"The Calling" available on Amazon.com

Today is a momentous day.  I actually did something I said I would.

Not sure that's ever happened before.

Almost a year ago, back in November or so, I vowed to start putting my stories up for sale on Amazon. 

Wait, even before that, in October, I was in the makeup trailer with a guy who was telling me about his super-dull local history book that he'd listed on Amazon, and that he still sold several copies a month.  I thought, "If this guy can do that . . ."  Of course, he was the type to tell a stranger all about his writing, and I'm not that type.

Then, in November, Abbie Hilton came down and told me how easy it would be to upload stories, putting them in little groupings, little themed collections, bigger unthemed collections, etc. and all but forced a commitment out of me, that I would at least try it.  Her theory was (and I'm a subscriber to it) that once I'd seen how to do it, and actually done it once, I'd do it again and again.

But months and months passed.  And I never did.  We even had a kind listener volunteer to do all the work--to take our stories and create a Kindle file with cover art and everything--and it didn't sway me. 

I did create an account in May or so, and came close to being brave and putting up one of my favorite stories no one has ever read.  But when I saw that it required cover art for each story or book, I gave up.  I realize I could just have blank text like so:

yet folks have told me that an image is always better.  The better the image, the more likely someone will click on it.

So, I gave up.  Oh, I thought I'd go back to it, trying to come up with a cover image I could do without much effort, but it was half-hearted.  I am no aspiring-author-only-slumming-it-doing-extra- work, apparently.

But this month, when we ran my story "The Calling" on the Dunesteef (http://dunesteef.com/2013/08/02/episode-145-bmse-the-calling-by-rish-outfield/), the response was really positive, and people had all sorts of thoughts and suggestions about the story.  They were supportive to a T, which it seems is what I need to hear.

But instead of doing what I always do, I actually sat down and incorporated a couple of those changes into the tale, and, encouraged by all the listeners, I went ahead and listed the text for sale on Amazon.

"The Calling" is a story about a man who fled a religious family years before because he didn't believe in what they believed: that demons are walking the Earth in human guise, and it's they're job to kill them.  He runs into his twin sister, and it all comes flooding back.  Here's the link: www.amazon.com/The-Calling-ebook/dp/B00ENMZIGC

It's my plan to do this again and again, if I can overcome the damn cover art problem.  And if anybody buys it, maybe I'll do it again faster.

Rish Outfield, Aspiring Author Slumming It By Blogging