Click here to go read the newly re-released, and freely available, copy of The Grounds Warden
A long time ago, in the early days of this site, I had a rather different vision for what it would look like. I was intending to sell digital copies of my books, all nicely formatted and ready for e-book readers, directly from the site, for a set price. However, there were some technical and financial difficulties involved in this plan, not to mention significant logistical hurdles. Back then, I released a single short story, The Grounds Warden, in that format. What I learned from that release is that what works for Amazon isn’t going to necessarily work for IGC Publishing, at least not at the current stage.
Part of the problem was trying to do this with short stories, which few people specifically go look for, especially packaged individually. I still intend to release my novels, when they’re finally done, in this way, but after my experience with Zombies, and the Blood Magic series, I’ve determined that short stories are best released freely on the site, with advertisements at the chapter/section/scene breaks. That way, the barriers to entry for reading my short stories, and by extension being introduced to my work, are as low as clicking on a link on the site. The reading experience might not be quite as nice, but accessibility takes precedence.
With all of that in mind, I’ve determined to re-release The Grounds Warden in the new format. No longer do you have to go to the page, pay, and download the PDF. Instead, you can just click here, and you will be taken directly to the page with the whole story. So if you haven’t read The Grounds Warden before, I encourage you to head over and give it a read. You can find a lot more details on it in some of my older posts. This is actually one of the first stories that I wrote on which I received more than just “that’s nice” kind of feedback, and I was able to turn it into something that I think is quite interesting.
The whole point of this publishing undertaking, for me, is to share my work with more people. I try to write things that I enjoy reading, and tell stories that I like to imagine. For me, writing is a way to share that with people, and the more people who can share in those imaginings, the better. So while it would be nice if I could one day make money off of writing, for now that’s why I still have a “real” job (plus, my “real” job is actually pretty exciting), and I can afford to offer these stories for only the cost of your time. I really hope that you enjoy them, too.
Click here to go read the newly re-released, and freely available, copy of The Grounds Warden
Oh, and to everyone asking if there’s going to be a sequel to The Grounds Warden, the answer is that there might be. But if there is, it will probably be novella length, and it will be very different from what you see in this short story.
IGC Publishing 