Please join me as I begin a new phase in my writing life.  If you’ve visited the site over the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed a new widget in the upper right corner of the blog or a new banner across the top.  By entering your email address in either box (no need to use both), you have the opportunity to sign up for various goodies.  If you’ve already signed up (thank you!), or if you sign up on or before January 1, 2014, you’ll be a Charter Member of The RandR Fiction Club.

What does this mean to you?

First, you get everything regular fiction club members get (Duh! Right?).

Second, you get a free copy of “Beginnings,” my short story set in the mid-1960s introducing you to my main characters from Threads and Ties — my draft novel starring Jeff and Nikki.  Threads and Ties asks the question, “Can you pick up with the love of your life twenty years after abandoning him and your newborn child?”  This is a love story.  A painful love story. Maybe too painful for some people to read. But it doesn’t start out that way (Does it ever?).  Meet Jeff and Nikki in “Beginnings,” a $0.99 value, free to you as a Charter Member of my fiction club. It’s currently in PDF format, but when I make it available in other formats, it will always be free to Charter Members in my shop (when I get a shop — that’s coming!). Please understand you’re getting in on the ground floor of this venture.  I’ll make sure the sawdust is off before the file downloads to you.

Since I’m beginning this new venture and the short story is about beginnings, I think it makes a fitting gift for you, our Charter Members, who will be making this journey with me.  The story is representative of only one aspect of my writing. I plan to introduce you to more.

Third, you’ll be entered for a drawing to win a copy of Stephen Bagley’s cozy mystery, Murder by Dewey Decimal (also available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble). Once you’ve read that, you’ll want the sequel, Murder by the Acre (Also available on Amazon and B&N). Entries close on January 1, 2014, at 11:59 PM. The drawing (only for Murder by Dewey Decimal!) will be held shortly after midnight on January 2, 2014.  I’ll email the winner privately for shipping information and announce the winner in the inaugural newsletter.

Charter Members may get other exclusives or early-to-you offers and news later on.

All Members can expect the following:

• Bi-monthly fiction club newsletter
• Writing samples for your reading pleasure
• The opportunity to participate in polls about those samples
• Early notification of good news, books or stories for sale, and periodic free stuff
• Back stage exclusives into a working writer’s life
• Occasional supplemental material

Begin this journey with me as a Charter Member of The RandR Fiction Club.  This offer expires January 1, 2014.  You can still be a Member of my club after that, but you won’t be a Charter Member.

Just enter your email in the box at the top of the screen or in the sidebar to your right and press the Sign Up button.  After you do that, check your email inbox (or maybe your spam or promotions folder) for an email from me and click on the link to let me know you were the one who signed yourself up (this keeps your friends from pulling pranks on you). After you do that, you’ll be entered in the drawing for Murder by Dewey Decimal. and (if I set it up right), you’ll have an opportunity to download “Beginnings.”

Go ahead.  It won’t bite. (Even the polar bear and nine cats who jealously guard the mailing list won’t bite you.)

Update! Added on Thursday Morning (October 24): Stephen Bagley is sending me bookmarks and a signed bookplate to include with the Murder by Dewey Decimal drawing.

Also, this is really important, after you sign up with your email address, you must find the email from me in your inbox and click the confirmation link to really be signed up.  If you don’t, my emailer doesn’t add you to the list, because it thinks someone is pranking you and protects you by not adding you to the list.  Clicking the confirmation link in the validation email tells them, “Yup.  That was me who asked to be added to the Fiction Club membership files and to be entered for the drawing.”

Thanks to those of you who have signed up.  I’m finding more cool stuff for you.