Independent authors can use all the low-cost help they can get, including a basic professional formatting service to get their books ready for uploading to many major outlets. I thought I’d lend a helping hand.
If you need simple, professional formatting for your book (anything up to 25,000 words), I’ve started offering my services for $4.99. I aim to deliver your book as quickly as possible. Depending on my workload, you can even expect to receive your book back within 24 hours.
For this, you receive:
1. Two files:
Mobi (for the Kindle)
ePub (for the Barnes & Noble NOOK, Kobo eReader, iPad, Sony Reader, Bookeen Cybook Opus, iRiver Touch, Adobe Digital Editions)
The Disciples of Ink was
founded in 1546 as a secret society to advance the art of writing. Many of
history’s greatest writers covertly worked in our organisation and references
can be seen in their works.
The three witches in Shakespeare’s
Macbeth represent three harlots who turned down the bard’s advances during one
of our infamous Masquerade Balls. Mark Twain was notoriously bad with financial
matters, and based Tom Sawyer’s entrepreneurial trickery on one occasion where
we gave him the ‘privilege’ of painting our headquarters in return for an increased share
of his book royalties.
Even authors who were
denied membership based novels on us - Herman Melville’s Moby Dick drew upon
his anger at being left out and his unwise decision to spend the rest of his
life battling us. Others choose not to think of us as the giant white sperm
whale of the literary world, but as the real handle that turns the gears. Ernest Hemingway once put it best at one of our speakeasy book
gatherings:
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit
down at a typewriter and shed blood for The Disciples of Ink.”
Of course for obvious
reasons, our agents changed the accepted version of this quote to “There is
nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
What we do
This can be summed up quite
simply:
We guarantee the success of any book that is published by our members.
We pick our potential
authors based on their previous works and welcome them to our organisation. In
return for a 50% share of future royalties, our extended agent network guarantees
its success.
How? Now that would be
telling…Stephen King once asked too many questions about our organisation and…well
the less said the better.
Why reveal our existence now?
At our most recent
convention, one of our elders interrupted J.K Rowling’s reading of the last
meeting’s minutes to bring up an interesting point. With the latest advances in
independent publishing, the advanced state of social networking and increasingly
lax governance on private institutes, it would be foolish to spend more money
on maintaining a cloak of invisibility. Incidentally, the cloak of invisibility
in the Harry Potter books was inspired by technology that our agents use on a
daily basis.
That’s why we have
privately purchased Amazon and are discretely announcing our presence to the
world through this blog. We review every independently published book that is
published on the Amazon website, and are midway through plans to purchase the
remaining major outlets.
Congratulations.
Independent Authors: Be on
the lookout for a black envelope with our wax seal. That represents initiation
into our ranks and a better life for you and your books.
We shall leave you with a
parting quote from one of our most successful member authors so far this century, Stephanie
Meyer:
“I wish they would remove
Bram Stoker from the Ink Hall of Fame. Vampires are kinda meant to be my deal,
you know?”
The citizens of the United
States have been calling out for cheap healthcare, without having to worry
about the evils of ‘universal government programs’ and ‘helping fellow citizens
with tax money’.
The MedicAd Corporation
has proudly decided to step up and fill this gap left by the government and
insurance companies. No longer will you be turned away at the hospital gates
for medical insurance purposes. You can rest assured that the only patients we
throw out onto the street are the ones who hate freedom and compassionate capitalism.
Recently, we have acquired
a network of private clinics and hospitals around the country, where we
treat all known ailments and conditions. Everything from sprained ankles and
cosmetic issues to complicated neurosurgery procedures are treated by our
medical staff. We also offer a helpful ear to our patients with interactive artificial
intelligence chat functions.
Read on to discover what
it costs (or rather doesn’t cost) you.
Advertising Your Good Health
In our experience,
advertisements make the world go round. Apple could never have become the
pioneer of technology and Chinese workers' rights that it is today, without a
little help from Ridley Scott and his famous 1984 advertisement. You would
not be able to pry into the lives of people you don’t know on Facebook, if
Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t let various corporations pry into yours. The
advertising business model works wonders, and it is now poised to gift the
United States its greatest innovation yet.
