I’ve been putting off posting for longer than I’ve been putting off “finishing” and/or finalizing (really just: putting in the main location) the new design I’ve been working on for the Modern Evil Press website. You can see it now at http://prose.modernevil.com, although after a time it will replace the silly mutant green thing at plain old modernevil.com… but I’ve been putting that off. Supposed to “publish” the E-Book editions of my novels in “02/2008” according to the current information I’ve submitted to Bowker (yes, they all have ISBNs)… that’s what I put down when I put all the information into Bowker’s system, back in January. The PDF versions were all done that week, then I fought twice as long with trying to create plaintext versions and gave up, and then I started fighting with trying to create HTML and Kindle (nee: Amazon) versions for a few days and then … well, then I stopped trying for a while. So right now you get … the new version of the web design (still needs a little polish, a couple edits here and there, but if you’re too distracted by the general design philosophy (which is to say, if you don’t know what KISS is an acronym for, and/or you believe that cutting edge interactivity design, fancy graphics and AJAX are the bare minimum for a website to succeed) to realise that this version does exactly what it needs to do (nothing more, nothing less), you won’t care about the small revisions I have in mind), links to several online stores where you can order paperback versions of my books, free PDF E-Books of the full text of all my novels, and … uhh… a brief bio of me, with links to some of my web (2.0) presence.
Eventually, I’d like to have the HTML versions right there alongside the PDFs, and if I can get a computer in the house to do it, maybe plaintext versions. Not sure if linking to Kindle versions makes sense, but a mention of them if I get them online, plus to where the E-Books can be purchased for money (instead of just getting the same thing for free) – perhaps on Amazon directly, but I’ll look into that later… I don’t really feel like putting together my own, redundant, online store for E-Books. Oh, and if I finish up a few other projects currently in my way (read: literally in my way, the projects are cleaning and sorting things and getting the piles of stuff off my desk so I have something other than the couch/lap configuration to work at), plus buy a new microphone (I’ll try my old one, but it appears time has … diminished it to less than quality), I’ll start recording audio versions of my books. Which I will give away for free as something akin to podiobooks, as well as sell on (probably hand-made) MP3 and/or audio CDs. So … yeah, won’t have to do much to add those options to the new site design, just add a link here and a link there as different editions and versions become available. At least, that’s the plan.
Haven’t done much about it this month. Haven’t touched the site, worked on HTML layouts, or even started re-arranging book-shelves. bleh. Ooh, if we’re on that vein, haven’t written any fiction, either. Haven’t painted in … months. Maybe over 6 months. Long time. Haven’t been posting here; probably lost you as a reader a while ago, on account of I don’t post much, and when I do it isn’t interesting. Fine. Have you been reading my Pownce? I’m not very active there, either, but I’m using it a bit for micro-blogging, and it’s “public” now. Certainly use it more than twitter. bleh, twitter.
Gotta get off my ass, gotta get things done. The tax refund coming helps with that, some. It was easy before to say I couldn’t do this because I couldn’t do that because yadda yadda money. Everything can go that way; this, that, can’t,: money. Can’t go around in person to independent bookstores and try to sell them my books because I don’t have any books on hand in the format the book stores can order (I have a BUNCH of my old CafePress books), because ordering enough books to do that with costs money I can’t afford to spend. Don’t bother to finish writing another book or even edit my short fiction of late because I can’t afford to publish another book, and even if I did, that’s just another book I can’t afford to try to sell into book stores. Or do marketing for. But that one’s easy/short: I can’t afford to do/buy marketing for one/any of my book(s). Period. Takes money to make money, right? Well. Don’t got none. But, tax refund bought the ISBNs and the first couple book setups last year, and it’ll lubricate some forward motion again, this year. (Although about half of it ought to go directly into emergency/savings, because we have none.) So… we did our taxes, filed electronically, got accepted in about half a day, and should be getting our refunds electronically in the next week or so. So I’m starting to feel a bit more… motivated. A bit more like things are possible.
Looking at the money (mentally), I feel a real responsibility to use it wisely, carefully, prudently. To get the most positive effect for Modern Evil Press with the money available to it. So my wheels are turning. Any ideas?