Post by Daniel I Russell on Mar 17, 2011 3:36:05 GMT -5
Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Let us begin.
A friend of mine tried his damn best to convince me that karma exists. I recall a drunken conversation about a guy we used to go school with. His parents were rich and they paid his way through school (how can you buy an education? It can happen...), and then I found we were at the same university years later. He was the only student to have a convertible sports car in the car park.
Oh, and I might mention he was a complete tool.
But my friend tried to convince me that his actions would catch up with him. Alas, they didn't.
What the hell does this have to do with a reading circle?
Forgive this blatant own trumpet blowing, but I was the associate and technical editor for Necrotic Tissue magazine and feel I helped many, many writers in my role there. We critiqued stories. We sometimes workshopped stories. We published (and paid!) many people. We wrote help columns to work on key skills in writing fiction. Basically this made me feel pretty good despite the hardwork. Writing is a community, like we're all working for the same company, just in different departments, and it felt good to give someone their first sale, or reject a piece only to have it accepted elsewhere after the writer took your advice. This happened a lot.
Trumpet blowing over.
Now I have this gap in my life now that NT is closed. How can I help my fellow author? The answer is obvious: buy and read their work. Tell the world.
Yet, going back to the guy I went to school with, I know writers that take and take. Constantly begging you to buy their book...and will happily sit back and take those sales. Yet there are writers who work so damn hard to help others, hoping that this will be reciprocated (again...some have the sense of community more than others) but do the work anyway. These are the writers I want to work with.
This is the reading circle, a place for writers and readers to increase their readership, increase their reviews and ratings, and, quite importantly, to increase their range of reading.
That's the plan anyway.
Reading circles will be arranged in groups of around 4-5 people, and each individual can nominate their own ebook if they are a writer (ebooks are more cost effective, but please, less than $5 ideally).
Each person buys the ebooks of their fellow circle members, thus each member generates 3-4 sales of their own work and has 3-4 new books to read. Members read each other's books and have the option to discuss these on the forum and review for Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
Everybody wins...if your book is to a good standard. Please have the thick skin required to deal with any criticism. This is the publishing world after all!
New circles will then be generated with new members, and so forth.
So please stick around to see if this works. To avoid arguments further down the line, please do not participate if you intend to spam the hell out the site with your own books, or aim to have members buy your work without you buying the books of others. This will lead to a ban and probably the tarnishing of your name (something that won't help with any future sales of your books!).
Interested? Then please let us know in the new member section.
A friend of mine tried his damn best to convince me that karma exists. I recall a drunken conversation about a guy we used to go school with. His parents were rich and they paid his way through school (how can you buy an education? It can happen...), and then I found we were at the same university years later. He was the only student to have a convertible sports car in the car park.
Oh, and I might mention he was a complete tool.
But my friend tried to convince me that his actions would catch up with him. Alas, they didn't.
What the hell does this have to do with a reading circle?
Forgive this blatant own trumpet blowing, but I was the associate and technical editor for Necrotic Tissue magazine and feel I helped many, many writers in my role there. We critiqued stories. We sometimes workshopped stories. We published (and paid!) many people. We wrote help columns to work on key skills in writing fiction. Basically this made me feel pretty good despite the hardwork. Writing is a community, like we're all working for the same company, just in different departments, and it felt good to give someone their first sale, or reject a piece only to have it accepted elsewhere after the writer took your advice. This happened a lot.
Trumpet blowing over.
Now I have this gap in my life now that NT is closed. How can I help my fellow author? The answer is obvious: buy and read their work. Tell the world.
Yet, going back to the guy I went to school with, I know writers that take and take. Constantly begging you to buy their book...and will happily sit back and take those sales. Yet there are writers who work so damn hard to help others, hoping that this will be reciprocated (again...some have the sense of community more than others) but do the work anyway. These are the writers I want to work with.
This is the reading circle, a place for writers and readers to increase their readership, increase their reviews and ratings, and, quite importantly, to increase their range of reading.
That's the plan anyway.
Reading circles will be arranged in groups of around 4-5 people, and each individual can nominate their own ebook if they are a writer (ebooks are more cost effective, but please, less than $5 ideally).
Each person buys the ebooks of their fellow circle members, thus each member generates 3-4 sales of their own work and has 3-4 new books to read. Members read each other's books and have the option to discuss these on the forum and review for Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
Everybody wins...if your book is to a good standard. Please have the thick skin required to deal with any criticism. This is the publishing world after all!
New circles will then be generated with new members, and so forth.
So please stick around to see if this works. To avoid arguments further down the line, please do not participate if you intend to spam the hell out the site with your own books, or aim to have members buy your work without you buying the books of others. This will lead to a ban and probably the tarnishing of your name (something that won't help with any future sales of your books!).
Interested? Then please let us know in the new member section.