Thursday, August 20, 2015

Pre-Order My Book and Help Me Win a Publishing Contract


I just posted my latest work-in-progress on Inkshares, a crowd-funding site for publishing. Here's how it works: You pitch your book idea and post excerpts on the site, and try to convince readers to pre-order the book. If you hit a certain threshold of pre-orders, Inkshares will pay for the editing, design, printing and marketing for the book.

It's a fascinating model that seems like a win for all parties involved. The author (potentially) gets their book published without the personal cost of self-publishing or the humiliating obstacle course of finding a traditional publisher. The reader is only charged if the threshold is met and the book goes to print. And the publisher (Inkshares) has a guaranteed number of presales on the book before they even accept the manuscript so they know that they can cover their investment in the project.

Inkshares say they can get their books into many major book sellers, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple and numerous independent bookstores. They also claim their are options for publishing overseas in other languages and even selling movies rights, but those are pale in comparison to the true reason I'm signing up.


The biggest reason that I decided to so this right now is that they're currently running a contest in conjunction with pop culture powerhouse Nerdist.com: The 5 books with the most pre-orders by September 30th in the Fantasy & Science Fiction categories will automatically get published, even if they don't meet their thresholds. More importantly, the folks at the Nerdist will pick their favourite book out of the top five to be backed and endorsed by Nerdist.com, becoming the first book in The Nerdist publishing imprint with all the perks and glory it entails.

So now I implore you, all my faithful readers: Help me win this contest so I can get an interview with Chris Hardwick on The Nerdist Podcast. Sure, publishing my book is great, but my true life's ambition is eat a burrito with the son of Bowling Hall of Famer Billy Hardwick.

This man's son is the first face you see after your favourite character bites it on The Walking Dead.
My project, tentatively titled "Hell Comes to Hogtown" is now live at Inkshares. The entire first chapter is available as a free preview so you can determine if you like my style of writing. I would love it if you would pre-order it and tell all your friends, but if you just "Follow" the book to increase it's profile on the main page, that would be great. Even if you tell all your friends and spread the word, that would be great. Maybe one of them would like it?


Anyway, here is the (very) short pitch of what the book's about:

A comic book nerd and a pro-wrestler try to clear their names in a kidnapping while evading a bloodthirsty demon hobo.

It's a comic horror/dark fantasy in the vein of Christopher Moore. If that sounds like something up your alley, please check out the page and show your support!

(Also, if you have any better ideas for names for the book, I am open to suggestion)

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...