. $0.99

This post is a follow up to my earlier post,  Does your $0.99 book sell six times as many copies?, which generated a good deal of interest. I started at $2.99 for Savage Fire, dropped it to $0.99 for a week and then returned to $2.99.

Thus far, it appears that Savage Fire is selling a little faster at $2.99 than it was at $0.99. It is hard to be very certain of the impact of such a change when you are only selling a couple a day, but even that seems pretty good for a short story collection from a relatively unknown author.

I'd be curious how others are faring with either raising or lowering their prices. I know of one author who raised her price from $0.99 to $2.99. Actually, I encouraged her pretty strongly, so I feel a little responsible. If you go buy her wonderful YA book of witches and intrigue, I Wish... (The Witches of Desire), you will not only help to prove me right, but get a really good book as well.

Another author raised her price from $2.99 to $4.99. I didn't encourage that (or discourage it, or have anything to do with it), but it is a book I would gladly have paid $4.99 for, though I happened to purchase it before the price change. Her book is also YA, but a darker, more intense contemporary (no paranormal or fantasy) called Cage of Bone.

How about you? Have you raised your price, or lowered it, or stuck with what was working? Any feedback would be welcome, and of course you also get a chance to provide a link to your book.

Web comic for "Unsettled Hearts" from Savage Fire

I have been tweeting web comics for each story in Savage Fire, my recently published short story collection, to give readers ideas about the stories, as well as a puzzle to solve. I call them web comics, but the structure is a limerick loosely about the story written on top of an image that has some relationship with the story. If you own a copy of the book (and if you don't, hurry over and buy a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords for only $2.99), you can read the story and figure out what twisted logic I have employed to get to that image and that limericks. If you don't get enough from that one story, don't worry, there are sixteen in all.

The seventh story in the Savage Fire book, "Unsettled Hearts", is Old Western/action/lesbian story. Seriously. Not kidding. Read it and you'll see.

Does your 99 cent book sell six times as many copies?

I have been playing around with the pricing for Savage Fire, and was convinced to drop the price to 99 cents as a promotion tactic. It hasn't made much difference, as I sold about the same number of copies as I had in the same number of days before that.

But this is where Amazon gets you. Drop the price to 99 cents to compete with all of the other 99 cent books, and your commission drops to 35% instead of 70%. What does that translate to in revenue? Each copy of Savage Fire selling at $2.99 made me a commission of $2.06 on Amazon. Each copy of Savage Fire selling at $0.99 made me a commission of $0.35.

Therefore, six copies sold at $0.99 each would make $2.10, or $0.04 more than one copy at $2.99.

Obviously, there is a value to getting more copies out there, but this is the raw truth behind the differing commissions and the downward price pressure. If more authors would insist on the $2.99 as a floor, that would become more widely accepted by buyers. If everybody races for the bottom price of $0.99, the only one happy is Amazon.

(As an aside, the comparable $0.99 book sold at Smashwords directly brings in $0.56, while the $2.99 book brings in $2.21, so four copies would make more, hardly surprising when the price is three times as much.)

Web comic for "Saving Grace" from Savage Fire

I have been tweeting web comics for each story in Savage Fire, my recently published short story collection, to give readers a puzzle to solve. At least I call them web comics. Each is a limerick about the story on top of an image that has some relationship with the story, even if it is that odd uncle who always trails his tie in the soup. If you own a copy of the book (and if you don't, hurry over and buy a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords for $0.99 this week only), you can read the story and figure out what twisted logic I have employed to get to that image and that limericks. (Of course, some may be beyond all understanding, in which case blame the whiskey.)

The sixth story in the Savage Fire book, "Saving Grace", is a more gentle, haunting story, with a liberal dose of sibling rivalry gone wrong.

Web comic for "Double Cross" from Savage Fire

To give my readers a taste of the variety of stories in Savage Fire, my recently published short story collection, I have been tweeting web comics for each story. At least I call them web comics. Each is a limerick about the story on top of an image that has some relationship with the story, even if it is just a bastard stepchild. If you own a copy of the book (and if you don't, hurry over and buy a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords for $0.99 this week only), you can read the story and cringe at the twisted logic (and painful puns) behind the limericks.

