If you don't have a Kindle, or know anyone who has a Kindle, and aren't thinking about getting a Kindle, you can probably safely skip the rest of this particular essay.  And, again, sorry to have troubled you.

If you have a Kindle, or know anyone who has a Kindle, or you're thinking of getting a Kindle, though, then this is from me to you:

Recently a guy I know mentioned to me that through Amazon.com, I could self publish all my books in a Kindle compatible format.  No muss, no fuss... I could bypass the towering  slush piles and the cranky editors who really aren't interested in anyone whose name isn't already 'market weighted', and just take my work straight to the masses... at least, the 'masses' with enough money to buy a cool electronic  toy.

So I'm working towards that.  Over the past many years, I've written eight novels (although some may be novellas, it depends on which particular word count definition of the difference you subscribe to... but, anyway, many of them are novels, and all of them are, at the very least, short novels), along with one military memoir and many, many short stories.  Much if not all of this material has been submitted to magazines and various publishers, and, naturally, all of it has been politely turned down. 

I believe my work is well written, and is both commercial and entertaining, although, of course, I am incapable of objectively judging their actual literary quality.  When I get rejection slips for my work, they always say something along the lines of "We don't have space on our tight schedule for all the worthwhile submissions we get", which seems to translate as, "More people will buy a repackaging of two previously published S.M. Stirling or Lois McMaster Bujold novels from our backlist than some brand new thing by a guy they've never heard of, so, best of luck competing in THAT kind of market, chump, and thank yew very much indeed".

This has always seemed short sighted to me... I mean, once upon a time, S.M. Stirling and Lois McMaster Bujold were also new guys no one had heard of, and someone took a chance on them... but, whatthehell. I just live here.

As I have said, I think all my books are solid entertaining reads, each of them books that, if I had not written them, I would eagerly buy them and read them and enjoy them and they would be among my favorite books ever.  And while I am, as already admitted, unable to objectively judge my own writing quality, nonetheless, I will say that I write way, way better than some extremely popular genre authors whose names I will not repeat because, well, you're not supposed to do that sort of thing.  Still, I've read their stuff, and mine is better.  And they make a lot of money, so it seems to me that if I could get my work out there in front of a potential audience, I should be able to make at least a little bit of money off of it, too.

And in these times of grave global economic uncertainty, it seems to me to be important for each and every one of us to do everything we can to try to make some kind of contribution.  To try to help in whatever way we can.  And if I can get a few hundred, or a few thousand, Kindle users out there to buy electronic copies of my work, well, that has to help the economy, because Amazon.com has to pay taxes on those transactions, and I have to pay my income tax, and the people who buy my books will turn around and tell their friends how wonderful my books are and those friends may well go out and buy Kindles of their own, and I can continue to buy groceries and pay utility bills and give my landlord some badly needed funds, and all of this will contribute to our economic recovery. 

So don't think of this essay as being some kind of pitch, or as me using TPM to shill my wares.  Think of it as one humble American citizen, one tiny individual vacuole in the vast celluar structure that is the global economy, doing his best to pitch in and help out in the only way he can, at least, until offices in Louisville start hiring word processors again. 

Now then:  pretty much all my books are SF/fantasy, so if you like SF/fantasy, and you have a Kindle, and you're looking for more stuff you can read on your Kindle, well, this may well be a beautiful thing for both of us.  All proceeds, as always, will go pretty much directly into my stepchildren's voracious, gaping maws.  (If I had a few bucks left over from the monthly nut I might buy my wife some new clothes... she needs new clothes, and she's the kind who always budgets everybody else in the family ahead of herself, so, lately, that means she doesn't get much of anything, which makes me very sad.  But, suffice it to say, if you buy one or two copies of one or two of my books for your Kindle, I will not be spending the money on beer and pretzels.  I'm a family man; my money is not my own.  I'm sure those of you out there who have families of your own you are trying to support will know exactly what I mean.)

As I do not wish to get my wife and stepchildren's hopes up, I have kept my new Kindle project close to the vest.  If anyone buys any of these e-books and I make some money to contribute to the household economy, I will happily tell them about the source of the new fundage at that point.  If nobody ever does, well, they won't need to be disappointed in me yet again.  I mention this as at least some of you may well know my wife or some of my children and until I see whether this is going anywhere or not, I'd prefer to keep it as a hopefully pleasant surprise for them. 

So, here are links to and brief descriptions of the four books I already have up. 

WARREN'S WORLD
It's 1983 in New Sparta, NY, and Warren Dawson is beloved by
everyone... his friends, his family, even random strangers on the
street.  Everybody loves Warren and wants to make him happy.  The TVs
only show his favorite programs, the radios only play his favorite
songs, the movie theaters always have his favorite movies.  And,
naturally, all the women are beautiful, and all of them love Warren
unreservedly and uninhibitedly...

When Warren's best friend Jimmy starts to notice just how strange the
reality he and all his friends inhabit truly is, he becomes a threat
to the odd, timelost Utopia that Warren has so carefully constructed
around them all.

Which sets the stage for a final, epic battle  between Warren Dawson
and his closest friends.  Utilizing powers and abilities far beyond
those of mortal men, Jimmy and his buddies must go to war with a man
who would be God, to settle the final fate of the entire human race...
and every living inhabitant of WARREN'S WORLD.


