Hard to believe it's been nearly five years since I first published an ebook. Is it easier to believe that I've made almost nothing on that poem? I've earned more money writing about teaching preschool than from the best 10,000 syllables I've ever composed.
Some of you know what I'm talking about. Some of you don't and it's all my fault. I've let myself shrivel as a creative writer. The business has beaten me until I've almost given up. But I won't give up.
Cathartes Aura and the Apocalypse Zoo is the post-apocalyptic story of a zoo on the day no one showed up, narrated by a captive turkey vulture. The story is built of one hundred ten-by-tens. That's 10 syllables per line, 10 lines per stanza, 10 stanzas per chapter and 10 chapters in all for a total of 10,000 syllables. Yes, I counted them all several times.
Step one of my rebirth is rereleasing things I've already written. When I first published Apocalypse Zoo, I didn't include a page break between each stanza. Smashwords strips them out anyway. Therefore, when you read it on your device, you will probably get more than 10 lines on your screen. It's difficult to consume one stanza at a time that way, which is how it was intended to be read.
I just reformatted it to have only ten lines per page. I resubmitted it to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Cathartes-Aura-Apocalypse-Zoo-Eighty-ebook/dp/B004YTSUQY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453358205&sr=8-1&keywords=cathartes
As you flip through the pages on your device, you should get ten lines at a time. The whole piece should be easier to grasp that way.
Please buy it and read it. $2.99 is as cheap as I can sell it on Amazon. I keep 70%. You'll spend $3 on less valuable things this week, I'm sure.
This poet is rapidly heading toward a future where his kids wonder whatever happened to his dreams. Help me achieve my biggest one.
Coming very soon, the sequel: Cathartes Aura on the Road from Nowhere. Also reformatted. Then Inside the Skull of David Priest and The Cheshire House will get some new noise. Growing at the Sun also needs to become an ebook.
Then I need to look into print-on-demand and get them printed in the real world. Who has some POD advice?
I want those books to start doing something for me. Then I'm getting back to work writing fiction. I haven't been myself lately. I miss being constantly exciting about building characters and crafting plots. Those things never leave my head once I get working on something. They haven't been in my head for a long time.
I'm tired of being shy about self-promotion. No one does it for me. So please, buy the book, read it and share it.
http://www.amazon.com/Cathartes-Aura-Apocalypse-Zoo-Eighty-ebook/dp/B004YTSUQY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453358205&sr=8-1&keywords=cathartes
The writing is precise. It's exactly 10,000 syllables. How could it not be precise? It's physical, forceful and sensory. It's narrated by a soaring scavenger. You've read nothing like it.
Three bucks.
Thank you.
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