"Green Witch Mean Time" by Cherry Northcutt

Current Tags

witch cozy, cozy mystery, young adult, paranormal mystery, female sleuth, amateur sleuth, magic

Categories

Mystery / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

Green Witch Mean Time

Author's Description

It was a nice day for a magic show, until the magician was found stabbed in the heart! What's a teenage witch to do? Jade Green is taking a gap year, selling potions at the farmers market, and saving for a trip to Europe. Things take a turn for the worse when she finds the traveling magician lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Can Jade find the killer before she becomes the next victim? If you like mixing magic, mystery, and fun with a pinch of romance, then this is the story for you.

Why I Chose it

I enjoy cozy mysteries! There aren't too many on Vella.

[11 episodes so far, with 11 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If you're a fan of paranormal cozy mysteries, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

Yes, the "Completed" carousel is unchanged, and the bots have taken over the new releases. But what annoys me the most is all the posts in the FB groups asking when bonuses are going to be posted. Seriously. It goes on for a week.

"Crescent City: Underworld Crime Unit" by S. J. West

Current Tags

fantasy, romance, mystery, magic, adventure, urban fantasy, paranormal romance

Categories

Paranormal / Fantasy

Affiliate Link

Crescent City: Underworld Crime Unit

Author's Description

When a series of gruesome murders begin to take place in the streets of New Orleans, Detective Rex Stone partners with the city's only supernatural private investigator, Eva Chambers, to solve the crimes. Eva, the only child of the goddess Hela and granddaughter of Loki, joins Rex in the UCU to not only help the people in her community but also protect a city she loves from someone hell-bent on tearing it apart from the inside out.

Why I Chose it

How can you not like a paranormal private investigator? And a murder mystery to boot!

[29 episodes so far, with 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If a paranormal private detective solving murders with a human police detective sounds like a fun time, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

I think you may only be able to end up in the "Competed" carousel if you mark your story complete when you first create it. The nicest thing I can say is... that's an interesting choice.

"Restless" by RM Alexander

Current Tags

ghost romance, romantic suspense, haunting, thriller

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

Restless

Author's Description

Skylar Hale had one job: ready the family estate for sale and return to life. But family mysteries lurk behind every wall and around every corner. And something even darker hides in the shadows.

Why I Chose it

This is one of those atmospheric reads. The house is so lovingly described as Skylar views it, and only as things move forward do you realize there's something else happening under the surface. Clearly there's something haunting the house (literally or figuratively) and the mystery behind it all will be fascinating.

(RM Alexander is also the author of Immortal Guardians.)

[6 episodes so far, with 3 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If romantic suspense involving a haunted house makes you shiver, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

Not a gripe today, but I'm considering creating a publicly-readable spreadsheet of the stories reviewed. And if I really get ambitious, I could create a script to generate the html of the blog post from a new entry in the spreadsheet...

"The Hunter & The Wolf" by Erica Jackson

Current Tags

vampires, werewolves, vampirehunter, enemiestolovers, actionadventure, strongheroines, romance

Categories

Fantasy / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

The Hunter & The Wolf

Author's Description

Lydia learned from an early age to keep to herself. And the people around her tend to like it that way. Half-bloods might as well be full fledged vampires as far as the world is concerned, and Lydia is well aware the only reason she's kept alive is for her coveted skills as a hunter. But as fate would have it, her next job would force her to decide where her true loyalties lie. A daunting task, considering how annoyingly attractive her target is.

Why I Chose it

Like many romance stories, this has alternating point of view chapters. But unlike many romance stories, I found the viewpoint of both characters different but still intriguing.

[4 episodes so far, with 4 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If paranormal romance between a half-vampire hunter and her werewolf prey is your jam, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

More AI-generated word salad stories in the "Recently added stories" section. I assume someone must be making money on them, but as a reader, they're really annoying.

