I unlocked the secret of Kindle Unlimited Publishing and you can too

As I mentioned in my Oct. 9 blog post, I had been stymied getting the ebook of Zeppelins Over Denver up on Amazon. Something wouldn't let me through the Amazon shield. That turned out to be my own inability to see the problem right in front of me. Yesterday I was successful. Both my print version and ebook are available. I would love it if you ordered the print version, now priced at $25.50. Free shipping if you have an account and order as many necessities as I do. Just throw in the book and along comes a fine story along with a month's supply of TP (hurricane season, you know), a six-pack of Del Monte Cherry Mixed Fruit Cups (loaded with Vitamin C!), gigantic Tylenol canisters (for html coding headaches), and those screwy little bulbs that look like jellyfish but brightly light my stovetop.

I have to mention that the Zeppelins ebook is only $9.99 and available in the blink of an eye. It also is available for free on Kindle Unlimited. 

I have read more than one book from Kindle Unlimited and I also dnf some KU choices. Right now, lucky customers can download two new ebook releases for free. I selected two. I chose Ghost Orchid by Dani Cessna and finished it yesterday. The Everglades National Park setting appealed to me, the main characters are National Park Service employees and one aging orchid thief who receives messages from plants. She carries a gun called Harriet. A hurricane appears as does a murder. The author spent 18 years working for the NPS, a reminder of the fine murder mysteries written by one-time park employee Nevada Barr. 

I almost dnf Ghost Orchid. Right around the 60-percent-read mark, I tired of one of the characters. Miranda's fiance, Clay, was getting on my last nerve. I stopped reading for a day but was drawn back, possibly by one of the Glades orchids. I read on and found that the author takes care of the issue and moves on. I won't say how (was Harriet involved?). But reading Cessna's author's note, I found praise for her "superhuman critique partner...who taught me the most about plot structure and narrative tension." She obviously learned the lesson when it came to Clay. 

I am a long-time member of a critique group. One of my superhuman colleagues recently critiqued the first section of my second novel and caught something very important missing from my story. Thanks, Liz. 

I remind you that you can also buy my ebook on most of the major platforms. I mention one in particular, Bookshop, because some of its income goes to local bookstores. There are many in Florida. One I like is Cafe Resistance Bookstore in Jacksonville. It's co-owned by Angie Nixon who intends to replace the GOPer Know Nothing Ashley Moody who now is one of our two worthless U.S. senators. Ms. Nixon would be so much better at governing. And she sells our books. 

What are you waiting for? Go get a book. Bring Kindle with you when you vote. There may be a line.

Is it possible to write contemporary epistolary fiction in a world without letter-writing?

I took a chance on reading one of the Amazon Original Stories on Kindle. It was "Evidence of the Affair" by Taylor Jenkins Reid. One of the site's many offerings, I took a chance on it because it was an epistolary story, told entirely in letters. This is a dangerous genre because, number one, letters can be incredibly boring. Number two, it can be very formulaic and limits POV. Number 3, nobody writes letters any more.

That final reason makes it an historical short story because it takes place in 1976-1978. This was back before email and the Internet. People sat down, wrote a letter on paper, put it in an envelope, addressed and stamped in, drove to the post office to mailed it. You then had to wait several days or weeks or even months before a reply came. You sometimes got an instantaneous reply if, maybe you were ending a relationship. A quicker reply might come via long distance phone call and someone (maybe you) might be a few drinks into the night when you took that call and got an earful from a wounded former partner. Let me give you an example. I got a late night call, summer 1973, from my girlfriend in Boston. She broke up with me, saying there was no future in our relationship because she was going to nursing school in Connecticut and I was working at a lumber yard in Florida barely making ends meet and it looked from afar that I had no future. I was upset after saying farewell and wrote a long sappy letter that included an entire Kahlil Gibran poem. Gibran's work is very accommodating for almost any occasion. I did not get a reply.

The epistolary novel has a fine history. In 1740, Samuel Richardson wrote the first epistolary novel I studied in English class, "Pamela." It was immediately parodied by Henry Fielding's "Shamela" in 1741 and later by Monty Python. The most well-known contemporary epistolary novel is "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky and "The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie and Literary Society" based on letters and telegrams to and from the female protagonist. I liked this book and the TV limited series wasn't bad. 

Reid is known for her romances and this story is one. At first, it doesn't seem so as the two main correspondents in "Evidence of the Affair" find out their spouses are cheating on them. The letters fly back and forth. They unearth letters from the cheaters in briefcases and recipe books. The drama builds and I won't ruin it for you but the ending is more dynamic than I expected and very sweet. 

What is this thing Amazon Original Stories on Kindle? Look them up on Amazon, the keeper of all things (most recent purchase: belts for my vacuum cleaner). You can sign up for Kindle Unlimited and read some for free. I do that, I have to admit, although I paid $1.99 for Reid's story. Sometimes you pay for the print edition and get the Audible audiobook version for free (or vice versa). 

I came across a new collection entitled "Warmer" which is described this way:

"Warmer," a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting. 

Stories include three by writers whose work I admire: Jane Smiley, Lauren Groff, and Jess Walter. The four others must be pretty good to be in such company. You can read and listen to all seven stories for free. I can anyway. These free stories are designed to get you to buy the authors' books. Sign up for Kindle Unlimited and you get the stories free along with free shipping for vacuum cleaner belts.  

PS: I have republished a story collection on Amazon, "The Weight of a Body." You have to pay for it although it's also a free offering on KU.