New Story: CHALLENGER

Oh, hi! Here’s a new short story, CHALLENGER. It’s 18 pages long, it features Miles LaPine, a character from my collection The Book of Right and Wrong, and it’s probably not appropriate for younger readers. You can either purchase it in nice, official Kindle format on Amazon here, or you can download a PDF of it here, for free.

I’ve chosen to release CHALLENGER, much like THE ADVOCATE, in the self-published electronic format. It’s possible both stories might’ve found homes in literary publications the way several of the Book of Right and Wrong stories did. But both stories are also a bit longer than the average lit-mag story, and I know it’d be a tough sell for many of those publications. At the same time, that length does make each story feel to me like a true, standalone piece, something I wouldn’t feel bad selling for 99 cents. (More on that 99-cent thing in a second.)

I’ve also come to believe that while there are many literary magazines doing amazing work, I may not be the best fit for them. For instance, there’s no magazine called Matt Debenham Stories. Is that so much to ask?

About the 99-cent thing: I had all the plans in the world to put both stories up on Amazon for free. Believe me, what I want most is a readership. However, Amazon’s tightened their pricing rules to the point where independent publishers are prohibited from selling Kindle items for less than 99 cents. In order to get it that low, by the way, I had to agree to a royalty rate of 35%, a smidge under 35 cents per download. But again, you can get the story, along with THE ADVOCATE and BEARD OF BEES for free on my Downloads page.

If you look at the dates of the two Kindle stories I’ve done so far, you can see they’re a year apart, nearly to the day. I’ve been working on other, longer things over the past year, but I can tell you that it will not be a year until the next Kindle release from me. Stay tuned!