Monthly Archives: September 2014

“Nightmares Are Made of These” by Pam Lynne – Review

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This collection of short stories and one novelette by Pam Lynne are sure to give you nightmares.  According to the Author’s Notes, many of the stories are based on her own nightmares.  Some notes on a few of my favorites:

“Merry Go Round” – This is a great example of a terrifying story set in a seemingly innocent place.  I find this to be one of my favorite forms of horror.

“Mr Wincotte’s Grave” – This is one of those tales that leaves you wondering afterward.  Did it really happen?  Is it in the protagonist’s imagination?

“Bloody Day” – Easily the hardest story for me to read.  I love horror and all of the gore that goes along with it, but the topic of rape is always hardest for me to stomach.  I think that it’s one of the most terrible, evil things that can happen.  Although this story does contain these elements, sometimes there is more than meets the eye.

“Monev” – What started as a vampire tale turned into what I consider one of the most original vampire stories I have ever read.  I want to compare it to Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s “The Strain” series.  Both are incredibly original takes on the vampire genre.  I’m not normally a huge fan of vampires (nothing against them, just usually not my thing), but “Monev” is one story I want to see continued!

Check out the author on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nmamot

To read “Nightmares Are Made of These” check out Barnes and Noble or download from iTunes.  The book is free at both places as of the publishing of this review.

The Stairway

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Another short story inspired by a picture tweeted out by @nmamot here https://twitter.com/nmamot/status/513176874286350337

I look at my feet.  Focus on putting one foot in front of the other.  They say that “slow and steady wins the race” and I’m starting to believe them.  Whoever “they” are.

I can’t afford to stumble on these steps again.  I glance back over my shoulder.  I can only see about a hundred yards back and then the stairs disappear into the fog.  But I can hear it.

Somewhere in the fog I hear the beast breathing.  Climbing the stairs behind me.

I feel myself start to stumble so I grab the wooden rail.  Got to stay focused.

I turn to face forward and make my way up the stairs.  How much longer do they go?  Same as behind me, I can only see a hundred yards or so.  Then the stairs disappear into the fog.

I try to calm my nerves by thinking about something besides the creature behind me.

This staircase is in the middle of the mountains, the drop if I were to fall has to be thousands of feet.  But why are there stairs here?  They are nearly perfectly formed.  They show signs of having been here for year, centuries maybe.  But who would have built them?

My heart is given a little hope when I see that a flat spot is coming up.  I resist the urge to run to it and clear the last few steps and reach a dirt path.  My shoulders fall as I see that the stairs start up again after only a few yards.

I keep moving forward when my foot hits something.  Bones.  A skull.  The are scattered in the middle of the path, all broken.  But I know what they are.  This is not the first set of remains I have passed.  I originally was counting, but after the sixth one I decided to stop.

I’m sure each of these people suffered a terrible death at the…hands?  Claws?  Something.  That beast that is following me has killed them all.

The beast!  I hear clicking on the stairs now and the breathing is getting louder.  I better get moving.

I hustle down the path and start climbing the next set of stairs.

Free Bitcoin and Free Dogecoin with faucets

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I’ve recently gotten into crypto currency, specifically Dogecoin and Bitcoin.  Here are some of the places you can get some free Dogecoin and free Bitcoin through faucets (Want more information on Bitcoin? Visit https://bitcoin.org/ Want more information on Dogecoin? Visit http://dogecoin.com/)

Free Bitcoin Faucets:

Feed the Zebra: http://faucet.bitcoinzebra.com/?ref=5125db0388bc

 

Free Dogecoin Faucets (To the Moon!):

A Quick Analysis of Kindle Unlimited Effect on Sales

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I’ve currently got two books out on Amazon, available on Kindle.  The first, All is not as it Appears, was released in May of this year.  The second, Life of a Cat, was released in August of this year.  I’ve been curious how the new Kindle Unlimited has affected sales, since it seemed to have helped me.

Today I did some breakdown on borrows of my book.  I can assume that everything before Kindle Unlimited came out was from Amazon Prime users.  After that I don’t know (the Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard doesn’t break down which type of borrow it is).

Let’s start with “All is not as it Appears” which is priced at $0.99.  I know that Kindle Unlimited has been out for a couple months but I haven’t really seen the extra borrows come until this month (September).  In September, my book has been borrowed as many times as it was from May-August combined.  Is this because word is spreading about my book, or because of something else?  I don’t really have an answer with the limited sample.

“Life of a Cat” is more interesting.  I’ve had more people borrow this book, which is priced at $3.99.  I’m really limited on sample size because the book has barely been out 2 months, but in August the book was borrowed once.  It has been borrowed 3 times in September (three times as many).  Now again, is this because of Kindle Unlimited?  I’m not sure.  The higher price point may make it more appealing (borrowers feel like they’re getting a better deal maybe?).

All-in-all, the increase is a little less than I thought it was, but I still find this intriguing.  As time goes by I will keep checking out the data to see if there are any potential patterns.  I’ve got a couple other places to look (like Twitter analytics, to see what tweets are getting interest).

If you’d like to check out my books, you can get them for Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/Jaime-Horio/e/B00LG8XV3I/?tag=jaimwrit-20 or search for me, “Jaime Horio” on your Kindle to borrow for free!

Writing Exercise – First!

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This is a new feature, copied after another author, Linda Scarlett, who is going to be posting scary moments every Friday on her blog at http://www.lindascarlett.blogspot.com/

Here I will give you a scene, or an intro, and you continue the story on.  It doesn’t need to be anything super long or fancy, this is just an opportunity for us writers to get our brain some exercise!  This is the first post, but you can use the “Writing Exercise” tag at the end of this post to find more of these!

Today’s scene:

You wake up one morning in a strange bed.  Besides the obvious (you aren’t in your own bed), something seems off.  You reach for your iPhone to check the time, but it’s not there.  You go to the closet to get dressed but it’s just full of costumes.  Extremely vintage looking clothing, Founding Fathers stuff.  There’s nothing else so you go ahead and put on one of the costumes.  It’s not comfortable but at least you aren’t naked.

When you go outside, it quickly dawns on you that you aren’t in a costume.  You’ve somehow been transported back to colonial America!  You have no money and it you don’t know the city.  What do you do?

Ðogecoin!

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I know I’m way behind on this, but I just found out about Ðogecoin.  I downloaded my wallet the other night, and have been playing around over at /r/dogecoin a bit.  Really my first time getting into Reddit.

Anyway, I’m planning to keeping trying to find my Ðoge.  If you want to help me out, you can tip me at DEa4qZEwM3BAX8hhW59Eucj91jz14DiED3