Hi there. It’s indie SF day here on the blog. Why you ask? Why not? Every day should be indie SF day. But also, I want to share a project that I worked on that supports indie SF authors.

Lately I’ve been working with the SFWA book bundle team, where we take a bunch of submissions based on a theme and then pick our favorite books and bundle them together through storybundle and make them available at one low price.

Our theme this round was “Space is big. Really big.” And while we’re *really* liberal surrounding the theme, we got a ton of books set in space, and as you know, everything is better when you set it in space. Take a look at this selection.

Let me tell you a little bit about how SFWA storybundles work. First, we announce the bundle and then open for about a month for submissions. After that, a panel of fifteen or so authors goes through every book — at least three authors screen each one — and we narrow it down to about thirty. From there, we do a second round of judging where two new authors look at the book, and then we take the scores from all five judges and pick out 12 to 15 of the very best. And that’s what you have here.

You can check it out in more detail, or make your purchase at Story Bundle. You can get the first four books for $5, or all the books for $20.

You probably want to know where the money goes. I would if I were you. Story Bundle takes a cut for administration, and SFWA gets a share for doing the curation. If you want, you can also designate 10% of the price to SFWA as a charity contribution (SFWA is a registered non-profit) but that’s optional. The rest of the money is split evenly among the authors (or, if a publisher holds the rights, the money goes to the publisher who shares it with the author based upon their own contract). It varies from bundle to bundle, but it usually works out to right around 65 to 70% going to the creators in the end, which sounds bad (at least to me), but is really not much different than the cut you’d get selling books on third party retailers. Basically, for this bundle, for every $20 purchase, each author will get right about $1.

We’d love to sell 500 bundles. We’re over half way there. Check it out here and see if you want to add to the total.

While I have you here, I could use some help.

If you’ve enjoyed or benefited from my blog, I’m asking for a bit of help. I know you don’t owe me anything, but you can do this for free with just a few seconds time, so I don’t feel bad about asking.

I’m running a writer’s conference as part of Atomacon in Charleston in May. I get to work with developing writers, give them feedback, help them work on pitching, and just do all that cool stuff that comes from hanging with people who want to get better at this business. The conference is free with the purchase of a convention badge, which is $40.

We’re going to work in small groups on critique, we’re going to have panels with editors, authors, and an agent, and everyone who signs up will get professional feedback on their first ten pages at no extra cost.

So here’s where I need your help. I REALLY want to do this, but the only way we can make it work for the convention economically is if some people sign up. Hotel space costs money. So here’s my ask: help me get the word out. Please take this link and post it in your spaces where writers hang out. If you’re so inclined, maybe talk about how awesome I am. I’ll leave that part to you though.

Or sign up yourself if it’s in your means. Charleston is lovely in May.

Just to lay out all the cards, I’m not being compensated for this in any way. This is my local con (Savannah doesn’t have a good one) and Covid really hit it hard, to the point where if we can’t turn around the attendance, it might not survive. I would really like to help fix that.

Thanks.