Author: Gregory Hampton

#622,821 vs #148,011

As one of the many productivity books that I read pointed out, we don’t have any extra time. Everyone has the same 168 hours in the week, it’s just a matter of how you spend them. So, when I think that I have some extra time now, it’s not really extra time per se, but instead some blocks of time that used to be taken up with other requirements.

The reallocations that I’ve been pursuing recently have been related to writing, editing and publishing. Hence this website, this book and a variety of “blog” posts. It’s all an experiment in fulfilling that lifelong dream of living a creative life. For whatever weird psychological reasons, I’ve always valued stories and writing and have pursued it in the background of my life. But, now, with a little extra time, I’m engaged in an experiment of putting my stories out into the world (or at least into the Amazon ecosystem) to see what happens.

So, for my first experiment, I published my short stories, using a pseudonym, and just saying “here they are” without any sort of marketing (not even telling my friends that they were available). We’ll call this the “control” of the experiment: what happens when a brand-new self-published author just puts a book out there…a weird book, 84 pages with two short stories and a couple of chapters of a to-be-published (more honestly, a still-being-edited) novel? With the stories being a somewhat odd blend of social commentary and satire, not really fitting into a standard genre?

The answer, after a few days, is that of the tree falling in the woods. I checked the book out myself, just to see how it looked and whether it generally conformed to the books I read on my Kindle (and iPhone). With one download (from Kindle Unlimited), my book was ranked #148,011 in the Kindle store. But since then, without any marketing, or even pity/mercy purchases from friends, it has slipped to #622,821…

According to Amazon, there are over 1 million books in the Kindle store…so this tells me a couple of things about the experiment: there are a lot of books that aren’t selling very much, and it doesn’t take much to climb pretty far up the ranks (up hundreds of thousands of spots). My guess is that once in the top 100,000 level, however, it actually requires a fair number of sales to climb up to Harry Potter levels.

For now, though, I’m going to enjoy the rest of my vacation and wallow in the ocean of complete obscurity…next week, I’ll start to engage in phase II of the experiment: seeing what kinds of marketing works!

Thoughts about Seagulls

When you only get to an extended stay at the beach (or a beach) once a year, it’s hard to keep perspective on real life, like the news or bills or problems at work. Of course, that’s part of the point–the ebb and flow of the tides, the sound of the waves, the warmth of the sun give you a new set of issues. Like, how to afford a beach house…

Luckily, I’ve been able to avoid that siren’s song (Scylla–buying a beach house; Charybdis–buying a boat).

But, being at the beach has brought various story ideas to mind. And, too many of them involve seagulls. As writers go to the beach (or live at the beach), and there the birds are…waiting to inspire a variety of stories…

My three immediate “literary” seagulls are Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the Seagull by Chekhov (insert gunshot here), and “mine mine mine” from Finding Nemo. Three very different versions, and uses, of the bird.

I’ve seen two different types of seagulls while at the beach. One, the majestic hunter, scanning the water and then swooping down to attack some poor unsuspecting fish–maybe successful, maybe not–but with every plunge, I hear an imaginary “Death from above!” The second, the foul, dirty, annoying scavenger scanning restaurants for the weak (eg, small children) and then swarming to scare something out of the now-crying child…Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds in action…

As I was floating in the water yesterday, the story that came to mind–just the inkling of an idea–was of a blind seagull (or at least nearsighted one), who can’t see the small fish, so just has to go after the big fish.

But, this being the beach, those thoughts float away since it’s now time for the pre-lunch nap…

Hello World…Tomorrow

Tomorrow, June 24th, my two short stories (and preview of an upcoming novel) are going live on Amazon.

From the Author’s Note:

While I’ve been writing for a while—or, since third grade—this is the first time that I’ve put something out into the wild since some stories and poems in the college literary magazine.  The world has definitely changed since then…while we had computers, email wasn’t common and the internet was in its infancy, with screeching modems accessing text-based BBS’s.  If you wanted to publish short stories, it was in magazines, with specific submission requirements and payment scales.  As far as I can tell, with a few exceptions, that industry had been swallowed up, and I’ve been among the ones feeding the sharks. 

So, instead of acquiring a stack of rejection letters, I’m putting these two stories out there and engaging rejection directly.

Short Stories Coming Soon

Coming soon to a Kindle near you, two short stories by Gregory Hampton.

The Nile Index tells the story of a man whose life has gone off track, but after six years of wallowing, he might be making progress…at least as long as it doesn’t impact his Nile Index. Self-improvement clashing with consumerism in a dark comedy.

In The Time Thieves, seemingly small steps can lead to big changes. A story for all those who Live, Work and Play.

This edition also includes an author’s note about the original sources for the stories, as well as a preview of the upcoming crime novel, A Susceptible Man, about a small-time crook who gets a glimpse at a big-time score.