Christmas time

It is time to start Christmas and I intend to keep a holiday away from any computers for the next couple of days :-)

As a small present for all blog readers: here is a 50% discount code for Stories from the Strangers' Universe: TU52B (coupon is valid until Sunday December 26th, 2010).

Merry Christmas to all!

Stories in iBooks

Good news. In addition to Smashwords, all my stories are available now from Apple iBooks for all iPad users. Stories will be available for other major retailers as well in the near future: Sony, Diesel, Barnes&Noble, Kobo. I blog about URLs when they are available.

iBooks URLs:
Dawn to Dawn http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781452340104
End of an Era http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781452324784
Just Another Scout http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781452377858
Stories from the Strangers' Universe http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781452328324

The last one, Stories from the Strangers' Universe is also available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004F9P9LM

Please check the stories, either from the retailers or from Smashwords and please review and rate the stories. Honest reviews what you liked and what you didn't like are greatly appreciated by me and other readers.

Smashwords templates

In the wake of The Nuclear Method for Smashwords Authors, I decided to share my results of following the Smashwords Style Guide. I also used nuclear method.


I published three documents at Slideshare.net.Original Word-files can be downloaded from Slideshare.

There are two templates, one for free ebook and one for non-free book. Only the license texts are different. I also published original Word-doc of my free ebook Dawn to Dawn for reference. It went ok through automatic conversion and it has been accepted to Premium Catalog.

Links:
Non-free book template
Free book template
Dawn to Dawn original doc

Below is book template embedded but you need to view it on Slideshare.net to download original doc files. If you are using Firefox you might need to download by clicking first Download in the presentation window and then right-click link called "Click here" and select option "Save link as...". Otherwise you might get very odd looking web page.
Internet Explorer and Safari seems to work fine and download works as it should.

Smashwords eBook Template

View more documents from samisal.

PS. I used Lotus Symphony to make these templates and to write my stories. Lotus Symphony is free so there's no need to buy Office-suite for writing. 

History of Earth

I started to write a new story. It's set in the Strangers' Universe of course and it's working title is Countdown to Revelation.

The story tells about the history of Earth: from undisclosed-year-in-the-20th-century to 2927. It's main character is the one who was introduced at the final chapter of Just Another Scout.

I've written so far about 2,500 words and still long way before finish. Plus editing work. And because of limited time to write (earlier blog post), I can only say that it's going to be finished as soon as possible. I can also say that is not a novelette, like my stories so far. Because of a thousand years of history, I really can't fit that in a single novelette :-)

Stories from the Strangers' Universe

I published Stories from the Strangers' Universe. It is a collection of my stories so far: End of and Era, Dawn to Dawn and Just Another Scout.

Stories are in chronological order. End of an Era happens around 200,000 years in past, Dawn to Dawn happens on May 27th, 2927 and Just Another Scout happens five years after the Revelation (that happens, by the way on May 27th, 2927).

Stories is available at Smashwords and at Amazon for all Kindle users.