the Author
July
21
16 Comments

The Weapon

Posted in ebooks, Essalieyan, self-publishing, Short Stories.

This is the fourth of six stories. I felt, after The Black Ospreys, that I had figured things out, and things would go smoothly. Hah. However, I am refining my orga­ni­za­tion, such as it is, and at least it was a completely new mistake, as opposed to the prior mistakes. I am confi­dent that I am learning how to do this properly.

The Weapon takes place during the period of the Blood Barons, as they were affec­tion­ately called. In the Hidden City, and actu­ally in at least one of the Sun Sword novels, mention is made of the first day rites, and of the festival of The Ten. The Weapon is the story behind the first day rites.

Of the six stories that are connected to the Empire of Essalieyan, this is the one I like second best. (My personal favourite is Memory of Stone). It’s possible that it’s because these work well as standalones.

As usual, the story is up at Smash­words now. It will be avail­able at Amazon within twenty-four hours (or possibly less). In two weeks, it should be avail­able in the iBooks store, and at Diesel.

I’ve started to put the word-length in the product descrip­tion, because it’s some­thing I look for when I’m looking at ebooks.

16 Responses to The Weapon

  1. ae says:
    July 21, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    is it close enough to the end of july yet? :D (patience was my new year’s resolution..not going so well!)

  2. RK Charron says:
    July 21, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    Just wanted you to know I bought ’em all at Smash­words except Echoes.

    I was wondering, is there a differ­ence between Echoes on Smash­words & Echoes on your down­load page?

    Thank you for taking the time & effort to make these works available.

    All the best,
    Rob

  3. Michelle Sagara says:
    July 21, 2011 at 8:29 pm

    @ ae: LOL! Well, it was January :). I’ve never made patience — which I lack — my new year’s reso­lu­tion because I find I start to cheat on the defi­n­i­tion of patience about two months in.

    But four of the six stories are proofed and as ready as I can make them, one is half-way there, and the other, a quarter. I find that I can proof­read a maximum of 100 print pages a day before I start missing too many mistakes; the ideal is more like 50.

  4. Michelle Sagara says:
    July 21, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    @ RK: The only differ­ence is the cover, the intro­duc­tion, and the typos. I’ve been writing intro­duc­tions for each of the stories as they go up — I think the only one that people would prob­ably find amusing is the one for The Black Ospreys.

    If you’ve already read the stories or already own them all – and I honestly can’t imagine that you, at least haven’t or don’t :) – the sampling on any of the ebook sites/platforms should pick the intro­duc­tion up, so you can read it that way.

    I *did* do a read-through before I posted the story here a while ago, but it wasn’t the same regimen of proofing I’m doing now. I did mention in the orig­inal post about Echoes that it was prob­ably not exciting to most people because it was avail­able for free down­load in the sidebar.

  5. Erin says:
    July 21, 2011 at 11:20 pm

    I have really enjoyed seeing the new covers! This one surprised me though…that’s Notre Dame Cathe­dral! Somehow this makes me want to read this story even more. Prob­ably because it combines my favorite series of books and my favorite city in the world! :-D

  6. Michelle Sagara says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:33 am

    @ae : and it only just occurred to me now that what you’re refer­ring to is the first chapter of Cast in Ruin .

    Yes, I still intend to put that up by the end of the month :)

  7. Aaron says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:03 am

    And…it’s up on Amazon. Four down, two to go!

  8. fyreink says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:27 am

    Hunt­brother is also up on iBooks as well.

  9. Aaron says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:22 am

    So, what does this mean for the future of your short story publishing? Will you continue to publish new, orig­inal short stories online? Or, will you only publish them “in print”, and then later produce an online version when feasible?

  10. Michelle Sagara says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @ Erin — the cathe­dral is actu­ally not Notre Dame in the story. I’ve even been there, but I honestly didn’t recog­nize it >..<

  11. Michelle Sagara says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:28 am

    @ fyreink: Thank you!

    @ Aaron: Well, I have 60 stories, in total, to reprint here before I look at future short story publishing. I have one short story in the pipeline that hasn’t seen print yet (“Anne”). I have one CAST novella I would like to write, but beyond finishing the six stories and getting them to the type­setter so I can arrange for the PoD, I haven’t really thought beyond the 60.

    I’d be inter­ested to know what other people think.

  12. Estara says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    My vote is: if the work doesn’t over­whelm you (I like my regular full novel Elantra and Essalieyan fix), do write new novellas and offer them as ebooks and exper­i­ment with the sell-through you get at various prices.

  13. Hilda says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    I’m with ae; can’t wait… last week July.… September!!!. Elantran and Essalieyan books, may they never end. Looking at the huge amount of work you seem to be always involved in, I wonder if when you enter the writing closet in your home, you enter a 48 hours day world ( a la Narnia), versus 24 for the rest of humanity, 60 more short stories to reprint!!!!!!

  14. Erin says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:57 pm

    I knew the story wouldn’t have anything to do with Notre Dame, but it’s still pretty great! :-)

  15. Auraya says:
    July 23, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    I may have to pick and choose from these short stories. If I follow my initial idea and simply buy them all I’ll have completely used up my book budget for the rest of the year. Not that that wouldn’t be worth it, mind you.

    So far I’m thor­oughly enjoying all the Essalieyan short stories. Never had the chance to read them before so I appre­ciate that you’re making them avail­able as ebooks

  16. Kareena says:
    July 29, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    One thought bright­ened my summer, throughout my physics class and exams, that soon I would get to read the first chapter of Cast in Ruin! I under­stand that writers some­times live in a different universe, but would you please take time out to post the first chapter ” Cast in Ruin”? I have a little breather before my organic chem­istry class starts and I really need a pick me up!

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