Free Healthcare!
Using simple technology
and with the help of some of the largest marketing firms in the country, we
can wean you off your high medical bills & insurance premiums, and put you on a
healthy diet of targeted advertisements.
Here’s how the process works:
Take aim at your bills
1. Visit one of our
centres. We verify your details, take care of the legal mumbo jumbo (such as a full
liability waver) with an easy-to-understand contract and welcome you as a member
for free!
The MedicAd Screen BraceletTM
2. We attach one of our MedicAd Screen BraceletsTM to
your wrist. These light and comfortable screens are worn for the entire duration of your contract with us, and deliver targeted advertisements
directly to you.
More money for non-medical drugs!
3. Your future medical and
pharmaceutical bills at our hospitals and centres are completely free.
Simple!
The MedicAd Screen BraceletTM
Our
patented bracelets are no larger than an iPhone and easily fit on
your wrist. When you join us, our sales team will note your preferred interests
and appropriately beam exciting new advertisements for useful products and
services straight to you on a regular basis! In order to best serve your interests,
we ask you to adhere to these conditions:
1. Depending
on the amount of medical bills you have incurred, you must 'acknowledge' a set
number of advertisements per day.
Example code highlighted in red
This is done by viewing the advertisement,
noting the random 4 digit code generated and entering it on the number keypad. Example
advertisement acknowledgement numbers that we expect for treatments (please note that these
figures vary for each person):
No
outstanding visits: No extra acknowledgements necessary
Regular
checkup: 3 adverts per day for a week
Cold
Treatment: 10 adverts per day for a week
Breast
Implants: 50 adverts per day for 6 months
Heart
Surgery: 100 adverts per day for a year
Note:
Patients who fail to meet these targets once will be fitted with our ‘second
chance’ bracelet. These occasionally emit a harmless electronic shock when a
new advert appears, to remind the patient to view and acknowledge it, until the
day’s target is met.
Please
refer to the end of these conditions to understand what happens if this bracelet is
refused or a patient fails to meet ad-acknowledgement targets for a second time.
2. You
must not attempt to remove or deactivate the bracelet at any point. Any issue with it must
be attended to by a certified MedicAd representative (for maintenance / repair
/ any other purpose). The bracelet is tamper-proof and comes equipped with
sensors that alert MedicAd to these actions.
3. The
bracelet also tracks your daily movement. We only use this information to further tailor
the advertisements to your preferences. Therefore, please go about your daily
business as normal, without worrying that we will use any incriminating information against you in the future.
Breaking any of these conditions
will result in the immediate cancellation of your medical plan, and immediate court
proceedings for the sum of all medical costs incurred by the member to date.
Advertisers
We are always looking for
new advertisers to promote their businesses on our bracelets. Please contact us
to request a full brochure of advertising costs for types including:
Dark-O-Late Ltd was
started in 2012 by a retired British government worker who wanted to fulfil his
dream - share his grandmother’s delicious dark chocolate recipe with the world!
The heavenly dessert with
a trademark bitter aftertaste and numerous health benefits, dark chocolate has
found its way into the palates and hearts of millions. But at Dark-O-Late, we
go that extra mile by infusing our chocolate bars with more than just sugar,
butter and affordable labour.
The Base Ingredients
Our cocoa workers aim to please
We start with pure dark
chocolate, made from the finest Ghanaian cocoa beans. Many other companies
these days opt for ‘fair-trade’ chocolate made by workers who are paid a higher
wage. We set ourselves apart by not participating in this scheme, since we
believe in quality and trust that the free market will adequately reward these
workers if their chocolate is delicious!
Our bees aim to please
Then we add our healthy
sweetener - honey. While pesticides are being publically blamed for the recent
'mass extinction event’ of honeybees, you will be pleased to hear that this decrease in their population is actually due to our collection
efforts. We have captured and nurtured honeybees in our loving Level 3
industrial treatment facilities for years, all to serve you, the ardent
chocolate-lover.
Our mercenaries have perfect aim
Finally, this rich base is
seasoned with a bounty of mixed nuts - cashews, macadamia, almonds, brazil nuts
and walnuts all make the cut! These ingredients are sourced using the same
standards as our cocoa, with workers lovingly watched over by our
‘fun-mercenary’ (funcenary) teams.
