Please be advised that:

I follow people totally smothered in Animalistic* Awesome Sauce and re-tweet them freely.

This can result in much licking of body parts as well as mention of sex toys and weaponry.

I recommend the use of neither of those.

If you believe that, I’ve got some beach front property in New Deal, Texas to sell you.

I don’t believe in organized religion.

Disorganized religion is way more fun.

You won’t convert me.

So stop trying already.

I cuss.

A lot.

F-bombs have been known to fly freely.

I promote my ebooks, web fics and other stuff regularly.

I’ll promote your stuff too.

Love me for that.

I have blonde moments.

Probably because I am blonde right now. Thank you, Clairol.

I commit the ultimate Twitter sin: I tweet about food.

I also tweet about my furry kidlets and show pics of them*.

I know, I’m such a rule breaker.

I like conversing with people.

I hate the non-word ‘conversate’.

I’ll spank you with my katana if you use it.

Hard.

I drink a lot.

By drink, I mean Dr Pepper and spiced chai.

Two of my characters also have Twitter accounts.

They don’t post regularly. They’re usually too busy fighting or fucking.

See? What’d I tell you? F-bomb!

I’m scatter-brained, so the slightest glimpse of…ooh, kitty!

* @tmycann forced me at whip point to add those. Swear she did. :p

This is my stack.

This is my stack on crack.

Watch a writer go insane

while Voices party in her brain.

I began *seriously* writing in 2007. Meaning, I started writing every day.

The above is 5 feet tall. Yes, the containers are full enough that I’m not sure how I’ll fit the loose stuff in them.

The scary thing? This is only the stuff I’ve written and haven’t typed up yet. I’ve cleared out all that I have typed up.

It seems I just keep adding to it.

Five feet tall. How many words is that?

The question was asked (paraphrased) : “Do you, as a writer, want to get paid for your work, or earn royalties?”

As a writer, I want to get paid. One of my ideas to achieve that is by releasing sponsored, CC licensed versions of some of my stories. They can be downloaded and shared freely once so licensed.

These are four very short stories I’d like to release in such a way:

All were previously published in Bytes (a short & flash fiction collection title of mine that is no longer available for purchase).

I’ve set the goal amounts for each based on 5 cents per word. Sponsoring them allows an independent author to get paid for her work (and pay some med bills!), and makes them free to everyone from the moment the goal amount on each is reached. They will be released in DRM free PDF format, available for download on my site(s) and Smashwords. They will not be released in any other fashion (as either an unsponsored version or as part of a future collection that requires purchase).

A $5 (USD) donation will get you listed as a sponsor in the ebook you select.

Ex. “Precious Illusions has been brought to you by the generosity of the following: (list of sponsors’ names; can be linked to your website/blog)

This is my chosen CC license:

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

cc by-nc-nd

If interested in sponsoring one or more of them, here’s how:

I appreciate your time in reading this!

Excerpts:

Another Adventure | It Was Necessary | Stay with Me | Precious Illusions

My intention has never been, even as a small child, to write without any return on my effort.

Writing is a career, and getting paid for doing it is part of it.

There are things we have to do to make a go of it, to build an audience, if we have no intention of going the traditional publishing route.

One of those things is showcasing our work in the hope of finding readers who will enjoy it. Readers that will become supportive fans, which of course will hopefully translate into ‘buyers’ for our story products.

We may choose to offer free stories for online reading, or free ebooks. People will bypass purchasing a book, regardless of its finished form, if they can’t thumb through or browse it in some manner, rather than plunking down a chunk of change for it, sight unseen.

I know this, because I’m a reader. I thumb through books at bookstores, and check out samples online before making the decision to buy any book.

‘Free’ doesn’t mean we’re releasing those stories to the wilds of public domain for people to use however they may feel they are entitled to.

Writing is personal. Stories come from our imaginations. The characters in them are our children.

We choose to share them in certain ways, but they belong to us.

Just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean we’re selfish, money grubbing hard asses.

It means that they are our creations and no matter how much or in what fashion we share them, they belong to us.

Not because of laws that say so, but because stories, art, photos, software and any kind of creation wouldn’t exist if someone hadn’t imagined it and then decided to create it.

That is the truth and something that, no matter how hard others may try, cannot be taken away from us.

Copyright infringement and illegal distribution can’t take that away. Plagiarism attempts to, but can’t.

Read more »

This is an intriguing idea, and here’s my opinions, plus the way I’d try to implement the idea.

Keep in mind I have downloaded mp3s from indie groups that have sponsors, thus allowing them to offer those mp3 files for free download, so I have had a brush with the concept.

I’d offer a limited number of advertising spaces for a fee, then release the title for free download, having been paid for my work and time in producing the ebook.

The idea being that anyone who downloaded it might go visit the advertisers (or should we call them sponsors?), and then purchase something from them.

Because well, if they didn’t, then I’d have more trouble finding sponsors for the next ebook, wouldn’t I?

And there’s the first con: showing a return on the sponsor/advertiser’s investment.

Will readers visit their links?

How will tracking be done to know that they are visiting from links in my ebook, so that the sponsors/advertisers know their investment is paying off?

Read more »