Serials
​Kindle Vella is Amazon's foray into the "serialization market." This is a "read em as I write em" format, where authors are expected to post a new episode every few days, and readers follow along and read them as they appear.
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When the stories here are complete and have had their run on Vella, I will be removing them, and recrafting them into new books. Some, like "A Walk in the Woods," are short, and more suitable for a short story collection. Others may be longer and comprise a complete novel.
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I have a whole new series of Young Adult stories lined up as prequels to my Chromosome Quest stories. When not pushing to get a new book out, I will be working on the next episode for Vella.
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So watch this space as we go forward, and together we shall see how this all works. It's an experiment, but hopefully worthwhile.
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Please check out the Vella pages and let me know if you like the material.
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Your participation is vital!! So go grab the free tokens Amazon
is giving away and dive in!
The Hat, the Cat, and the Texas Entomorph (An Undercover Alien Adventure)
{Sorry, the final title is not yet settled}
In the Texas Hill Country, the hard-working small-town and rural folk have long held deep suspicions around the occasional strange happenings. Tales of supposed UFO abductions, kidnappings by Sasquatch, and the mysterious, sudden, and untraceable vanishings have long been the subject of frantic whispers behind closed doors. Those who take the whispers seriously seldom go out at night. Those who scoff too loud sometimes do not return.
Twenty-Four episodes are LIVE NOW!
Sneaking away undetected wasn't as easy as he hoped.
In his haste to avoid detection by the Aliens, he slips on the moss-covered creekside, takes a nasty tumble, and awakens in an extraterrestrial hospital.
Alone, injured, and far from home, he must cope with an Alien culture and technology indistinguishable from magic.
Not your typical First Contact story — not your typical Aliens, and
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not your typical intergalactic love story.
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NOTE: I have unpublished this story from Amazon Kindle Vella. Look for it in the near future in a collection of short stories.
I guess I'd better tell the story straight.
I see by the look on your face, I've jiggered your boggle circuit!
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Last fall, this flying saucer crashed on a farm outside town. The Army came and gathered up the wreckage and hauled it away—telling us it was a weather balloon. Nobody believed them, of course. The place where it crashed has become a local mecca. People like to hunt for any piece of scrap that the Army might have missed, but, of course, no one has ever found anything.
Not until we found the Time Machine.
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Available exclusively on Amazon Kindle Vella
In Development:
For a long time I have been envisioning a series of juvenile/young adult stories in the vein of the old Stratemeyer Syndicate stories, such as Tom Swift, or the Grosset & Dunlap Rick Brant series. The first series I outlined features a protagonist named Tommie Powers. There is a private joke behind that name that forms the basis of a mini-contest. Clues to the solution are sprinkled throughout the story.
The first reader to contact me with a reasonably accurate description of the name's genesis will receive a genuine, certified, autographed paperback edition of Chromosome Quest.
The beauty of the Vella platform is that I can write a few short pieces, place them online, and see if they attract an audience. If they don't, I can abandon them in the spirit of the "Fail Fast" philosophy as espoused by Elon Musk and others. If no one reads these stories, I can take them down, and never finish them.
Next Project: Tommie Powers and the Invisible Spacecraft