Once these ingredients are
mixed together in just the right
quantities (our secret!) and hardened, our trademark chocolate bars are made!
Oh but hang on…
Where are our manners?
We’ve left out the most exciting part of our recipe! One more special
ingredient is added before the hardening process, giving our bars an
irresistible edge.
SF-8999
Our version of 'Green Energy'!
Our founder wanted to add
even more to the experience of tasting his secret family recipe. He managed to
synthesize a wonderful and safe new additive that gives our bars that extra
zing! By adding a mere 100ml of SF-8999 (nicknamed SUPER FUN 8999 by our lovely
cooks) to each large batch, our chocolate bars possess the following qualities:
A caffeine-like boost
without the addictiveness
Positive mood-altering
effects
Some media sources have also
affectionately nicknamed this chemical the ‘mind-control drug’. Hilariously,
one newspaper even stated that the actions of those who consume the chemical
can be controlled by an outside source with specific radio signal frequencies. How
funny is that?
By coincidence, some
people who have eaten our chocolate bars have gone on to attack the offices of our
competitors, left-leaning politicians and ex-employees who have attempted to
slander our good name. We assure you that the only ‘control’ we could possibly
exert over you comes from brand loyalty!
In fact, we argue that those
unfortunate events were carried out by normal customers who weren't brainwashed, but loved our chocolate bars SO
MUCH that they simply had to attack our opponents. We do not condone such
behaviour, but we do encourage you to buy our bars!
Special Offer: For every
chocolate bar that is purchased, 10 pence will be donated to the Chamber of
Commerce in a country of your choosing.
Gulag Publishers Inc has
been set up to introduce a dynamic new model of publishing, and adapt to the
growing popularity of eBooks.
We offer the full package
of eBook publishing services:
Our experienced
creative team will polish your manuscript, design a sumptuous cover, prepare a
beautifully finished version in all available digital formats and publish them
on every online retailer (and select large retailers).
Our dedicated marketing
executives will expertly package your book and sell it to a public that will come
soon come to adore you.
You won’t have to worry
about any thorny legal issues once your sales hit the stratosphere courtesy of
our world-class legal division.
The best parts?
1. We take any book,
regardless of length, genre or perceived quality by other publishing outlets.
2. While you can usually
expect to wait for years to publish your book through other major companies,
our guaranteed timeline from manuscript submission to publishing is two
weeks.
3. The entire service is
FREE!
Our Business Model or ‘What’s
the Catch?’
We do not take any
monetary compensation for our services. That’s a fact.
What we offer is a
mutually beneficial contract that helps our business grow. Not only will you sign
a lucrative publishing contract with us, but you also receive the opportunity to
freshen up your resume with a highly sought-after work placement at one of the
divisions of our growing corporation!
Gulag Publishers Inc is a
division of Gulag Mining Enterprises, a growing global force in precious metal
mining activities. We whisk you away to one of our precious metal mines and temporarily
employ your services as an unpaid worker. You will spend your days working in a magical environment
surrounded by sapphires, rubies, diamonds or gold, depending on the location.
One of our happy author/miners
Other benefits include:
Improved fitness and
coordination with the help of our mine supervisors
A chance to experience the
wonders of a new country for free!
FREE catering services1
FREE shared accommodation
with other aspiring authors
FREE protection gear and
equipment checks
FREE insurance against
mining accidents2
1 Our menu in currently
limited to two forms of low-protein gruel, but plans are being made to add
a third form.
2 Please note that the policy
is taken out against your name, with Gulag Mining Enterprises as the
benefactor.
How long will this internship
last?
Our fabulous accomodation
Your legal mining work contract
(some would call it an extended active vacation!) begins on the day we publish
your book, two weeks after you submit your manuscript. With our new flexible
model, it ends on the day your eBook makes a mere 1000 sales! After this, you
are free to go back to your loved ones and reap the ongoing rewards of your newfound
success as an author.
With our publishing team at work,
some authors have reached this target in as little as a week! Do not worry if it takes longer, you will be treated well at our mining facility.
