Author Michael Kothe: Short stories instead of donations for the flood victims

A slightly different donation: The Unterschleissheim author Michael Kothe donated some of his around 90 stories to date for the benefit of the flood victims on the Ahr.

The

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not only helped by donations. Indirect help can also alleviate the need. The

Michael Kothe gladly followed the call

some of his

for donation anthologies for the benefit of the flood victims on the Ahr

several of his stories will appear soon. Among them is the short story “Taxi”, in which an assertive taxi driver in Philadelphia finds her true destiny after a moving experience beyond her future plans.

Michael Kothe's “Taxi” was selected as the best contribution out of 40 in the 2020 competition of the Schreiblust-Verlag. “The stories should give courage to face life. They lead the protagonists to unexpected happiness, especially when they take their fate into their own hands, ”says Kothe, explaining his choice. The publications are announced on Facebook & Co under the hashtags # wirschreibenfürahrweiler and # wirschreibenfürreuch. The books are expected to appear in print and as eBooks in September, and the proceeds will be transferred to an aid campaign. On his newly designed homepage, the author will then promptly notify the publication of the books.

If you don't want to wait that long, take a look at the Authors Challenge. Kothe recently set up this website and is now collecting contributions from other participants. The young network sees itself as a link between independent authors and readers. Since October 2020, the authors have been inviting each other to write a story on a keyword and offer it online exclusively on Amazon. The participants know each other and can judge the quality of their work.

So the invitation to participate is both a praise and an incentive. The reader receives a “slim” eBook with level: an exciting plot, interesting characters, a distinctive writing style and a confident use of the German language. Each eBook costs 99 cents and offers about an hour of reading pleasure. Kothes contribution to the challenge, “Family ties - a Scottish crime thriller”, stayed well in front of the free Top 100 on Amazon during the first week and worked its way up to second place in the detective novels category. "The ranking was a great success for me," says the man from Unterschleißheim happily, "it tells me that I am on the right track with my next crime novel as well".

In the first half of September he will offer interested FORUM readers the first two chapters of the “Family Ties” as a reading sample on his author's homepage under the heading “14 days”. The author finds it rather amusing that the eBook, contrary to the good ranking and the other reviews, only received a single Amazon star twice. “There are people,” he grins, “who rate according to the school grading system: the lowest number for the best performance”.