A Quick Update on My Author in Progress Project

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The project is still alive! I haven’t forgotten about my plan to write and publish 52 short stories on Amazon so that I can share a new one each week. I’m also consistently working on my novels.

However, due to some personal issues, I haven’t published anything new for the past few weeks. For those waiting for the next release: I’ve already written 23 short stories, even though only 7 are currently available in the STORY52 project. I’m working almost daily to complete the remaining 29 stories in the series while also finishing my next novel.

Once all short stories are written, I’ll be able to maintain a more consistent publishing schedule — ideally releasing one every week next year. I’m still determined to complete the project in 2026.

Running Tests on Amazon

Amazon allows me to offer each Kindle story for free for up to five days within a three-month period. Since the first stories were published already more than three months ago, I could run some experiments with them.

In these, I set the price to free for the maximum of five days — without announcing it anywhere. I stayed completely silent on social media, my blog, and even among friends and family. My goal was to see how many downloads the stories would get through Amazon alone.

The results were disappointing: Normally, when I announce a free promotion, I get around 20–30 downloads. But when I didn’t tell anyone, the stories only received about 5–10 downloads.

As another experiment, I offered my last novel Forever for free over a five-day period — with similar results. So far, there have been only 31 downloads of the German version and fewer than five of the English one. When I ran a free promotion in July (right after the release) with announcements, I got more than 700 downloads.

What I’ve Learned So Far

These tests lead me to two main observations:

  1. My reach on social media and this blog is still limited — but it already makes a noticeable difference in download numbers.
  2. Amazon seems to promote newly published books more effectively than older releases. It’s possible that new titles receive a temporary ranking boost or better placement in the “Free” category through the algorithm.

There’s still a lot to learn about how Amazon works for indie authors and how best to leverage social media and my website. But with every test I run, I’m getting a clearer picture of how the system works.

Write What Makes You Proud

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There are writers who rely on industrial processes to produce their work. I’ve read that R.L. Stine uses an entire team of ghostwriters. Erle Stanley Gardner did the same with Perry Mason, and there are surely countless other famous authors who have teams of writers, editors, and creatives working for them—without us ever knowing.

AI will only accelerate this way of producing stories. It will also give rise to hustlers who see writing purely as a means to make a quick buck.

A while back, I heard about a guy who mass-produced short erotic stories for Amazon just to make money. He wrote two or three short stories on weekends and sold each for $2.99—a price apparently acceptable for short fiction in that genre. His stories were mostly about tall, heroic men saving damsels in distress, or about vampires and werewolves in steamy fantasy-erotica subgenres. One day, he started making YouTube videos, and it turned out he was an old, bald, overweight, divorced man in his sixties writing for the target demographic of bored housewives. If it sells, it’s fine, I guess.

But does it make him happy?

For a while, I actually considered copying his business model—churning out a few short stories in that genre every week just to make some easy money. But the moment I started, I felt awful about it. I hate writing those kinds of scenes. I don’t enjoy reading explicit fiction. And I couldn’t bring myself to charge $2.99 for 3,000 words of something I wouldn’t even read myself. As simple as it looked, it made my skin crawl. You could offer me a million dollars a year, and I still wouldn’t do it. I just can’t.

Yesterday, I wrote a short horror story about rats infesting a house. I’ll mostly give it away for free. On the days when Amazon won’t let me set the price to zero, I’ll charge less than a dollar for the 4,000-word story. It will never make me rich. It won’t pay my rent. I might make less than minimum wage for it over a lifetime. But I enjoyed writing it. And when I enjoy writing something, I’m pretty sure that some people will enjoy reading it too.

When you love what you do, you do it well. You want to look back at it and feel proud of what you’ve created. But when you write something you don’t care about—and would never read yourself—you’ll just do the bare minimum to get it done.

R.L. Stine clearly loves the genre he writes in. So did Erle Stanley Gardner. They both became successful because of that passion like many other authors. The hustlers will not. Some will make money here and there, sure. But none will be able to look back and say proudly: “I did that, and I’m proud of it.” And none will be happy with what they’ve created, just like the guy writing mass produced short erotica.

Get My Latest Book “Endless” For Free

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I finally finished setting up my newsletter form. It’s been quite an odyssey, and I’m still not 100% sure if it will remain stable in the future. But I tested it today, and it definitely works for now.

If you sign up with your email here: https://michaelbrig.com/newsletter/ you’ll automatically receive an email from me with a link to my latest book, which you can download as a free PDF (in English and German).

I hope you enjoy reading it!

Best regards,
Brig

No Free Story This Week (Sorry)

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Sorry, no free story this week. My original goal was to publish a weekly short story on Amazon, but I didn’t manage to get one out this week.

The main reason is that I’m currently working on a free novelette for my newsletter subscribers, and that’s taking up most of my free time.

I’m still fully committed to my STORY52 project and will make sure the Amazon short story series reaches 52 issues in total. But for now, finishing the book for my mailing list is the top priority.

Once that’s done, I’ll get back to a regular release schedule for both Amazon and this blog.

See you soon…

I Always Make The Same Mistake

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I went back over my first blog posts and realized I’m making the same mistake I made before I even started this project of trying to become a real author.

Back then, I wrote:

I have dozens of series ideas stored in my swipe file. They all look intriguing, but I know I shouldn’t start them all at once. Instead, it makes more sense to tackle them one by one.

My plan for now is simple: focus on a single series until it’s finished.

The goal was clear: write standalone books, work on my sci-fi saga (a lifetime project), and stick to just one series at a time (currently my 17 series).

I wanted to do this because standalone books are simply easier to write. With a series, you have to think about so much more in order to maintain consistency. Make a side character who only appears for two lines a mumbling fool in book three, and you’d better remember he’s still a mumbling fool in book seven when he reappears.

With a standalone title, you only have to keep track of the details for one book at a time—and you can conveniently forget them once it’s done.

Now, imagine writing multiple series at once…

It’s not just about remembering character quirks and world-building details—it’s also about remembering which details belong to which series. I can juggle my sci-fi saga alongside one other series, but adding even more to my daily workload makes it much harder to keep everything straight.

And yet, recently I made the mistake of starting two more series on top of what I was already doing. Halfway through, I realized it was forcing me to rush plot decisions and neglect deeper character development.

Reading those old posts was a wake-up call. I decided to hit the brakes and return to my original plan:

  • Write standalone titles (the goal is to finish a book a month on average)
  • Write my weekly short stories for Amazon (STORY52)
  • Work on my 17 series (a Bond/Reacher/Bourne-style story)
  • Focus on my sci-fi saga (basically my own Star Wars with hundreds of characters)

Everything else is simply too much—especially since I’m not yet making a living from writing – maybe I never will. So I’m putting all other projects on hold until either the 17 series or the sci-fi saga is complete.