World War IV is Also Available For Free Now

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I’ve made World War IV available for free as well! The promotion runs until Monday. You can download the digital version for free on Amazon – available in both English and German:

ENG | World War IV
DE | Der 4. Weltkrieg

I wrote this story about 18 months ago. I’m proud of it — but back then, I didn’t have proper editing tools, so there may still be a few typos I couldn’t catch on my own. That said, I really enjoyed writing it, and I think the premise is quite unique.

Take a look for yourself — and if you like it, please leave me a review. Thanks a lot!

Get My Short Story “The Companion” For Free (Story52 No. 3)

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This week’s short story is number 3 in my STORY52 project. It’s a shorter read of around 2K words.

Summary:

In the searing heat of the Mojave Desert, deep within a secret industrial complex, a machine is born – created by the brightest minds of humankind. As it takes its very first steps, it is confronted with the most fundamental question of existence. Its answer leaves its creators cold – and utterly alone.

You can get it completely for free until Saturday here:

After the promotion ends, both versions will be priced at the lowest price.
If you don’t want to miss future free promotions—I do them regularly—follow me on Twitter and join my newsletter.

Take care!

STORY52 – A Year of Weekly Short Stories

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Starting this summer, I’m launching something ambitious, a lot of fun, and (hopefully) something that grows my readership: I call it STORY52

52 weeks. 52 stories. 100% genre chaos.

Every week I’ll release a brand-new short story on Amazon. The genres will bounce wildly – from sci-fi to horror, from thriller to absurd comedy, and everything in between. Some will be serious, some bizarre, some funny, and some dark. But all of them will be short, sharp, and designed to surprise. And they’ll also be FREE!

Each story will be free for 5 days after release. That’s the window Amazon gives me with their promotional tools, and I’ll use it to make sure every week, one story is completely free. After that, it goes back to the lowest price possible (below a $1 in most countries).

If you don’t want to spend a dime, make sure to check my website, follow my Twitter and sign up for the newsletter – I’ll announce which books will be free in a specific week there.

The idea behind STORY52

I already mentioned that I think this can be a great way to find my first readers. I’m completely new to the game. No readership, no followers, no audience – yet. But I think my stories are good and they deserve to be read.

You might obviously be cautious about that when you’ve never read a story of mine. So I won’t charge you anything to find out for yourself how good my stories are. I’ll give them to you for free. And then you can make up your mind without spending a single dollar.

I believe that is a good deal for you and for me. I give you something for free and you give me a chance to convince you that I’m a great storyteller. Win-Win!

I’ve already published two short stories. Number 3 will be released this coming Monday. From then on, a new part of the series will come out every week. If you miss a release, don’t worry – I plan to make past stories available for free again after all 52 parts are out.

Each story will be available in both German and English. Here you can find the first two parts:

  1. Black Market Dreams (US – DE)
  2. The Last Portrait (US – DE)
  3. The Companion (will be released on July, 14th)

Author in Progress Report – Intro

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I originally planned to post this series on Twitter, but Twitter is mostly for politics, memes, and shitposting. My goal was to avoid politics for the most part—but if you’re on Twitter, you inevitably get exposed to it again.

Another thing I’ve realized is that Twitter doesn’t function like a blog. People only care about what you post right now. What you shared a week ago might as well not exist.

Writing weekly updates about my author project only makes sense if it’s in a diary format that people can follow from start to finish. That kind of continuity just doesn’t work on Twitter for me. It can only work on my own site, in a blog format.

So, I’ll be writing it here.

This might actually work best as a monthly report. I used to write those on Medium back in the day when I generally tried to build a following for all my projects—until they banned me on the platform. Incidentally, those posts brought the most traffic to my profile.

The new reports on this site will include all relevant numbers and results of my author project. I’ll be as transparent as possible. The idea is to create a real-time diary showing the potential growth of my platform: book downloads, sales, reach, impressions, traffic, and more.

For now, my weekly short story book project on Amazon will be the main focus, as it’s the one thing I can currently report growth with. As for sales—so far, I might’ve sold three books and gotten a few Kindle Unlimited reads. Not exactly headline material, but hopefully that’ll change. If it does, I’ll include specific numbers for that too. Same goes for growth on platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and others.

Over time, these reports will evolve. Let me know in the comments what specific details you’d like to see.

The First Step Is Getting Impressions for Your Book

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I’ve been researching how to market books as a self-published author for quite some time now. While there’s plenty of advice out there—some of it genuinely useful—most videos, articles, and podcast episodes overlook one fundamental principle: impressions.

You’ll often hear suggestions like:

  • Design a great book cover
  • Write a compelling book blurb
  • Build a social media presence
  • Start an author website

But none of that matters if no one ever sees any of that.

Ask yourself this: What’s better—having the best book cover in the world that no one sees, or the worst cover in the world seen by millions?

Obviously, it’s the second. If you can attract a million eyes, you’ll sell books—even if your cover, blurb, or even the story itself isn’t perfect. But if no one sees your book, you won’t sell a single copy, no matter how great it is.

This is why most book marketing advice falls short. It only becomes effective after you manage to drive traffic and generate impressions.

So, how do you get those impressions?

That might be the most fundamental question in all of online marketing. Right now, I’m trying to figure it out through trial and error. One thing I’ve already learned: you don’t get them overnight, and you certainly don’t get them easily.

So far, the only thing that has worked for me is: Give away as much as I can for free. Short stories, full novels, YouTube videos—whatever it is, giving it away for no cost to the reader helps get the ball rolling. From here on, you can build and maybe one day get those precious impressions for free in return.