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As promised, I am sharing my detailed experience with ads and sales for my indie books. I am not going to include a bunch of charts and data. This is my personal opinion based on what I have seen in my own data, the research I have conducted, and the money I have spent. I have included a data set from the Alliance of Independent Authors HERE so you can compare how they say we are all doing. My opinion is that it is better than nothing, but mostly off. The sample size is smal

Seeking Angels: Inspector Button Investigates by G. J. Griffiths is a thoughtful historical detective novel that blends crime, social commentary, and a slightly awkward romantic side plot. Set in Manchester a few centuries ago, the story follows Detective Inspector Walter Button as he confronts a rising tide of crime in the notorious slum district of Angel Meadow. What starts as a seemingly straightforward church burglary involving two young boys soon unravels into a larger

Quarantine  by Arthur C. Clarke is one of those extremely short pieces that lands with surprising force. It is barely there, yet it carries a concept that expands far beyond its size. Clarke strips everything down, dialogue, idea, implication, and leaves the reader to assemble the meaning. It was written so as to fit on a post card. It's very short, which is why I give it three stars. It is good for what it is, but simply too short to give us enough story for the idea to be f

Holey Ghost by Laura Koerber is a reflective and quietly layered work that blends the supernatural with personal searching. It does not approach ghosts as something to fear in the traditional sense. Instead, it treats them as part of a larger question about belief, perception, and the ways people try to understand experiences that do not fit neatly into logic. The book follows a path that feels less like a single narrative and more like a series of connected reflections. It

The Temple  by H. P. Lovecraft is a tightly controlled descent into isolation, pride, and the slow collapse of reason. It is one of his more focused stories, built not on sprawling myth but on pressure, the kind that builds in confined spaces and refuses to let go. The story is told through the account of a German U boat commander during the First World War. From the beginning, he presents himself as disciplined, rational, and superior. He believes in order, hierarchy, and co

The Terrible Old Man  by H. P. Lovecraft is a very short story, but it carries the atmosphere and unease that would come to define much of his later work. It is less about cosmic horror and more about mood, suggestion, and the quiet warning that some people are not what they appear to be. The story takes place in Kingsport, one of the coastal towns that appears in several of Lovecraft’s works. The Terrible Old Man himself is a strange figure in the community. He lives alone i

The Inconvenient Sister by Jennifer Reinoehl is a charming Christian historical romance set in 1742 London, blending witty banter, social reform themes, and a heartfelt love story. The novel follows Beatrice Radford, a passionate and outspoken young woman. During her London season, Beatrice bursts into a meeting between her brother-in-law, Lord Duval, and Dante Sackville, the Duke of Dorset, decrying societal ills. Unaware of Dante's true title, Beatrice spars with him, spar

Jurassic Park  by Michael Crichton is a sharp, controlled piece of science fiction that uses dinosaurs as spectacle but never forgets that its real subject is human arrogance. This is not just a story about bringing the past back to life. It is about what happens when control becomes an illusion. The novel follows a group of scientists and visitors invited to a remote island where genetic engineering has made the impossible real. Dinosaurs walk again, not as wonders of nature

The Strange High House in the Mis t  by H. P. Lovecraft is a quieter, more reflective piece than most of his work, trading outright terror for something closer to awe. It still carries that sense of the unknown pressing in, but here it feels almost inviting, even beautiful, before it turns distant again. The story centers on a solitary house perched high above the town of Kingsport, a place that seems less built than placed. For years it remains unreachable, a symbol of myste

The Star  by Arthur C. Clarke is a quiet story with a devastating center. It does not rely on spectacle or alien invasion. It builds slowly, carefully, through observation and reflection, until it lands on a single unbearable realization. Clarke was always good at scale, but here he uses scale as a moral instrument. The story follows a Jesuit priest who is also an astrophysicist, part of a deep space expedition studying the remnants of a long annihilated civilization. They or

The Shadow out of Time  by H. P. Lovecraft is one of his most ambitious and unsettling works, not because of what it shows, but because of what it suggests. This is cosmic horror stretched across memory, identity, and deep time. The fear here is not death. It is displacement. The idea that the self is temporary, fragile, and easily overwritten. The story follows Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, a professor who suffers a sudden mental collapse and loses years of his life. When he re

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien is the triumphant conclusion to the legendary The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Building upon the intricate narratives and themes introduced in the preceding volumes, this final installment brings the epic saga to a stirring and satisfying close. Tolkien’s mastery of storytelling and world-building reaches its zenith, delivering a narrative that is both grand in scope and deeply personal. The story continues with the final stages of the

Dog Star  is one of those short pieces that appears simple on the surface but settles into your mind over time. It is about an astronomer stationed on the Moon, a dream, and a dog named Laika, but it becomes much more than that. Clarke does not write to shock you. He writes to make you feel the weight of memory, loyalty, and the fragile threads that connect who we were to who we become. The story begins with a man waking on the Moon. He hears his dog barking the same dog he l

The Silver Key  by H. P. Lovecraft is one of his most reflective and quietly strange stories, less concerned with cosmic terror and more focused on loss, memory, and the slow erosion of wonder. This is Lovecraft turning inward. The horror here is not a monster or an ancient god, but the moment when imagination gives way to rigid adulthood. The story follows Randolph Carter, a recurring figure in Lovecraft’s work, who has lost the ability to dream. As he grows older, the world

Asleep in Armageddon  is a Bradbury short story that begins with relief and then slowly turns into dread you can feel in your bones. On the surface it feels like a simple space crash tale: astronaut Leonard Sale survives a shipwreck on Planetoid 787, finds breathable air, food, a working radio, and sends out a rescue signal. Six days alone doesn’t seem like a sentence. It seems like rest and recovery. But that ease is the first trap Bradbury sets in place, and to miss that is

The Outsider  by H. P. Lovecraft is one of his most personal and quietly devastating stories. It is horror built not on cosmic scale, but on isolation, identity, and the slow realization that the self may be the true source of fear. This is an early work in Lovecraft’s career, and it already shows his ability to turn inner anguish into something gothic and unforgettable. He was trying to reach a style much like Poe, and it is close. The story follows an unnamed narrator who h

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke is a quiet story with an enormous idea at its center. It does not rush. It does not shout. It simply presents a premise and lets the weight of it settle in, which is where its power comes from. This is science fiction at its most restrained and most unsettling. There is little to say about this story that has not been said. Yet, its uniqueness and importance cannot be overstated. The story follows a group of Tibetan monks who

Have a fantastic Holiday Season! -Tony

Dune Awakening I have been reading Dune for decades. The original novels, the expansions, the missteps, the reinterpretations. Frank Herbert’s work, particularly the early books, helped shaped how I think about science fiction, about systems, myth, power, and consequence. Dune Awakening is one of the most ambitious attempts yet to translate that world into an interactive form, and ambition on this scale deserves a serious, long form response. While you will find much, I say c

The Other Gods   sits early in Lovecraft’s body of work, a time when he was still shaping the ideas that would later become the backbone of his cosmic vision. You can feel him testing themes, experimenting with myth, and playing with a voice that would grow darker and grander in later years. This story stands at the border between his Dunsanian dream pieces and the colder, more cosmic tales he eventually became known for. The tale follows Barzai the Wise, a mystic and scholar