The Carrion Tree
The birds circled overhead, their screeching caws more than anything else telling him he was far from home.
Artwork
Cereal Milk
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I drew all these different elements and stuck them together, only to have my brain try to come up with a story for why all these happenstances would take place.
Like Mickey wakes up to eat a breakfast of honey-sweetened oat cereal, then goes to meet his friend at the lakeside. Where his friend works as an ice cream salesman.
While waiting for his friend, he eats an ice cream cone with three scoops of ice cream — chocolate, strawberry, pistachio — and walks around.
He sees a girl crying and goes over to find out what’s wrong. She’s lost her stuffed unicorn.
He sees her unicorn near the playground, and gives it to the girl. She’s standing with her surprisingly attractive parent or caretaker.
Staring into bright blue eyes, he smiles.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
He curled his big toes in his shoes and pressed the tips down. “Uh, you should take your daughter to feed the geese and swan.”
“We didn’t bring any bread.”
“Tell Brad — the ice cream man — that Mickey sent you for a piece of bread. He’ll give you some.”
“Thank you.”
Staring at that luminous smile, he could feel the heat burning in his cheeks and spreading down his neck. He felt a bit lightheaded. He never wanted the moment to end.
*
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Our postal driver has failed me again; Drawing
Post thumbnailI’m so mad. Our postal driver refuses to deliver packages to us — leaving a note saying we have to go to the post office to get what we ordered. Which is annoying enough, but what really pisses me off is that we always have to wait until the next day. I can’t just walk to the post office and get my stuff now.
And I was really looking forward to getting the Sakura Pigma Micron pens I ordered:(
I’ve been drawing and I really want to start sharing, but even the Ultra Fine Point Sharpie I’ve been using blobs too much and the lines aren’t fine enough. It makes me very sad *wipes away a tear*
So tomorrow morning it’s going to be a trek to the post office, and then I’ll see if the Sakura outliner pens are worth all the hype. (I hope they are!)
And if I get really good at drawing (or at least moderately okay, this is non-drawing me after all) I’ll be printing out some cool things and mailing them out. Things like bookmarks, greeting/postcards, etc., so if anyone buys a book direct from me, I can have something cool to throw in extra as a “Thanks for reading me”. Plus I’m kind of looking forward to the idea of doing a holiday card exchange or something.
At the very least, I want the Kid to be able to hand out cards at the end of the year to his teachers and the school staff thanking them for their hard work. They had to put up with him all year after all, and he’s noted for his inability to sit still.
* * *
Also, still working on HVU. There should be another update really late tonight/early Saturday morning. If the program doesn’t crap out on me again. Though I’ve found that if I publish as an html file in between working on it, even if the program crashes, my stuff is still saved.
“What? Saving your work?” – I know. My mind was completely blown.
I’m also still planning out the Ren’Py version of HVU. It’s part of the reason why I took up drawing after all, as I would like to have some artwork for people to stare at.
I love a good text-based game as much as the next person, but even Oregon Trail had the little tombstones to look at when the “You’ve died” message popped up.
So here’s to hoping that I get good enough that my game doesn’t suck.
Does this seem like a fair deal to artists?
I’ve been trying to turn this writing thing into some kind of income, but it’s slow going and there’s a few things I want that I simply cannot afford out of pocket. And that’s not just food *ba-dump-bump*
I’ve been lucky to find an awesome publisher (Less Than Three Press) and I have some novels and stories they’re already publishing for me or that I’m hoping they’ll publish for me ^_^;;
At the same time, I also self-pub some stuff. Original works, stories I’ve serialized on my site, what have you. I’m currently going through and revamping a lot of them (rewrites, extended scenes, the full nine.)
I could submit some of the original works to other places (lots of publishers don’t accept anything that’s been self-published, but some are cool with it) but I don’t think I can do that with my free-to-read stories and it makes me sad.
I really like being able to offer free stories, but once a story’s been released on the Internet most publishers don’t want it. I can self-pub those stories, but I have to arrange all the interior and cover work myself. It’s a big headache, but I’m willing to do it. I just don’t have a lot of money to work with.
I want great cover art for my self-pubbed books, but I can’t afford to pay for 20 premade covers out of pocket, much less the amount it would cost for beautiful, one-of-a-kind covers. It’s frustrating, because everyone has such pretty covers lately, and mine… Even after a year of art tutorials and photo manipulation videos, I’m still not an artist.
But my sister is.
So I offered her an agreement that she makes me covers, and she gets 5% of the cover price for all the books sold. As long as her cover is used, she gets paid, and I told her to hold onto all her sketches and whatever because they’re hers to do with as she likes. We could have like a joint book/art auction or something. It could be fun. (I know I felt bad when I didn’t have anything really cool to offer for the fandom charity auction.)
Anyways, my sister just started her new job, and other than her preliminary sketches for The Panic Pure I haven’t seen much else out of her. So if I offered the same deal — 5% of the cover for the time of use and $40 if I decide to stop using the cover early — would artists be interested in something like that?
5% doesn’t sound like a lot, but I think it’s fair. I mean, my sister spends a week working on a cover and she gets a quarterly deposit in her Paypal, plus I pimp her art everywhere. Plus a percentage if the art’s used on any kind of merchandise. I think long-term she would make more money than if I just paid $40 upfront.
*Though thinking about it, print book prices would have to be different. The royalty per book is low because of the cost of materials. So it would be more like a percentage of the cover minus cost, versus just the cover.
*
Sometimes I get jealous. I wish I could draw. If I had her ability, I would use it all the time and I would be so rich. I mean, she can draw, paint, she knows all this 3D computer art stuff, she’s done jaw dropping stuff with ceramics and glass.
And she’s working in an office filing paperwork.
I would have sold out my art skills a long time ago. “You want some naked ladies? Okay!”
*
Here’s a breakdown:
$0.99 x 5% = 0.049 is what the artist gets per book.
$0.99 x 35% = 0.35 – 0.049 = $0.301 is what I get per book.
Through Amazon:
0.99 x 35% = 0.35 -||- 0.99 x 5% = 0.049 -||- 0.35 – 0.049 = 0.301
1.99 x 35% = 0.69 -||- 1.99 x 5% = 0.099 -||- 0.69 – 0.099 = 0.591
2.99 x 70% = 2.09 -||- 2.99 x 5% = 0.149 -||- 2.09 – 0.149 = 1.941
3.99 x 70% = 2.79 -||- 3.99 x 5% = 0.199 -||- 2.79 – 0.199 = 2.591
4.99 x 70% = 3.49 -||- 4.99 x 5% = 0.249 -||- 3.49 – 0.249 = 3.241
5.99 x 70% = 4.19 -||- 5.99 x 5% = 0.299 -||- 4.19 – 0.299 = 3.891
6.99 x 70% = 4.89 -||- 6.99 x 5% = 0.349 -||- 4.89 – 0.349 = 4.541
7.99 x 70% = 5.59 -||- 7.99 x 5% = 0.399 -||- 5.59 – 0.399 = 5.191
8.99 x 70% = 6.29 -||- 8.99 x 5% = 0.449 -||- 6.29 – 0.449 = 5.841
9.99 x 70% = 6.99 -||- 9.99 x 5% = 0.499 -||- 6.99 – 0.499 = 6.491