When Julie sees the Guider striding towards her, she knows something is up.
And when he invites her to a safe house to reveal that he had already known about her discovery, long before she had made it, she soon discovers that all is not as it seems.
With the dark matter having left the Oort Cloud, and now heading towards the inner Solar System, it is up to Julie to decide what to do next.
But she has absolutely no idea what that could be.
Could this mean the end of the human race?
A Little Matter is #20 in the Science Fiction Weekly short reads series. A short story of approximately 4600 words.
The pod members on the inside of their bubble world roll back and forth in fear as the strange triangular shape breaks into their universe, and reveals something horrifying inside.
What is this long creature made of lines?
Why is it frozen in the air above them?
And what will happen if it touches the energy skin of their world?
First Interdimensional Contact is #19 in the Science Fiction Weekly short reads series. A short story of about 4500 words.
When Captain Dhead’s ship appears near a black hole binary system, his alien first officer Khyrks eagerly tells him that there is treasure in a tear in space-time, right in the center.
Slightly uneasy at being in such a dangerous part of space, Dhead sends a drone into the tear to investigate.
And finds something incredible.
‘Oh My God. It’s Full of Stars’ is #16 in the Science Fiction Weekly Series. A short reads story of about 4200 words.
When Kamryn Jones’ houseboat is destroyed by a black drone, she is contacted by a mysterious woman who sends her across the country to locate evidence of a UFO. Determined to uncover the truth, she follows the trail.
But what she finds is a lot more disturbing that she would ever have expected.
And how is the President of Australia involved in all this?
Alien UFO Disclosure is #15 in the Science Fiction Weekly Series. A short story of approximately 7700 words.
Yes, great news! A new series of Science Fiction weekly has begun. I’ve created some new stories, and rewritten some recent stories to be released on a weekly basis from this week!
Stories 1-13 were released last year, and I’ll release stories 14-26 this year.
Antlions by Elana Gomel The Exchange by Neil A. Hogan Hues of Living Green by Russell Hemmell Home is Where Your Hearts Are by Danielle Davis Touch by Nicky Martin Old World Problems by Eddie D. Moore Found on Proxima B by Priya Sridhar
My goal with Alien Dimensions Issue #16 was to release it in time for the 2nd anniversary. Of course, that was more of a marketing decision than anything else.
I was able to submit the final version of issue #16 for print checks this week. I also got confirmation this week that it was good to go. However, I had planned to release it next week, and wasn’t going to press the release button until the optimal day for publishing a print book (Tuesday).
A few days later I got an email from CreateSpace telling me that their system will be shut down in a few weeks and that everything would move to Amazon.
What?
Of course, I had known this would happen, ever since Amazon bought Createspace back in 2005. There has been a long term plan behind the development of ebooks, KDP and Createspace over the past 13 years, and I’ve been paying close attention since 2008. This is the next step and it will make things a lot easier for self publishers who prefer not to go wide.
(As a side note, I celebrate 20 years as a customer of Amazon this year, so you could say I’m one of its greatest fans!)
Even so, the idea that they are going to move everything from Createspace to Amazon print in a few weeks, whether I want it or not, was a bit of a surprise. My main concern was a huge amount of books with specifically-sized covers that weren’t compatible with the Amazon print system. The other concern was that the date hadn’t been set for my migration. If it happened on Tuesday, then it would cause a problem for the whole launch process of Alien Dimensions #16.
I couldn’t take that risk.
As Createspace says that it would take 3-5 days to appear on Amazon, I thought I’d post it at 12:30am LA time on the 1st of September. Rather than wait until Tuesday and hope it would have the 4th as a publication date, I posted it today and relied on the ‘business days’ situation to sort things out. It also meant I could sleep easy knowing that the launch could not in any way be delayed, as I’d already launched it.
Makes sense. Right?
I had no idea that, because of the merger, rather than everything being delayed, everything was actually being fast-tracked. Within an hour of the printed version being confirmed, it had become available on Amazon. Within three hours sales had started to come through.
Thank you to everyone buying copies. I’m shocked and quite appreciative that the issue has been discovered before I made any official announcements. A nice surprise.
So, if you read this and wonder why you haven’t received an email telling you the print version is now available, it’s because I am going to wait until the ebook becomes available too.
