The Desperate Ones

Hello dearest readers, in breaking the lull on this blog, I give you a necessary argument about indie artists and money, by Amanda (fucking) Palmer.  I will let her speak for me. In short:

…artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks.
please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.

I understand there have been problems getting the book listed correctly on Amazon, and many people have been relying on this outlet to buy a copy of the book.  I have been working with Lulu to sort this out, but things are moving very, very slowly.

In the meantime, you can easily buy a copy directly from me, the author: £12, postage paid via paypal: (allyshaw at madasafish dot com, written as an email address of course).

Though listing on Amazon may be an excellent source of publicity and may give the book an air of “legitimacy,” indie authors see almost none on the selling price from their books which are sold on the site.

Downloads of the book continue to grow into the hundreds, which is great.  If you have downloaded the book and enjoyed it, why not consider buying a hard copy, or making a donation (paypaled to allyshaw at madasafish dot com)– you can also use the paypal button on the sidebar.

Thanks again for supporting indie publishing.

Pig State Recon recounts many versions of The Desperate Ones, the song that inspired the novel.

Ally will be signing books at the Alternative Bring and Buy Sale:

“To get to church, you have to walk the resin labyrinth on your knees…”

Click here to listen to The Desperate Ones, Podcast Excerpt 2. (sound file will open in a new page)

Enter to win a free hard copy of the novel, The Desperate Ones, on Goodreads.

And while you are at it, check out this rollicking sci fi anthology, Thought Crime Experiments, with new art from Patrick Farley (the artist behind the cover of The Desperate Ones).  The anthology wears its DIY cred on its sleeve and even has a how-to appendix and all the source code for the website is gank-able.  It’s available as a free download or POD book.   Keep Circulating the Tapes!

image by Matt Biddulph on flickr

To listen to an excerpt of The Desperate Ones, read by the author, click here: DesperateOnes_podcast1.m4a (link will open as an embedded stream.)

First in a series of podcast excerpts.

(If you like what you hear, support indie publishing & writing and buy a copy here.)

The Desperate Ones, a novel by Allyson Shaw, is now available from Lulu.com as a paperback and free download.