Monday, March 23, 2015

Eve's Hungry Update

My first novel, Eve's Hungry, is all finished, including a careful proof and polish. I'm going to be publishing it soon on Amazon KDP Select.

I posted a new chapter of it on my Eve's Hungry story blog, which you can check out here.  I'm going to be posting a couple more soon, but save the last few chapters for the published version.  Also, since KDP Select requires exclusivity, just before publishing I'll be pulling down most of the chapters, leaving only the first three.  After that, I plan to turn the Eve's Hungry blog into a place for new stories, maybe some artwork and updates about the book.  This blog will remain focused on more general publishing commentary.

In the meantime, for a limited time only, any fans of Eve's Hungry, or this blog, or just people wandering by can receive a full PDF Advanced Reading Copy of the completed novel.  I'm not so much looking for beta readers or reviews, but, of course, if you find any typos you want to pass on or write a review when the book is published that would be nice.  But feel no obligation.  I just want to reward anyone who has been paying attention to my literary adventures so far and might be curious about the finished work.

For your FREE ARC of Eve's Hungry just email me at: mackaybell@gmail.com

(And I promise not to share your email with anyone or spam you or any of that stuff.)

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

How Much Can Writing One Song Make?

One of the arguments against self-publishing, free ebooks and the lack of gatekeepers, is that supposedly the music business has been wiped out by the internet due to piracy and the fact that no one will pay for music anymore.  That's supposed to happen to ebooks sometime soon also.  It won't.

For starters, ebooks and music are very different.  Readers have shown a proven willingness to purchase ebooks at much hire prices than individual songs.  But that aside, the meme that the music business has been destroyed by the internet is simply false.

Is there still money to be made in music?  Yes.  Will people still pay for downloads?  Yes.  How much?  Hard to say for sure because the music industry is very secretive about how profitable it is, even as it continually complains that it's not making any money.  But one key example was just revealed.  In court filings it was shown that the song "Blurred Lines" made over $17 million IN PROFIT.  More than 5 million a piece for it's two writers.

BLURRED LINES PROFIT REVEALED

Not bad, huh?  One song, 17 million in profit.  That's the incredible value of intellectual property.  And the internet is making it easier, not harder, to reach those kinds of numbers.