"Tastes Like Magic" by Stephanie Fazio

Current Tags

paranormal romance, fantasy, romance, fantasy romance, magic, love, slow burn

Categories

Paranormal / Fantasy

Affiliate Link

Tastes Like Magic

Author's Description

Their connection is instantaneous. Combustible. Forbidden. As a witch born without magic, Samara is the lowest member in society. All she wants is to escape the kingdom that forsook her. Everything changes when she meets Wilsean, a deadly bowman with an even deadlier smile. The problem is that the law dictates he marry a noblewoman. The price of their forbidden love? Exile for him. Death for her. But now that Samara and Wilsean have gotten a taste of each other, how can they let go?

Why I Chose it

This starts off with the person with the most power being rude to a person with the least power (in a way that turns out to be uncomfortable but has no lasting harm), thus cementing the reader's desire for the main character to get ahead. And that's all it takes to hook a reader!

[Complete at 32 episodes.]

Who Might Like This

If a slow burn paranormal romance is your thing, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

No griping today. I know, I know, it's a rare thing.

"Laura T. Peters - Paranormal Investigator" by Emily K. Stevens

Current Tags

midwest, vampire, female sleuth, college theater, amateur sleuths, humorous paranormal, cozy mystery

Categories

Paranormal / Mystery

Affiliate Link

Laura T. Peters - Paranormal Investigator

Author's Description

Laura has a comfortable life as a costume professor and cat mom, so she is slightly confused when her friend, Ellie, requests her help in discovering if her sister's boyfriend is a vampire. Not wanting to be impolite, Laura agrees and tries hard not to mention that vampires are works of fiction. She soon finds herself on a wild ride that shakes up what she thinks she knows about the world around her.

Why I Chose it

All too often, we get vampire hunters who are the dark and broody chosen ones with no friends. And sure, that's fine, but it gets monotonous. In this story, we get a costume professor in the theater department who wants to help her best friend. And a sure sign things are serious is when they say goodbye and her friend actually hangs up instead of doing the twenty minute Minnesota end-of-the-conversation dance.

Anyhow, this is fresh and funny and you should check it out!

[33 episodes, 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If you like urban fantasy with a fresh and funny twist, this may be your jam!

Unrelated Griping

A while back, the people in charge of the Kindle Vella user interface ignored all the gaping wounds in the site and added "(Author)" after the author name on every serial, even though you can't actually add anyone who isn't an author to the story.

Now they've completed the trick by switching it so the last name is first. So today's author shows up as "Stevens, Emily K". Since none of these stories are sorted alphabetically, and that's not how it works in the entire rest of the Amazon book website, I'm really not sure why they would do this.

But in a further display of incompetence, only stories that were added recently have the name displayed this way, because they didn't add the "surname" & "first name" fields until last month. So half the stories have the last name first, and the other half don't. And it changes depending on where you are looking.

Amazon, call me. I have thoughts on your user interface and I'm clearly more qualified than whoever is currently in charge.

"Fighting Fate: A Science Fiction Romance" by T.M. Baumgartner

Current Tags

scifi romance, paranormal, space opera, enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, fated, romance

Categories

Science Fiction / Romance

Affiliate Link

Fighting Fate: A Science Fiction Romance

Author's Description

Bred and raised to become a guardian for a dreamer, Shara fled home after a disastrous bonding attempt, stealing the identity of a permanently indentured criminal in order to hide from the dreamer's family. But her attempt to get off-world backfires, leaving her heading to the one place she never wanted to go, trapped in the company of the one man she needs to avoid

Why I Chose it

I'll be honest — I chose this one because it's mine and it just came out today. But I wouldn't have put it on Vella if I didn't think it was a fun read. I'm a sucker for the forced proximity trope in romance, and I know I'm not alone. Plus, it has space ships, aliens, and buffacows!

[5 episodes, 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If SF romance with a forced proximity trope is your thing, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

I'd like to mark my other Vella story (Dragon Freehold) complete so it would show up in the "completed" carousel and maybe get an extra bump from the exposure. But the completed carousel has remained essentially unchanged for a week, so I suspect it's not automatically updating. What to do, what to do...

