Omachuck: Blog

First, THANK YOU for the many responses and well thought out responses to my question on letting readers know the suggested reading order for my stories.

I've recently questioned moderators on how to fix something that doesn't work right for me. Some time ago, I used a utility in the account manager to change the order of my stories on my home page. This change never took place. They responded quickly with instructions, and now the page will display the reading order I suggest.

As a work around that I use when I want the reading order for other authors, I go to their home page and use the date/update sort and specify oldest first. On my page, that also gives a good reading order for any of my series stories - Swarm, Damsels in Distress, and The Human Nexus Universe. This is complicated a little because other series and stories get mixed in.)

Anyway, I hope this hopes for my stories and other authors' series.

Thanks for reading!

Every now and then, I check on my story statistics. Lately, I've checked more often, and I'm gratified that folks continue reading my stories with total downloads now over 800,000. Now, I'm not sure how that is calculated, but Golly Gee, that's still a heckuva lot more than I ever expected when I started posting almost exactly seven years ago.

Back then, I titled/numbered my stories THE Harem Tales so readers would be able to follow a timeline, and I wouldn't have to reintroduce characters from story to story. I departed from that practice once central characters changed and members of THE Harem became mostly supporting actors. As I write, I continue to position the new stoies in a sequential timeline.

So a question for you folks: Should I go back and re-title my stories to indicate the best reading order. Maybe, just Make them all Harem tales? Or should I just leave it be?

I could make a sub-universe within The Swarm Cycle, but I'd still need to do something about reading order.

Target date for adding The Beard? Not sure. Maybe June.

For those of you who enjoy Westerns, and particularly an exceptionally well written story, give new author Zanski's Back Trail a try.

If you started and abandoned it when first posted because of SOL formatting issues, try again. Zanski has cleaned out the junk and re-posted.

I'm still recovering from a recent hospital stay and then hope to return to my Swarm Cycle story The Beard and finish it.

This story should have been posted months ago, but Charlie has been fastidious in making sure the Swarm authors agree that he is within canon. I was one of the editor/reviewer/proofers and highly reommend the story. You will probably see me using some of his concepts in my next story.

Enjoy! Mike

I was checking my story stats and noted that this week marked over 800,000 downloads. More important, there were almost 17,000 times someone took the trouble to vote. I'm not sure if the downloads measure the times a whole story was read or just a chapter. Whatever the measurement, I appreciate you readers and raters very much.

Since my neck injury a little over a year ago, my ability to concentrate has suffered, and my work in progress is stalled. I hope to get back to it soon.

I'm about to have a pleasant Christmas with family and hope that whatever holidays you celebrate around this time are happy for you as well.

Mike