Ted Mahsun

So now my latest short story e-book is out for the consumption of the masses! Don't everybody rush to the bookstores at once! There's enough for everyone! Because they're e-books dammit! Here's a summary of what you're in for: When Sayyid opted to become an organic Volkswagen farmer, he did not expect the Volkswagens to misbehave and break out of his backyard. Now those crazy air-cooled vehicles are running loose in the neighborhood and only Sayyid can stop them. But the situation gets even more out of hand when they invade the home of cranky old Mrs. Winters and take her hostage. In this action-packed and absurd short story, all bets are off as to whether humans or air-cooled Volkswagens survive to see another day. The Dangers of Growing Air-cooled Volkswagens in Your Backyard can currently be found at the following outlets: Amazon Google Play Smashwords iTunes Barnes & Noble Kobo  and Barbra Streisand knows where else. Every time I push o...

It only took four years but I've finally finished writing a short story that I never thought I would finish. As I mentioned in the previous post , on the very last page of Zombies Ate My Muslim , I had promised that the next story would be The Dangers of Growing Volkswagens in Your Backyard . I didn't think anybody would be interested in reading it due to its ridiculously silly title, and so I never was motivated to finish writing it. Yet here I am, basking in the glow of a freshly completed short story. By complete, I mean first draft complete and not rewritten-umpteen-million-times-and-edited-to-hell complete. That process would probably take several more weeks and after that I'll self-publish it on all the major e-book outlets. That's still an achievement though. I shan't be bothered submitting this one to any pubs; it's way too silly for the likes of them. Like Zombies Ate My Muslim , it doesn't take itself seriously and it doesn't even want to t...

You may remember (well, okay, you may not) that I bought a Kindle Touch almost two years ago . I was absolutely smitten with it. I loved the the e-ink screen, the touch capabilities, the ability to buy a book and immediately start reading it without ever having to leave the device. It was heaven for a book lover. But now it's time for me to say goodbye to my beloved Kindle Touch. It was a trusty companion these past couple of years and kept me company for many long work commutes. The e-ink screen was, and still is, a marvelous piece of tech. But time brings new advancements and now that I own an iPhone 6 Plus , I don't see the point of using a Kindle Touch to read books anymore. You see, paired with the Kindle app the iPhone 6 Plus is the perfect device for reading e-books (well, at least from Amazon). When I first bought a the Kindle Touch, people claimed that e-ink screens caused less strain for the eyes while reading when compared to LCD screens. While that may be tru...

Ah, the e-ink reader. For years I've been wanting to try one out but never knew anyone who owned one. Then when I actually bought one for myself, all sorts of people (including my best friend who never thought it pertinent to tell me he bought one) came out of the woodwork and told me how they were enjoying their own e-ink readers. In any case, for the longest time I was skeptical over the idea of reading e-books because reading them on a computer was uncomfortable both for my back and for my eyes and reading them on an e-reader was out of the question for me because they were being sold for outrageous prices. I had read about e-readers that used e-ink which used digital screens that were supposed to have the clarity and the sharpness of print on paper and how they were supposed to be comfortable to read on while having the benefits of being digital. But alas, e-ink e-readers were expensive and I didn't know anyone who owned one. So for the longest time I stayed away fro...

Give the love of your life the gift of zombies! Muslim-eating zombies! My short story e-book Zombies Ate My Muslim is free only on Valentine's Day and can be downloaded from Amazon's Kindle Store . UPDATE: Offer has ended. Thanks to everyone who downloaded the e-book! Hope you enjoy it!

I've noticed a lot of talk about crowdsourcing in the past week, especially with projects funded using Kickstarter . There has also been several threads about crowdsourcing novels on the Kindle Boards lately. Today, an indie author I admire, Lindsay Buroker, wrote a blog post about the whole crowdsourcing thing . She explains a little about what crowdsourcing actually is and how you can use it to fund your own novel as well as how she plans to use it to fund her podiobooks. (Podiobooks are audiobooks delivered as free podcasts.) A very good read, especially if you're an aspiring author wanting to self-publish and wondering where you could get some money to fund it. I would like to add a caveat for those thinking to use Kickstarter to fund their projects. If you're outside the US, you won't be able to use it. (People outside the US can give money towards projects, but can't create projects themselves.) Instead, consider Indiegogo.com , which does allows p...

