This post, by JA Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 8/27/10.
I’m loving the ebook revolution.
Obviously, I enjoy the money I’m making (close to $500 a day).
But it’s more than that. I’m able to do things I never could have done in the traditional publishing world.
Not only can I release ebooks when they’re finished (rather than waiting a year), and have much greater control over the content, cover, and title, but I can also play with the format and do new, interesting things.
With TRAPPED, I released two different versions of the novel in the same ebook download. The author’s version and the uncut version. It’s pretty cool to show fans all the stuff that was cut, added, and changed, and let them decide for themselves which one they prefer.
With SHAKEN, coming out in October, Amazon is also releasing a dual ebook. SHAKEN takes place during 1989, 2007, and 2010, and jumps around in time. I had a ball writing it, and showing Jack at various stages in her career while she chases the same bad guy over the course of twenty years. But along with the author’s preferred version, the SHAKEN ebook will also come with a linear version. If people want to read the book chronologically, rather than go back and forth in time, they can. And even cooler, it reads well in both versions.
Eager to romp in this new digital playground, I have two more projects that will be released in September.
One is secret, and I’m not going to mention the title or the subject yet. But I will say it is a horror novel. And I will say I’m writing it with three of my peers. Those peers are F. Paul Wilson, Jeff Strand, and Blake Crouch.
When I was working on TRAPPED and ENDURANCE, I followed the same formula as AFRAID. In nutshell, I took a handful of characters and dropped them into a terrifying situation, then followed each of their journeys as they fought an insurmountable evil. No chapter breaks–just direct cuts from POV to POV.
It occurred to me that I could write a book in this style with other authors, and it would be a snap. Instead of me writing every character on my own, each of us could control a character, and the book will follow each storyline until they all converge. It’s the exact same formula as AFRAID, TRAPPED, and ENDURANCE, except we can write it in 1/4 of the time, and it will benefit from four unique inputs.
Read the rest of the post on JA Konrath‘s A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog.