End of summer publishing schedule
Plus info about a new story coming this week!
First of all, welcome to all the new subscribers that joined in the last month! I really appreciate your likes and comments.
Second, I’m learning about your habits as readers. I’ve noticed that reader stats on MFS tend to build slowly, which means that you don’t typically read a post right away, in contrast to nonfiction Substacks which tend to be read within a day or two of posting. For example, I’ve learned that several of you are still working on “Coyotes in Winter” and “Where This Mystery Takes Us.” With this in mind, I've decided to move to a format where I’m publishing one story at a time and at a 10-14 day interval.
Third, I had to take some time off from work to focus on my family, which meant I wasn’t able to move ahead with the murder mystery that I’ve been promising. Work on that continues but I’ve decided to push out the publication date again and swap it with another story.
The next story for MFS is called “My Favorite Suspects” and, yes, I named this Substack after the story, because I had the idea for creating MFS while revising it for submission to magazines. “My Favorite Suspects” is the first story in a noir thriller series, with a new protagonist who will be exploring urban settings in Upstate New York and will cross paths with interesting and dangerous characters along the way.
I had enthusiastic feedback on “Coyotes in Winter” and I’m happy to say that the offbeat duo of Rossi & Lopez will return in other stories, including a novella and a novel. The final version of “Coyotes” clocked in at a little over 10,000 words, which qualifies it as a novelette. I decided to publish the story as a Kindle book to learn more about the Kindle publishing and promotion process. I dipped my toes in the Kindle world earlier this year with my nonfiction book and I feel confident enough now to venture into publishing fiction. I’ll attempt to run promotions in the US and international markets.
“Where This Mystery Takes Us” also received encouraging feedback and I’m considering publishing that as a novelette on Kindle as well. I don’t know if there will be a follow-up to this story.
OK then… I’m off to prep “My Favorite Suspects” for MFS. Thanks for sticking with it!
Do you think it's a good idea to take all of one's Substack publications and turn them into an Amazon book? best wishes