Stories by UFO3 authors in the news!

August 17, 2015

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There have been some excellent news for two of the authors who appeared in UFO3 and their stories recently.

Jeremy Butler’s “The Full Lazenby” will be reprinted in Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing.

Also, the Parsec Award finalists have been announced and the podcast of Tina Connolly’s “Super-Baby-Moms Group Saves the Day” is up for the Best Speculative Short Story – Large Cast award. You can listen to the podcast here.

Will the class of 2015 produce similar gems in UFO4? Only a couple of months left until you get to read it and find out!

#SFWAPro

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Funny Podcasts

April 15, 2015

My humorous flash story “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters” has been podcasted, rather brilliantly, at Far-Fetched Fables. You can listen to it there, or read the original at DSF.

And speaking of funny stories, there’s no more appropriate listening on April 15 than “Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return Helpline” by Caroline M. Yoachim. It was originally published in UFO3, and is now live at Toasted Cake. Listen to it here.

 

 

 

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Unidentified Funny Objects 3 is out!

September 20, 2014

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UFO3 is out! I spent many hours getting a few hundred books shipped out to contributors, Kickstarter backers, wholesale accounts, and those who pre-ordered. If you haven’t ordered yours yet, you can do so now, from a variety of sources including our own web site, Amazon, Smashwords, etc. Links that are currently live are here and I’ll update the page once B&N and Kobo links go live.

There’s also a Goodreads page for the book now as well.

Pardon me while I go collapse now.

#SFWAPro

 

 

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Unidentified Funny Objects 3 Table of Contents

May 30, 2014

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  1. “On the Efficacy of Supervillain Battles in Eliciting Therapeutic Breakthroughs” by Jim C. Hines
  2. “The Right Answer ” by James Miller
  3. “The Gefilte Fish Girl ” by Mike Resnick
  4. “Master of Business Apocalypse ” by Jakob Drud
  5. “Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return Helpline ” by Caroline M. Yoachim
  6. “Why I Bought Satan Two Cokes on the Day I Graduated High School ” by Nathaniel Lee
  7. “Company Store ” by Robert Silverberg
  8. “The Door-to-Door Salesthing from Planet X ” by Josh Vogt
  9. “Picture Perfect ” by Matt Mikalatos
  10. “The Discounted Seniors ” by James Beamon
  11. “That Must Be Them Now ” by Karen Haber
  12. “Notes to My Past and/or Alternate Selves ” by Sarah Pinsker
  13. “The Real and the Really Real ” by Tim Pratt
  14. “An Insatiable Craving ” by Camille Griep
  15. “Live at the Scene ” by Gini Koch
  16. “The Newsboy’s Last Stand ” by Krystal Claxton
  17. “The Full Lazenby ” by Jeremy Butler
  18. “Do Not Remove this Tag ” by Piers Anthony
  19. “Super-Baby-Mom Group Saves the Day! ” by Tina Connolly
  20. “The Choochoomorphosis ” by Oliver Buckram
  21. “The Fate Worse than Death ” by Kevin J. Anderson & Guy Anthony De Marco
  22. “Elections at Villa Encantada ” by Cat Rambo
  23. “Infinite Drive” by Jody Lynn Nye

UFO3 collects 82,000+ words of fiction. Two reprints (Silverberg and Resnick), all other stories are original.

The book will also include a foreword by me, cover illustration by Tomasz Maronski, and interior art by Barry Munden.

Company Store art by Barry Munden

Company Store art by Barry Munden

This book will be released in October, but you can pre-order it at any time.

Pre-order e-book.

Pre-order paperback.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

Slush Pile Update – UFO3

March 23, 2014

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There’s approximately a week left to submit a story for consideration for UFO3, and I thought I’d write up a slush pile update.

Every submission received through March 22 has been responded to with either a rejection or a bump up to the second round.

We have read a total of 245 submissions so far this month (which sounds like a lot, but is actually a lighter volume than last year. There’s always a huge swell of subs in the last couple of days, though).

There are currently 8 accepted stories from headliners and I’m waiting on two more headliners to turn in stories.  Additionally, there are seven stories being held in the “final consideration” pile, and 6 more are currently in the second round.

As ever, things the associate editors and I are seeing too many of include: zombies, alien invasions and probing, stories that we don’t find to be at all humorous, zombies, vampires, puns, and did I mention zombies?

Things we want to see more of are stories with more than a humorous line or two placed somewhere within 6000 words, strong voices, and unique situations or characters. Some of the associate editors would also like a pony, but I realize that you can’t have everything and will settle for more quality submissions.

#SFWAPro

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

UFO3 is Funded

February 18, 2014

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The UFO3 Kickstarter campaign has funded! 263 people raised $8052, allowing the project to move full speed ahead with no cutbacks in the amount of stories and illustrations I hope to include.

This was a true photo finish. We were $500 short with an hour to go, and $300 short with 30 minutes to go. We reached full funding literally five minutes before the time ran out! For those of you unfamiliar with Kickstarter, the project must reach 100% of its funding goal or the creator gets nothing at all to work with — so you can imagine what a stressful wild ride those last couple of hours were. But, all is well that ends well.

I am finishing work on the Dark Expanse anthology for Deorc Enterprise (more on that very soon) and am looking forward to reading UFO3 submissions very soon now! The submission window is going to open on March 1. Meantime, a huge thank you to everyone who supported this campaign!

#SFWApro

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UFO3 Kickstarter Ending Soon

February 16, 2014

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UFO3 Kickstarter campaign will be ending on Tuesday evening.

As of the time I’m writing this, we raised just about $5500 but there’s still a long way to go. If you like the series and would like to see it continue and prosper, please consider pre-ordering your copy of UFO3 through the campaign instead of waiting until the book is released. Getting access to the funds early will allow me to invest into buying more stories, promoting the book and the series better, and commissioning more pieces of interior art.

In addition to all the UFO books there are unique cool rewards available, such as becoming a character in stories written by Gini Koch and by me,  getting a critique for one of your own stories, or even having your name mentioned in the foreword.

There are also prints of the gorgeous cover art above, which can be added to any pledge level for an additional $10.

I really enjoy editing the UFO series. Although I hope it will turn a profit someday, I have not taken any pay to date, and have invested a lot of my own money on top of what’s been raised via Kickstarter to publish and market previous volumes. UFO is growing, but at this rate it will be a few years yet before it becomes self-sustained (especially since I want to keep raising the pay rate for authors as aggressively as possible).  So if you’re able to help out — whether by pledging any amount, or letting other readers know about the campaign — please do. Thank you!

#SFWAPro

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman

UFO3 Cover Art and Kickstarter

January 19, 2014

#SFWAPro

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I’m thrilled to share cover art and the line-up of headliners for UFO3 with the world today! Although not yet listed on the cover mockup, NYT bestselling author David Farland just joined the list of headliners earlier this week. We’ll add his name on there shortly!

The Kickstarter campaign for the book launched today, with many lofty goals. I appreciate the help of anyone able to pledge, but even if you can’t spend the extra dough, please help by letting as many new people know about the UFO books as possible!

Click here to visit the Kickstarter page.

 

 

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Posted by Alex Shvartsman