Chaos Magic: Online, Offline, Fine Line
Jun. 13th, 2009 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianBefore I finish with my editing job, here is all the news that's fit to print about HIPPIE, Chaos Magic and what I want to be my career one day.
The Podcast: For those of you who don't know (and I know there are a few, for one reason or another), I'm doing a little thing called the HIPPIEcast. You can find it on iTunes, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Alley (search for HIPPIEcast on those three avenues), Podcast Blaster, or just on the site:
Currently up on the HIPPIEcast are the first eighteen chapters of the first City of Complications novel:
Back Blurb
London is a city of complications beneath the surface - supernatural entities of all stripes lurk and plot or, in most cases, just try to make a normal life for themselves. Of primary importance is keeping the Mortal Way inviolate and ignorant of the supernatural. So when the magical community explodes into frenetic and dangerous activity, with untrained magic-users of all stripes causing some of the worst kind of havoc, someone needs to find what's tempting the young mages into throwing their magic around before other warding forces get angry, and time is running out. Therefore, there's only one group to call. They are the Headquarters for the Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena and Interdimensional Entities. Here to help; won't call you a lunatic.
And yes - they call themselves HIPPIE.
So there's the pitch and the whole of the pitch. Sorry if anyone's hearing this for the umpteenth time, but given what's going on at the moment, I want to be thorough.
I want to get the book onto Podiobooks, but there's a not-so-minor problem with formats and various other bits that means I'm going to have to rerecord the entire damn thing. Start to finish. At least the first eighteen chapters' worth. This, as you can imagine, doesn't thrill me, but I've tried every work-around I know and it hasn't worked. So there you have it - to get onto the top source for podcast novels out there, I'm going to have to entirely re-record the entire thing. This, as you can imagine, is a bit disheartening. However, I have every intention of finishing the podcast before I get started on re-recording anything, as we're in the home stretch now and I'd rather not keep people waiting on the finish longer than I already have.
The Writing: I'm two chapters from the end of this, people. It needs an edit, but that's not an issue. A really good part of the whole podcast deal is that reading it aloud gives me a great view of what works and what doesn't, where I've fouled up, etc. So I've been editing as I go anyway, but will give it another once-over with the blue pencil before I do anything else with it. I don't expect that to take long. Which means now's the time to start doing something with it.
The Publication: I've mentioned the Print-on-Demand business model before, and it's still the one I plan to go for; the issue now is interest and publicity.
I'm well aware that everyone's finances are in more or less shoddy shape these days. Mine suck. I've been screwed over more times than I can count on the financial side, and the mess just keeps on coming. Rent's been an issue, food's been an issue, and it's caused more stress than anyone with chronic migraines can take. I can only barely work part-time given my health issues, and I'd go on disability in a heartbeat if the NHS weren't so fucking keen on screwing me around - massive waits for specialist appointments, the eventual appointment rescheduled with no prior warning (DO NOT TRUST THE POST OFFICE WITH SOMETHING THAT IMPORTANT, KTHX), the total lack of interest in worrying symptoms and the prescribed medication that has been tried with no appreciable success when I did finally see the specialist ... and on and on. We're scraping by. Barely. And sometimes, not even that. It's a mess. Some of you knew this. Some of you didn't. Now you know. We're hurting. Badly. A lot of it's my fault, or at least down to my circumstances. I want to make good.
So I want to sell this book, and print on demand is the quick-return way of doing it. It doesn't involve hoping an agent will find it useful, it doesn't depend on a publisher liking it and handing over an advance, and frankly, it's a way of generating the interest of agents and publishers by proving the thing can sell, and would sell even better with proper marketing. However, there are a few issues on the POD side, and they're worrisome. Very, very worrisome.
My preferred option would be to publish through Lightning Source. There aren't tax issues cutting into royalties, for one thing, and all I'd really need to do is transfer the ISBNs we got from when we were doing Affils to Absurdist Inc. Except for one small problem: there are fees with Lightning Source, and I haven't got the cash to lay out for that kind of thing. We're looking at about £90 in set-up fees with Lightning Source, including proof copy. (£20 for a proof copy; dear gods. If we hadn't found a serious mess-up with the proof copy they sent us for the Affils GM Guide, I'd think that was a total pile of bullshit.)
There is another option, though it's one I'm really not sure about. There's Lulu, and others like it, that do this sort of thing without any set-up fees. However, they are total bastards about the manufacturing fees and retail mark-ups and a whole lot of other things, which means that the actual royalties are low or the book price gets jacked up like you wouldn't believe. I'd rather not jack the book price or it'll never sell, so that leaves the other option. If I'm really lucky, really persistent and have a lot of support, I might be able to sell enough to upgrade my recording equipment, upgrade to a paid account so that some of this mess isn't an issue and maybe even pay for my web hosting between 2010 and 2012. It's a risk. It's a gamble. And I'm going to need all the help I can get.
