The Strange Thing About Short Stories...

Happy Hump Day

Yeah, I've missed a few Wednesdays...like every one so far in 2018...but it seemed like I should have some grand re-opening plan when I started posting again and I couldn't come up with one, so I just kept putting it off.

I actually joined Procrastinators Anonymous but they kept postponing the meetings.

But I did something recently that may be of interest to anyone who writes short stories, so I decided to share this.

I'd never been much into short stories - writing them or reading them - until my local writers group started doing public readings at local bookstores a few years back. We'd pick a theme and everyone would write a about thousand words and ten of the stories would be selected for the author to read aloud to whoever happened to come. I started doing pieces to read and discovered I liked short stories - writing them and reading/listening to them.

Several years passed before I found my short groove, mostly writing stories for anthologies since I was used to writing to a theme, and in 2017 I had seven stories published in various anthologies. I knew there wasn't any money to speak of in being part of an anthology but there was another downside I wasn't expecting. Invisibility.

Someone would hear I had a short story in an anthology and they'd ask, "Can I find it on Amazon?" Well, yes...and no. Most anthology listings on Amazon only include the name of the editor(s) and maybe a few of the authors. All the contributing authors' names are listed in the details but not in Amazon's author list...you know, the thing people can search on. I'm published in nine books currently available on Amazon but if you try searching there for LD Masterson, there are no matches.

Then someone told me about Amazon Author Central. Authors with published work available on Amazon can set up an author page gathering all their work in one place, complete with a picture and a bio and links to blogs, websites, social media, etc. Cool, huh? So I set one up. The Author Central support people verified that I was actually in the books I wanted to include and, bingo, I had an author page. Now I'd be searchable on Amazon, right? Nope. The nice support people failed to mention that having a page doesn't add you to "the list". If I had a book published under my name that was available on Amazon, I'd be on the list and someone could find that book, click on my name and find my author page from there but otherwise, I still don't exist.

The only thing Amazon does offer is a direct link URL to my author page that I can add to my email signature, my blog (there it is at the top of the right sidebar) and other social media, my business cards, etc.  But when someone asks, "Can I find you on Amazon?", the best I can do is tell them, "Sure. It's amazon.com/author/ldmasterson." and hope they have a good memory.

It's a little thing but downright frustrating, you know?

On a more cheery note, I had a short story included in the June 4 issue of Kings River Life Magazine.  That won't be on Amazon but you can read it here: http://kingsriverlife.com/06/02/murder-on-command-mystery-short-story/

And since a hump day post has to have a funny, here's one that seems appropriate...

 

Good ol' Snoopy.

 And, of course, we need an "aw"...

Come on, you know you said it. 

That's it for today. Now I wait to see if anyone still stops by here. If you do, please say hi. It'll make my day.

Bonus Funny for Today:

Blog posts aren't the only thing I procrastinate on.