Goodbye, Goddess by Breanna Teintze is a beautiful and well-written collection of high fantasy short stories that I would not hesitate to recommend to my friends. I loved how even though the stories were self-contained, the world described in them seemed to be larger than it appeared and while the stories had a small element of "sensawunda" they really focused more on the characters rather than the fantastic. One of my favourite stories in this collection was about a rogue mage who is reluctantly asked by some villagers to investigate a recent murder. It's at once a fantasy story, a Western story, a whodunnit, rolled into one and even has a big showdown in the end. Brilliant! My other favourite story is about a village idiot who is asked to slay a dragon. The story is simple, but the loving care in which it is written and the humourous but logical way in which the dragon is ultimately vanquished makes this one memorable. That's not to say the other stories in...

Steampunk. Time travel. Dinosaurs. These three things make Robert Appleton's Prehistoric Clock a book after my heart. And does it capture it? Does the book provide a fun and engaging story along with its interesting premise? Yes. Yes it does. And thank goodness for that. When I read the synopsis, I so wanted to like the book, but I worried it wouldn't live up to its potential. Set in 1908, Prehistoric Clock is told from the perspectives of three main characters, Verity Champlain, an acting captain of an airship, Lord Garret Embrey, an aristocrat wrongly accused in a conspiratorial trial, and Cecil Reardon, the inventor who creates the time machine that drives the plot behind the novel. Though Reardon's scientific experiments are sponsored by a shady organisation called the Leviacrum (which we are given to suspect also controls the British empire), he secretly builds a time machine which he intends to use to go back in time to save his wife and son from dying s...

This short story Kindle e-book started out as a generic hard-boiled detective novel with a broad asking a shamus to investigate her apparently lecherous husband. But then the broad dies, and the story turns into something altogether different. Shipp writes gritty dialogue worthy of the hard-boiled genre. In fact, I downloaded the story on the basis of the dialogue on the first page alone. The story is pretty weird and throws curve balls at the reader a lot of times. I kept wondering what the heck was going on, and I didn't see the ending coming. Probably because I had no idea where the story was going most of the time! I did not know anything about the story beforehand and I downloaded it on the basis of reading the first page. I didn't know it was a bizarro story, but if I did, that would have probably spoiled half the fun. On the whole, I enjoyed reading this--I love bizarro--and am now interested in checking out the author's other work. Attic Clowns looks int...

You don't really expect a fast-paced action thriller to take place in the sleepy antipodean nation of New Zealand, and yet John Ling , a Malaysian-born Kiwi, has made it work. In The Blasphemer, a Muslim author named Abraham Khan has written a very controversial book very much akin to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses . But Khan is no Rushdie. I won't tell you why (spoilers!) but even the author himself claims the main inspiration for the character is the feminist writer, Taslima Nasrin, who is a far cry from Salman Rushdie. It goes without saying that Khan is then targeted by extremists. Enter Maya Raines, who is assigned by the New Zealand police to protect Khan and his wife, Belinda Freeman, after a failed suicide attack almost kills them both. John Ling then goes on to weave a fast-placed story that includes drugs, thrall-like Somalis, two hired assassins (with the names Devlin and Emmerich; see if you can catch the reference ) and a mysterious man with an aim to ...

And has nice things to say about it as well : I’ve recently read a bit of bizarro and have to say even the one with freshly birthed wolves being shot out of a bears mouth isn’t as strange as this book. It’s stupid but funny. I was like wtf! while reading it. This book is weird, wacky and funny.  Thanks, Jessica! This is exactly the kind of reaction I was going for with the story and was glad to see it worked. That makes me feel glad.

  My guest post about my experience self-publishing e-books is up on John Ling's blog. I give a basic rundown about what it takes for a newbie author to get his or her e-book published on Smashwords and Amazon and I also touch a little on what it is like to put your e-book up on Amazon for free. If you've been wondering what the process is for publishing e-books, do check it out . John also has a new, exciting thriller out called The Blasphemer , available on Amazon right now. From the blurb: When Abraham Khan releases an e-book condemning radical Islam, the consequences hit him fast and hard -- an armed fanatic smashes into his home one evening, trying to kill him. He survives the harrowing attempt. Just barely. But will he survive the next one? Maya Raines is the security operator brought in to protect Abraham. She is tough and committed. The very best at what she does. Always one step ahead of the threat. But Abraham is no ordinary principal -- he will not...

