The G-ZONE

Beginning next Monday, March 14th, BigAl will be appearing on The G-ZONE, a BlogTalk radio show, in a recurring segment called Indie Watch.  Approximately once a week BigAl and host Giovanni Gelati will discuss the latest in the eReader world with a focus on Indie authors.  Recent shows on The G-ZONE have included bestselling author guests (Steve Berry, Irene Hannon, author/publisher Aaron Patterson) and a roundtable discussion on the future of the eBook.

Between now and Monday listen to past episodes of The G-ZONE (see link on the right) and consider listening live to Saturday's very special show which I'll let Giovanni describe below:


Gelati’s Scoop, The G-ZONE , Trestle Press & an Improvised Digital Short Story !



Sounds like the beginning of something from a quiz show doesn’t it? No it isn’t, but if you weren’t just listening in on our Blogtalk Radio Show The G-ZONE that had Steve Berry and David Morrell as guests, you may have missed the announcement I just made. That announcement is that we are trying to do something different this Saturday. What is that you say? Here is the concept and hopefully how we will execute the idea:


-We (by that I mean Trestle Press my blogtalk radio sponsor and myself) are going to try to use a lot of our resources to carry off an improvised digital short story within a span of hours.


- To do this we are going to be given a person, place and a thing by the guests of our blogtalk show Friday evening. I will post that on the Giovanni Gelati social media and off we go. Who are we?


-We will be using a number of authors from Trestle Press in a variety of different functions. The story itself will be written by four different authors covering half the world. The story will be lead off by Laurie Bowler (Across the City Series) in England. She is the author of many vampire/paranormal/romance novels and digital short stories. She will hand it off to B.R. Stateham ( Death of a Young Lieutenant & Call Me Smitty), he is in Texas; his genre is historical thriller fiction as well as dark suspense digital short stories and sci/fi. CQ Scafidi (Time Couriers & The Commissary) in New Orleans takes over from there, geopolitical thrillers and conspiracy are his strong suit. The anchor of the story is Thomas White (Justice Rules); he is the author of a detective, police procedural, action novel.


- Four authors, four different genres.


-Each portion of the story after editing will be posted on the Gelati Scoop blog and The Novel Spot.


-The final piece by Thomas White will not. But wait, you can still get it and find out how it ends.


-At 3pm on my blogtalk radio show The G-ZONE, Tom Sumner( All I Wanted Was a Haircut!), Big Daddy Abel( Open Mic), and myself will read the story in its entirety on air. This will create an audio version of it that will be in our archives that you can access at any time 24/7 from a variety of platforms: computer, smartphone, iPad,etc.


-Cover art will be made by me and put up on Facebook to await your comments.


-The story will be published on Amazon, Smashwords… as soon as it has been edited.


-To wrap this up: In a matter of hours we will create, edit, blog, publish and make an audio version of a story. Sound like fun? Why not be a part of it and leave comments on the blog, on Facebook with the cover art, or on the blogtalk show.


Is this a one and done deal? &%$ NO! This is the tip of the iceberg for us, just the beginning. Trestle Press is a very progressive, cutting edge, full service publisher. When I approached them with the idea they said , “Sounds intense, when can we do it; let’s roll!”. We plan on doing this on a regular basis. Why not? It is too much fun to just plan and the authors are totally amped up to show their readers and hopefully a ton of new readers just what they can do in a about 1,000 words. Imagine taking three things, a person, place and thing and not just crafting a story from that but working with and connecting to another author’s work. Different authors, different genres, four different voices, in a nice, neat little package that can be read AND listened to from just about anywhere, at any time. That was the idea I was holding onto. Join us this Saturday @ Gelati’s Scoop blog, The Novel Spot (why not join; the badge is on my blog), The G-ZONE, Amazon, Smashwords…….


Hey, are you an author? Do you think you might want to have some fun doing this, the improved digital short story? Get with me and let’s see what we can do together. Fun is fun, right?