Another Monday, another free short story book from me. Turing-Test is available in German and English until Friday. You can get a copy here:

US | https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GM7B7N1C
DE | https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0GM796L1M

Synopsis:

No one has ever passed the test. Even today, the two supervisors are certain that no one will succeed. But then a subject gives answers that no machine should be capable of knowing …

An existential sci-fi short story, approximately 1,200 words long.

As always, please leave me a review if you liked the story, thanks.

Yesterday, I saw a spike in sales for my short stories.

Thanks to everyone who bought a copy (or multiple) —but you don’t have to pay for these stories. I wrote the short story books to give them away for free. Unfortunately, Amazon only allows me to set them to free for five days at a time. If I could make them free for 365 days, I absolutely would.

The idea is to give you a free entry point into my storytelling. And if you enjoy my short fiction, you might be interested in checking out my long-form fiction—the “real” books I’ve written.

If you never want to miss a short story giveaway, just do this:

• Add my website to your feed—I post short articles about book promotions whenever they go live
• Subscribe to my mailing list—I send an email whenever a promo is live (and you’ll also get a free e-novel when you subscribe)
• Follow me on Twitter—I post (and pin) a tweet for every book promotion

Sometimes people are simply kind and want to give something back in return for these stories. That’s cool and very much appreciated. However, my main goal is to build a long-term author–reader connection. The best way to do that is by me giving away everything that I can for free, and you following me through the options above—especially the mailing list.

So if you want to support me and give back, consider subscribing.

By the way, the next short story is ready for publication (and a free promo) on Monday. See you then. And thanks much more to everyone who thinks that my writing is worth your money.

Another week, another free short story from me on Amazon! Check out number 11 in my STORY52 project — it’s free starting today through Friday.

Synopsis:

A city. A formula. A truth that must not be discovered.

When Professor Harlan Sael alters an equation, reality begins to fracture. Houses vanish. People dissolve. And at the edge of the city waits something that should not exist.

The closer Harlan gets to the solution, the clearer it becomes: the equation doesn’t just describe the world — it defines it.

US Version | https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKVLSNBV
German Version | https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0GKW12184

As always, a review would be greatly appreciated — it helps me with Amazon’s algorithm.

See you next week,
BRIG

Today, the 5-day promo ended, and as I had suspected, the timing doesn’t make much of a difference: putting your book on free over the weekend or during weekdays seems irrelevant—at least from my current perspective.

The results:

• 30 downloads for the English version
• 20 downloads for the German version

These numbers are on the higher end of my usual range for free short story promotions on Amazon, but nothing wildly above or below my typical results.

Interestingly, this is the first time the English version outperformed the German one. It’s hard to say why that happened.

The download pattern is the same as always: the first three days account for most of the downloads, while the last two days see very few. This might be because Amazon has a specific category for new releases that people check regularly, and perhaps the book is ranked differently three days after release in that category.

Overall, my takeaway is that, for me, the timing of free short story promotions doesn’t seem to matter.

Usually, I make my short stories available for free on Mondays. However, since I already published No. 11 of the STORY52 series, The Wheel, yesterday, I decided to run a little experiment and make it free from Saturday through Wednesday to see if this helps me reach more readers.

On YouTube, fewer people watch my tutorials from Friday to Sunday. Viewership starts to rise again on Mondays and typically peaks on Wednesdays. I assumed the same pattern might apply to book sales—but maybe I’m wrong.

It could be that people are more likely to browse Amazon for new books to discover on weekends, when they’ve got more time for leisure activities. Let’s find out.

As always, the digital edition is free. You can read it on a Kindle device or via the Kindle Online Reader if you don’t own the device.

Synopsis:

A village. A wheel. A task that must never end.
When Joseph Richter becomes stranded in Treadwell, he encounters a community whose daily life revolves around a single, inexplicable duty: the relentless turning of a massive wooden wheel. No one asks questions. No one stops working. Never.

A dark, oppressive short story by Michael Brig, approx. 11,000 words.

US version | https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GJDSY9RR
German version | https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0GJF9XW2H

If you enjoyed the story, I’d really appreciate it if you left a review on the good old Amazon website. And if you never want to miss a giveaway, you can sign up for my mailing list here.

Take care,
BRIG