Pie in the Sky

I wanted to talk a little bit about dreams. About how far you can go. About how far is too far. About what might hold you back. In essence, I'm talking about pie in the sky. 

I looked that phrase up just now, and I found two slightly different meanings. The first is an empty impossible wish, but the second is something that is not likely to happen--but is not impossible. I'm hanging my hat on that second meaning.

So now, what does pie in the sky--in either form--have to do with Patsy in Writer/Wonderland? Well, it's like this. Think Howey and Hoover, just to start with. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal talked about one Hugh Howey, who wrote a short piece about apocalypse and put it up on Amazon for, I think, $.99. Sort of like what I did on Monday, only 1/3 the price of my book. But that's okay--his was just a short story, or rather part of a story.

After a bit, he put a second part of the story up--maybe he upped the price, a bit--I can't remember. Anyway, a third followed, then a fourth, and finally, a fifth. And I think by that fifth installment, he was charging a bit more. And by that fifth installment, he had garnered a huge following! To condense his story, he condensed his stories--into one volume that he has titled "Wool" and that he's selling for $5.99. And he's selling 'em by the cartload. He's made a million simoleons, as my dad used to say. Traditional publishers are knocking his door down to take over his book, make paperbacks, hardbacks, movies, all kinds of media. And he has said, pretty much to everyone, no, my electronic publishing empire is not broken, it does not need fixing, so no, I'm going to keep taking care of that part of things. Now, I will consider selling the rights to the other media. . . And I think Mr. Howey has done that, garnering himself another cartload of simoleons. Good for him.

Then there's Colleen Hoover. Actually, Colleen came before Hugh, both in the alphabet, and chronologically in the publishing world. Before I tell you about Colleen, I must disclose the following: Colleen is the niece of my daughter's next door neighbor, and Aunt Jean Ann made my daughter aware of what I'm about to tell you long before most of the rest of the world knew about it. I want an Aunt Jean Ann in my life, for reasons that are about to become clear. 

Anyway, about a year and a half ago, Colleen Hoover decided to write a book--or perhaps she finished one that she'd been working on for a while. Or maybe it was the 31st book she'd penned since she was a romantic teenager. Whatever, she wrote a book, titled it "Slammed," and put it up on Amazon, like Hugh Howey, for a mere $.99. I don't think Colleen and Hugh were talking, but they both had the right idea. Colleen talked about her book (and so did Aunt Jean Ann, and probably every other member of her family and all her friends) on Facebook, in a blog (sort of like this one, actually) and wherever else anyone would listen (I don't know that last for a fact, but I'd bet my book sales on it). 

And pretty soon, there was another book up on Colleen's Amazon bookshelf (and that's actually what Amazon calls it. I have a bookshelf, now, too, though there's only one book on it), This was called "Point of Return," and people who'd bought "Slammed" and loved it now lined up to by "POR" (that's how Colleen refers to it). Then came "Hopeless"--that's the point that I hopped on her boat. I bought "Hopeless" for--I think--$1.99 or $2.99? Something like that.

And now Colleen's getting high six-figure advances from traditional publishers and she's doing all right for herself. If you want to know just how well she's doing, read all the way to the end of that article I added a link for up there. She's mentioned there--and Publishers Weekly lists her as their #2 ebook author for the first quarter of 2013. How 'bout them apples!

She said it (or something very like it) herself: never in her wildest dreams 18 months ago could she have imagined it'd go this far. Well, that's probably not quite true: she was probably dreaming pretty regularly about pie in the sky back then. The thing is, there actually was pie in her sky, and she's chowing down on a big thick slice of it even as I write this.

So can you guess where this is going? Yup! I think there's some more pie up there, enough so that I can have a slice of it, too. There's enough for Hugh, for Colleen, for the millions of other authors out there, and for me. That is, if everyone I know and everyone they know and everyone they know. . . . will buy a copy of my book, Awakening. And then a copy of the next one--which, by the way, should be out before I even get the first royalty check for this one! YAY!

I'll take a slice of blueberry, please--and yes, heat it up and slap a scoop of vanilla on there, if you don't mind. Mmmmmmmm.