First up is The Prodigy. It is a sports related story, talking about a kid dedicated to making it in pro sports, doing whatever it takes to get better. But he finds out that he can’t quite get there alone.

Next up is “the story”… Almost all of my friends know it. It is a true story, and was even funnier. In fact, that whole trip has become a series of stories that may one day be written. The movie would be epic. Hopefully you’ll get a kick out of what happened in The Fog.

This one talks about disillusionment and the meaning of beauty. Three dates, none of them good… at least not anything worth pursuing. Model Relationship.

Finally, another fiction contest entry. It Comes In the Fog is my attempt at horror. I went for the unseen horror.

So, unless you are always reading free books, those titles start adding up. Fifty books at $3 each is $150. That is definitely getting into the realm of buying a subscription to Kindle Unlimited. There are hundreds of thousands of titles available for KU subscribers for no additional cost. And those aren’t all unknown authors or $3 books. Some of the titles are as much as $10.

So, if you like to read a lot, it can be a pretty good deal. And, all of my books are currently available on KU, too. Except, of course, the book you can get for free for subscribing to this blog… the form should be over to the right.

Just in case you are wondering, as authors, we DO get paid for KU reads. We are paid per page. The actual payment varies each month, but in general I make just a little less than I do on a purchase, IF you read the whole book. It also bumps the book up in the ratings as more pages are read.

Right now I am well behind where I need to be in order to reach my book sales/KU reads goal for September. But if a few of you that are KU subscribers give me some reads, I’ll be right on track again.

As if you didn’t already know where to find my books… Here is my Amazon Author link. For good measure, here is my Vocal Media link, too. There you will find a lot of my short stories. Those are FREE to read, always, but if millions of you go and read my stories, I’ll make enough money to buy a happy meal.

I offer an ebook called Escape for subscribing to my blog. You can get the whole thing free… or you can catch Escape on Vocal and read the first three chapters. You can click from one to the next at the end of each segment.

If you want to catch a little of Planning Vengeance (which has just had an update on Amazon…) then there is this clip available on Vocal. Or you can get the whole book for just THREE BUCKS. If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read ANY of my books on Amazon for free… all are enrolled in KU.

The next one (chronologically on Vocal) is an excerpt from Lies and Omissions. So, you can pick up a clip for L&O on Vocal or buy it on Amazon.

Triple Cross was the next one that I set up to have an excerpt on Vocal.

From the book Who, What, When, Why? I included a bunch of clips. All of the Vocal links (a couple are multi-part, so the first one is linked) are as follows. The Cliff The Angel The Busboy

From the book Grafton, I included a clip from Melody on Vocal. I really ended up liking her backstory. She doesn’t get enough play in the mainline books… at least not befitting how important her character is to the stories. But here she was able to shine. I think she was pretty good in the other Grafton stories, too.

Finally, Unknown Caller. There is only one excerpt, but I did a bonus story ONLY on Vocal. So, the excerpt on Vocal is here, but the bonus story about Colt on Vocal is here…

The first was for a challenge. The subject was confessions, and I have to admit that mine was pretty light… not the deep, dark secret for which they were looking. But it is funny. Now. Trapped in the Closet.

It didn’t get much attention, and I guess that’s because it hasn’t been promoted very much, but there was a challenge about animals, and I wrote about a dog I rescued. She was a wonderful dog, too. Little Orphan Annie is her story.

My father has snuck into some of my writing (as has my mother), but this one was written for his birthday. Often, in my old blogs, I would pen something to him each year. It is simply Happy Birthday, Dad.

The Culvert Pipe has become one of my most popular stories. I don’t remember much about the original incident, except what I have been told for years, but the conversations with my father are very much in my mind. Still. Often.

Again with a challenge entry, A Tale of Two Stories made me push to figure out what to write about bedtime stories.

First, the blog.

I used to have a few hundred readers a week. But, in February, FB changed their algorithm, and engagement from there fell off a cliff. In two weeks it fell to 5% of what it had been before. Oddly, I started getting a LOT of ads from FB offering to sell me traffic. Nice, huh?

Getting back to the level I was at before will take a while, but I want to start on that path. So, between now and the end of September, I would like to add 15 subscribers to the blog, and increase my readership from 2-3/day to 3-4/day.

If you weren’t aware, if you subscribe, you can get a FREE ebook. I even have instructions on Vocal telling you how to load it onto your Kindle device or app. Why, yes, I did just link them there…

Speaking of Vocal.

I only started on the platform a few months ago, but I’ve added over 60 stories. Some of the content is shared between here and there, but some isn’t. Going forward there will be more promotion of content from Vocal, but less shared content… I’ll tell you about it here, but it will be there to read.

Here is my profile…

Currently, I average about 7 reads/day. In a given thirty day period, I am hanging around 215-225. 300 is a pretty big jump, but I’d like to try to get there. in the last thirty days, I had 9 that were over 10 reads. If not for the dumb zero read days…

And Amazon Books.

This is the big one, the one that scares me. It is more important than the others, but the others can help drive this one. And it can help the book sales sustain themselves.

I want to sell 50 books in one month.

I have given away thousands of copies of my books. Each time, it has taken advertising that I had to pay for, and has resulted in an increase in sales… but usually not enough to cover the advertising. Offering up discounted books was actually worse. there wasn’t a big jump in sales, and the cost was not even close to covered.

Lane’s books on Amazon.

I do plan on doing some marketing, while I might offer a freebie (Planning Vengeance… so, if you are thinking of buying it, hold off… it will be free at some point in September, I think). the major push will be full price ($2.99) Kindle books. I mean, if you WANT a book in print, that’s cool, too. But the goal is based on Kindle books, and Kindle Unlimited reads.

As a side note, I make almost the same from a Kindle sale as from a Kindle Unlimited full read. It doesn’t matter to me which you prefer… just please give a review.

Making a hundred bucks is a pretty modest goal, but it is also a stepping stone to making the books economically viable. I enjoy writing them, and a few people seem to enjoy reading them. I also think I’m getting better at it. I do know that I would probably be better served to hire out cover design and a few other aspects of marketing, but I need a basis from which to do that.

So, buy a book or eight and then leave me reviews… even if they aren’t five-star. Even personal feedback is good. I’d LOVE to know people are reading what I write.