So two days after asking people for guest posts and I've gotten over a hundred.
Unless I stay on hiatus for a year, I'll never be able to post all of these. I doubt I'll even get to post 1/3 of them, and they keep coming.
This is unfortunate, because there is a lot of good information in these posts that writers could benefit from.
Which got me to thinking about the obvious solution: These should be compiled into an ebook.
Over one hundred ebook authors writing about their personal publishing journeys. We'd all want to read that.
I don't have the time, or the energy to do such a project. The compiling and editing would be a nightmare. Plus, there's no way to split royalties on a $2.99 ebook among 150 authors. Sending monthly paypals to 150 people for 8 cents each is ridiculous.
That said, it would be a shame if all this info wasn't available.
So I had an idea. I called up my ebook designer, Rob Siders of 52 Novels, and asked if he'd be interested in compiling this collection.
Rob told me he was interested. Here's how we'd do it:
I'd write the intro, and put a few pieces in there, so it would be an ebook edited by J.A. Konrath & Rob Siders. So far, no one has written the definitive tome on ebook self-publishing. This could be it.
Rob does amazing work, and he's going to put in dozens of hours on this project, and he deserves to be paid. I'm not going to pay him, because I'm not going to make any money on this. I'm just the figurehead.
So this is my proposal. I think this ebook should be priced at $2.99, and Rob keeps the money.
If you're a writer who sent me a guest blog, I'm sure part of the reason you did it was to reach my readers and publicize your ebook.
An ebook collection would work in the same way. You get the exposure and links to your titles, Rob gets paid for the untold hours he has to put in, and I don't have to disappoint anyone.
I don't pay people for guest blogs. And I've always allowed people to repost my blog entries on their blogs (or in their how-to books) for free, so I'm not asking you for anything you weren't already willing to give away.
I'll make zero money on this, but my name is pretty well-known, so you'll get your article in front of a lot of eyes. Your article, plus links to your ebooks and your websites and blogs.
Rob would be asking for non-exclusive rights, meaning you could use your piece elsewhere, and you could have it taken out of the collection at any time.
What do you folks think?