THE FEAR MASTERS
In the late 21st Century, the Global Union has mostly united mankind
and brought lasting peace to the surface of the Earth... until the
dead start rising from their graves to attack the living.  Across the
globe, panic and terror cause chaos to erupt, civilization to crumble,
and humanity itself to totter on the very brink of extinction.

Only three members of the Global Union's top secret Science Sector
have any inkling of what is actually going on.  Now they must
undertake a perilous journey into the airless depths of outer space
and beyond the borders of death itself in a last ditch attempt to save
humanity from the evil alien Fear Masters that seek our utter, final
destruction.

Can two tough as nails secret agents and a beautiful, brilliant
super-scientist 'git 'er done'?  For the answer, check out THE FEAR
MASTERS, by D.A. Madigan.

TIME WATCH
When Jim, a thirty something bachelor geek with no life outside the
pages of his favorite SF books, comes across a wrist watch that allows
him to travel in time, he immediately sets out to fulfill his lifelong
dream by traveling through time to assemble the greatest collection of
mint condition Silver Age superhero comics in human history.

But in the future, the secret agency known as Time Watch isn't pleased
that one of their devices has fallen into the hands of an outsider,
and they are ready, willing, able, and eager to do whatever it takes,
up to and including killing Jim, to get their watch back.

As Jim flees from his pursuers across time and space, he quickly
realizes that he may well be the human race's only hope for avoiding
extinction at the hands of the insidious alien intelligence that is
pulling Time Watch's strings from behind the scenes.  They want
humanity, ALL of humanity, dead... and Jim is now the only living
human being who knows the truth.

Armed only with his wits, his time watch, and the aid of a beautiful
female personal computer from the 22nd Century, Jim must avoid his
pursuers and somehow thwart the genocidal agenda of an ancient,
immortal, unearthly collective mind that seeks to bring all human
history to a most final termination.

ZAP FORCE: ROYAL BLOOD
Welcome to Sparta City, circa 1995, where seven super-powered teenagers fight for their lives and their freedom against covert cabals of ancient, evil immortals who yearn to outfit them all with high tech alien mind control slave collars - or low tech earthly bodybags, whichever works.

Yes, here in Sparta City, it's the neurotically networked 90s as they never really were, a time and a place when centuries old evildoers scheme, conspire, machinate and manipulate, while teenage superheroes leap, flip in midair, hurl lightning bolts, cast illusions, punch, kick, fly at supersonic speeds, kick ass, take names, and generally blow stuff up real good.

Seven stalwart students at Sparta University, inadvertently given unique and insane ultrapowers by an exotic on-campus psychology experiment gone horribly awry, and now avidly sought after as super-powered slaves by every other secret super society on the planet -

GALLANT, team leader, who at the age of 19 is both selfless and cynical, and whose super-agility and inhumanly unerring aim make him an all but unbeatable hand to hand combatant and absolutely deadly with anything he can throw, especially the hard energy discs and explosive energy globes his alien tech gauntlets generate;

TESLA GIRL, an 18 year old French Canadian hottie who can turn heads with her high voltage beauty and whose electrically supercharged metabolism can generate lightning bolts powerful enough to melt a combat tank into molten slag;

STRAIGHTLACE, the 18 year old diminutive blonde babe with the attitude of a pit bull who can fly faster than a speeding Sidewinder and smash through solid concrete without taking a scratch;

RAMPART, 19 year old African-American star athlete and honor student who can leap tall buildings in a single bound while carrying a Cadillac Seville over his shoulder;

LOBE-O, wheelchair bound 16 year old supergenius with an advanced college placement whose telepathic powers can trace a fleeting thoughtwave through a million muddled mundane minds;

GLAMOUR, a husky Innuit plain Jane psych major whose psychically projected mental illusions seem real enough to leave lipstick marks on a frat boy's cheek, or boot shaped bruises on a bad guy's ass;

WARPER, the 19 year old star college quarterback who can open teleportals with his mind, when he's not charming phone numbers out of any nearby cuties with his All American good looks;

MAINFRAME, the ageless, bodiless former maintenance man who now only exists as a self aware electronic impulse haunting any machine or set of circuitry he cares to inhabit at any given time;

Together they are ZAP FORCE, reluctant heroes fighting to protect an innocent and ignorant global populace, or at least, their own damn selves, from enslavement or death at the hands of the ancient evil immortals who secretly run the world:

BARON SAMEDI, centuries old blustering boss-man of the voodoo-themed Clan Loa, whose sheer raw strength can crumble solid concrete and whose brutal will to dominate will not be denied by uppity interfering newcomers like those no good Zap Force punks;

THE BARONESS, Baron Samedi's crafty, malevolent and utterly ageless wife and co-Monarch, whose vast mental prowess can (and does) enslave entire populations, including, of course, her own entirely unsuspecting husband;

THE OLD ONE, an inhumanly brilliant schemer born before written history began, who remembers the angels, gods and devils of ancient Sumeria and Babylonia as his contemporaries, peers, and more often than not, siblings, and whose own Royal Clan, the Eldest, is the most respected, hated, and feared of any in existence on Earth today.

STEPHEN SANTERIOS of Clan Loa, psychic assassin and master of the incomprehensibly advanced technology left behind on Earth by the long gone alien H'nnr

Put it all together and what do you got? ZAP FORCE!!

* * * *

I'm working on final Kindle-compatible polishes of my other four novels, and as soon as I can get them up, they'll be available for Kindle perusal as well.

So don't delay!  Do your part to help out the global economy, and to revolutionize the publishing industry as well -- buy a Kindle edition of one of my novels today!