"Beauty and the Vampire, Book 1 (A Paranormal Retelling of Beauty and the Beast)" by Demelza Brown, Em Brown

Current Tags

vampire romance, dark romance, fairy tale, historical romance, adult paranormal romance, bwwm interracial romance

Categories

Romance / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

Beauty and the Vampire, Book 1

Author's Description

This vampire is worse than a beast... Daliyah, an oppressed indentured servant, yearns only for her freedom. When she finds herself trapped at Castle Blackbourne, it's not just her freedom that's in peril. If she succumbs to Lord Blackbourne's thirst for blood and flesh, her body will be his to ravage and her life his to drain. If you like your fairy tales dark and steamy, enter the darkness of Beauty and the Vampire today.

Why I Chose it

I know, I know, this is at least the third retelling of Beauty and the Beast I've featured, and each time I've sworn I don't like fairy tale retellings.

But hear me out — the characters introduced in the first episode here are so well drawn, who cares if it's a retelling? By the end of the first episode, I care about what happens to the main character. Other characters have made bad choices, but I understand why they did and I even sort of agree with those choices, even while I hate the character (as I'm meant to).

I guess what I'm saying is that the writing on this one is excellent and you should give it a try.

[22 episodes, 22 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If a retelling of Beauty & the Beast with vampires and themes of class and race sounds like a great mix (and it should!), check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

What I've learned from the "Humor" category on Vella is a whole lot of people think they're funnier than they are. So... kind of like life.

"Paranormal Island" by Daisy DeMarco

Current Tags

vampire, reality tv, dating, paranormal romance, shifter, love island, paranormal

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

Paranormal Island

Author's Description

When Alison Valentina agrees to appear on Paranormal Island, a reality TV show starring 20 hot singles--a combination of humans and paranormals--she quickly falls for a mysterious vampire. Alison, along with other contestants, are flown to a lush, tropical island in hopes of finding love. One couple will win the grand prize of two million dollars. Some will leave with a commitment. Some will leave heartbroken. And some may go home in pieces.

Why I Chose it

Full disclosure: there's only seven episodes in this, and none have been added in a month, so it's entirely possible this story has been abandoned. But I'm going with it today anyhow because it caught my interest.

A reality/dating show on a tropical island where the contestants may or may not be human — what a great premise! The main character has her sights set on the cash prize, which means her goals are very clear, and there's always the possibility of death, despite the agreement each player sign. Excellent setup, all in the first episode.

[7 episodes, none in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Survivor and The Bachelor with the cast taken from urban fantasy — sound intriguing? Check it out!

Unrelated Griping

Bonuses were released today, which means my Facebook feed is just one useless and annoying "Look! The bonuses are here!" post after another. Maybe I'll just skip it all and be more productive today.

"Onyx Webb: The Ghost Circus" by Diandra Archer

Current Tags

paranormal, ghosts, suspense, supernatural, ghost thriller, paranormal mystery, fbi

Categories

Paranormal / Thriller

Affiliate Link

Onyx Webb: The Ghost Circus

Author's Description

A ragtag traveling circus sits outside a small California town. 200 miles to the north, the myth of the ghost woman, Onyx Webb, is alive and well in the seaside hamlet of Crimson Cove, Oregon. After mysterious deaths occur in both places, the FBI gets involved. When the circus relocates to Crimson Cove, FBI agent Newt Drystad arrives just as the entire town is starting to unravel. It's one thing to stop people from committing crimes, but how do you stop a ghost?

Why I Chose it

Okay, this is one of those stories where I'm absolutely hooked by the first episode, even though I have almost no idea about the plot. The character vignettes are so compelling I'm willing to follow along wherever the author wants to take me.

[13 episodes, none in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Ready for a mystery starring ghosts? Check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

I've had to give up on the "Recently added stories" section since it's been flooded with bot-written word salad for the past few days. Today's story showed up in the list when I searched "fbi".

"The 7,000 Souls of Alma Drake" by Marie Flanigan

Current Tags

urban fantasy, succubus, demons, incubus, parallel worlds, action adventure, new adult

Categories

Fantasy / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

The 7,000 Souls of Alma Drake

Author's Description

Alma Drake is up to her eyeballs in soul debt to her Incubus, Ian, and she's flat broke in terms of real-world cash. She can't talk about it to any of her friends, and she had to leave college to keep from killing her classmates. To make things worse, her mother thinks she's a junkie. It's been a rough month, so when shadowy figures start chasing her through the night, something's got to give.