The fifth story in the Savage Fire book, "Double Cross", goes in a completely different direction, with a hard-boiled, hard-drinking private eye faced with a difficult case, complete with the requisite leggy dame.

Web comic for "Worth Watching" from Savage Fire

To give my readers a feel for the variety of stories in Savage Fire, my short story collection, I have been tweeting web comics for each story. The comic is a limerick about the story superimposed on an image that has to do with the story in some way, obvious or otherwise. If you own a copy of the book (and if you don't, hurry over and buy a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords for only 99 cents this week only), you can read the story and cringe at the twisted logic (and occasionally terrible puns) behind the limericks.

The fourth story in the Savage Fire book, "Worth Watching", introduces an odd obsessive man with quirky habits, some of them quite deadly.

Click on image to see full size

Web comic for "An Island Never Cries" from Savage Fire

To give my readers a sense of the stories in my Savage Fire short story collection, or simply a sense of what an odd person I am, I have been tweeting web comics for each story. Each is a limerick about the story superimposed on an image that makes some sort of sense, if you read the story. So, if you buy a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords for only 99 cents, you can read the story yourself and see the logic (and occasionally terrible puns) behind the limericks.

The third story in the Savage Fire book is "An Island Never Cries" which is a dark, vampiric story with questionable dark sexual undertones (do I know how to sell a story or what?).

Web comic for "Awake in the Age of Lizards" from Savage Fire

To give my readers a taste of the stories in my Savage Fire short story collection, I have been tweeting web comics for each story. At least I call them web comics. Basically, each is a limerick about the story superimposed on an image that makes some sort of sense. Of course, if you bought a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords, you could read the stories yourself and see the clever (or not-so-clever) logic behind the limericks and the image.

The second story in the Savage First book is "Awake in the Age of Lizards" which is a short bizarro piece with odd religious allusions. The image is a bit bizarro to match the story.

Web comic for "Savage Fire" title story

To give my readers a taste of the stories in my Savage Fire short story collection, I have been tweeting web comics for each story. At least I call them web comics. Basically, each is a limerick about the story superimposed on an image that makes some sort of sense. Of course, if you bought a copy on Amazon or at Smashwords, you could read the stories yourself and see the clever (or not-so-clever) logic behind the limericks and the image.

Or just laugh at me. I can take it.

TGIF! Celebrating with 50% off sale this weekend only

Thank God It's Friday! To celebrate, get a copy of Savage Fire for 50% off on #Smashwords using coupon FW77X

Valid through Sunday $1.49 at Smashwords page

Heck, for that price, pick up a copy for a friend.

Excerpt #6 from Savage Fire

Now that Savage Fire is available and getting snapped up by discerning readers everywhere, I thought I'd post another excerpt. Since I promised a few naughty bits, here's the start of one of those stories.

Start of Unfinished Business, an excerpt from Savage Fire:

     Pamela opened her eyes, but it made no difference. She blinked. Still nothing. Her arm was very stiff, but she lifted it with an effort. It smacked into wood with a dull thud a few inches above her face.

     Damn! She was dead after all. Jacob had startled her horse, she fell, and now here she was in a coffin. It figured.

     The day had started well. Pamela rode her horse, Dusty, to the general store to get sugar and flour for Jenny’s cake. The Wilson’s older son, Robert, was alone tending the store. He had the dreamiest blue eyes, which grew wider when she flipped the sign on the door to Closed and unbuttoned her blouse. Robert said he couldn’t, but what do you know, he could after all. Once past his shyness, he’d been quite enthusiastic.

Second day sales results

It's a bit hard to pinpoint sales since Amazon waits so long to post results (Smashwords is virtually instantaneous), but the current results shown are:

Amazon US: 11 sales
Amazon UK: 2 sales
Amazon Germany: 0 sales
Smashwords: 3 sales
B&N (not available until Smashwords accepts into Premium catalog)
Kobo (not available until Smashwords accepts into Premium catalog)

So, a grand total of 16 sales in two days. Obviously, that rate won't necessarily keep up, although I have a variety of people who are reading and planning on reviewing, which should help.