The ebook version is a different beast. There is a slight problem with KDP in submitting for approval, and the dates. If I submit it on the 1st, one of the operators will list it as the 30th or 29th of the previous month. If I publish it on the 3rd, I’ve got a better chance of scoring a ‘1st of September’ listing. I want early September rather than late August as early month dates within that month sell better than late month dates. (Yes, I’ve been crunching the numbers!) A number of times I’ve submitted Alien Dimensions late on the 2nd of a month, and had it listed on the last day of the previous month. I would then politely email customer service and have the date changed. I’d prefer not to have to worry about that, so I’ll submit it on the 4th, and see how things go!
So, if you’re looking for the printed version of Alien Dimensions Science Fiction Short Stories Issue #16, click here
If you’re looking for the ebook version, subscribe to the irregular mailing list newsletter here, and I’ll send out an email the moment it becomes available.
For over 10 years I’ve been producing a series for children called Alien Characters. The main idea was that there should be an ‘alien’ series to go alongside ‘Mr Men’ , ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ , ‘Grug’ and other book series of that square size.
I thought I was on to a winner by making Alien Characters the first childrens’ book series on Amazon about aliens, being the first digital series about aliens for children, and adding a Youtube animation series to go with them.
The downside, for a starving artist, is that children’s books need to be illustrated. And when a book requires 17 illustrations, and each image costs between $100 and $200 to make, you can see how expensive a 70 book series is going to end up right there. So, in 10 years, I’ve only been able to do about 28 of the books.
Yes, that’s about $50,000.00! Not to mention all the marketing, the time spent, the online advertising and the like. As well as money spent on translating some into other languages.
I’ve probably spent over $80,000.00 on the series. Which is a shame considering I haven’t made much back. Probably $500. All this has meant quite a number of months on cheap tinned fish and rice, and a strong feeling of failure. Oh, and some of that was on credit card which I’m still paying off as part of a debt collection payment plan, so add interest to that figure.
Problems I encountered
The size I wanted wasn’t an industry standard for print-on-demand books. The closest I could choose was double the size, but still square enough to fit in with other series.
The square size wasn’t one for expanded distribution, so it was only available in a limited number of places around the world as a print book.
The minimum cost for a square-sized title with colour inside to be printed was $9.35 per book. Which meant I was selling it at between $9.50 and $9.99 because, who would pay more than that, plus shipping, for 40 page kids book? And, in that sense, I couldn’t compete with similar shaped but smaller books selling for $4.95 at cheaper ship rates.
Of course, a smarter businessman wouldn’t have even started it, but a creator like myself wants to create. So, I wasn’t going to let money get in the way of getting my creations out there.
Unfortunately, after 10 years of being positive about it, my passion for creating this series has now dissolved into disillusionment, disappointment and depression, so I had to make a difficult decision about it.
I’m definitely enjoying writing the Stellar Flash series, and I really want to work on my next Science Fiction Weekly series. I’m also eager to see what future Alien Dimensions and Fantasy Short Stories releases will bring too. I’d rather put my energy into those for the time being, instead of chasing my tail with the Alien Characters series.
And so, I’ve pulled the paperbacks and will soon pull all the ebooks. I’ll put the whole series in mothballs for awhile, and then I’ll regenerate it. Bringing it back as a 5×8 series easily printed if needed, and easily read on tablets if preferred. Though if there is a smaller expanded distribution size that works out cheaper, I might look at that too.
Sometimes, you just have to rest these things and come back to them again a bit later.
If you’d like to find out more about the Alien Characters series, the website is still up here: Alien Characters
Here’s a picture of a few of them:
And here’s one of the backs of the printed version
And here’s the beginning of series one with just the book pictures, narrated by me:
And here’s the much older cartoon, also narrated by me.
The Andromeda Effect. Stellar Flash Book Two by Neil A. Hogan
Now Available in Digital and Print
Sent back 2.5 million years in time to the Andromeda Galaxy to investigate why there’s a record of them having been there, the Stellar Flash crew encounter a creature so powerful that it has taken control of the entire galaxy by thought alone.
With most of the crew unconscious, Captain Jonathan Hogart is in a race against time to defeat the plant-planet, save the galaxy, and find a way to return to 2133.
But another force is attempting to take control, to use the power of the creature from the past to take over the Milky Way Galaxy in the present. And, for this, Hogart has no defense.
How is the creature controlling an entire galaxy?
Who has the technology to transmit the creature’s power from the past to the present?
And will the Stellar Flash crew and the Space Station team be able to save both galaxies?
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