Think about how exciting
this opportunity is:
A fast, free professional publishing
service
A free ‘working vacation’
A high potential for fast success
It’s no wonder that our
inbox is full of eager applicants.
(Light warning: Following
these steps might result in a few angry emails and bullets being fired in your
direction. Unfortunately, the popular saying “whatever doesn’t kill you makes
you stronger” only applies to the emails.)
Getting your book sales to
take off isn’t easy. Contacting reviewers, hosting giveaways, participating in interviews,
going free for a while, building connections on social networks and good old advertising
are basic methods used by authors and publishers to give their book a shot at
greatness. As with any other product, the results of these efforts vary
greatly. You can take two identical author twins, have them write the same
story and follow the same marketing plan, but there could still be a large
difference in sales.
What's the solution?
There are two schools of
thought. One involves authors attempting to manipulate the ‘butterfly effect’
by flying to a different country and killing a butterfly, in the hope that
chaos theory sets in and somehow results in more sales for their book. As
expected, this has produced mixed results and probably a few hurricanes.
The second, more effective
route is to use tactics that are frowned upon in public. Here are three tips, (not) guaranteed
to increase your sales figures!
1. Take hostages at a large book signing
Hugely popular ‘Young
Adult Author X’ is hosting a book signing at one of the largest bookstores
downtown. Hundreds, if not thousands are expected to turn up to grab a signed
copy of her highly anticipated epic about the post-apocalyptic love between two
vampiric zombies.
This is your opportunity
to orchestrate a lucrative hostage situation. Remember to follow the principles
of branding, by making sure that the name of your own book appears everywhere
during your gun-toting rampage. This could include:
Wearing custom clothing
that advertises your book, instead of a dark criminal outfit
Forcing ‘Young Adult
Author X’ to read the first chapter of your book and give it a glowing review
Talking to the negotiators
at length about your book, and agreeing to release a hostage if the police
announce details of your upcoming blog interview to the crowd
Demanding a million unmarked kindle
book sales instead of cash
Refusing to talk about
anything but your book at your eventual trial
You might spend the rest
of your life in prison, but we all have to make sacrifices as aspiring authors.
2. Start a gang of innovative pickpockets
Pickpockets in major high
street locations usually work by covertly relieving you of your valuables and leaving
nothing in return. You can strike a blow for their reputation and increase your
book’s readership by changing this model! After you hire and train a gang of
such thieves, give them cheap USB flash drives containing a copy of your ebook.
Instead of simply robbing their targets, your gang will replace the wallets
with these copies of your book.
The downside? Your book’s
name might become synonymous with theft and the ensuing rise in crime
statistics. It might be worth it if your book is associated with that genre.
3. Lobby for heavy sanctions against nations where your
book isn’t selling well
If you have the
appropriate connections to get this done, then you’re probably rich and
important enough to explore better avenues of promoting your book.
Nevertheless, even if you
choose this path and the sanctions don’t go through, you can be sure that your
book will at least get extensive media coverage. Most of it will be in the form
of angry protestors burning effigies of you, but any publicity is good
publicity. Right?
Good luck and let me know
how this strategy works out for you! Suggestions and additional methods are
always welcome.
Financial organisations
have stolen a rather large share of the negative limelight in recent years.
Other prominent self-styled supervillain entities such as Monsanto and Academi / XE / Blackwater / Pointless-Name-Change-Number-4000 are probably ecstatic at the
temporary lull in scathing media coverage.
Meanwhile, helpless
entities like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are being ripped apart by the public.
Their only meagre consolation is that they are in bed with regulatory agencies
that will never bring them fully to account for their actions, but what good is
that? Once you lose the love of the public, it will take more than buying your
3rd yacht to console you.
This witch hunt has also brought
out some unfortunate bloopers by these financial firms. Let us look at the top 4 and take note on how
to avoid such PR no-nos in the future.
"After
tax, that’s like, what, $75,000?" an investment banker at a rival firm
said as he contemplated Morgan Stanley’s decision. He ran the numbers, modeling
the implications. "I’m not married and I take the subway and I watch what
I spend very carefully. But my girlfriend likes to eat good food. It all adds
up really quick. A taxi here, another taxi there. I just bought an apartment, so
now I have a big old mortgage bill."
