It took no time at all during my recent replay of BioShock Infinite on PS4 to realize how far and how fast not only the video game industry has traveled in four years, but all of entertainment.

Storytelling can be splashed on countless new mediums. New audiences have opened up. The so-called "walking simulator" genre—think Gone Home or Life Is Strange—present painfully honest, human storytelling to breed a potential Netflix alternative. 

And AAA-video game like BioShock Infinite signal that not all interactive world-making will lean so hard on murder as their interface method...

With the summer months fast approaching and spare time (ideally) in your future, you'll likely need something to read.

How about something classic? Intellectually stimulating?

How about something for free?

Amazon is overloaded with with books for the low price of: $owning.a.phone. 

Follow the links below for some essential reading available for free on the Amazon Kindle Marketplace, just in time for beach season... 

I met a friend for drinks on a rainy Thursday afternoon to discuss his recent trip to Austria.

When he asked what I was writing, I explained my vision for a series of free books: interconnected, independently published, and driven by community involvement.

Can you imagine if a company only made one thing? What if that one thing was so relevant, they could successfully market and sell it to anybody? That'd be mighty convenient.

That's why Mattell invented He-Man for boys when they couldn't stomach only selling to girls.

But this is not the reality. Many things must be made and companies must instead market those things to specific people. We'll over-simplify this shared universe comparison for a moment and say Superman and Wonder Woman must both be made, if we want to make All The Money.

One more "but," and it is the killer whale of "but's": What if all those specific people were motivated to buy all those many things?

Long weekend time! How should you spend your extra day off?

It's an honest question: You had 24 hours of federally-mandated time off, how did you get the most of that chronological currency?

Parades? Barbecue? Hammock? Lawnmower sales event? Mucking gutters?

It's only one day—you can't truly go on a holiday to a far-off, exotic destination. You can't change the world in a day!

But there are ways to optimize these days off...

Need something new? Of course you do. You've got social followers to please.

They're sitting back at the nest, beaks snipping at the air, waiting for anyone to drop them a worm. And you're gonna be the momma to feed them.

What does your individualized flair for good taste tell you? Well, it concerns discovery, something intellectually-stimulating, and hand-crafted detail. It can't be corporate, your followers demand something finer.

The same way shareware became indie video games, the same way local bands became genuine rock-acts, serialized free books are angling to become a new scene that demands something new all the time.

Reaching back, I recall my first encounter with Netflix. My fiendish college roommate was renting and returning DVDs from the service as quickly as he could, keeping them only as long as it took to copy the movies onto blank discs. Oh, the malice (/s).

Considering we didn't have access to cable TV and the nearest Wal-Mart was a 60-minute drive from our college, could you blame us for embracing an alternative, cost-effective, non-multi-camera sitcom entertainment model?

Flash to today and we're left to wonder: if Netflix was formerly the alternative to all that, what'll be the Netflix alternative? What comes next...?

How often do you think about the marketing, promotion, and sales aspects of your art? Maybe 5% of your day?

No matter your craft, you'd likely prefer to buckle down and create, rather than contemplate how to approach running your creativity like a business.

Turns out, that's the right attitude, and with this guide on the must-do marketing and sales tactics, you can know which actions to prioritize, leaving you more time to do what you love...

Vision augmented by 20/20 hindsight, and maybe an updated glasses prescription, you're sizing up a summer reading list. Not just trashy beach books with covers thick enough you could smash clams, but classics you've always meant to read.

Didn't you always mean to read an oldie-but-a-goodie?

Lucky you, Amazon is packed to the gills with free novels. Not $1 bodice-rippers. Not $4 adventure pulp (it has those, too), but honest-to-goodness masterpieces.

These are some of the finest books you can find on the Amazon Kindle Marketplace, ready for summer reading... 

After you're finished cackling over the treasure-chest that is Breath of the Wild—fistfulls of precious gold squirting wasted between fingers because, man, if Zelda isn't an endless video game fun-box—I recommend aiming your Nintendo Switch toward the eShop and buying Shovel Knight.

To clarify, don't get simply-Shovel Knight, but rather Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, which includes the new Specter of Torment expansion. Superior even to its predecessor's high-art 8-bit homage, Specter of Torment stands above the original Shovel Knight experience.

In our landscape of bargain-hunting indie games and Steam sale memes, throw all your available money toward the developers at Yacht Club games and buy Specter of Torment. The reason why is simple: this is a secret Ninja Gaiden game...