Category Archives: News

News about the site.

NEWS: Two-a-Days

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I’ve been receiving lots of great submissions over the past few weeks, and I like to do my best to get every good story onto the site at some point. Until now, whenever I’ve had “too many” submissions, there has always come a time when submissions were sparse for a while, so I could use up the backlog. But my inbox is overflowing!

So starting on Monday, May 30, and continuing until Friday, July 1, I will be posting a guest submission every weekday, alongside my own daily stories.

That’s right: for the next month+, you’ll be getting two stories to read every weekday!

By the way, just because I have a lot of submissions doesn’t mean I’m not looking for more. I’m always happy to receive more guest stories.

NEWS: GeekingOutAbout.com Guest Post and Contest

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Today www.GeekingOutAbout.com shared a guest post I wrote for them, about my experiences writing fifty-word stories and some of my other favourite microfiction formats and websites. This post has taken a little while to put together, and to find the right timing for sharing it, but I’m really excited to get it out there for people to see, and GeekingOutAbout is a great place to post it. Head over there to get some insight and recommendations from me, including an excerpt from the Tips and Tricks section of Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One.

In addition to sharing my guest post, GeekingOutAbout is also running a 50-word story contest, to celebrate their one-year anniversary (congratulations, by the way, guys!). The details are all here. The best three stories sent to geekingoutabout@gmail.com by May 31 will win a free Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One ebook bundle, and the first-prize winner will also receive $25 to the online retailer of their choice! That’s a pretty awesome prize, in my opinion, so get writing, and I can’t wait to see all of your submissions.

NEWS: Guest Week and Book Price Reduction

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This week is going to look a little different from most weeks at 50WS. Instead of having one story from a guest writer and four from me, you’re going to be seeing five great stories sent in by readers.

The reason for doing a full guest week is that I’m getting married in 12 days, and life is a little… hectic, to say the least. I barely have time to think about writing more stories right now.

I’m not 100% sure what next week will look like yet, but I know that the stories you’ll be seeing this week are really good, even if I didn’t write them. :)

 

On another note, as you’ll see in the announcement area at the top of the page, I’ve dropped the prices on my book to $2.99 for the ebook and $9.99 for the print book from Lulu. Hit up the Store to see how you can grab a (now more affordable) copy for yourself!

NEWS: Story Ratings Broken

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I hope site issues don’t come in threes, because if they do, we may be in for another one before long.

Having recently solved the “slow site” problem, I’m now trying to figure out why story ratings aren’t working. You can mouse-over the stars, but they don’t register a click.

I still have hope that there will be a way to solve this. So far reinstalling the GD Star Rating plugin from scratch (after backing up all of the ratings and settings) hasn’t worked, nor has reverting to an earlier version of the plugin. If I’m not able to find a way to get ratings going again, I’ll have to find some form of alternative, preferably one that allows me to keep the history of past ratings.

I’ll keep you updated. Until this gets resolved, you can always express your opinions about stories by leaving a comment, instead, or by sharing the ones you like using the buttons underneath each post.

NEWS: Site Speed Improvements

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You’ve probably noticed that the site has been really slow over the past few weeks. After trying a handful of different strategies for dealing with this (including hiding under the covers and hoping it would just go away), I finally opened a support ticket with my web host (JaguarPC.com, which has always been very good to me), and they pointed out an old, forgotten forum on an old, forgotten site of mine that was monopolizing the server’s CPU. The forum had gotten infested with bots and spam, so I went in, wiped it, disabled it for the future, and will be deleting it for good later today.

Now the site is loading at normal speeds again! Hooray! To celebrate, I’m going to post two guest stories this Monday.

NEWS: March 7 Pay What You Want Sale

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March 7 is my fiancée’s birthday, so in celebration of that, I’m holding a Pay What You Want Sale for Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One. Until midnight PST on March 7, you can pay any amount you want to download the Volume One ebook bundle, which includes the ePub, .mobi (Kindle), and PDF formats. After this, the price will go back to $3.99.

So throw me a penny, a dollar, or heck, why not a grand? (I kid!) Take advantage of the offer, enjoy the book, tell your friends, and leave a review on Amazon, while you’re at it.

NEWS: Get 15% Off 50WS:V1 in Print

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I received an email from Lulu.com the other day letting me know that they’re holding a sale, so I thought I’d pass the offer on to all of you.

Until March 15, 2011, enter the coupon code IDES305 and you can receive 15% off a print copy of Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One. That means you can get the book for just over $10, plus shipping, which is a really good deal. And it doesn’t cut into my profits at all, since Lulu is the one offering the sale, so it’s a win-win!

Remember, if you buy a print copy of the book, you can receive the free ebook, as well, by forwarding me a copy of your receipt email.

NEWS: Valentine’s Day Contest Recap

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I posted some thoughts about the Valentine’s Day contest over at TimSevenhuysen.com, including what I liked about each of the stories that were posted today.

In total, 22 people submitted 29 stories for the contest, and I really enjoyed receiving and reading them all. I hope you’ll all submit more stories in the future, both for other contests and for weekly guest stories.

Also, as a special thank you, if you submitted a story for the contest I’ve emailed you a thank you note which contains a 50% off coupon for the Volume One ebook bundle, so if you use that coupon before February 21, the bundle is under $2!

NEWS: Free Ebook With Print Purchase

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People have been asking about packaging the ebook bundle with print sales. I didn’t think that would be possible, since Lulu doesn’t let me see any personal details for customers, but @davefp came up with a way to make it work:

If you have purchased Volume One from Lulu and would like an ebook copy, forward your email receipt to Tim@FiftyWordStories.com, with your address, etc., removed, and I’ll send the ebook bundle to that email address.

This offer stands for all past and future print orders. If you’ve already purchased both the print and ebook versions and would like a refund on your ebook, send me an email.

The reason I hadn’t set up any kind of print+ebook bundle before is that I didn’t think it would be possible to verify people’s print purchases, but your Lulu receipt should be identifiable enough to make this work. If this offer gets abused by people trying to grab a free ebook without making a print purchase, I’ll revisit things, but I want to make the offer available, because I think it makes a lot of sense.

Thanks to Dave for the implementation idea, and thanks again to everyone who has bought the book!

NEWS: Volume One Now Available in Kindle Store

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For those of you who have been waiting to buy Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One directly from the Kindle Store and may have missed the announcement earlier on Twitter, I thought I’d give you a heads up that the book has passed through the publishing phase and is now available.

You can buy it in the US Kindle Store or the UK Kindle Store, or in other countries’ Kindle Stores, as well.