I'm insanely grateful for the support I've had in this so far. I'm particularly grateful to dodgyhoodoo, who does my DTP work and a lot of the mathematical working because I'm so hopeless at it as well as for the retweets and blog posts and general pimpage. I'm grateful tocourtcat (courtcat79 on LJ) for the ever-present retweeting, and to Asmenedas for the offers of help with some of my technical issues, his occasional retweets and that one really nice review-thing on his LJ. I'm grateful to those of you who have expressed enjoyment of and appreciation for the work I've done - for the squees, for the LOLs, for the lot of it. Please don't think for a moment that I don't. It's all that keeps me going in the face of insane setbacks like this.
But now, as we're getting into the final stretch, I really need your help. There's going to be a lot of updates in the near future, here and on Absurdist Inc, my writing and business blog, about how the route to POD publishing of Chaos Magic is going. If Lulu fails me, I don't know what I'll do, but as I don't have the cash for Lightning Source, there's not a lot of other choice. All I ask is the following:
- If you like audiobooks, or haven't tried them and might like to start, pick up the HIPPIEcast and start listening to the book as is. It's there so that you know what you might be buying, and so you have something to listen to on boring commutes or what have you. If you're really against the idea of audiobooks, don't worry about it, but if you think you might like to give it a try, please do.
- If you do choose to listen to the HIPPIEcast, leave a review someplace. Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Blaster, iTunes, Podiobooks if I can ever get it there, your own journal, any and all of the above; talk about it. The only way this stuff works is if people spread the word. Word-of-internet is the most powerful marketing force anyone could ask for, if it works for you. Please help make it work for me.
- When and if the book comes out in print, and you end up purchasing it, tell your friends. Leave reviews. It's the same principle as the podcast reviews - word-of-mouth and word-of-internet is powerful, but it only works if it gets past that first degree of separation.
I'm going to mention the donations button on the City of Complications home page only for the sake of completeness. It's got no interest to date and I get that; as I say, I know times are tight for everyone. However, I am working on an incentive scheme, as it were: extra content for those who are kind enough to donate. One is The HIPPIE Case Files; case notes, contact dossiers, mapped sites of interest around the City of Complications, the works. The other is Tales of the Side Ways Market; I originally had this in mind as a fan project the likes of 7th Son: Obsidian but it's since evolved into an idea of a collection of short stories outlining not the HIPPIE Brigade but the lives and business dealings of those manning the stalls at the Side Ways Market, shopping haven of all supernatural types. These will start off in .pdf format, so computer only, but maybe someday they'll get collected into side books of their own - kind of like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages.
In any case, that's pretty much it from me. Sorry about the length of this post. I thought about putting it under a LJ cut, but I really do need people to read this. So hopefully there wasn't too much tl;dr here. And once again, thank you to those of you who have been so great in terms of support on the technical and promotion side. I appreciate it more than I can say.
The Podcast: For those of you who don't know (and I know there are a few, for one reason or another), I'm doing a little thing called the HIPPIEcast. You can find it on iTunes, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Alley (search for HIPPIEcast on those three avenues), Podcast Blaster, or just on the site:
Currently up on the HIPPIEcast are the first eighteen chapters of the first City of Complications novel:
Image by Roomic Cube on Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution licence.
Back Blurb
London is a city of complications beneath the surface - supernatural entities of all stripes lurk and plot or, in most cases, just try to make a normal life for themselves. Of primary importance is keeping the Mortal Way inviolate and ignorant of the supernatural. So when the magical community explodes into frenetic and dangerous activity, with untrained magic-users of all stripes causing some of the worst kind of havoc, someone needs to find what's tempting the young mages into throwing their magic around before other warding forces get angry, and time is running out. Therefore, there's only one group to call. They are the Headquarters for the Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena and Interdimensional Entities. Here to help; won't call you a lunatic.
And yes - they call themselves HIPPIE.
So there's the pitch and the whole of the pitch. Sorry if anyone's hearing this for the umpteenth time, but given what's going on at the moment, I want to be thorough.
I want to get the book onto Podiobooks, but there's a not-so-minor problem with formats and various other bits that means I'm going to have to rerecord the entire damn thing. Start to finish. At least the first eighteen chapters' worth. This, as you can imagine, doesn't thrill me, but I've tried every work-around I know and it hasn't worked. So there you have it - to get onto the top source for podcast novels out there, I'm going to have to entirely re-record the entire thing. This, as you can imagine, is a bit disheartening. However, I have every intention of finishing the podcast before I get started on re-recording anything, as we're in the home stretch now and I'd rather not keep people waiting on the finish longer than I already have.
The Writing: I'm two chapters from the end of this, people. It needs an edit, but that's not an issue. A really good part of the whole podcast deal is that reading it aloud gives me a great view of what works and what doesn't, where I've fouled up, etc. So I've been editing as I go anyway, but will give it another once-over with the blue pencil before I do anything else with it. I don't expect that to take long. Which means now's the time to start doing something with it.
The Publication: I've mentioned the Print-on-Demand business model before, and it's still the one I plan to go for; the issue now is interest and publicity.
