I’ll make millions!

Oh wow. There I was, drinking a Goose Island IPA, and I realized: this is going to be really easy. Bear with me a moment and I’ll explain. And hey, seriously pay attention this time: you can make millions too.

I started thinking about book length when Mark Coker from Smashwords put up a post that claims readers prefer to buy longer books. Especially, I’ll go out on a limb and guess, if they’re sold at the same price as shorter books.

Well, fine. But Dean Wesley Smith, among others, argued that a writer ought to just tell a story, and discover how long it is at the end. This set-length thing is a quaint relic of a bygone age.

Fine! I believe both of those guys. But here comes Anne R. Allen claiming short is the new long.

Well…okay, I believe her too! All three of these people obviously know what they’re talking about. So…crap. What now?

Clearly I need to write a bunch of short stuff, without choosing to write short stuff, ’cause that would destroy my intrinsic artistic purity if I ever get any. But anyway I need lots of product moving out the door as fast as possible. And I can do it!

In a word: haiku. It’s not my fault if it’s short. And I proved with Pagan Sex that I don’t mind strangely contorted plots. (Hey. I said plots. If Wil Wheaton can get away with writing about a c–slick zamboni in paragraph 5 on his blog, don’t get mad at me for this PG stuff.)

This will be awesome. I can probably commoditize the haiku bit, which in this case is geek-speak for “generate with software” but don’t worry about that part too much–it’s just an implementation detail–I mean, how could a haiku be provably wrong or bad or dumb? It’s all about the preconceptions of the reader, right?

So okay. Let’s talk preconception. Everybody knows ebooks rise or fall based on cover images and snazzy blurbs, right? We can agree on that? Good.

All I need now is to tell you guys about it. You, Faithful Readers, can join me! Here’s the deal:

1. I’ll write or otherwise produce the haikus. (Even if “haikus” is a word, it shouldn’t be, but let’s pass on.)
2. You’ll shell out money for the cover images and either produce or hire somebody to write blurbs. You know, nice long descriptions that tell readers how to properly appreciate the content they’re about to buy.
3. Profit!

I figure, since I’m the main content creator in this here gig, you folks will be happy to pay me a percentage of your ever-bloomin’ royalties.

There are a few hitches in the scheme. I mean, we need to make sure the free samples Amazon and other retailers make available don’t include a haiku. Boy, would that be embarrassing. But I figure nice long description/blurbs, sort of written to sound like the kind of thing people who like to pretend they like wine say about wine, will fix it. Heck, this paragraph would be long enough. How hard can it be, people? I’m a beer guy, so I can’t do it, but that’s what you’re for. Right?

Once we all get going, we’ll have a meme. Probably start trending on #twitter. I don’t see how we can fail!

And this is going to be so much easier for me than writing novels.

I think I’ll open me another bottle. This one, I’ve earned.

Oh yeah: You’re welcome.