Golden Oaks Bookstore: Let's Do an Inventory Survey, Y'all (+ An Announcement About How I'LL Be Participating) · 12:55am Jun 12th, 2019
Man, I really shouldn't have locked myself into such an awkward title theme for blogs about the Bookstore. Bit late now, I suppose.
Anyway, first things first: RBDash47 of House Ponyfeather Publishing has put together a survey to gauge interest that folks may have in particular offerings that are likely to be in stock at the Golden Oaks Bookstore come August. Please go fill it out if you're at all interested in checking out and supporting the Bookstore at BronyCon in a couple months; it should be a huge help to everyone who's looking to order prints over the next month or so.
On a more personal note, though, I figure that this is as good a time as announce that my behind-the-scenes Bookstore work hasn't only been focused on making sure the booth itself runs smoothly (although that's certain been the bulk of it, in fairness). If all goes well over the next few weeks, I'm going to have a book of my own available for sale in the Bookstore--more specifically, an anthology of the best short stories and novelettes I've put up on FIMFic over the past nine-ish years.
Now of course, I'd love it if folks just liked my stories enough to pay money for them in printed form, and I certainly won't complain if anyone's interested solely for that reason. However, I'm a businessperson by training, and I know better than to rest on the laurels of what I already produced. With that in mind, here's what you'd be getting if you decide to pick up a physical copy of this thing at the con:
- Re-edited and remastered versions (in other words, improved upon by me with the benefit of more general writing know-how and a couple years of professional copyediting experience) of eight stories already on FIMFic: "Sky Pirates of Equestria: Phoenix Flight," "Far From the Tree," "I Am Demon," "Plural Possessive," "Snowblind," "A Failure to Plan," "Better Dig Two," and "The Sum of Our Parts"
- My winning entry for the EFNW 2019 Scriptfest contest, formatted and presented exactly as it was read at the convention
- A never-before-published story ("Monsters of Our Own," a Pacific Rim/Equestria Girls crossover novelette) that will be exclusively available in the anthology until September 1st, 2019
Bit better than just stuff already on the Internet stuffed into a nice package, I'd wager.
Anyway, it's not listed in RBDash47's survey since I had a cold this past weekend and was therefore useless in a variety of contexts, but feel free to let me know here if you'd be interested in picking up what I'm printing out. I mean, I'm still gonna do the print run regardless because, y'know, vanity project, but narcissism in a vacuum can only get a guy so far.
In the original show, it was Gold Oak without the “s”. Is the “Oaks” intentional?
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... was it?
I mean, yeah! Totally intentional! Super-subtle reference to something you're not cool enough to get. Can't help you there.
Ooh, your winning scriptfest entry is a powerful motivator.
Well dang. Might just have to check out that Pacific Rim/EQG crossover bidness, as it sounds like my kind of crazy.
(Though couldn't Fluttershy just Stare the Kaiju into submission?)
Shit I forgot to put it in there as an "unknown/untitled" shit
It's there now but damn it
The script's in there? I'm definitely interested!
“Definite maybe!” Looks like I’m going to be lugging home a lot of books.
One thing, on that note: I’ve just worked out my travel plans, and it looks like I’ll have to fly home pretty early Sunday morning. Assuming my glorious masterpiece hasn’t totally sold out by that point, what might be the fate of the unsold copies? I’m not as worried about losing potential moneys from them as I am on effectively littering by leaving the copies behind?
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If you want to keep them stocked in the Bookstore on Sunday, I can take them home with me and mail the spares back to you at a later date. Otherwise, you can take whatever unsold books are left back with you if you like or, if there's interest, we could probably find a Goodwill or some such place that would take them.
(Not gonna lie, it's more than a bit funny to imagine a glut of self-published ponyfics sorted onto a thrift store shelf, if it comes to that.)
shit, the script being in there is great <.< I'm just glad you're able to publish it!
At this point I'm sort of starting to feel like I'm going to end up buying books of everything that I've... read, or thought about reading, or that's by an author I've read, or an author whose blogs I've read, or an author other authors have said is good, or possibly even just authors that I recognize by name, and tbh once we're at the con I'll probably be willing to also buy just, anything that looks remotely pretty...
That is to say, count me in for whatever you're printing.
(And do I need to buy duplicates? One for the shelf, one for the bag? One to lend out to friends, who I can finally try and con into reading MLP fanfiction by wagging my actual printed copy of this no-really-it's-a-real-book book at them? Questions like these could keep a man busy, and a wallet empty.)
So, I am an interested party (should I call myself a potential customer?), but my answers may very well change before the con. I have specifically been waiting for a list such as this because I don't know a lot of these authors by name and there's several stories I recognize by name but have never read myself.
Point is, I'm going to try reading through several of these books to decide if I want them or not, and I'm not sure if it's fair to cast my vote before I know what all I want, since several authors would be left out that I may discover later that I want a copy of something they're bringing.
(Cross-posting this to make sure I get a quick answer.)
EDIT: also, may I ask how you're doing I Am Demon in print? Because the text color was kind of integral to that piece.