Why I Chose it

This is a little grittier than the average urban fantasy novel, but the premise is interesting and the stakes are clear right from the start.

[31 episodes, with 3 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If gritty urban fantasy sounds like your jam, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

Ah, yes, the bots have hit Vella. Most of the stories in the new release section today are word salad.

The last time I saw this was on Kobo, and the books were easy to pick out because they all used the same horrible typography on the cover, and most of them had "characters" with the same name. After a lot of head scratching, we came up with the theory that they had been created to help launder cryptocurrency — cryptocurrency can be used to purchase books, and the author's royalty looks like legitimate income.

Unfortunately for the Kobo crew, they bought so many copies of the same books that they ended up on the top sellers lists and infiltrated everyone's recommendations. That got their accounts cancelled.

I don't know if that's what is going on with all the new submissions on Vella. Whatever it is, it's annoying if you're trying to find stories worth reading...

"Sacrifice" by Dena Doval

Current Tags

vampire romance, vampire, romance, love, paranormal romance, witch

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

Sacrifice

Author's Description

I may have opened a portal to hell. I may have gotten suspended from my own coven. I may have hooked up with a hot-as-hell Vampire King. But in my defense - I didn't intend to do any of those things. They just sort of happened. The consequences though...

Why I Chose it

I love a story that starts with the main character accidentally screwing up in the first episode!

[5 episodes, with 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If paranormal romance involving vampires is your thing, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

As suspected, the BookDoggy promotion didn't cause a lot of page reads. That might be due to a variety of things. (Do BookDoggy readers even read serials? How about fantasy as a genre? And who knows, maybe my cover and blurb just didn't grab people.) In any case, it was an $18 experiment that I probably won't repeat any time soon.

"NRDS: National Recently Deceased Services" by Jeff Elkins, JP Rindfleisch IX

Current Tags

funny, ghosts, comedy, horror, mystery, adventure, humor

Categories

Humor / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

NRDS: National Recently Deceased Services

Author's Description

So, ghosts are real and there is an underfunded government agency that help the recently deceased transition into the afterlife. Spiritual energy is running wild in the rural Midwest and when a remote NRDS office settles in, nothing goes according to plan. Follow this cast of NRDS as they work through spirit cases, struggle with small town politics, and try and dig themselves out of tons and tons of paperwork. Because what is a government agency without an insurmountable amount of red tape?

Why I Chose it

Watching grizzled veterans try to deal with paranormal emergencies while also being hampered by rookies and bureaucracy is one of my favorite tropes, and this hits that spot nicely.

[22 episodes, with 4 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If humorous ghost hunters are your thing, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

I may have told the person who rage quit Vella in two separate groups over the span of three days that they need to hire an editor. Because they do. I doubt they're going to thank me for that, but... if you aren't willing to follow conventions like having a consistent point of view or putting your dialog in quotation marks, I don't think you can blame Vella for your lack of success.

I mean, everyone knows I complain about how poorly the Vella launch was done, but if the author doesn't respect the readers enough to do some basic editing, I fail to see why readers should flock to the story.

"The Fields of Bliss (Season One - Summer)" by EA Comiskey

Current Tags

mystery, female lead, vampire, shifter, fairies, small town, fantasy

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

The Fields of Bliss

Author's Description

Days after she graduates college, Martin's parents are killed by a drunk driver. Lost and alone, she discovers she's inherited more than she ever expected-a sizable amount of cash, a house in a small town she's never heard of, and a supernatural debt that can only be paid in blood. She's got until the summer solstice to convince the mysterious citizens of Blissfield to save her, but small towns have long memories and her family's dark secrets have not been forgotten. NEW EPISODES DAILY!

Why I Chose it

This one has a nice mix of mystery and exposition starting from the first episode. Plus, who doesn't love a dog as a major character?

[7 episodes, with 7 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If magical mysteries and old family secrets are your thing, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

I almost missed today's story because it was recently posted and didn't have any likes on it yet, making it hard to distinguish from all the stories dumped onto Vella by bots that also have no likes on them. I think it's worth it for authors to at least give likes to your own first three episodes to show that somebody cares.

