Sunday, June 14, 2009

Bryon Quertermous Update

Bryon has a new project. I'll let him tell you about it.

Beware, blatant self-promotion follows...

Many of you know that my wife and I have one baby and are expecting
another in a few months. Next year we'd like to take the whole family
to Disney World so my wife has started a little fund that she's been
putting change into and other spare cash we get. But then she got a
decent sized bonus from her job and dropped that into the fund and I
started feeling a bit in adequete as a provider for my family. So I
started thinking about ways I could contribute to the Disney fund. I
don't get bonuses at work and I don't really have the time or the
energy for a second job so that was out. But there was one thing that
had brought in a little cash over the last year or so and that was my
short stories.

Around this same time I read a series of fascinating blog posts from
Joe Konrath detailing his experiments with selling electronic versions
of his short stories and novels through PayPal and for the Amazon
Kindle E-Reader.

Hmmmmmmm.

I wasn't comfortable putting up my unsold novels for sale, because I
truly believe they are unsold for a reason. And the short stories that
have made me some money in the past are still readily available at
bookstores in the fine anthologies they were purchased for. Instead, I
took three of my favorite stories that had been previously published
online or in small circulation magazine but are now almost impossible
to find and bundled them together in a collection I'm calling A LOAD
OF QUERTERMOUS.

Featured in the collection are the following stories:


LOAD - The tale of a sperm back robbery in Detroit gone off the rails

MR. SATURDAY SPECIAL - A little ditty about a private detective in
Flint, MI who spends his daughter's birthday helping his ex-wife's
lawyer save his son from jail

ALTER ROAD - A story that follows a preacher with a violent past who
faces the greatest test of faith and grace when his son is murdered by
hillbilly meth dealers

I've also written brand new introductions for all three stories
discussing their creation and the inspiration behind them. This
collection is available now for the amazing low price of $1.99 and can
be had as PDF file for reading on any computer (or for printing to
read on the train or in bed or wherever) or as a download for the
Amazon Kindle. The Amazon dowload is immediate but the PDF will come
once PayPal sends me an email indication a donation has been made and
then I'll zip it off to the email address used for the donation. You
can find all of the necessary information at
http://loadofquertermous.blogspot.com

I really don't know what to expect from this little experiment so you
all can learn with me. If you aren't able to make a donation, you can
still help by spreading the word. I thank you, my kids thank you, and
the Disney Empire thanks you.

--
Bryon Quertermous
http://bryonquertermous.wordpress.com

2 comments:

Deb said...

While I appreciate the fact that the writer is trying to raise money by selling the products of his creativity rather than just saying, “Hey, help me make it to Orlando by dropping a dollar in the tip jar,” I’d like to share some advice with him: Take it from a mother of three who knows—don’t do Disney until your kids are much older (I’d recommend the youngest one being at least five years old). Walking around Disney with a toddler and a baby in a stroller is no way to do a park that is huge, crowded, and generally has enormous lines and long waits (including for things like bathrooms, which you’re going to need!). In my experience, the babies get hot, fretful, and overwhelmed—plus, seeing Mickey and Minnie up close and personal isn’t always the unalloyed treat for youngsters that Mom and Dad thought it would be. Add to this the fact that most kids will not remember anything of any experience they have before the age of three and what it all adds up to is a hot, stressful vacation that will not be remembered at all by the kids and will not be remembered fondly by the parents. Wait until the children are capable of understanding the concept of delayed gratification, as in, “OK, I have to stand in line for two hours, but at the end of this there’s a three minute ride on Space Mountain.”

OK, I admit, I’ve never reached that level of acceptance either. But take it from me, don’t do Disney for another five years.

On the other hand, I hope this plan exposes his work to a wider group of readers. So good luck!

Rick Robinson said...

I couldn't agree more, Deb.

My daughter-in-law and her husband took their 18 month old and the 80-year old grandmother, to Disneyland last summer. It was a disaster. Hard to say which was most unhappy, 18 month old or 80 year old, they both hated everything, heat, noise, crowds, waiting, noise. They ended up going on only a few rides before giving up and leaving, having spent a lot of money for an uncomfortable, disappointing few hours.

I'd say 8 is a good target age for a first visit to Disneyland.