Smashwords Summer Sale

[elf]

Sale at Smashwords until July 31; hundreds of free ebooks, lots of discounted ebooks. (Use the tags at the top to filter for 100% off, 75% off, 50% off or 25% off.)

Hmm, I should download a cluster of the free short stories and post mini-reviews to sps on the theory that I'm willing to read up to 5000 words of just about anything, and it'd be nice to find good unknown authors.

Anyone up for the idea of a read-and-review fest at some point, where a bunch of us download a given collection of free ebooks and post thoughts about them?

Comments

[elf]

Reviews would theoretically be public, but no punches need be pulled. Reviews are for other readers, not to save the authors' egos. (Besides, I would be thrilled to kick off a Howett-style meltdown over reviews of free short stories.)

I trust that fanficcy people would be able to say, "I can see that someone really into [topic] would enjoy this story, but outside of that niche, meh." From what I've seen of literary reviews, I trust fannish ones better--they're more centered on "here's what works & what doesn't and what you might not care about" than attempting to claim some objective standard of literary quality.

The biggest problem I'd expect with short stories would be a tendency to slip into beta mode and start suggesting actual corrections for the stories that are *almost* good reads on their own. The number of self-publishing author who can't properly wield a comma is terrifying.

[stasia]

Kewl Beenz. I'll be there for the read'n'review. Will there be snacks?

I can certainly say Your Kink/Squick/comma usage is not mine, but yeah, it might be hard to not offer corrections. *sigh*

And why are commas so hard for so many people?

Stasia

[tameiki]

And why are commas so hard for so many people?

It's because commas are ebil. ^^

[stasia]

*blink* They're ... sort of like parentheses. Only dangly, like drop earrings.

Pretty little dangly pauses, all in a row.

,,,

*hee*

Stasia

[tameiki]

;/;/;/;/;/;/;/;/;/;/;/

I think I prefer semi-colons and slashes. They look like little people sitting in a bus :)

[stasia]

They DO look like little people on a bus! Cool. Maybe they need to pause for dangly earrings!

Stasia