CHALLENGE DONE!!!
I Did 75 Major Books in My 75th Year!!
And not one hint of AI on any of them. (Kind of sad I have to say that right up front.) I did every bit of this myself. Writing, covers, layout. Everything.
So here is how it all worked out.
- 38 Major ten-story collections. No duplicates on stories. (Collection name list is below under art.)
- 5 Detective’s Collide.
- 3 new Thunder Mountain 10-story collections. (Ready for a Kickstarter this spring.)
- 2 new Sky Tate 10-story collections.(Ready for a Kickstarter this coming year.)
- 14 complete revamps of Thunder Mountain novels, including all new covers, new interiors, and sales copy. (Ready for a Kickstarter this spring.)
- 8 revamp of writing books, including new covers and updated content and sales copy. (Kickstarter last spring.)
- 4 StoryBundle collections and exclusives (includes four collections and one writing book, all done in 2026.)
- 1 Mary Jo Collection. (For an older Kickstarter.)
75 major books, starting from November 10th, 2025 to now.
None of these are in hardback or paper yet. That and getting them all wide is my project, among other things in the coming year.
But of the 75 books, readers have already had a chance to read 33 of them. And with StoryBundles and Kickstarters, I have already made over $30,000 on this challenge. I expect that number to grow a lot in 2027 and then beyond.
THE PACING…
Last fall was still an ugly time for me and Kris. Still had a baseless lawsuit we were dealing with (judges words, not mine) and Steph was gone from WMG and Kris and I decided we were going back to doing it all ourselves. And wow did we both have a lot of learning curves (mostly in the details of things.)
So I only managed one collection for a Story Bundle in the first two months of the challenge and at that point discovered how really bad shape my short story organization was in. I managed eight more in the next two months and slowly picked up speed from there.
When I discovered that I would only end up with around 380 stories that I wanted to take into the future for the challenge, thus 38 books, I tackled the mess that was my favorite-to-write series, THUNDER MOUNTAIN. I redid and rebranded all 14 novels cover, and reworked the interiors and also this coming year will be putting all 14 in this cool hardback and paperback set, again all rebranded. Then I put together three original THUNDER MOUNTAIN collections and also put together two SKY TAKE collections for a different Kickstarter project.
Collections are not easy to do, especially when I would sometimes spend an hour or more looking for one story.
I am so glad this challenge is over. Far, far too much stress the last three months. But I hit it.
For those of you who might not remember, I did 70 books in my 70th year, but had employees at the time to help out. These 75 books I did it all.
So here is the image of all the covers and below that the list of the 38 collections. (They are not numbered except in my computer and here for ease.)
Thanks for watching.
List of 38 Ten-Story Collections
(As I said, some of these were out in special circumstances but none of them are out wide or on my store yet.)
TO GET A SENSE OF THE SIZE OF THIS CHALLENGE, THIS LIST OF BOOKS IS ABOUT HALF OF WHAT I DID…
1 MY SOCKS ROLLED DOWN and Nine Other Really Twisted Stories
2 THE ROAD BACK and Nine Other Really Strange Crime Stories
3 REMEMBER and Nine Other Time-Challenged Stories
4 SLEEPING WITH THE GODDESS and Nine Other Sort-of Fantasy Stories
5 A PINCH OF HOW ROSIE LIVED and Nine Other Twisted Fantasy Stories
6 THE MATCH and Nine Other Twisted SF Stories
7 EYES ON MY CARDS and Nine Other Strange Crime Stories
8 THE MOUTH THAT WALKED and Nine Other Strange Science Fiction Stories
9 THE WAITING OF THE WIND and Nine Other Really Whacky Fantasy Stories
10 MISS SMALLWOOD’S GOODIES and Nine Other Strange Mystery Stories
11 STAND FOR HOME and Nine Other Strange Science Fiction Stories
12 FOR THE BALANCE OF A HEART and Nine Other Twisted Fantasy Stories
13 THE ATLANTIS FIFTY and Nine Other Twisted Science Fiction Stories
14 PLAYING IN THE STREET and Nine Other Twisted Science Fiction Stories
15 THE REMARKABLE WAY SHE DIED and Nine Other Gripping Mystery Stories
16 TO REMEMBER A SINGLE MINUTE and Nine Other Unique Science Fiction Stories
17 SHADOW IN THE CITY and Nine Other Unique Science Fiction Stories
18 LET’S DANCE and Nine Other Unique Science Fiction Stories
19 HIDDEN BOX INN AND CASINO and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
20 DELIGHTFULLY DIZZY and Nine Other Twisted Fantasy Stories
21 ENOUGH TIME and Nine Other Time-Focused SF Stories
22 EVERYTHING GOT COLDER and Nine Other Twisted Science Fiction Stories
23 TO SURVIVE THE TREASURE and Nine Other Strange Science Fiction Stories
24 A MARBLE FOR SHERRIE and Nine Other Strange Science Fiction Stories
