• Writing Resources

    Read Some Oomph – New Anthology Available

    This anthology contains my story ‘Great White’. Table of contents: “Hat Trick” – Beth Cato “Power Line Dreams” – A.J. Fitzwater “Exact Change” – Christine Morgan and Lucas Williams “Short Circuit” – Kirstie Olley “Random Play All and the League of Awesome” – Shane Halbach “The Writing is On the Wall” – Brian Milton “The Breeze” – Mary Alexandra Agner “Fortissimo Possibile” – Dawn Vogel “Knuckles” – Ken MacGregor “A Twist of Fate” – Holly Schofield “Trailblazer” – Anthony R. Cardno “Mildly Indestructible” – Jay Wilburn “Blanket Statement” – Aspen Bassett “Great White” – Brent Knowles “Speak Softly” – Day Al-Mohamed You can find links to purchase the book here

  • Game Reviews,  The Lazy Designer

    Table of Contents: Lazy Designer Book 3 – Exploration and Gameplay

    I’m sure the crafty reader has figured out my plan, in regards to releasing the Table of Contents for the past books and there is no surprise that today, I reveal the contents of the third book in the Lazy Designer series. Here’s the blurb: Brent Knowles continues his Lazy Designer series with a look at exploration and gameplay. This book covers exploration, environment design, creatures, items, economies, rule system design, and progression systems. Table of Contents Chapter 9 Exploration Exploring Environments Game Types Summary Chapter 10 Creatures Exploring Creatures Game Types Summary Chapter 11 Items Items Finding Items Crafting Improving Items Item Descriptions Extending the Item System Game Types…

  • Writing Resources

    My Work on Smashwords

    Just a quick update. As many of you know I have several story reprints available on Amazon as well as the first two volumes in the Lazy Designer series. Up until now I have also had the same content available on Smashwords. Smashwords is a great service because it distributes work onto multiple platforms, including Apple’s iBooks and Kobo. But as convenient as it is to have Smashwords distribute for me I’m finding that the vast majority of my sales are still occurring on Amazon. And unfortunately, for me at least, the process of getting the Lazy Designer books to work properly with Smashword’s formatting tools has been time consuming.…

  • Game Reviews,  Technology,  Writing Resources

    Priced to Die

    “Why We Should Fear Ourselves More Than Pirates” So now that I’m seeing reports of SOPA and PIPA having been defeated by overwhelming negative opinion many are breathing sighs of relief. And others are cursing violently (but generally silently). Among game developers and writers, my two primary areas of interaction, opinions are mixed. Many are worried about piracy eating into their revenues. For freelance writers and indie game developers it does not take a lot of piracy to put a stranglehold on their revenue stream. Still I think there’s a larger concern than pirates for content creators. Why We Should Fear The $0.99 App and Novel One interesting thing I’ve…

  • Writing Resources

    Reprints on various eReaders

    I’ve added a few support pages to help those of you who would like to read my story reprints on your digital devices. iTunes Amazon (Kindle) Barnes and Noble (Nook) Kobo Sony Reader Let me know if you find any mistakes in the listings and if you read the stories please let me know what you thought of them!

  • Writing Resources

    Jakob Drud’s Big-T

    I mentioned earlier that I’ve sold a story to the newly returned ‘Darwin’s Evolutions‘. This magazine has changed its distribution model… instead of just displaying the stories on its website it is packaging them for all the various eBook readers (Kindle et cetera). The stories will be released individually and each story will also receive its own artwork! The first story is now available and it is Jakob Drud’s “Big-T”. Here is the link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Big-T-ebook/dp/B0055T3EFE/

  • Writing Resources

    Stories and Amazon Sales

    So something strange happened this week… one of my stories was priced ‘free’ on Amazon (I mentioned it briefly last post). So far my publishing short story reprints to Amazon… Smashwords… AnthologyBuilder has been mostly an experiment in ePublishing, testing the waters so to speak. Sales have been far from brisk :) But with ‘The Prophet‘ being free several thousand readers downloaded it in the span of a few days. And in those same two days I’ve had more sales of other stories than in the couple years I’ve been on Amazon. No, please, don’t be too happy for me. The sales are still rather puny and I wouldn’t be…

  • My Life,  Writing Resources

    People Like Free Stuff

    My story reprint ‘The Prophet’ is now free through Amazon-Kindle and it pleases me to see it at the top of the free charts, though I suspect this will only last a day or so. I don’t think I’m quite at the point where I’m ready to self-pub original work (so far everything I have available online has been previously published) I am starting to think about it. The sheer number of readers, and the resulting correspondence with several of them, has been more significant than any of my print appearances. Things to think about at any rate.

  • Writing Resources

    ‘Digital Rights’ – AnthologyBuilder

    My Writers of the Future winning story ‘Digital Rights’ is now available at AnthologyBuilder. So there are now four places to read this story! I really am making this as convenient for you as possible. – In Writers of the Future XXVI – On the Kindle – On a variety of eBook devices through Smashwords (also check here for how to read it for free until the end of the week) – As part of a custom print anthology via AnthologyBuilder

  • Writing Resources

    Intergalactic Medicine Show

    I’ve been a subscriber to the online magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show for about half a year now and though I haven’t had time to read all the issues the few I have read have been fantastic. Anyways one of the reasons I haven’t read more of the backlog (you have access to all prior issues when you subscribe) is that I hate reading on a computer screen — mostly because I hate scrolling. I’ve whined about this before. But now they are offering downloads in the Kindle format — either an actual kindle device or through Stanza, on the iPad. So that’s really cool and once I finish my novel…