Sometime next year, there will be an ebook version of Spanner Book 1. I'm going to finish it during NaNoFiMo, but chapter 23 isn't scheduled for posting here till January 2011. After that, I'll edit it once more, possibly during NaNoEdMo, to make it much more coherent than the serial novel is even in its edited state. EdMo may be the perfect time to learn how to make an ebook out of a blog novel.
After I edit Spanner Book 1 into its final form, I'm going to convert the original HTML and/or Microsoft Word source into all the major ebook formats and then sell it online in all the big online bookstores. But I'll probably charge only $3 or so for it, and I'll go no higher than $5. Most publishers sell the electronic versions of their printed books at the same price printed on the paper books' cover. I don't believe in that. It strikes me as absurd because there's no paper, ink, type, and labor to pay for. It's the same kind of corporate absurdity that drives the record companies to price CDs higher than DVDs.
The work I'll have to put into the final edition will be more than just thinking things up, writing them down, and editing the resulting work, more than just the work of a couple WriMos and an EdMo. I'll need to choose the right fonts, design the page, and draw the illustrations. I'll have to turn the Book 1 cover I see in my mind (the Spanner tag on the front, a color illustration of Shira on the back) into something printable and eyecatching. And then I'll have to promote it relentlessly. I'll have to find some way to cause enough of an uproar that the novel will sell its way into print.
It won't be easy, to be sure. But nothing about Spanner has ever been easy. After all, I've been ripping my hair out over this thing for almost two decades; it's a miracle that any still remains on my head...
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