Blog Entries from MumblingSage

  1. Smarter CreateSpace Formatting for Better Royalties

    While I always encourage writers, self-published or not, to write concisely, even a book without wasted words may run long. All the better, if you have an epic story that’s full of nothing but the good stuff! Still, you don’t want to overcharge readers no matter how good the stuff is, and after all your hard work, you’d probably like to earn a reasonable royalty per copy sold. Luckily, you can make this happen with a few simple adjustments to your formatting. When calculating royalties,...
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  2. Anatomy of Successful Crowdfunding

    I am a major fan of crowdfunding as a way for writers to spread the word and get some startup funding to launch self-published (and even conventionally published) works. Here's a postmortem--well, given how successful the campaign was I guess it's a "debriefing"--of my own Kickstarter, with some thoughts on crowdfunding platforms in general and what my major traffic & funding sources were. Anatomy of Successful Crowdfunding (or, How I made 700% of my Kickstarter goal despite a godawful...
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  3. Promotional Bookmarks through VistaPrint

    Maybe it's just my ego, but I think handing out promotional bookmarks is one of the most fun aspects of being an author. I'm not sure how effective they are (I think they help readers remember your book, but they won't sell the story on their own), but they're not too difficult or expensive to make. Mine came from VistaPrint. I used the postcard template, since VistaPrint doesn't have a template specifically for bookmarks, and cut two bookmarks from each card using a library papercutter. In...
  4. New Author's Website/Blog

    The most up-to-date listing of my fiction in print is now available, along with a general blog, at theresearkenberg.blogspot.com (publication listing at [URL]http://theresearkenberg.blogspot.com/p/publications-list.html[/URL]).
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  5. Further Updates to this Blog

    As you can see, I haven't been the most faithful updater of this blog lately. It isn't that I haven't sold more stories--I have!--but I've failed to keep track of them here. Partially this is the fault of school, the pressures of exams, research projects, and my preparations to apply to graduate school. It's also partially because I've been keeping track of my publications elsewhere, in my Absolute Write Water Cooler Library Thread. That's where I suggest you go in the future to keep track...
  6. Aqua Vitae from WolfSinger Publications

    Jenes Inarya wants to experience everything, and quite frankly, she doesn't think she can live life to the fullest in the time she's been allotted. A search through lore and legend from the Eight Immortals of Chinese myth to the Garden of Eden finally leads her to what she seeks--across the galaxy, to the planet of Arak. By eating food prepared from Arak's immortal plants, Jenes can alter her metabolism and gain eternal life. In her case, it’s a cup of palm wine. A real aqua vitae. But the...
  7. WolfSongs 2

    My short story "The Loving and Keeping of Wolves" is in WolfSongs 2 from WolfSinger Publications. She had studied his movements for weeks, and one mist-shrouded morning Tamsa came to the clearing where she knew he would be. He kept the wolfskin there, hidden in the brush around the clear spring. It took her a little time to find it, but she had watched him on many occasions before, studying where he dug for the folded skin and then, when he had changed back, the bundle of his clothes. She...
  8. Comets and Criminals

    "Following the Mercy Man," a dark post-apocalyptic story (as opposed to a bouncier, happier post-apocalypse) will be published in the first issue of new magazine Comets and Criminals.
  9. Beneath Ceaseless Skies x2

    "The Godslayer's Wife" appears in issue #71 of BCS. Reviewer JesterJoker writes, "In Beneath Ceaseless Skies, I read this, about a woman rescued from a goddess of death and the nightmares of the hero who saved her. It's fascinating to see the aftermath, weird suggestions of a wider world inside it, and the victory over the goddess's disturbing powers."
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  10. Nevermet Press

    A shorter version of "Lord Shashensa" has been published on the Nevermet Press website. It is also available in the ebook anthology, Stories in the Ether: Issue One.
  11. Fantastique Unfettered

    My fantasy story "Every Mother's Child" appears in Fantastique Unfettered's second issue. “So what do you think?” I asked when I had finished. “If you’re right, it’s no wonder people don’t last long down here. Every mother’s child has to show how they feel sometimes—and Astet’s Mercy, in a place like this, I imagine you must feel a lot.” Some people, facing death, do get emotional. But not most swordsellers. I was surprised at Rathin. “Not me.” I turned on my side. “But then, I’m no...
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  12. Semaphore X3

    "The Sorcerer Next Door" appears in Semaphore Magazine's March 2011 issue. He didn’t look like a wizard. I knew he was, of course. I couldn’t forget. My mother attended every single meeting, every protest at the town hall, signed every petition circulating the neighborhood to keep him out of this garden in this house next door to ours, all in vain for whatever bureaucratic reason. But he didn’t look the part.
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  13. Shadows Within Shadows--Static Movement

    "The Gallows Wife" has been reprinted in Static Movement's Shadows Within Shadows anthology.
  14. Sorcerous Signals x2

    My short story "After Zander" appears in the January 2011 issue, with art by Holly Eddy. Something in Zandar is at work, it was whispered, that orders things so that when a man arrives there, he finds what things he remembers fondest, and the greatest of his unfulfilled hopes...there is a little more to the tale, a part I often ignored, that said a man who visits Zandar must sacrifice the land of his past, his home. But there were many men on the docks of Nurathaipolis, I reasoned, and...
  15. Anthology Builder Featured Author--March

    For the month of March I am a featured writer on AnthologyBuilder, which means any anthology including at least one of my stories is $1 off. I have a short-story collection available there, but the offer works on any anthology. I have 21 stories on the site, including reprints from Every Day Fiction, MindFlights, Kaleidotrope, and the Lorelei Signal.
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