Very excited to announce my first foray into true self-publishing — the collection Stories and Spilled Tea, coming August 27 and available for pre-order now for the Amazon Kindle. And here’s the cover, which isn’t bad for an amateur like myself.
(To be fair, my amazingly talented daughter, Anna, did the art. I just managed the layout. Barely.)
So what’s in it? Pretty much everything I’ve had published, along with a couple of new pieces. Here’s the breakdown of stories inside:
- “Form” (new)
- “Confessions of an Interplanetary Art Fraud” (from Unidentified Funny Objects 4)
- “On a Kansas Plain” (from Cthulhu Fhtagn!)
- “Mind Flight” (from Geeky Giving)
- “Crisis of Faith” (from Paizo’s Pathfinder web fiction series)
- “1-800-DEATH-RAY” (new)
- The Gravity of the Affair (a previously published Daedalus novella)
In addition, I’ve written essays about how these stories came to be, the challenges in writing them, and some thoughts about the publishing business as well — basically, a little color around my career thus far as a fiction-slinger. I hope that fellow scribes find a little use in there, in addition to enjoying the stories.
As this is my first self-published work, I should probably caveat a few things. I think I managed the editing and layout well — it looks clean in the preview tools — but do let me know if I screw it up. Also, the cover was designed by yours truly, and I totally get that it’s probably not as slick as many others. If this does well, maybe I’ll hire someone to clean it up, especially if there’s demand for a print version.
And yes, this is only available on Kindle at the moment. That was a tough call, honestly. I firmly believe in competition and wanting to see Amazon challenged in…well, all of the areas where it operates. But this is very much an experiment for me, and like it or not, Amazon makes it incredibly easy to use their platform — and potentially lucrative if you stay in their sandbox. So for now, it’s a Kindle Select offering. Again, if there’s demand beyond that, I’m all ears.
So thanks, everyone, for helping me have a career that makes a collection like this possible. Go give it a pre-order if you like, and tell your friends!
#SFWApro
, 
Michael J. Martinez 