Friskbiskit

Free Fiction! Dharma Café/Stan&Gus Crossover

Coffee and Porn in the Morning is celebrating their first year anniversary with a birthday bash featuring free fiction from an awesome lineup of authors. It's running all week so you should check it out.

My contribution, a crossover story in which Stan & Gus visit the Dharma Café goes live today at 11 am. Read it here.

37? Really? Wow.

So I downloaded the iBookstore app and I was browsing the interface. And before my story has even begun, let me detour here to bitch a bit. Even if DRM didn't annoy the hell out of me, I don't think I'll be buying a lot from that app because their categories are so broad. For example, you can browse romance, but that's it. No historical romance, no LGBT romance (no LGBT anything as far as I could tell), no paranormal. Just a list of romance books. You pretty much have to know what you want in order to find it. Fortunately, Stanza has a storefront for All Romance eBooks, so if I do decide I want to buy and read books on the phone I'm good.

Any way, back to the iBookstore, to the cool part of the story (don't worry, I'm getting to it, I promise.) The easiest way to browse the romance seemed to be to go down the top rated lists. As you may know, iBookstore has paid top rated lists and free top rated lists. So out of curiousity I scrolled down the free top rated list to see what was there. And at number thirty seven I saw a familiar cover:

No shit! Thaw and Serve, that freebie about Mal's little run-in at the party store that I wrote for a ficlet challenge (and then later posted to Smashwords, who distributed it to Apple, thnk u sw), is #37 on the top free romance list on iBookstore. Is that fucking cool or what?

Nothing Says Love Like Free Smut

Since Amaranth & Ash comes out from Loose Id in two weeks (Tuesday, June 1), this seems like a good time to show my appreciation to my loyal newsletter members. And nothing says love like free smut, right?

Amaranth & Grail, a 3,000 word short story, is now available exclusively in the files section of my Yahoo! newsletter group.

The story covers a little bit of history between young Amaranth and Grail when they were trainees at the Temple. Amaranth is always getting in trouble with his instructors for asking the wrong questions. This time, he's gone too far, and Grail has to make a choice. 

"But wait!" you say. "I want to read Amaranth & Grail, but I'm not a newsletter member! What do I do?"

Joining is easy and the group is low-traffic. It's a moderator-posts-only Yahoo! group used solely to announce new Jessica Freely releases, free fiction postings, and author events. We all get enough email, I won't needlessly send you more.

Guest Ficlet: French Duet

I'm trying something new here. Today, for the first time, I'm posting a contributor's short story. Folks, meet Julie Lynn Hayes.  I met Julie last fall at Bishiecon.  She's one of the fabulous volunteers that made that con possible, and one of the few people who responded to my call for submissions at the convention.  She publishes with Dreamspinner Press and her most recent release, The Prince Wore Pink Stillettos, is just out today! Congrats, Julie!

Julie turned in a story called French Duet about Jared, whose broken heart has inured him to the romantic charms of Paris. Fortunately for him, the City of Love is a popular hangout for one very determined deity who is notorious for meddling in mortal affairs.

I had a good time playing editor with Julie on French Duet. (That sounds kinda dirty, doesnt' it? *grin*) If you'd like to see more short-short stories from outside contributors on Friskbiskit, or if you're interested in contributing a ficlet (fair warning: I'm not paying), let me know, and maybe we can do this again.

Please note: the following story contains adult subject matter of a sexually explicit nature.  By clicking the link below, you confirm that you are eighteen years of age or older.

All the Colors of Love -- Chapter 19

And now we come to the conclusion to All the Colors of Love. Here is the nineteenth and final chapter. I hope you've enjoyed the story.

Chapter 19 -- All the Colors of Love

All the Colors of Love Main Page

Catering Now on Smashwords

Catering, the first Stan and Gus story I wrote is now available in multiple formats and will soon be distributed on the iPhone, Droid, Kindle, and iBookstore, thanks to the magic of Smashwords.

