I paused doing the weekly publishing for three books for a while – I had a couple of good reasons for doing it. One of them was monetizing my work.
For quite a while I’ve had a plan, but haven’t had the time to execute it: an app for iOS and Android to act as a gateway for the books. I’ve been working on it for quite a while – in fact, long enough that Amazon began dealing in serial ebooks. Dang it – there went the novelty factor of releasing serial books.
But, now the app is nearly done, and the online data storage and publishing control system is in place, and all the other little nagging bits are in place. Awesome 🙂
Here, on the site, there will be a donation button for people who enjoy the books during their serial publishing phase. Afterwards, they’ll be available as print copies, of course. But, pretty much every online published page will have a bit of a nag for a donation. It’s just a thing.
But the apps will be a bit different. Instead of asking for donations, the apps will cost up front: $1.99 for the single-book versions, or $5.99 for the app that has all five books (yes, five, not three – between then and now I started two more books, both of which I like a lot.) Down the road there will be an in-app purchase option to unlock everything that’s been written, instead of just depending on the once-a-week publishing option (probably $.99 for a single story, or $2.99 for all the stories.)
I’m also probably adding one more book to the lineup: The Story of Gamer Zone 2.0. I’m not re-writing the book, but I am doing a major re-edit of the book and expanding a number of sections.
I may also look into some print options for sections of the serial books, though the biggest problem is keeping the prices reasonable for each section. Stephen King pulled it off with The Green Mile’s serial publishing, but I’m not so sure I can pull it off with something that’s got a much shorter run. I’d more likely end up with a whole lot of copies of a fragmented books.
I’m hoping to submit the app before the Christmas shutdown, so that when the first of the year rolls around it will be available for download in the AppStore, GooglePlay, and a few other places.
Well, that’s the plan folks. Of course, there’s always reality that comes crashing down on top of any plan, so I’ll just have to wait and see what really happens 🙂
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr