Today, Amazing Stories is publishing an excerpt from The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir, provided by Open Road Media (who have been doing great work on the digital book front btw).
We’ll also shortly begin publishing a series of the three opening chapters of a series of novels from Ed Greenwood’s TEGG project (each a few weeks in advance of the release).
Previously we’ve published excerpts from a variety of authors, both those who contribute to Amazing Stories and others who have thought that doing so might help their sales.
Our response has, according to several authors (both traditionally published and indie), been “excellent”. Most everyone who has bothered to place an excerpt with us reports an increase in sales that they attribute, at least in part, to Amazing Stories.
We know that this makes us happy (and we believe it has made them happy as well).
Literature, unlike other media, has few options for giving reader’s a “taste” prior to purchasing. There’s readings by authors (but you have to get to them personally); there’s blurbs and endorsements on covers (but you have to go to the bookstore); there’s placing teasers on your own website (but that doesn’t really help build audience) and there’s offering the whole thing for free for a limited time (which often doesn’t feel right to the person trying to SELL a book), and of course you could write the whole book on your blog, let folks follow along as it develops and then offer the full package for sale. Which may or may not work.
Or, you could select a portion of that book – the portion that you think will best represent it (or the portion that your publicist thinks is best) – and send it along to Amazing Stories, where it can be seen by nearly 25,000 hardcore science fiction, fantasy and horror fans.
We’re non-discriminatory: we don’t care if you’re a traditionally published author, an indie author or a half-breed. We don’t care if your publishing house is one of the Big 6 5 4 3, small press or a pipe dream. We don’t care if your book is print, electronic or both. We don’t care if your story is chock full of messages or chock full of rip-roaring non-message pulpy goodness. We don’t care if it’s steampunk, space opera, high fantasy, gothic horror, SF romance, cyperpunk, sword-and-sorcery, slipstream, new weird or some other sub-genre that you’ve just invented.
What we do care about is putting our audience together with your works. At no cost to you.
If this interests you, get in touch. We’ve got a bunch of different ways we think we can help you get your story out there, and we’re only an email away.