Squish is a screen-novel. Or a screenplay, written as a novel. Martha's dad tells her the story of The Bestest Squish in the Whole Wide Universe as she sits at the end of his bed. The story is so lovely it starts her on a quest to find that squish for real.
All eBooks can be read on an array of devices. If you haven't got an eReader or a Kindle, then you can download the Kindle software for FREE to your PC, Apple, iPhone/iPod Touch,iPad, Android Phone (HTC etc) and Blackberry phones. To buy books you'll need anAmazon account.
I love both. There is a place in the world for eBooks and treeBooks, if you ask me. But with 'Squish' about to be released on Monday (it's currently in the tunnels under Amazon searching for the throne room) I've now completed enough experience as a writer to review the difference between the two from the creators perspective.
The verdict is: eBooks could change everything...it's just a shame we have to wait for the technology to catch up with us!
That may be a strange opinion to have...after all, busy people on trains are carrying around 150 books in one nifty bit of tech...that is surely progress. Yeah, but the analogy doesn't work because hardly anyone has to carry around a bookshelf full of books on the tube.
The fact remains, reading is something people do on their own, in quiet places. So the writing of a book for electronic formats should still be considered a private conversation that entertains and stimulates and enchants. As writers, that's the easy part. We tell stories all the time anyway and spend our time tapping at keyboards all alone. But with the arrival of eBooks we've reached a new place where the stories can be enriched with additional content. Yes, lots of eBooks have links to websites and additional content in them (Charles Yu's 'How To Live Safely In A Science-Fictional Universe' is a prime example).
The idea/geometry of Squish popped into my head last year. I was going to write it as a straight screenplay, because the the visual markers required to tell the story would make it less complex in the telling; then spend the usual fortune on sending around to agents and whoever else I could think of do buy it.
I wrote the idea out on a big piece of paper stuck to a wall in the shape of the story arcs and pondered it. When I finally had some time after I closed my shop (many factors, some hilarious...most not) I thought I'd better get some of this creativity out and decided Squish was the way to go. I didn't really have the time or money to investigate proper publishers or film studios - so I thought an eBook would work.
Could I release a screenplay as an eBook? I thought that would be jipping the people that aren't used to reading scripts and I knew there was more to the story that just dialogue, settings and motions. So I started to write it as it popped out, scene by scene in prose.
All the way through the writing, I was thinking about how to embrace the format of an eBook. The pun of it being a 'screen-novel' came about when I realised that I could waste a lot of paper where I normally wouldn't with a print version and used the 'next page' button as a way of controlling the pace of the story in places. So I structured in elements of going to the cinema to see a movie including music links and credits, I thought about the edits of a movie and the quick nature of reaction shots and worked them into the final telling.
What would I have most liked to have done? I'd have liked to have incorporated trailers for other eBooks in there. I'd have liked to used animation in the front cover. I'd like to see more interactive way of putting links into the books (in regards to the Kindle at least) - and more control of how people pay for a book. Knowing that Pay What You Like is working out for artists who may not fit the mainstream, like Steve Lawson, I want to investigate this as much as possible in the future. The decision has been made to go for the lowest price possible for the highest royalty margin for me (not sure what Amazon are going to do if you select 35% royalties and I've still put in the same amount of work) - so the price is now set at £1.45 in the UK, $2.99 in the US and €2.60 in the EU - which isn't so bad, but still, I'd like that to be more flexible in the future.
So, the difference between writing for eBooks and treeBooks? With paper you can pull the audience in, with electrons you can pull the audience out of their seats...as soon as things catch up with it enough to make it less geeky and fun. I think the format should be embraced by writers to at least do the independent bookshops the respect of at least writing something that they couldn't sell rather than just a reproduction of something they do sell.
My new eBook SQUISH is available from Monday. This is my first eBook for money - so we've been reading up on how to market such a thing and one blog recommended making a trailer for the book to hang under the Amazon page. So, that's what we've done. Enjoy!
ABSOLUTELY FREE NEW SHORT STORY. Just click, download and share around - but most importantly enjoy! Who killed Grant Sharkey? read on...and if you enjoy it, PASS IT ON!
Published under Creative Commons licence. Share it around.
COMING MONDAY 8th August 2011:
SQUISH a screen-novel (it's a screenplay written as a novel) by Grant Sharkey on Amazon.co.uk for Kindle. Follow on Facebook or Twitter to get the latest.
My awesome band are back in the studio again this week to capture more of Karl's soul before he heads back to Australia for another stint of beer and racism. This album is starting to sound so eclectic already - it's a shame we haven't quite had a chance to finish it before Karl leaves - but we'll work hard over the next few month, over the internet and over international boundaries to get the rest done. Don't worry, he will be back in 2012 for more shows and the release of the album and a book we're going to start writing. :)
If you want to keep up to date with the new album, gigs and news then 'LIKE' the Facebook Page or follow Grant or Jay on Twitter.