Every time I reach the last day of the year I chastise myself yet again for not having finished writing a novel. It's been happening for nearly a decade now. Well! The year isn't over yet so maybe I will manage yet. You will know tomorrow if I succeed, I am sure. As for the year that is past, what can I say? It's been a somewhat challenging year for me but there were lots of good mixed in with the bad. But in general I would call it the year Ted discovered the eReader . I've been somewhat vocal on my dislike of ebooks, if not on this blog, then in conversation with fellow readers and friends. My dislike for them was borne out of a time when Amazon had not yet launched its Kindle, and the only eReaders available on the market were expensive, bulky and most terribly, impractical to buy books for. This was also a time when people still thought that eBooks were a thing you read on your computer screen. I thought this a terrible thing, and still do. Reading a 150,000...

I don't remember who said this, it was either J.A. Konrath or David Gaughran , but it goes something like this: "Staring at your sales figures every minute will not make them go up." Very true indeed. Then why the hell can't I peel my eyes away!!!

I had a promotion yesterday to coincide with the launch of my short story ebook, Zombies Ate My Muslim , where I gave it away for free. If you missed out, well... sorry! Keep checking this blog or subscribe my to Twitter feed @tedmahsun to find out when my next promotion will be. At the end of the day I managed to get 93 downloads on Amazon US and 30 downloads on Amazon UK. The book also wound up on the Top 100 Best Selling Kindle Books for Horror. (EDIT: It's since gone back down to somewhere in the 80,000s.) So, not bad I guess? 100+ downloads was more than I expected. My aim for making the book free was for exposure and I got that. But I also wanted the people who downloaded it to write reviews on Amazon and so far I've had none. Reviews are important to get people to buy the book as well as visibility of the author. Perhaps in the coming days? If you're one of the awesome readers who downloaded Zombies Ate My Muslim and you enjoyed it, please consider leavin...

Zombies Ate My Muslim is my latest short story ebook: All he wants is to have a simple life. And that simple life he wants to spend with his celebrity girlfriend, Barbra Streisand. But unbeknownst to him, his darling Barbra has become a Muslim... which isn't a bad thing. Except for the rampaging zombie horde outside his front door who only want to eat Muslims. Between the Muslim-hungry zombies and the Google Robots that want to steal his Brussels Sprouts, can he save the woman he loves before she gets eaten? Will things ever be simple for him? Available at: Amazon.com

Hey guys, check it out: Secret Operation in the Matriarch's Kitchen (Kindle Edition) I'm finally on Amazon! Hurray! I'll probably hit Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and Kobo within the next two weeks as well. Hopefully this will improve sales... even if a little bit.

Well it's almost 24 hours since I unleashed my first ebook into the world. (You didn't buy it? Why the heck not? Go and correct this grievous error right now!) How many people have bought it so far? *drum roll please* A grand total of TWO. That's actually two more than I expected so I guess that's not so bad, even if I sold those two copies to two close friends. Definitely not something to sniff at!

About four years ago, I wrote a story about alien home appliances that came to Earth to save their fellow instruments from the shackles of human enslavement. It was called: The story was published in an anthology called Write Out Loud which I haven't seen in bookstores for quite a while so I think it must be out of print. Even when it was in print many people complained they couldn't find it and unfortunately I could not help them as distribution was out of my control. Well, four years later and we're in the midst of a digital revolution when it comes to book publishing. I thought I might as well publish the story as an ebook and see what happens. Consider this some kind of experiment on my part. You can get The Secret Operation in the Matriarch's Kitchen on Smashwords for US$0.99 in every digital format you can think of. If I'm lucky, one day maybe the ebook will appear on the big online bookstores such as Amazon, B&N and Apple. Related: Bibi Misb...

Okay. I can now admit it. I love e-books. Digital ink. O! glorious digital revolution, let it wash over me and cleanse me of my perve for paper! A friend let me testdrive his Kindle some time back and ever since then I've been slowly falling in love with the idea of digital books. Today, I had a trial run of sorts with my iPad loaded with Stanza and Naomi Novik's Tongues of Serpents by taking it on my daily commute to work, and it's been brilliant so far. Enjoying very much the ability to define words as I read them. Vocabulary +1!