Facebook flog - Oct 22 2013

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Oct 22 2013, 7:18
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's Facebook. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

New press release about my newest e-short story Shutdown. You guys downloaded it over 30,000 in the first day! Thank you, so happy I could share it with you!

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/best-selling-author-laurell-k-hamilton-extends-free-ebook-deadline-following-30000-downloads-in-first-day-of-shutdown-release-with-just-in-time-publishing-228640811.html

Article text:

Best-selling author Laurell K. Hamilton Extends Free eBook Deadline Following 30,000 Downloads in First Day of "Shutdown" Release (with 'just-in-time' publishing)

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the best-selling Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, has released "Shutdown," a new short story featuring Anita Blake, which she made free to readers for the duration of the government shutdown. Hamilton worked with the epublishing technology company Vook to deliver free ebooks directly to her audience. Hamilton wrote, edited, designed and released the short story, featuring characters from her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, published by Penguin Random House.

With production contributions from Hamilton's husband Jonathon Green, who also designed the cover, and the assistance of her agent Merrilee Heifetz with Writers House Digital Director Julie Trelstad, it took less than 72 hours to take advantage of this unique moment in American politics.

"Shutdown" features the recurring protagonist Anita Blake and series' regular Richard Zeeman, the bad-boy werewolf beloved by fans.

Hamilton used Vook's technology to quickly release a story to her audience and control the process, which made it easy for her fans to access the book, resulting in first day download numbers of more than 30,000 copies of "Shutdown." Hamilton has commented that, "This story is for all my readers who have been affected by the current political snafu--and for anyone else who might need to enjoy a free story in these difficult times." While the original plan was to withdraw the free story at the end of the shutdown, to celebrate the enthusiasm of her readers, and the government coming to its senses, Hamilton has decided to extend the free download until Friday October 25th. Hamilton stated, "I love being able to reward people with one more free week, and having a process that is flexible enough to do it."

"Shutdown," a new Anita Blake story, is available via Vook's free ebook delivery service at http://signup.vook.com/laurell-hamilton/

Comments

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, how many downloads in total so far?

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

And it was awful.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Hamilton wrote, edited, designed and released the short story, featuring characters from her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, published by Penguin Random House.

And it showed. Especially the edited part...

With production contributions from Hamilton's husband Jonathon Green, who also designed the cover, and the assistance of her agent Merrilee Heifetz with Writers House Digital Director Julie Trelstad, it took less than 72 hours to take advantage of this unique moment in American politics.

Maybe I'm just sensitive due to being part of the population actually affected by "this unique moment in American politics", but somehow the phrase "taking advantage" just seems wrong. Especially since LKH always talks about how big a fan she is of military and police. Is anyone else wondering if they also supplied the text of this article?

series' regular Richard Zeeman, the bad-boy werewolf beloved by fans.

I feel sorry for any Richard fan who got excited about this one.

While the original plan was to withdraw the free story at the end of the shutdown, to celebrate the enthusiasm of her readers, and the government coming to its senses, Hamilton has decided to extend the free download until Friday October 25th. Hamilton stated, "I love being able to reward people with one more free week, and having a process that is flexible enough to do it."

I wonder if this was at all spurred by comments in various places about the e-specials being way overpriced. I also wonder if she's maybe thinking about exploring publishing more of her own stuff like this.

[nialla]

I wouldn't doubt that she's looking into self-publishing. She's got enough name recognition and watching a train wreck appeal that enough people would buy it to make it viable, especially if she doesn't have to give a cut to one of the "Big 6" publishers. Would she even have to give a cut to her agent if she did it on her own?

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

Someway I find it hard to believe that she would be able to lift the weight of self-publishing>_> She would have to take care of her own promotion, deadlines and all that other stuff that she didn't have to even think about staying under the wing of a big publishing house>_>

[nialla]

That's what her minions are for. She's probably convinced she can churn out a book, and her husband and other minions can take care of promotion.

And I think from her point of view, the lack of deadlines would be a bonus.

[cherose228.livejournal.com]

Haven't posted here in a while.

I've been saying on the forums for at least the last 2 years that lkh is going to start self-pubbing and sooner rather than later. It's my belief that she owns a piece of BenBella after the ARDEUR debacle, and she's just found out how easy it is and how fast she can get something like this last piece of crap published WITHOUT having to worry about all of those PESKY craftsfolk that work for big publishing houses and who insist on her turning in a salable project ON TIME. If nothing else, BenBella would publish her although the contract money wouldn't be there, and royalties would be slow in coming.

If she self-pubs, she's going to have to do all of the publicity work, blog tours, signing trips etc on her own and on her own nickle - but that will be more than offset by the sheer amount of books that she could sell for $14.99 and for which she wouldn't need an agent. Saving that fee. Offset the amount of money that she could make but NOT having the cushion of the contract monies/royalties/overseas contracts/royalties might slow this process up a bit, but I don't think that it would stop her for very long. She's all about the money.

