dduane

People have been asking me for some time where they can find various short works I've done. So it seemed like a good idea to publish a collection of short fiction, and some time next week we'll be publishing Uptown Local and Other Interventions. The collection will contain some of the harder to find stuff, like the title story, and various other original works (not licensed stuff, sorry: I can't self-publish the Star Trek or Dr. Who work, for obvious reasons).

However, before we bring this out, we need to test the shopping cart a little, as it's occasionally been acting up on okaying some purchases. So I'm hoping people might try a little experiment and help us figure out what's going on with it.

In 1991 the new newspaper The European did a short story contest, the only restrictions being that the stories could not be more than 2000 words long and had to have a European theme. So I did a short story and sent it along. It didn't win, but I got a very nice letter back from one of the editors saying that if they'd been considering publishing a fantasy story, it would have been a strong contender.

Anyway, it got saved to disk and tucked away, and when our website tech lady suggested that a good way to test the shopping cart would be to give it a small ebook to handle, after a little while I thought of the European story, which is called "The Rizzoli Bag." So if you'd like to read it, please click here to go to the Rizzoli Bag page at the new online store, and use PayPal to buy a copy. The story costs five US cents, otherwise known as a nickel, and is available in two formats, Kindle /.mobi and Nook / iPad / ePub. I would have sold it for a penny, but that would have created problems with the other main currency we want to test, which is sterling.

Five cents is about three pence at the moment, so I'm encouraging the UK readership to swing out and help us sort out the cart's issues -- as it was on UK purchases that the cart started acting cranky, and we want to fix this problem, which seemed to have to do with incorrect or incomplete communication between PayPal and the store. Other currencies are obviously also very welcome: the more the merrier... as the sooner we get the cart sorted out, the sooner we can publish Uptown Local.

If you have any download issues after purchasing, or if you aren't immediately redirected to a download page at the store after your order completes at PayPal, please use the contact form to let Lee the tech lady know what went wrong. Also, since we're expecting a lot of these messages at once if trouble starts, please be patient about hearing back from her, as it may take her some while to get things at the store sorted out.

Thanks, all! And have fun with the story.