I posted about this on my other blog, but in essence, I want (very badly) to go to the 2012 OYAN Summer Workshop, which I went to this past year. Problem is, plane tickets cost mucho money, eh?
So...I had an idea.
It was midnight.
I was staring at the ceiling. Again.
And then I had the brilliant idea to publish The War Horn as an eBook and make thousands of dollars and be rich and have enough to go to the Workshop.
Right.
So I started on my quest - I went to CreateSpace and looked into their Kindle Publishing options. If I would publish The War Horn, it would be self-publishing. It's such a weird little book that no one would even touch it. At 25,000 words, it's a short little novella, and the genre is very hard to define. It's supposed to be somewhat historical, but, as I've said before, it fails in that respect. It does, however, have fairly good writing quality (by my standards) and one of my greatest endings. (I only have a half-dozen endings to choose from, anyhow. ^_^)
Turns out, Amazon has this thing called Kindle Direct Publishing. It's really straightforward: upload your book, upload a cover, select a few options and set a price, and BOOM! you're published! And they have a fantastic 70% royalty rate. That's seventy cents out of every dollar. $700,000 out of every million.
Problem is, they have an 18+ age rule.
However, I'm fairly certain that I could use my parents account to publish without violating their rule, since I would have parental permission and an account for payment methods. I emailed them about it, but the only reply I've gotten so far basically said, "We're busy right now, we'll email you later." Except, much longer and more diplomatic.
So, what do you think? Good idea, bad idea?
Also, I may - just maybe - be looking for people to pre-read the novel. And critiquers. Not before my family, of course ;) they'll read it as soon as I'm done with my own edits.
Thoughts?
Oh, and one more thing. If I published the War Horn as an eBook, would you buy it? Speak truthfully. The price would be somewhere below four dollars. I'm setting up a poll on the sidebar - take a look and vote, and/or comment below.
Until we meet again,
I would definitely buy it!!! Without a doubt!!! This is the truth: I would buy it if you priced it at 20 dollars!
ReplyDeleteEither way though, I'd still get to read it.
Thank you for your support, Christopher!
ReplyDeleteAnd a note to all who might read this: REMEMBER, the proceeds of The War Horn would go to funding my trip to the OYAN Workshop. It's for a good cause!
I'll be at large in Kansas for any of you who would want to meet me in that time. ;)
:) Haha I would totally buy it!
ReplyDeleteAs long as there were some love rectangles in it. ??
BTW, did you change the design of your blog?
I don't know which one I liked better... I might be a little biased, but I really liked the old-papery-ish type one. xP
Are you going to use a pseudonym?
Love rectangles, unfortunately not XD I try to stay away from romance, heh heh.
ReplyDeleteAye, I changed it. :) I liked the old one too, but I figured it was time for a change. Still, the new template is growing on me.
No, I'll use my normal name. :)
Dang. We have no Kindle, preciousss. Otherwise, I would.
ReplyDeleteThere's a Kindle App for computers. :) You can download books and stuff with that. It's like reading a PDF, except better O_o
ReplyDeleteJust throwing that out there ;)
Hehe. Sounds complicated... and easy, all at the same time. I'd definitely be willing to critique for you, and it's quite (quite) possible I'd buy it. *winks* (And Goose sends his encouraging honks to you -- not sure what they'll accomplish, but he insisted.)
ReplyDeleteI'd buy it in a heartbeat!! : ) I'd also be VERY willing to critique and edit it for you - my friend says I'm a perfectionist because I see a lot of typeos in books and can't stand them... (Just throwing that out there, lol...) I'd also post about it on my blog. : )
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited for you and hope you'll get to go! I want to go, too, but I don't know if it'll work out... Maybe I'll see you there.
daughteroflight
Jake--How much does the Kindle app cost???
ReplyDeleteThe Kindle app is free. Just search Kindle app and click download, and that should do it. :)
ReplyDeleteOho. I just might do that....
ReplyDeleteI'd buy it. Most definitely :-) Of course, some of us have no money, but eh. If I were to buy a book right now and I had the money, I'd buy yours. :-) And I might review it and give it (on your scale) a 9.99 out of 10. ;-) Ya know, just to get the word out about it and let other people know it exists. But, honestly, I'd let someone edit it first. Even if it's just an English nut like me, not a professional (who can afford them, anyway) have someone review it, because I know from personal experience that when writing a book, it's easy to overlook things, but for someone who hasn't, they can see them immediately. Besides, you wouldn't want to end up like Stephanie Meyer and have 8 usages of juicy in a page, now, would you? (Not that I have that little faith in you. Don't worry, I promise you are better than her. Waaayyy better.)
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant, "Who can afford them anyway?"
ReplyDeleteVery true, Samantha! I'm going to edit it myself and then have the family read it. After which, a friend of mine offered to critique it, and I'll have more people pre-read.
ReplyDeleteOkay, fantastic :-) If you need someone outside of family/friends to read it, just let me know. I could use a break from finals this coming January :-P kjk
ReplyDelete