Massive reprint haul due in May 🚛📚📚

50 Indie Games that Changed the World
A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games
From Ants to Zombies: Six Decades of Video Game Horror
The GBA Pixel Book
I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 1992–2002
Metal Slug: The Ultimate History
The Art of Point-and-Click Adventure Games
The Games That Weren’t

Check out the coming soon area on our website: https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/coming-soon

#bitmapbooks #books #gaming #reprints #bookstodon

A reprint with a spaceship (and mud)

My novelette “Adamere in Swan” is now for sale as a standalone ebook; you can buy it from my shop, itch.io, Ko-fi or Campfire. It came out in last year’s Autumn issue of ParSec. (I have not Americanized the text, so you can expect at least one bonus letter u per page.)

This is the last reprint I’m planning to release as a standalone ebook, at least for a little while. Almost everything remains available in some format, and the majority of stories are either free or inexpensive. It’s 2025; “out of print” should be a thing of the past (unless a writer decides to just let some or all of their work fade away). If a reader decides they’re interested in one of my stories, amidst all the choices out there, I want to make it easy for them to get that story.

#novelette #reprints #scienceFiction #spaceOpera

A time travel reprint

I don’t write a lot of time travel stories or a lot of play-formatted stories. But I wrote this one seven or eight years ago, and it eventually appeared in a big time-travel themed anthology, and now you can buy it from my shop or itch.io or Ko-Fi.

We’re still in the darkest timeline, alas, and it just keeps getting darker.

#reprints #scienceFiction #timeTravel

A ghostly reprint

I’ve released “5:37” as an ebook. The story came out five years ago this month. It earned some kind words from reviewer Charles Payseur and an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Volume Thirteen. Not bad for a story that’s one part Ring shitpost and one part DACS guidance for describing spirit communications!

Unlike the stories I previously reprinted, this one is still available to read for free online (and the entire issue of Translunar Travelers Lounge is for sale on Amazon). But if you want just this one story, DRM-free, you can find it in my shop, itch.io, etc.

#horror #reprints #selfPublishing #shortStories

Reprints! Get your reprints

This past week, I released three more short story reprints for sale: “Shared Space,” “Like Gold Upon Her Tongue,” and “The Relative Positions of Dead Things in the Dark.” (The stories are also available to purchase in Community of Magic Pens, Eighteen, and ParSec, if you’d like to support the publishers and get more than a standalone short story.)

These are the last stories I’ll release for a while. Itch.io is an experiment (successful, so far: it’s giving short stories another chance to find readers) and I’ll continue to add the books to bundles and otherwise experiment with visibility.

One of the other things I’ll practice is self-promotion. I make jokes about being shameless, but I know selling requires more advertising than I currently do. It’s easy to say “hey, I have a Thing published here!” once or twice, and let the publisher worry about sales; at that point, I’ve already been paid, and marketing feels less like advertising and more like a news update. It’s also easier for me to promote a project that involves other people’s stuff.

Imposter syndrome. Consciousness of how gender impacts how works and words about them are received. A lingering sense that one shouldn’t seem too keen (I blame that on a combination of blue-collar northern English and Welsh sensibilities and the whole Gen X slacker apathy). They’re all real. I am old enough that I ought to get over them.

Part of leveling up my business-of-writing chops is playing around with Vellum and GIMP. Part of it is checking analytics on views and sales. Part of it is just trying to increase visibility. (I’ve voluntarily hamstrung myself already: by swearing off a number of unethical platforms and advertisers, I have limited my potential audience.) So if you see more repetitive social media posts about reprints, it’s because I am practicing a new skill.

#fantasy #indiePublishing #itchIo #reprints #scienceFiction #selfPublishing #shortStories

More shorts

“Stages of Pre-Bereavement” and “Always an After” are both available for sale on Itch.io. This seems like a nice afterlife for short stories, and maybe they’ll find readers who aren’t in the mood for a full anthology.

#horror #indiePublishing #itchIo #reprints #scienceFiction #selfPublishing #shortStory

Itch.io

I’m not a big gamer, so Itch.io wasn’t really on my radar until recently. A few months ago, I started hearing about people using it as a platform to sell books. I made a mental note of it and went about my business.

But now I have a brand new Mac and freshly installed Vellum, so I decided to take it out for a spin. My first little project is a reprint of “When Mastered, a Graceful Accomplishment,” available for a dollar.

Said project has reminded me that, while I sometimes enjoy mucking about with graphics programs, I’m not a designer. (That doesn’t bother me too much for random short story reprints; I’ll definitely need someone with a better eye and skills for anything more serious.) But hey, this was fun and it’s only a buck.

I am planning to reprint more short stories in the near future, and release more substantial works in the less-near future. So if you buy indie books from Itch.io, please keep my little creator page in mind.

#indiePublishing #itchIo #reprints #selfPublishing #shortStory