{{contact.first_name}}, your October 8 issue of The Dirt is live! Free short read inside!
Oct 08, 2020 6:01 pm
THE REGULAR DIRT
The Fall Series Giveaway is over and we have a champion! I’ll be reaching out to the big winner later in the day to let them know that luck was on their side, so keep your eyes on your inbox if you entered the contest. I’ve been trying to think of a better consolation prize than a short story most of you already have—and to be honest—I didn’t have much luck coming up with anything interesting. So I went and made one of my short reads free for a couple of days. When I say short, I mean short. It’s only about 500 words or so, but it's a true story about one of my first expeditions out into the viral wildlands back when lockdown was a new word and quarantine was something we thought only existed in movies, books, and video games. I hope you get a laugh out of it.
Get your free copy by clicking the link below:
FREE THRU 10/10
You’re probably wondering why I would ever bother writing a 500 word short story, let alone publish it on Amazon. Well, my dad was 53 years old when I was born in the mid-80s. If you do the math, that means he was born smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression, experienced his childhood during a little thing called World War II, fought in the Korean War, and went on to live through all those major events that shaped the world we have today. Needless to say, the man had some stories. Some of my best memories are of my old man telling me said stories while I sat next to him during long road trips. Sadly, last month made it six years since he’s been gone. And since I have a memory like cheesecloth, the stories he loved to tell are more or less gone with him.
Now that I have a couple monsters of my own, I’ve decided to immortalize a few of my own stories when the mood hits so my little dudes don't run into my problem. I’m nowhere near the master orator that my dad was, so I put mine in writing. Life is weird and the things that can happen to us are even weirder. I seem to have worse luck than most when it comes to that. I’m not the kind of man to waste what Sol gave me, so I try to work those little bits of weird into my writing. For instance, that big speech that Bob Smath gives before the final period in the Crater Bowl? The grainy one? Well, that’s inspired by a speech my high school football coach actually gave us before our homecoming game my junior year of high school. He even made us each take a handful and sprinkle it out on the field before the game. For flaring real, folks. It happened. No lie.
Spoiler alert: we won. And it was the only game that our coach—and by extension—we won over his three year career at our school. Yeah, we went 1-27. Stellar, eh?
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THE WHISPERSYNCED DIRT
I am pleased to announce that the Whispersync feature for Slab Steele and the Venusian Exchange finally went live! This means that if you already own the Kindle version (or have Kindle Unlimited), you can add Audible narration for only $7.49. If you aren’t familiar, Whispersync allows you to switch back and forth between reading and listening at your heart’s desire.
LISTEN TO A SAMPLE HERE
Matthew Broadhead did a bang-up job with the narration. I ain’t flaring joking. Slab sounds like JFK if he got into nose candy and became a sleazy used car salesman, and Chet sounds like he strolled right out of the hills of Appalachia in nothing more than a worn out pair of overalls, rolled up mid-calf, with a piece of long grass in his mouth. It makes my heart glow every time I hear it. Plus, there’s a few minutes of bloopers at the end if you’re into that kind of thing.
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THE DIRTY PROMO SECTION
I do my best to bring you guys some free stuff every couple of weeks. Here's what I came up with this time. Let’s get some clicks, eh?
BookFunnel
Free and 99c Fantasy and Sci-Fi
StoryOrigin
October Sci-Fi and Fantasy Giveaway
Sci-Fi/Space Opera & Fantasy KU Special
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FREEBIE OF THE FORTNIGHT: The Worth of a World by Rick A. Allen
Technology could ruin them, but they’re doing a good job of that already!
When the planet Wingt-xem asks to join the Trio of Planets, a small delegation of aliens is sent to evaluate them. They soon discover their hosts’ deception and set out on their own to find the truth. Their journey uncovers a terrifying weapon threatening to rip this planet apart.
GET YOUR FREE COPY HERE
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READ OF THE FORTNIGHT: Bob and the Blob by Simon Carr
He’s had better Thursdays.
Bob's day gets off to a bad start when he is abducted by alien blobs and put into a zoo. While the rest of humanity is being taken to slaughter—being turned into burgers—Bob befriends his handler, Fred. Together, the two of them try to change the legal status of humans from food to intelligent life. But it’s not easy. There are a lot of... not very intelligent life forms on their ship.
CHECK IT OUT HERE
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Until next time.
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Haven’t got your copy of Slab Steele and the Venusian Exchange yet? What are you waiting for? Available now on Amazon and Audible.
Itching for more Slab Steele? You can preorder Slab Steele and the Outer Rim Job today.
