Category Archives: Five Stop Story

CatNav Reviews the Five Stop Story App – 10 out of 10!

Posted on by

I recently received a completely surprise review for the Five Stop Story app from Cat Nav. CatNav helps readers navigate the vast number of reading apps available in the app store. It identifies the best apps, reviews them and rates them.

It gave the Five Stop Story app 10/10. See the review below. You can download the Five Stop Story app from the app store here.

 

Review of Five Stop Story

Five Stop Stories Limited (Age +12) [10/10]

Similar in style to the Watchbook app, Five Stop Story is a gateway to a number of exciting stories. The app comes loaded with three short stories that give an indication of the type of quality you can expect. If you like what you read, you can subscribe for a year for just £1.99.

Five Stop Story’s interface is clean and minimalistic, allowing you focus on reading the stories. The text size can be increased or decreased and – aside from sharing your favourite passages on Facebook and Twitter – that’s about it.

Thankfully, there are options for sorting through the featured stories. Tabs are included for the latest and most popular. You can also choose to browse by author, genre, date and so on.

With so many stories available it’s probably best to focus on The Other Dave Clark, which is included free with the app. Written by Dave Clark, this short satirical story imagines a nightmare scenario where Nick Clegg wants to see more competition in society and so proposes cloning everyone. This spells trouble for our hero Dave as a committee decides who deserves to live, the original or the clone.

The Other Dave Clark is a perfect showpiece for the app. If every other story is only as fractionally entertaining as this, then the app is going to be immensely successful.

As the name suggests, Five Stop Story is designed to be read in short bursts, on a daily commute for example. There are already lots of stories to suit every mood and this is a great start to Five Stop Story.

This app is essential for iPad and iPhone owners, it’s as simple as that.

Joshua Douglas-Walton, CatNav

 

You can dowload the Five Stop Story app here.

If you want to see your own work featured on the app, you can enter our monthly competitions on the writers page of the Five Stop Story website.

You can find this review on the Persian Cat Press site here.

You can find more great reading apps on the CatNav app here.

Five Stop Story Kindle Book now Live

Posted on by

After lots of blood, sweat and tears (all mine), the Five Stop Story Kindle book is now live. To be honest, I’m quite relieved. It took a lot more time and was a lot harder work than I expected – It seems formatting is the biggest nightmare whatever medium you publish on! Luckily I got there in the end, plus I was really lucky to get Sarah Kate from Warm Onion Designs on board, designing the cover. And it’s out in time for Christmas 🙂
The book contains 30 short stories from the Five Stop Story competitions and 1 from me, which I might put up on this website when I get a moment.
Here is the link if you’re interested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Stop-Story-Stories-ebook/dp/B006O1QKD0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324625318&sr=8-1
My story is called “The Final Days of Trevor Morrison.”

The perfect Christmas treat: the Five Stop Story Kindle e-book

Posted on by

Christmas is coming, the shops are covered in lights and there is a Christmas tree on every corner. I’m in Bangkok and I never expected it to be this festive here. But it’s great – I’m loving all the good cheer and the decorations. The Thais love Christmas – I think mainly because it’s just enough excuse to have fun and enjoy themselves. And also an excuse to visit the shopping malls which are always packed whatever time of year it is.
Getting into the Christmas spirit, Five Stop Story is going to launch an e-book in time for Christmas. This will feature 30 of the best short stories from the competitions. It will be free for a limited introductory period so that authors and their friends and families can download it so get in quick and buy
At the moment, I am trapped in a formatting hell, pummeling the formatting into a Kindle-shaped Christmas package. I was hoping to put one of my own stories in the book, but I haven’t had time to do my own editing! Still, it’s all in a good cause – the first Five Stop Story Kindle book. I can’t wait.

The lovely Robert Coles has also recently interviewed me about the kindle book and Five Stop Story in general on his blog – check out the interview here.

Must get back to formatting now!

Five Stop Story iPhone and iPad App Launch

Posted on by

It’s been a busy month. The Five Stop Story iphone and ipad app is up and running and I’ve been in London putting flyers in bookshops, coffee shops and local libraries to encourage people to download it and discover new writers.
We’ve crammed the app with features and you can browse the stories by author, or by genre or by competition winners. You can also read more about the authors in their bios and visit their websites. The app links with Facebook and Twitter so that you can share the stories you really like.
You can download the app on the your iphone/ipad by visiting the app store and searching for “Five Stop Story.” Find out more about the app here.
On last check we were #2 in the UK “what’s hot” in Books list!

Working for a nightmare boss

Posted on by

The other day I worked from 8am in the morning to 3am the next morning. In the whole day I had 2 ten minute breaks. I was working with the app developer to finish the Five Stop Story app and get it into the app store before the end of the UK day.
Since I’ve started working for myself I’ve turned into a psycho boss. With only myself to control, I don’t allow myself breaks, I’m unsympathetic when I’m ill and I’m a pedantic perfectionist about every email/ piece of content that goes out. In short, I’m a nightmare to work for!
The thing about working for yourself is that it’s truly your own responsibility. It’s not dogsbody work disguised as a development opportunity that someone else will take the credit for if it goes well and you will take the blame for if it goes badly. Whichever way it goes, the results are yours. Which is also the most motivational thing.