Thursday 17 March 2011

Authors for Japan

There have been some incredible reactions from the creative community to disasters in recent years, and the unfolding tragedy in Japan has been no exception. I want to give a particular mention to two fantastic projects.


First is Authors For Japan, brainchild of Keris Stainton. This an incredible collaboration featuring 175 donations and counting from authors, publishers, agents and editors all up for auction (closing Sunday) - please look around - there are some stunning things up for grabs from signed editions to having a character named after you in a bestseller to mentoring from professional agents. And you can even bid for something of mine HERE. I'm offering a signed copy of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes, the original cover art, hand drawn, AND an eight cuts gallery free entry for life pass.


Second, put together by the wonderful Frankie Sachs and Sessha Batto, is the New Sun Rising Stories for Japan anthology, which is looking for submissions until April 11th - if you write, please consider submitting something.




A lot of wonderful people are giving royalties. I am always nervous about doing that. I would hate anyone to think I was doing it for publicity, or for long-term personal gain. But in this instance, there IS something I can do. The MAn Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes came to life in the open forum of a Facebook group, so the idea of charging for it at all makes me rather nervous - but giving royalties to charity (the British Red Cross Tsunami Relief Fund) feels appropriate. Add to that the setting of one of the threads in Japan, and the fact that the whole thing is influenced heavily by manga, and the works of both Harui and Ryu Murakami, and it feels like the perfect book to use. So, I have raised the price to $2.99 (meaning each sale will gain the fund about $2), and will be donating all royalties for a year (and probably in perpetuity) from sales of the book and paperback.





6 comments:

  1. You are amazing!

    There's 178 now. My email back from her got eaten by a spam filter, hence the delay, so I'm number 177.

    I also felt odd about tying it in any way to my book (in case of increased sales). We're probably both being a bit over-sensitive about that, but it didn't sit well with me either, so I offered something different - I'm donating a book trailer.

    I was going to argue against what you were doing here (in terms of ALL royalties) but, having read your reasons - collaboration, location and so forth - it seems so apt. It's a wonderful thing to do.

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  2. I'm going to write a longer piece about it - I've completely divorced Aggie from my other bnooks - and also made the royalty donation in perpetuity - one of the things about Kindle is the more you sell the more you sell - so doing something for a limited time will benefit the long-term for the book, which would leave a bad taste.

    I'm keeping an eye on the price of your trailer :)

    Yes, Aggie was always about open source - not making money form her is good. Also, one of the main POV characters lives in Kobe and was affected by the earthquake, so this is appropriate

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  3. Dan, you are a wonderful human being and you make the world a better place. I am glad to know you.

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  4. How generous of you, Dan! I'll be helping out by spreading the word. :)

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  5. Frankie, none of this would have happened without you. I am hoping to figure out how to import Matt's fantastic banner/button over the weekend

    Mari, thank you so much - and do contribute something to Frankie's fantastic anthology.

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