I took the above photo last night. I laid out all of the books I've had stories published in and felt a bit of a sense of achievement as I looked at what had happened over the past few years. From that first tale in Byker Books' Radgepacket 6 right up to curating my own collection of authors in Paladins, released in the Spring of this year there's been a steady stream of publications - and that's before I add up all of the stories I've had published on various online eZines like Near to the Knuckle, Pulp Metal Mag, Shotgun Honey etc... I've seen over 30 short stories published in a few short years - it's a wonder I had time to write When the Music's Over.
In this time I've published two short story collection, Criminal Thoughts and Urban Decay. Criminal Thoughts was self published, whilst Urban Decay made me the first author with his name on the cover of a Near to the Knuckle book - something I'm still very proud of. Since Urban Decay I've continued to write short stories and I now have a further nine that have been picked up or published elsewhere. And so here's the thing, I now have enough short stories to make a decent sized paperback book, so that's what I'm going to do. I've been speaking with Darren and Craig at Near to the Knuckle for sometime about wanting to do this and last week we agreed that we'd remove Urban Decay from their list so that I could package up 'the complete short stories of Aidan Thorn.' Don't worry that isn't going to be the title - I'm not sure what is yet, but it definitely want be that shite!
There are a number of reasons I've decided to do this. Firstly, my collections where both very short (around 20-25K words each) and I always felt a bit cheeky selling them as 'books', collecting everything together will give me a book of around 65K words - a proper book. And that's the second point, since When the Music's Over got published by Number 13 Press and I put Paladins out (with huge support from Darren and Craig at NTTK) I've loved seeing my work in print, my name on the cover. I know the age of digital books is now, but there's still no greater feeling, as a writer, than holding a real book in your hand that you've created. Thirdly, I'm always getting asked by people 'can I get your short stories in paperback?' Well, yes, some (see above) but now they're all going to be available together.
This won't quite be 'the complete short stories of Aidan Thorn. One, because I've no intention of hanging up the pen (OK keyboard but that don't sound so romantic, right!) and two, because the book will be themed around crime and stories from the city. I won't be including any of my horror stories or my Western that appeared in the brilliant Big Adois Western Digest.
No release date yet, no title yet, no cover design yet... So keep checking back for updates and a full list of stories that'll be included.
In this time I've published two short story collection, Criminal Thoughts and Urban Decay. Criminal Thoughts was self published, whilst Urban Decay made me the first author with his name on the cover of a Near to the Knuckle book - something I'm still very proud of. Since Urban Decay I've continued to write short stories and I now have a further nine that have been picked up or published elsewhere. And so here's the thing, I now have enough short stories to make a decent sized paperback book, so that's what I'm going to do. I've been speaking with Darren and Craig at Near to the Knuckle for sometime about wanting to do this and last week we agreed that we'd remove Urban Decay from their list so that I could package up 'the complete short stories of Aidan Thorn.' Don't worry that isn't going to be the title - I'm not sure what is yet, but it definitely want be that shite!
There are a number of reasons I've decided to do this. Firstly, my collections where both very short (around 20-25K words each) and I always felt a bit cheeky selling them as 'books', collecting everything together will give me a book of around 65K words - a proper book. And that's the second point, since When the Music's Over got published by Number 13 Press and I put Paladins out (with huge support from Darren and Craig at NTTK) I've loved seeing my work in print, my name on the cover. I know the age of digital books is now, but there's still no greater feeling, as a writer, than holding a real book in your hand that you've created. Thirdly, I'm always getting asked by people 'can I get your short stories in paperback?' Well, yes, some (see above) but now they're all going to be available together.
This won't quite be 'the complete short stories of Aidan Thorn. One, because I've no intention of hanging up the pen (OK keyboard but that don't sound so romantic, right!) and two, because the book will be themed around crime and stories from the city. I won't be including any of my horror stories or my Western that appeared in the brilliant Big Adois Western Digest.
No release date yet, no title yet, no cover design yet... So keep checking back for updates and a full list of stories that'll be included.
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