A Real Girl: All the Colors of Love Chapter 18

The penultimate episode! This week, our heroes deal with the aftermath of Richard's evildoing, and both Cid and Antonin make startling discoveries.

All the Colors of Love Chapter 18 -- A Real Girl

All the Colors of Love Main Page

The Big Winner: All the Colors of Love, Chapter 17

Well we're rounding into the home stretch here, but our heroes aren't out of the woods yet. Far from it. Harry is starting to see his father in a new light, but that won't stop Richard from taking drastic measures. Antonin stumbles upon an important ally, and Cid faces the consequences of Richard's brainwashing. When the bullets start to fly, who will be left alive?

All the Colors of Love Chapter 17 -- The Big Winner

All the Colors of Love Main Page

Thaw and Serve on Smashwords

I've been fiddling around with Smashwords this week and my first freebie is up on their site. You can now download Thaw and Serve in the following formats: Kindle (Mobi), Epub, PDF, LRF, RTF, Palm Doc, and Plain Text. This means the story can be read on the iPhone (using the wildly successful ereading software, Stanza), Droid phone, KIndle, Sony eReader, Nook, Palm... pretty much every device that can be used to read text. And, Thaw passed the requirements for inclusion in Smashwords' Premium Catalogue so, over the next several weeks, the story will be making its way onto the Apple iBookstore, the Kindle Store, Sony's eBookstore, Kobo, and B&N.

One of the things that won me over to Smashwords right away was that there was no bullshit about how many copies of a selfpub book you stand to sell. It's true. There are a lot of reasons people decide to publish an ebook independently.  They just want to get their message out into the world, or, like me, they're doing it to increase exposure for their brand. It's not something you do to get rich or to become famous.  Still, one carefully formatted Word document and a .jpg cover file gets you a lot bang for your buck at Smashwords.  Especially since that buck is non-existent.  The service is free.  Thank you, Mark Coker!

As time permits, I plan to put more of my freebies up on Smashwords. I'll keep you posted.

CEO of the Universe: All the Colors of Love Chapter 16

This week: Harry has plenty of time to think things over. Meanwhile, Magnolia and Antonin's plan has hit a few snags and they may not survive the fallout. Back at Wotroya, Tumcari is declining and Rose goes after Richard where it will hurt him the most.

All the Colors of Love Chapter 16 -- CEO of the Universe

All the Colors of Love Main Page

Robot Love: All the Colors of Love -- Chapter 15

Here is this week's installment of All the Colors of Love.  Looks like Richard has everyone exactly where he wants them.  In fact, it doesn't seem like things can get much worse...

All the Colors of Love Chapter 15 -- Robot Love

All the Colors of Love Main Page

All the Colors of Love -- Chapter 14

Here's your weekly installment of All the Colors of Love.  Enjoy!

All the Colors of Love Chapter 14 -- The Cold-hearted Equation

All the Colors of Love Main Page

All the Colors of Love -- Chapter 12

All the Colors of Love Chapter 12 -- Agony Sweepstakes

All the Colors of Love Main Page

All the Colors of Love: Chapter 11

All the Colors of Love Chapter 11 -- The Plan

All the Colors of Love Main Page

All the Colors of Love: Chapter 10 PLUS A QUESTION FOR THE READERS

All the Colors of Love Chapter 10 -- The Question

All the Colors of Love Main Page

Sorry I was late with this today folks.  It's a busy time right now.

But while I have you here, I have a few questions.  Recently I've been contacted by a reader who wants to buy her own copy of All the Colors of Love, so she can read in its entirety and keep to reread again later.  It's an intriguing idea.  Please take a moment to answer the following questions, so I can get an idea of whether or not it makes sense to do this.

Would you purchase a copy of All the Colors of Love if it were available?

Would you prefer it as an ebook or as a print-on-demand book?

What would you consider to be a fair price to pay for the format of your choice?

Please leave your answers in the comments section of this post.  Thank you!