"The Bestiary" by Kaye Draper

Current Tags

reverse harem, bisexual main character, urban fantasy, witches/ghosts/demons, fae/necromancer, poly romance, harem

Categories

Romance / Paranormal

Affiliate Link

The Bestiary

Author's Description

I was a just a kid when my family was executed, forcing me to live my life in the human world, far away from the judgment and scorn of the magical world. But when a cursed grimoire containing enslaved magical beings falls into my lap, I can't avoid my family's craptastic legacy of pain and suffering. Now, thanks to the nagging of an annoying ghost, I'm off to free the powerful (and pissed-off) creatures in the bestiary. The danger's a given...but do they all have to be so freaking hot?

Why I Chose it

I love stories that have a structure that lends itself to episodes like Warehouse 13 and its magical item of the week. So a story that starts out with the main character discovering a book trapping magical creatures that need to be freed? Right up my alley.

[21 episodes, with 3 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If reverse harem hot creature of the week sounds like your sort of fire, check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

No griping today. Hard to believe, right?

"Elliot True-Paranormal Investigator" by Steven Clark

Current Tags

weird western, ghost story, supernatural, demon fighter, action, mystery, western

Categories

Paranormal / Historical Fiction

Affiliate Link

Elliot True-Paranormal Investigator

Author's Description

Elliot True practices a rare vocation, especially for a citizen of the Old West. He is a paranormal investigator. Traveling the plains with his portmanteau full of equipment, he faces off against ghosts, demons, witches, night creatures, and all manor of beings from this world and beyond.

Why I Chose it

I'm a fan of stories about private investigators, and this fits the bill — a paranormal private investigator story set in the Old West.

[5 episodes so far, with 5 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

Fans of the "lone gunslinger for hire" trope who also love paranormal twists should check this out!

Unrelated Griping

The "Completed" carousel has added a few new stories and the "Christmas ass" story is finally on the second page. There can't possibly have only been 5 stories marked complete in the last week, can there?

The latest Vella "scandal" is stories using other authors' names in their tags. This tracks back to Vella's crappy user interface (quelle surprise!) in which you can't click on an author's name and get a list of all their stories. (Seriously. How could you design a system this badly?) So authors with multiple stories use one of their seven tags as a unique identifier so readers can find their other work — click on the tag and it will show you the other stories with that tag.

Now new stories are starting to show up with other, more popular authors' tags. The good news is this is already against the Terms of Service. The bad news is Amazon is so inconsistent when enforcing the TOS this may last forever.

"Moondancer- A Forbidden Romance" by Evelyn Shine

Current Tags

werewolf, vampire, shifter, romance, steampunk, fantasy, steamy

Categories

Romance / Fantasy

Affiliate Link

Moondancer- A Forbidden Romance

Author's Description

One dance with him changed everything. Kiara's solace resides in the open skies and the dance halls of Paris. Until she meets blood drinker Lucius Marlowe. She's spent years avoiding his kind. But thoughts of the sensual kiss they shared that night linger in her mind. After one moment of closeness with Kiara, Lucius is ready for more. He knows better than to fall for a shifter, his kind have been at war for centuries with them, but the taste of her leaves him longing for the impossible.

Why I Chose it

Steampunk with vampires and werewolves — from the first scene at the dance hall, I was intrigued.

[14 episodes so far, 14 in the last 30 days.]

Who Might Like This

If you're a steampunk fan who also loves a forbidden romance between a vampire and werewolf, check this out!

Unrelated Griping

There's another story (uh, with no likes for some reason) that describes itself as a "daily devotional without all of the feel-good and emotional garbage which seems to permeate most of the contemporary devotionals", which...

I guess if you're looking for people hoping to make themselves absolutely miserable, that's the best description to go with. I'm not sure those readers are on Vella, but then again, I'm not sure many readers are on Vella. Good luck, you poor miserable sod.

"Immortal Guardians" by RM Alexander

Current Tags

vampires, fae, romance, paranormal, suspense, urbanfantasy, heroine

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

Immortal Guardians

Author's Description

Humans are fragile, and Celeste will stop at nothing to ensure they're able to live in peace from the fae who would destroy them. Then, she falls for the enemy.