According to a statistic I saw today (unverified), only 5 out of a 1000 books published sells 100 or more copies. Using that as a very rough benchmark, I have 84 copies left to sell to break into the top half a percent. Scary!

Lessons learned while formatting Savage Fire

Having just made it through the process of getting Savage Fire published, I thought I would share what I learned while formatting, first for Amazon and then for Smashwords.

Lesson 1) Format for Smashwords first, and then for Amazon. The Smashwords formatting guide is good, if extremely demanding, but it helps you lay things out right from the beginning.

Lesson 2) Read and follow Guido Henkel's excellent series, Take pride in your eBook formatting as you prepare for the Amazon publishing. Since the early stages of Guido's process suggest using Word, start with the Smashwords, get it working, save a copy and then start with Guido's steps.

Lesson 3) Calibre is awesome (and free) software, but don't use the PDF they create unless you want to use it on very small devices. It sizes things as if you were using an iPhone. The Smashwords PDF is far better, but you can also use a product such as PDF995 to print from the Smashwords document to PDF. If you plan to do that, insert the cover image into the first page before you create the PDF.

Lesson 4) Don't start formatting until you have absolutely finalized the editing.  Making changes in the prepared document can be done, but it is where most errors come in.

Lesson 5) Add two hard returns (hit enter twice) before you insert a page break and set the style for your chapter heading. Otherwise, the font and style mess up the last paragraph on the page before.

Lesson 6) Check and double check your final, formatted document in every format you can.

Lesson 7) Since both Amazon and Smashwords allow sampling, test the samples to make sure they don't end in an obnoxious way. I don't know how easy that is to change on Amazon, but on Smashwords it is very easy to change the percentage. I wish they allowed you to set a mark as the "end of sample", but I couldn't find one.

My first review for Savage Fire - Five stars

It is nerve-wracking waiting for your first review of your first book, but it was worth the wait. I got a five star review that said:

Sixteen short stories, all of them different from each other except that most are ironic or dark. My favorite is one called "Worth Watching", because of its central character. No spoilers in this review, but let's say the story contains an unexpected, fun twist. Solid work on the Victorian dialects in the opening tale, "Savage Fire", and weird, beautiful prose poetry elsewhere in the volume. The inclusion of an old-fashioned, hard-boiled detective short story was a pleasant surprise. Worth buying.

Wow! Thanks, P. Teintze!

You can order your own copy from Amazon or from Smashwords.

Thanks to all the readers supporting me. You make it worth writing. Oh, and please review the book after you read it, even if you can't give a five star review. All feedback is appreciated, whether it is on Amazon, Goodreads, Smashwords or your own blog.

Kindle the Savage Fire!

I am very pleased to announce that my first collection of short stories, Savage Fire is available now for $2.99 for Kindle (unless Amazon puts it on sale). It is also on Smashwords for various digital formats, including on-line reading (with paid order). The cover and ordering info is on the right sidebar.

I appreciate all the support I have gotten here and on Twitter and Facebook as I have prepared this short story collection. Of course, along with the gratitude, I have to ask another favor. Buy a copy of the book, and let me know what you think. If you like it, terrific! If you don't, I still want to know.

There are sixteen different stories in Savage Fire, from Victorian zombies to bizarro to beastly horror to humor. Chances are, you won't like every story the same amount, so let me know if you have any favorites (or most hated).

And thanks again for sharing my journey.

First update on sales: I don't know how far behind the reporting is, but so far there are 4 sales on Amazon.com and 2 on Amazon.co.uk.
Second update on sales: There are 6 sales reported on Amazon.com, 2 on Amazon.co.uk and 1 on Smashwords. The best Amazon rank I saw was #13,182 Paid in Kindle Store.
Third update on sales: As of 6:45am, there are 8 sales reported on Amazon.com, 2 on Amazon.co.uk and 2 on Smashwords. The Amazon rank is mow I saw was #17,363 Paid in Kindle Store.