I'm well aware that everyone's finances are in more or less shoddy shape these days. Mine suck. I've been screwed over more times than I can count on the financial side, and the mess just keeps on coming. Rent's been an issue, food's been an issue, and it's caused more stress than anyone with chronic migraines can take. I can only barely work part-time given my health issues, and I'd go on disability in a heartbeat if the NHS weren't so fucking keen on screwing me around - massive waits for specialist appointments, the eventual appointment rescheduled with no prior warning (DO NOT TRUST THE POST OFFICE WITH SOMETHING THAT IMPORTANT, KTHX), the total lack of interest in worrying symptoms and the prescribed medication that has been tried with no appreciable success when I did finally see the specialist ... and on and on. We're scraping by. Barely. And sometimes, not even that. It's a mess. Some of you knew this. Some of you didn't. Now you know. We're hurting. Badly. A lot of it's my fault, or at least down to my circumstances. I want to make good.
So I want to sell this book, and print on demand is the quick-return way of doing it. It doesn't involve hoping an agent will find it useful, it doesn't depend on a publisher liking it and handing over an advance, and frankly, it's a way of generating the interest of agents and publishers by proving the thing can sell, and would sell even better with proper marketing. However, there are a few issues on the POD side, and they're worrisome. Very, very worrisome.
My preferred option would be to publish through Lightning Source. There aren't tax issues cutting into royalties, for one thing, and all I'd really need to do is transfer the ISBNs we got from when we were doing Affils to Absurdist Inc. Except for one small problem: there are fees with Lightning Source, and I haven't got the cash to lay out for that kind of thing. We're looking at about £90 in set-up fees with Lightning Source, including proof copy. (£20 for a proof copy; dear gods. If we hadn't found a serious mess-up with the proof copy they sent us for the Affils GM Guide, I'd think that was a total pile of bullshit.)
There is another option, though it's one I'm really not sure about. There's Lulu, and others like it, that do this sort of thing without any set-up fees. However, they are total bastards about the manufacturing fees and retail mark-ups and a whole lot of other things, which means that the actual royalties are low or the book price gets jacked up like you wouldn't believe. I'd rather not jack the book price or it'll never sell, so that leaves the other option. If I'm really lucky, really persistent and have a lot of support, I might be able to sell enough to upgrade my recording equipment, upgrade to a paid account so that some of this mess isn't an issue and maybe even pay for my web hosting between 2010 and 2012. It's a risk. It's a gamble. And I'm going to need all the help I can get.
I'm insanely grateful for the support I've had in this so far. I'm particularly grateful to dodgyhoodoo, who does my DTP work and a lot of the mathematical working because I'm so hopeless at it as well as for the retweets and blog posts and general pimpage. I'm grateful to
courtcat (courtcat79 on LJ) for the ever-present retweeting, and to Asmenedas for the offers of help with some of my technical issues, his occasional retweets and that one really nice review-thing on his LJ. I'm grateful to those of you who have expressed enjoyment of and appreciation for the work I've done - for the squees, for the LOLs, for the lot of it. Please don't think for a moment that I don't. It's all that keeps me going in the face of insane setbacks like this.But now, as we're getting into the final stretch, I really need your help. There's going to be a lot of updates in the near future, here and on Absurdist Inc, my writing and business blog, about how the route to POD publishing of Chaos Magic is going. If Lulu fails me, I don't know what I'll do, but as I don't have the cash for Lightning Source, there's not a lot of other choice. All I ask is the following:
- If you like audiobooks, or haven't tried them and might like to start, pick up the HIPPIEcast and start listening to the book as is. It's there so that you know what you might be buying, and so you have something to listen to on boring commutes or what have you. If you're really against the idea of audiobooks, don't worry about it, but if you think you might like to give it a try, please do.
- If you do choose to listen to the HIPPIEcast, leave a review someplace. Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Blaster, iTunes, Podiobooks if I can ever get it there, your own journal, any and all of the above; talk about it. The only way this stuff works is if people spread the word. Word-of-internet is the most powerful marketing force anyone could ask for, if it works for you. Please help make it work for me.
- When and if the book comes out in print, and you end up purchasing it, tell your friends. Leave reviews. It's the same principle as the podcast reviews - word-of-mouth and word-of-internet is powerful, but it only works if it gets past that first degree of separation.
I'm going to mention the donations button on the City of Complications home page only for the sake of completeness. It's got no interest to date and I get that; as I say, I know times are tight for everyone. However, I am working on an incentive scheme, as it were: extra content for those who are kind enough to donate. One is The HIPPIE Case Files; case notes, contact dossiers, mapped sites of interest around the City of Complications, the works. The other is Tales of the Side Ways Market; I originally had this in mind as a fan project the likes of 7th Son: Obsidian but it's since evolved into an idea of a collection of short stories outlining not the HIPPIE Brigade but the lives and business dealings of those manning the stalls at the Side Ways Market, shopping haven of all supernatural types. These will start off in .pdf format, so computer only, but maybe someday they'll get collected into side books of their own - kind of like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages.
In any case, that's pretty much it from me. Sorry about the length of this post. I thought about putting it under a LJ cut, but I really do need people to read this. So hopefully there wasn't too much tl;dr here. And once again, thank you to those of you who have been so great in terms of support on the technical and promotion side. I appreciate it more than I can say.