The past few weeks have been very busy around here.

As a teacher, I’ve been working to land a position for next school year. That all turned out well. More on that soon.

As a Minecraft-teaching GamingEdu, I’ve been organizing our upcoming talk at the Academy of the Impossible on June 20th. Details on that coming soon, too. (Update: details right here.)

And finally as an author, I’ve been busy putting the final touches (and a new title) on a brand new Tech Tales short story for middle grade readers.

I’m very happy to announce that Text Hunter: Tech Tales #2 is now available online at Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords and more online bookstores very soon.

Here’s a blurb about the story:

Aaron is not impressed with Treasure Hunter, his new video game. The thing has no graphics and it involves reading! Mom calls it a Text Adventure and says they were all the rage a million years ago.

When Aaron’s recently deceased grandfather starts communicating to him through Treasure Hunter, the game sends Aaron on a real life quest to save his family.

I’m giving away Text Hunter free to subscribers of my Reading Change newsletter. The next issue goes out later today, so subscribe and get the story in time for the end of school. You can also read a sample of Text Hunter here.

Like all the Tech Tales stories, Text Hunter is completely DRM-free and includes a Teacher’s Guide and instructions for printing in the classroom.

To find out why I do this and why my story got a new title, read on  . . .

DRM-free? Why do it that way?

As a teacher I know how hard it can be to quickly find material to engage middle grade reluctant readers. E-readers and tablets are making their way into more classrooms every year. With Tech Tales, teachers can take advantage of these new technologies inexpensively and in a way that fits with their teaching styles.

Teachers can buy each Tech Tale once and use it forever, sharing them with new students year, colleagues and even printing them for offline reading.

Learn more about what you can do with Tech Tales in your classroom.

Wait a Minute? Didn’t this story have another title?

Very astute of you. Yes, Text Hunter was once known as Get Lamp, in homage to the great text adventure documentary of the same name.

However, after looking at the title and the cover that was designed for the book (and receiving some questioning emails from text adventure fans) I realized that my homage had stepped a little too close to “pretending to be the real thing”. That was never my intention. I needed that changed and fast.

As a simple fix I renamed the story Text Hunter, which ties nicely to the key elements of the story (as you’ll see when you read it!)

This ability to quickly change things is just one more reason why I’m really excited by self-publishing and being a hybrid author. I made the decision on Friday and by Saturday afternoon, the covers and files were all updated to reflect the new title. It’s amazing to have the power to make quick decisions like that and put them into action rapidly.

I’m not sure where this new world of publishing will take me, but it sure is a lot of fun. And that alone makes this publishing path worth following. I’ll report back with more fun stuff very soon.

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As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have teaching ideas and writing news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

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Thanks!

Liam