Why I Chose it

Paranormal romance for the second day in a row, but this time the vampire is a woman who is responsible for protecting a human from fairies in Sacramento.  How can you not like a paranormal story set in Sacramento?

[4 episodes, 2 in the last 30 days]

Who Might Like This

Vampires protecting humans from fairies in Sacramento! What's not to love?

Unrelated Griping

I read the first episode of a story yesterday in which the main character was "from the UK" and was also a "junior in high school".

And maybe there was some transatlantic move explained sometime later, but... Here's the thing. If you put those two facts in the same paragraph at the beginning of the first episode, you either need to give a little more information so the reader isn't thrown out of the story by the idea of high school in the UK, or your writing has to be so perfect that the reader trusts that it will be explained later. Otherwise, the reader is going to come to the conclusion that you've set the story somewhere in the UK without knowing anything about the setting.

"Courtyards of the Lost" by Brigitte Delery

Current Tags

new orleans, slow burn, paranormal, romance, paranormal romance, vampire romance, vampires

Categories

Paranormal / Romance

Affiliate Link

Courtyards of the Lost

Author's Description

Vampires are dying out. Though their end is near, few know or acknowledge that fact. Darbonne knows- but as he holds himself apart waiting for the end of all their stories, a chance encounter with a mortal upends everything he believes about the fate of vampires- and himself. Amy Trosclair flits unmoored through the New Orleans nights, lost in a past she longs to forget and an all too stifling present. Her life isn't about to change. It changed already - she just hasn't caught up yet.

Why I Chose it

Sure, vampires roaming New Orleans at night is not exactly a new concept, but fun reads rarely are new concepts. This is one of those times when you know exactly what you're getting. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that!

[54 episodes, 12 in the last 30 days]

Who Might Like This

Are you a fan of vampires in New Orleans? If so, this may be your thing!

Unrelated Griping

Well, they added a new section in which they list some (not all!) serials that have been marked complete. But what they don't indicate is how many episodes that is. A lot of them are 5 episodes long — so really, they're short stories. I think it would be worth listing the number of episodes instead of using the space to say "Completed" on every story in the carousel of completed stories...

Again, they really need to hire someone who can focus on the user experience. Or replace the person in that position. I'm famous for terrible GUIs and even mine were never this bad.

"Factions: NuGen Society 1" by C.B. Stone

Current Tags

paranormal, magic, enemies to lovers, supernatural, shifter, dystopian urban fantasy, female lead

Categories

Dystopian / Fantasy

Affiliate Link

Factions: NuGen Society 1

Author's Description

2 years ago, Alex woke to utter chaos & desolation in the wake of a magic-laced bio attack on humanity. Since then, she's had one burning goal. Survival. Hiding unwanted magical abilities, she laid low & kept her head down. She'd rather die than work for NuGen, reigning "mob boss" of magical factions who rose to fill the void of power. But when someone close to her is kidnapped, she's forced to form an uneasy alliance with the man sent to recruit her. Was he an ally? Or her biggest weakness?

Why I Chose it

The opening episode has a nice sense of the chaos that would follow a huge disaster. It feels a lot like a zombie story, but I don't think there are actual zombies.

[10 episodes, 4 in the last 30 days]

Who Might Like This

All you zombie/dystopia lovers should check this one out!

Unrelated Griping

Two thoughts:

1. Whatever you do, check the first sentence of your first episode. It really needs to have a verb, and it also shouldn't repeat the same phrase in two spots. I get it. Everyone messes with their first sentence a lot and after a while you don't even see it anymore, but please, I'm begging you, let your computer read it aloud before you post the story.
   
   
2. If your first episode (labeled "Prologue", because of course it is) begins with a copyright notice that says the exact opposite of what you want it to ("The author grants permission in writing for any portion of this book to be reproduced...") and then continues on with a notice about how they are going to sue everyone and then continues on with how editing is going to happen at some later date and demands that reviewers ignore all errors and this continues on for far longer than one screen... I will laugh for a while, but I will not bother to find the story that may or may not be down there somewhere.