It's been said many, many times in recent years that writers need to learn to embrace the changing world of publishing. I've not really been a proponent of jumping in with both feet in the past, as many of you may remember. I don't believe physical books are going anywhere, but I'm absolutely certain that the dynamics behind them are going to change. I don't believe anyone really has their finger on that pulse yet, so I'm sitting back, carefully trying new things, and waiting.
One thing did occur to me though, and I decided it was time to take a shot at figuring it out before someone else beat me to it. There are a lot of places online where you can download e-books. There are a few, like the Horror Mall, offering short stories, and doing fairly well. Amazon.com tried it with their Amazon Shorts program, but sadly they let that founder—and though I won't get into it, they were less than a pleasure to be involved with. Now they have their Kindle store, and Barnes & Noble has their version. There's Mobipocket with it's own format, the Sony ebook reader—you can even read books on your mobile phone. I'm part of a European experiment in that direction where novels will be available to download from kiosks all over the place onto Iphones and mobile readers.
That's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is Macabre Ink Digital Publishing, and why I started it. It's actually pretty simple, and after thinking about it, it makes me want to crack myself in the head.
The normal plan for authors of short fiction has been a simple one. You write short stories and find a single market for them, or you find a market, and write a story slanted at that market. Once the story has been published in its magazine, anthology, or collection, that's it for a few years. Then, if you are lucky, you either publish a collection with a number of these stories in it, or you get picked up as a reprint in an anthology. For the most part, if you are as prolific as I am, that means you have literally hundreds of stories with limited readership, usually linked to a certain time period, sitting on your hard drive and wasting space.
I started thinking about how musicians transformed their world. They went from selling records and tapes to CDs, then to MP3 downloads, and iTunes. Their work is pretty much available from the moment it is created until the time a consumer gets to it, and remains in circulation as long as they want it to. I thought about how this could apply to short stories, and out of print books.
I started learning to format e-books. I went looking for a plug-in for Wordpress to allow me to sell them. Here's what I came up with. I'm formatting short stories and selling them as e-books in multiple formats for $1.00 apiece. If they are longer stories, they are $1.50. Anything over twelve stories gets you a "Reader's Choice" collection discount. I also have put my novel This is My Blood, up. There is a collection Joined at the Muse, which includes stories I've collaborated with others on over the years. There is the out-of-print collection Spinning Webs & Telling Lies, which features western-themed horror by myself and Brian A. Hopkins, as well as our collaborations in that genre. There is more on the way.
I intend to expand this and bring in other authors. There are two differences that I see to what I'm doing and what most digital download sites are doing. First, the prices are lower because there's no middle man, other than myself. For other authors I'll be taking ten percent, much, much lower than any other site I know of. I'll be formatting two stories for free for new authors, and then my son, who is becoming an HTML guru, will format stories for $5 and books for $20. I'll also provide instructions on how I formatted mine so people can do their own. In time, what I hope to build is a huge selection of short stories crossing genres and representing a lot of different authors for people to choose from.
It's only in it's beginning stages. I will be adding some work by author Steven Savile later this week, and from some others. I want this to grow, and flourish, but mostly I want all those stories to come back to life. All those forgotten words languishing on hard drives across the world. It only makes sense that we should find a way to get those words back into the hands of readers, and I hope that Macabre Ink Digital will be able to help with that. If all works well, I will add a POD branch eventually so you can pick your original collection or anthology from the stories and print yourself a single copy. Who knows.
The other thing I hope to add in the near future is audio book style downloads of stories, books, etc. I love audio books, and I enjoy hearing authors read their own work. This might be another way to branch out and reach new readers, and I don't want to leave it unexplored.
The final branch will be subscription e-novels. I know that in the past authors such as Stephen King and Lawrence Watt-Evans have proven that serialized novels on the web can be worthwhile for authors to pursue. Our plan is to create a subscription for a novel to be released in parts. By the end of the release, only a few hundred people will have read the book, and there should be no reason it would not still be viable to publishers—yet it gives readers a chance to get in on the reading early. It also gives authors a chance to get some reactions and to collect blurbs. Seems like a win-win to me.
You can find out what's being released (and has been released) at http://www.macabreink.com/macabreinkdigitalpublishing
You can buy the books at the Macabre Ink Store: http://www.macabreink.com/store under the Macabre Ink Digital link at the top.
Everything is available in .PDF, E-Pub, Mobipocket, and Kindle formats. Check it out—see what you think. You can contact me on this subject at: publisher@macabreink.com
Now, back to work!
From The Shadeaux,
David Niall Wilson