She's losing fan base and, while she's replacing some of it, she's not replacing it enough to justify a big house to keep on risking their reputation on an inferior product. AFFLICTION debuted at #5 and was completely off the lists a week later. With self-pub, she doesn't have to worry about that. She'd lose a bit of cachet BUT she'd sell books.

[nialla]

I'm thinking some of her promotion would be through conventions. Many of those pay her a fee to attend, so that's one less thing to worry about financially.

Cutting out the publisher and her agent would free up a chunk of money to spend on promotion.

She's definitely losing fanbase, but there's still the train wreck factor as well as the core base of True Fans.

I work at a library, and I wonder how much of her sales are to libraries where their patrons are now reading library copies instead of buying them. Libraries can be a big boost to initial sales. If she self-publishes, that might change, because some libraries can only purchase from certain vendors.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure what she "took advantage of" in the first place, as my understanding is that the story has nothing to do with US politics. I was really excited about it when I thought it did. Like maybe she'd actually produce some interesting commentary.

Nope. Never mind.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

Anita Does Congress?

All government employees on furlough mindfucked through Anita's new werepolitician inner beast?

At the end, all the Republicans and Democrats pair up and make out while Anite smugly sermonizes?

The Harlequin pay off the entire U.S. budget deficit?

Micah runs for president?

Be careful what you wish for...

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

...Anita shoves Hillary Clinton aside and proclaims herself the only viable candidate for the first female president in 2016, because she's already the werequeen of everything and clearly doing such an amazing job at that. Cue 500 pages detailing every politician and candidate, what they're wearing, and either their automatic and over-the-top (even for some of the more over-the-top Tea Partiers) misogyny toward her...or their blatant desire to fuck her. Or their oh-so-vanilla shock when she uses her poly relationship and were-everything as a campaign platform, and doesn't understand why everyone is baffled and disgusted that she would trot this out and flaunt it everywhere when it has no relevance to U.S. politics.

Oh, and obviously Anita's the better candidate over Hillary because Hillary's blonde and 100% white and therefore evil.

...

Fuck. I overthought this until I could actually see it happening. And now I can't unsee it. Damn it.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

This would be better than what she actually wrote... plus she would get bored describing people because they all have boring short hair.

You could also go with a shock/smear campaign when a candidate is exposed as a were-whatever - maybe not presidential but local-ish?

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

The problem with that is that her tendency toward cookie-cutter "sexy" weres would blatantly highlight the fact that the human population is, in her mind, a bunch of blank-eyed, drooling paper dolls. The candidate would have to be sexy, buff, with long hair and jewel-toned eyes. And let's not forget the ridiculous fashion sense. If his were-status was somehow supposed to be a big plot reveal, it'd be fucking revealed the second the started to describe him--and the collective reader facepalm would be heard 'round the world while people groaned "That's not quite how you do foreshadowing..." Not to mention we'd know by the second paragraph of description that he'll end up in the harem because having someone in local politics will build her power base. But the reason why it makes the general human population look like paper dolls without brains...well, therians are out in the open. And according to LKH, they all follow a certain template for appearance and style. The human brain is pretty much wired for pattern recognition, especially when those forming the pattern stand out from the general population. It's part of what fuels racist stereotyping and racial profiling, not to mention classism, etc. So people would notice that toned body + attractive face + ridiculous hair + weird eyes + overly elaborate and clownish clothing = therian, and anyone with therian prejudices would probably be leery of people who follow this pattern to start with even while being human. So it would stand to reason that the moment the candidate stood up for a stump speech or something, people would start whispering "Omg! Look at his hair and weird clothes! Do you think he's a weredonkey? Maybe a wereelephant?" (Badump-ching, awful political humor.) Or at least, people with some level of sense. But in LKH's mind, not a single one of them would have put together the clues from this pattern she's inadvertently created through painful author self-insertion, so everyone would be COMPLETELY shocked that the candidate is a therian. Wooden damned dummies with no brains, because the only person in the book with a brain and powers of observation must be Anita.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

And the story has nothing at all to do with anything governmental, or with Anita's job, or with anything other than jealousy and spite.

I don't think the story's free for another week because of the "enthusiasm of her readers." I think it's free for another week because her publishers won't touch it.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

This just makes my teeth grind.

[devilkitty0.livejournal.com]

As dreadful as the story was. The cover art was 100 better than the last several have been.

DK

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Gotta agree with you there. It was much more decent for reading in public than some of the book covers, so of course, it had to be digital and suck mudballs!! *headdesk*

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

I find it to be just another flavour of awful T___T I look at it and hear my design degree trying to set itself on fire.

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

http://www.prnewswire.com/

Its a pay site where you pay to have your press release sent out to 'targets' anybody can log in and do it. Akin to say...taking an ad out in EW or similar mag. Either somebody from LKH's household or her Agent put this out there.

Also shows horrid lack of timing, since Shutdown is no longer available as a free download. This should have been released the same day (or the day after) the story was put up for download

[sadsadmonkey.livejournal.com]

You guys downloaded it over 30,000 in the first day!

It's OVER 9000!