Shawn's Book on Kindle
I have given in.
Finally.
Today the Amazon Kindle version of Song of the Fell Hammer went live. It is $2.99.
Song of the Fell Hammer was my first attempt at a novel and like many debut books it is wordy. The book is near 200,000 words. As a reference, the average novel length today is 90,000 words with fantasy novels usually being closer to 105,000 words. In other words, you'll be getting a lot of words for the price!
That might not be a good thing. Ha!
I decided to do this for one reason. Not for vanity or money or prestige. A lot of Terry's fans over the last three years have asked that I publish Fell Hammer for them to read. A lot of his fans when he is on tour ask about it. I think it is a good solid book, not great by any stretch of the imagination as it was my learning book. But those people have asked nicely and how can I say no to readers?
After all, I write for myself but I also write to be read.
I will say this. The first few chapters are fairly slow. But once through them I think the story takes off quite nicely.
If you have Adobe Reader, you can read for free the Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two and Chapter Three of Song of the Fell Hammer by clicking the links.
If you have a Kindle, click Song of the Fell Hammer to download it!
And yes, I am thinking about offering this as a .PDF download. Just have to figure out how to make that a possibility where no or limited theft will take place.
Have questions? Just ask.
Finally.
Today the Amazon Kindle version of Song of the Fell Hammer went live. It is $2.99.
Song of the Fell Hammer was my first attempt at a novel and like many debut books it is wordy. The book is near 200,000 words. As a reference, the average novel length today is 90,000 words with fantasy novels usually being closer to 105,000 words. In other words, you'll be getting a lot of words for the price!
That might not be a good thing. Ha!
I decided to do this for one reason. Not for vanity or money or prestige. A lot of Terry's fans over the last three years have asked that I publish Fell Hammer for them to read. A lot of his fans when he is on tour ask about it. I think it is a good solid book, not great by any stretch of the imagination as it was my learning book. But those people have asked nicely and how can I say no to readers?
After all, I write for myself but I also write to be read.
I will say this. The first few chapters are fairly slow. But once through them I think the story takes off quite nicely.
If you have Adobe Reader, you can read for free the Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two and Chapter Three of Song of the Fell Hammer by clicking the links.
If you have a Kindle, click Song of the Fell Hammer to download it!
And yes, I am thinking about offering this as a .PDF download. Just have to figure out how to make that a possibility where no or limited theft will take place.
Have questions? Just ask.
Labels: Shawn C. Speakman, Song of the Fell Hammer, Web Druid
posted by Shawn C. Speakman | 3:25 PM
5 Comments:
Not to be cruel, just genuinely curious: how long did you try via an agent/publisher?
PS - kudos to Terry for letting you post this item on his site.
Cecrow: Song of the Fell Hammer made the rounds in New York. It was ready by 11 or 12 agents and 2 editor in chiefs. They all passed on it. 3 or 4 of them all said the same thing:
1) Too long.
2) Epic fantasy is over-saturated in the market now. Do you have an urban fantasy or paranormal romance?
I suspect it also had to do with it being my first book and being overly wordy, something that irks editors who are always short on time. The book needed loving hands to direct it to what it should be and no one would take the time to make that happen.
I don't blame them. Now that I've written The Dark Thorn, I see how a book should be. The Dark Thorn is tight. I make every word count in it. That just wasn't true in Fell Hammer.
And as for Terry, I don't know if he is okay with it or not, to be honest. But he hears enough about my own writing from people on the road and I doubt he'd have a problem with it. If anything, he'd have a problem with me posting my book on Kindle for basically free. haha
Shawn,
For a PDF file to be sent out to
people, you could create a paypal
Account. While I am highly interested
in finally being able to read your
book, I do have either the money or
Desire to invest in a kindle.
I would however be happy to, through
Paypal, pay a paltry 4 or 5 dollars
for your work. I think a paypal account
Would work. They supply you your
asking price for your work and email
And you can supply them with a pdf via
their address upon receipt. Pretty
quick and easy. You get paid and limit
shortchanging yourself by just
Putting it online somewhere. Just
food for thought.
Adam: I have a PayPal account, sir. I do run The Signed page, ya know. haha
The question isn't about delivery. It's about protection of my work. A .pdf is easy to pass around for free and as a creative person that rubs me the wrong way.
I may offer it as an espresso book machine paperback book at one of the local bookstore. More on that later.
I wonder how long 'too long' is these days, when we have Goodkind, Jordan, Erickson (especially him!), etc setting all these "bad examples" ...
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