Don’t get me wrong, I spat
out my caviar myself after reading about these capped bonuses. However, talking
about your plight if you’re a banker in this current climate is unwise. Once
this economic mess dies down, you can start negotiating a better pay packet and
not have to suffer the horrors of public transportation or women who date you
for your personality rather than your wallet. Hang in there.
3. Champagne Supernova
During the Occupy Wall
Street protests, bankers were caught 'toasting' the protestors with champagne from
the balcony.
Of course some people
decided to take this as a sign of arrogance, rather than what it really was -
hard working bankers inviting them in to the building for a party.
If you’re a banker, you
can avoid this by holding these parties in private secluded locations. It would
also greatly help your company’s image if you were to donate your champagne
surplus at the end of these events to the local orphanage.
2. Holy Avenger
Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO
of Goldman Sachs and revered Captain of Industry,
made a well-publicised blooper in 2009 when he declared that his bank was doing
“God’s Work”.
Critics might argue that god’s
work might consist of more than just misleading investors about the value of
stocks and then secretly selling them behind their backs, but this can be
disproved with a simple handy quote from the Bible:
Leviticus
25:14
"If you sell or buy property from one of your countrymen, don't cheat him…”
..wait that wasn’t it,
here’s the right one:
Colossians 3:23
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not
for men.”
Ah
there we go. He truly was doing god’s work. But the next time, it would help to
carry around a holy book and back up your statements with ancient wisdom.
1. Didn’t you get the memo?
A delightful letter was
thrown at the Occupy Chicago protestors. In it, the bankers calmly stated that they needed jobs too and if Wall Street
was put under any more pressure, they would have no option but to steal
the jobs of teachers, landscapers and other lower income workers. Here’s a copy:
“We are Wall Street. It’s
our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some
hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball
cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market
was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like
gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to
Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.
Well now the market
crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and
the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be
one for everything. Well, here we are.
Go ahead and continue to
take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen
when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take
yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not
getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a
lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We
eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates,
we’ll eat that.
For years teachers and
other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice.
Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing
landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a
year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the
youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll
be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer,
thank you very much.
So now that we’re going to
be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his
revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car,
we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No
more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash
our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You
spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.
The difference is, you
lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic
National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid,
but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land
directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.
We aren’t dinosaurs. We
are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The
question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet
our food supply…will he? and will they?”
Poor people should heed
this message. After all, it has been scientifically proven that only
bankers are capable of waking up at 5 in the morning (Kids at home: Do not attempt this dangerous feat).
Nevertheless, the Chicago
bankers made one mistake, and that was to reveal their plans to the enemy. Instead
of secretly stealing blue collar jobs and cutlery, their scheme has now been
widely read by the public. Does a poker player show his/her cards before
burning the host’s house to the ground? NO. Come on!
Anyway, this concludes our
brief roundup of banking PR disasters and how to avoid them in the future. Stay strong and
consider cutting back to 4 vacations a year, the industry still has a storm to
ride out.
I want to launch a pre-emptive strike and clear up a misconception that could arise among potential readers.
I am not the popular Batman supervillain Ra’s Al-Ghul, trying to sell the secrets of my life under an assumed name.
Very few people (zero) have been blackmailed and assassinated so far on my journey as an author.
Just to re-iterate, buying the book won’t result in a wacky Armageddon scenario, unless of course you decide to follow the advice and make it work for you.
I’m sure that at some
point or the other, you have considered what it would be like to rule the world.
I mean, what sane individual hasn’t?
Supervillain: The Concise Guide is a book that caters to these thoughts by offering you a foolproof way
of fulfilling this fantasy. There are no downsides to following the advice in
the book as a grown adult, no sir-ee.
Anyway, I’ve launched this
blog to try and stir up some publicity for it. It only weighs in at around 26,000
words, so hopefully it’ll provide some entertainment on your occasional lunch
break. I’ll also occasionally throw in my other thoughts on various subjects, including
the daily journal of a cat that is growing sick of its master’s efforts to take
over the planet.
