So, the Epic Fantasy Bundle that Glamour of the God-Touched has been included in has been active for a couple days. It’s the first time that I’ve been involved in this kind of bundle, and I think the process is interesting as all get-out and a total blast to be a part of. Since I know I have blog readers who aren’t that close to the concept, I thought I would take a moment to talk about three things in particular, and in each of these cases I’m intrigued by the overall value and control this thing brings to readers.
1) The company
First, I have to reiterate what a total blast to be a part of a project that has such a powerful collection of names. There are a lot of award winners in this group, and the material shows it. The folks here have sold a LOT of books. Just clicking through the link and looking at the books you get in this bundle is enough to figure that out for just about anyone.
Being in this kind of company is always fun, but from a reader’s point of view it’s a great way to get material from a wide array of folks (personally, the first thing I read was the Anderson/Peart short story “Clockwork Lives,” mostly because I was fan-boying over reading SF by Rush’s drummer [grin]). My guess is that there’s someone you haven’t read in this package, so this bundle concept is a great way to pick up ne writers on the cheap.
2) The price
In reality, the most interesting thing of all about these bundles is how much of the cash flow is in the control of the reader. Yes, the baseline price is $15 (you have to pay this much to get the entire package), but a reader can scale down to as low as $5 for the primary collection of six novels. That’s pretty cool.
If you’re a fantasy fan on a budget, $5 gets you six great reads. If you’re a reader who is, let’s say, a bit better healed and who appreciates the bundle as a whole, you can pay more—like a Kickstarter funder who pays more for a great kick. It’s an interesting concept across the board, especially when you realize that the reader can influence the split between authors and publishers, and even because …
3) The social consciousness
The reader can decide to give 10% of the price two one of three charities (in this case, Mighty Writers, Girl’s Write Now, or Challenger Center). Of course, in the case of this bundle, you’re already contributing to a charity because the proceeds of One Horn to Rule Them, which is a part of the bundle, is going to help financially strapped writers attend the Superstars Writing seminar.
It’s a great idea to give readers a sense of value that’s outside the basic capitalistic thing all us writers are tip-toeing around when we ask you to “Buy my book.” It feels good to know readers people can read great stuff at the same time as they help save the world (or at least help make a little portion of it better, anyway).
4) And now something for you …
Since this is a post focused on readers, I’m interested in your thoughts. To entice you, I’ll make these two special reader-based offers.
A: The first to respond to this post will get a code for a free download of the Epic Fantasy Bundle.
B: Everyone who responds and also signs up for my newsletter will get a free book of my own work.