Let's talk about an Analytical Couch Potato EBook!

[gillian]

The other day, I suggested to Chalkey the idea of publishing an Analytical Couch Potato sample ebook on Kindle (https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin) for ninety-nine cents each!

One essay would be selected from each writer who would like to participate! We add a five hundred word introduction--"this is what Analytical Couch Potato is, here's our web site, give us a visit"--turn it into a pdf or doc file, and voila! An ebook!

It would need a title depending on the content, something like, "Analytical Couch Potato: 10 Essays from the Blogosphere Analyzing Entertainment as Art!"

1. The profits will be split evenly. No question. I am uninterested in any drama concerning money. If there are twelve writers and/or editors participating in the ebook's creation, then each person gets 8.25 cents each sent to their paypal account.

2. The essay chosen will be, based on either your own preference or the overwhelming preference of the rest of the staff, the best essay you've written for the blog so far. When the ebook is made available, the post containing it would be temporarily removed. Your name and, if you like, your email address, will be included with your article.

3. Rather than waiting for a publisher to show interest in the blog, I think it's important to test the waters ourselves. This ebook could be an experiment in finding how we can reach new audiences and eventually compile our content as a book. Chalkey has mentioned publishing in the past and, in my limited experience, publishers are very fond of innovative writers and editors.

4. Let's learn how to promote and publicize ourselves! We can post a link of the ebook to specific fan sites or to the Twitters of directors, actors, and writers whose work we feature and analyze.

5. Let's get our names our there and build a larger community and audience! Maybe we'll only sell to friends, family, and classmates. Or maybe we'll get professional interest. By releasing a short ebook for ninety-nine cents, there's also strong chance of impulse buys and further advertisement for the blog proper. It's a wonderful chance to take.

What do you all think?

[chalkey]

To clarify: the book in total will be 99 cents, right? I second the even split regardless.

With regard to the twelve writer comment, we probably won't have twelve writers who contribute, since our regular staff consists of seven writers (Emily notwithstanding for now). Perhaps we could each post two articles?

I'm also into the possibility of having the other staff members decide on a "best work" of the other person. Maybe we could even workshop the articles a bit before they go in... Pick the best two of each writer, workshop it, and then go?

All in all, I like this idea conceptually. Let's discuss more.

[gillian]

Yes, workshopping!

And I think it's all right if we just have seven articles. I imagine this will be more of a "get our names out there, draw attention to the blog" project, anyway. Overloading ourselves may not be a good idea.

[marten]

I am definitely in favor of this move. Essays picked should also be further edited, perhaps expanded upon. I'm mostly speaking for my own work, since I did a lot of stuff kind of on the fly

[nathan]

I'm down. I also think some process of having people choose each other's articles is a good idea. But we also need to make sure to balance TV, film, and video game articles and if possible make sure we cover a variety of genres. That way it will be a real "sampler".

[chalkey]

Okay, so things we've sort of agreed upon:

1. Each person, in whatever they submit for EBook, should workshop/edit their work.
2. Variety. Good.
3. One article per person ideally, but not necessarily.

How do we decide what gets in? I think we should nominate a piece for every author (possibly including ourselves), and discuss - picking our favorites of the things we wrote isn't necessarily a depiction of our best work, since most of the time we're bad at editing/reviewing our own work.

[melissa]

I'm all for this! I think this is a great learning and awareness expanding opportunity.
Add to the list of things to do a concrete timeline, though, that gives all of us with crazy schedules plenty of time to choose, workshop, fix, and eventually let go of the article.

How exciting!

[nathan]

The only thing that comes to mind immediately is Jonah's "Will They or Won't They?" article. I think that one is a must.

[chalkey]

I second that this is Jonah's best work and should go in.

[gillian]

I third Jonah's article.

[chalkey]

Here are some nominations for other articles:

Nathan: Visual Parallelism in Back To The Future/any feminist critique article
Gillian: When Child Prodigies Fall
Marten: Beast Wars characterization
Jonah: Will They Won't They (very likely, since it already has three votes)
Justin: I play Games Not Avatars
Melissa: Resident Evil/Resident Feminism
Me: Henry IV vs Harold and Kumar, Tommy Boy, Billy Madison

This hypothetical list would give us 3 television, 2 movie, and 2 video game articles. Nicely rounded!

If you guys are somewhat okay with it, I might like to have more than one article. Partially just to pull some "I started this, bitches" nonsense, but also to add some more variety. Perhaps one of my Nintendo articles would balance nicely with the Microsoft-heavy writers that usually do gaming. Although an introduction/foreword to the book could also solve this problem.

Finally, all of these should be edited and workshopped before publication, especially mine.

[nathan]

I am not at all proud of the Back to the Future article.

[nathan]

Okay: For Jonah, obviously "Will They or Won't they"
For Justin, I think Metal Gear Opera Blues, though I fear it may be a little too reliant on links
For myself, I really don't want that BttF article. I think its crappy. I would nominate Galactica, Tangled, or Scott Pilgrim.
Gillian - Terminator II
Marten - A Christmas Story
Chalkey - Pokemon as interactive narrative
Melissa - QNQRing the world through social gaming

As has been said before, all of these could benefit from editing.

[gillian]

If others are fine with Terminator II, than that's all right with me. I'll happily edit it, of course.

[jonah]

I second Scott Pilgrim for Nathan, and I think having one of our CHristmas posts in would be a nice balance, and Marten's would be good. If the Melissa article is the one I'm thinking of, also seconded for similar reasons - good variety.