This is the cover art for my short story “Conflict,” which is one of the seven stories included with Thread and Other Stories, released in June 2017. I’m releasing Conflict and several of the other short stories as stand-alone works with their own Amazon listing. Each one will cost $0.99.
If you already purchased Thread and Other Stories, you won’t have anything to buy with these releases, and the cover art will all be posted on the blog, so you won’t miss that either. I am including some new material inside (like my author bio and a list of my published works), but if you click on pretty much anything here on my website you will see all of that stuff already.
I’m releasing these individual short stories for people that haven’t yet read anything I’ve written. I’m hoping to find more ways to reach readers. If you like what I write, please share with a friend, and more than anything, please leave a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads!
What is Conflict?
Conflict is a short story I wrote in eighth grade for an English assignment. The current version of the story is written much differently from my teenage version, but the essence has not changed.
When I was young I loved to read history books, especially WWI and WWII accounts. Conflict is my own attempt to bring others into that world with a (hopefully) entertaining story coupled with historical events.
Writing historical fiction takes a lot of work. I spent many hours researching, verifying, and rechecking facts and places. I don’t know how many hours because most of them passed by 25 years ago. When I decided to publish Conflict, I had to go back and make sure all the stuff I said way back in 1992 was accurate. I can’t guarantee there aren’t any mistakes. I also took a few deliberate liberties with some things to make the story work.
The two main characters in Conflict, John and Greg, represent no one from real life. I did my best to imagine what various opinions or ideas might have been from the early 1900s, especially the strong nationalism that seems apparent (at least to me) from that era. Then I instilled those notions into the heads of my two characters.
I think most of the soldiers going to war early in WWI had a strong sense of duty to their respective monarchs. But, I believe by the end of the war, if they survived, they would have held different viewpoints, not only jaded, but likely completely opposite from their initial stand. This speculation led to the final scene of the story.
What am I doing this for?
By releasing these short stories as standalone works I hope to appeal to readers who are genre-focused. Since I have written stories across a fairly wide range of genres (sci-fi, suspense, historical fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction), some readers might be turned away from Thread because of the genres they don’t like. But if they have the option of reading just the type they like, it might get them more interested in my writing.
I’m really excited about how this cover looks, and now I kind of wish I had a full-length book to go with it. I’ll post each of the upcoming stories as I go along, and hopefully this will build some momentum towards getting more book exposure. I’m hoping to have four short stories released by June or July 2018.
Where’d I get the sweet cover?
Ivan of bookcoversart.com produced this cover and I enjoyed working with him. He produced this image on his own and displayed it in his gallery. I found it searching for WWI-themed, pre-made book covers.
Reviews (a shameless plea)
One of the most important things for an author on Amazon is reviews, whether good, mediocre, or bad. If you already read Conflict because you already bought Thread, please go leave a review of it. It doesn’t have to be fancy or wordy, but be honest.
Before I published anything, I had no idea that reviews meant so much to authors, but they are key. Some sites won’t even let you promote your work unless you have a minimum number of reviews (usually 10-20).