25 AN IMMORTALITY OF SORTS and Nine Other Strange Science Fiction Stories
26 A LONG WAY DOWN and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
27 IN THE DREAM OF MANY BODIES and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
28 THE PARK, THE YARD, AND OTHER COLD PLACES and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
29 WRONG TURN and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
30 A SONG FOR THE OLD MEMORY and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
31 AA LADY IN HEAT and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
32 DEATH STOPS FOR THE NIGHT and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
33 A ROOM WITHOUT A REASON and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
34 A MENUE OF MEMORY and Nine Other Twisted Fantasy Stories
35 GHOST MAKER and Nine Other Twisted Fantasy Stories
36 THE REAL SHAPE OF DEATH and Nine Other Twisted Mystery Stories
37 ONE LAST DANCE and Nine other Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories
38 A GHOST IN TIME and Nine other Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories
21 Comments
Mike Zimmerman
Congratulations, Dean. What a crazy monumental achievement. Really looking forward to 90@90! –Mike Z.
dwsmith
Sadly, that would be funny if I wasn’t so stupid as to try it. (grin)
Glyn Salisbury
Well done you!!
Diane
Congratulations!
Mike Jasper
You did it! (I knew you would!) Great job.
And this cracked me up: “I would only end up with around 380 stories” = ONLY 380???
Congrats. You’re an inspiration.
dwsmith
Yeah, kind of scary number, huh? But about a third of the stories I have written over the 50 years. I lost about 150 stories in a house fire in 1985. (Only story from that period was because Writers of the Future sent me the file for my story from Volume #1 and I made it a title story of a collection.)
I also basically ignored all the stories I wrote from 1986 to 1995 or so, about 400 or so because most are only in paper files out in storage and I never managed well to bring stories forward in computer files during those years. Plus I also ignored about 50 or more stories from what I call my horror period, even though they were in anthologies or magazines. Like I didn’t put in any of the stories I published in Twilight Zone/Night Cry. Or any of my men’s magazine stories or things like that. And I ignored any of the Work for Hire universe stories I wrote, mostly under pen names. (I have five in one book in Star Trek: Captain Proton. So that’s where the Only 380 stories came from. It is only a part of my total short story output.
Jim Turnbo III
Congratulations Dean! Watching this go down from afar was fun. I can sense your relief twofold: One… much of your old work is brought to the forefront. Two… you can move on; focus on creating new.
With many of your learning curves straightening out, you two can really step it up. (Can’t help but laugh at that since no one on the planet produces IP like the two-person crew at WMG.)
Go celebrate. Much deserved.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Folks, I saw this up close. The dedication and hard work that Dean put in was phenomenal. He had a weekly target and because of the learning curves, he missed it early on. But he slowly gained on the project until he got here, and finished, one day early. He’s an amazing man, and I’m lucky to be able to watch him work up close. Congrats, Smitty!!!!!!!
dwsmith
Thanks! And thanks for all the help and support and talking me out of quitting a number of times. Feels great to have it done and my short fiction in order. Thanks for all the support!
Rob Vagle
Congrats Dean! Way to go!
David H. Hendrickson
Congratulations! What an achievement!
thor
Badass!
Jason Adams
Way to go!!
Bill
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Sorry to hear it got so stressful. But I imagine that now you’re feeling pretty great…
Thanks for taking time to post about it along the way!
djmills
Congratulations. Amazing result.
L.A. Selby
Congratulations Dean!!! 🙂
Christina York
Dean, I have some idea what that mountain of chaos looked like when you started
Congratulations on taming this beast!! Even knowing how focused and dedicated you can be on a project, this one looked nearly impossible.
So what’s next?
Chris
dwsmith
Yeah, with the mess of organization of my stories over decades, this one did look impossible for the collections. As for next, sleep. A ton of sleep since I wore myself down so much trying to hit this stupid deadline, I got a bad cold. Another day and that will be clear, so sleep is the plan. Then two more learning curves.
Annie Reed
Congratulations!! What an awesome accomplishment. 🙂
Desikan
Congratulations Dean !!
Lot of learning for us as we watched how you handled this challenge over the course of the year.
Chong Go
Wow! You did it! Way to go!