We recently received a press release for an eBook called Sparks from Simon Smithson, an Australian writer who is also a contributor and associate editor with The Nervous Breakdown. When I read his email I was intrigued with his latest project that aims to leverage the exponentially growing trend of digital books.
Will Entrekin, a writer, professor and personal trainer from New Jersey teamed up with Simon to compile an eBook with four short stories for a project that aims to sell 1,111,111 within 6 weeks at an extremely reasonable price of $ 0.99 each. A mission which seems very much accomplish-able considering rapid growth and vast reach of eBooks these days.
No wonder Sparks was able to crack the best-seller's top 50 for Kindle Short Fiction and Kindle Anthologies and top 100 Fiction Anthologies as well.
So here's what two very creative authors with a unique project aim to do:
"Sparks is the debut collection of short fiction from authors Will Entrekin and Simon Smithson, available only through the Amazon Kindly platform, from 12/15/10 - 01/26/11. Sparks is a collection of four pieces of short fiction, published by Exciting Books.
The sales concept behind Sparks is founded on the belief that with the rapid advance of new publishing paradigms, the audience for high quality fiction is already present, and already waiting for instant distribution. With million around the world able to update content immediately via Kindle, Sparks is a new kind of work for a new kind of readership.
It's also a new kind of challenge; the advent of e-publishing, and the establishment of a way to instantly disseminate new text to millions of readers, has the potential to put the sales of authors under the control authors, and allow authors to reach worldwide audiences in way that would have been impossible as short as a decade ago.
The goal of Sparks is to meet that challenge: in six weeks, our aim is to sell 1,111,111 copies, at $0.99 per copy.
In our first day of sales, we hope to sell 1 copy.
In our first week, 10. In our second, 100. In our third 1,000, our fourth, 10,000 and out fifth, 100,000 copies.
By integrating the reach of new media, the principles of social media (and social media marketin), and the in-place sales platforms of Amazon, iTunes, and other eRetailers, Sparks can be presented to an audience of million - if nothing else, this is an opportunity to see if less-established authors can use the new paradigm to match the sales number of best selling writers and old-school publishing houses.
Whether it can be done or not remains to be seen. What's for sure is that the game has changed; it's a brave new world and Gutenberg never saw this coming."
The stories in Sparks are:
Will Entrekin
Blues'n How to Play'em
Struck by the Light of Sun
Simon Smithson
LA
DC
I admit that I haven't read all the stories yet, but I did manage to read Simon's LA which kept me hooked on to the screen non-stop, a story about a flight journey and three strangers. But I'm sure that rest three will be equally interesting, will publish an update when I am done with them.
This project is a marvelous idea which clearly shows the creativity these two authors have put into it, by smartly understanding the current trend and putting their best foot forward. We hope that they are able to achieve their goal...rather we hope that they sell 2,222,222 copies instead.
If you wish to find some more of Simon's work, you can visit following links:
The Nervous Breakdown (Simon's archive)
You can find Will's work through following links:
The Nervous Breakdown (Will's archive)
Amazon (the self-titled collection)
Amazon (Meets Girl)
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