Reconnoitering Kindle Scout. Resurrected Post.

September 20, 2015

Reconnoitering Kindle Scout

I’ve written before about the slender paperbacks popular in the 60s and 70s. They no longer make financial sense in today’s publishing market. Not in print, at any rate. But it seems to me they are admirably suited to e-readers. Digital is the new pulp.

When checking up on the status of my book sales on Amazon (who, me obsessive?) I discovered that Amazon was promoting an experimental new publishing model called Kindle Scout. The gist of the program is that readers can help choose which books get published by reading sample chapters and selecting which books they wish to read in full. Readers whose selection is chosen for publication receive a free copy. A nice incentive, I think. It isn’t precisely a democracy, Amazon retains the final choice. But it is an intriguing model.

 

I’ve also noted before my appreciation for Elmore Leonard. Sometime back I asked myself what the result would be had Elmore Leonard written a fantasy. Sadly, that will never happen. So to come anywhere near an answer, I’d have to write it myself. And I did, creating “Thick As Thieves.”

I had a good time writing “Thick As Thieves,” though at times I engaged in internal disputes over whether or not to employ a Leonardism for certain phrases. There is a balance to achieve between slavish imitation and appreciative evocation. It is my hope that I struck the right tone. The final result, however, did not reach the minimum word count most print publishers request. And that brings us to digital being the new pulp, and to Kindle Scout. See, I was going somewhere with this all along.

I turned in my submission package a few days ago. Kindle Scout is, if nothing else, prompt. “Thick As Thieves” began its thirty-day selection period today at Midnight. Please check out the sample on the Kindle Scout site and click the “Nominate Me” button if you want to read more. The link is here. https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/106TNIFG17ZG2

Happy reading.

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