I think it was the rows of “please, please, please…,” but it might have been those weirdly subliminal “PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME’s” added to the knowledge that I cannot pick everyone.
I was feeling cruel.
But anyway, Pink Ink offered an almost-cool suggestion in her (I hope I have the gender right here–if not, I apologize) “pick-me” request.
The suggestion was to offer the beta version as a special-edition e-book for full price in time for people to use the book over the weekend, and then let them upload the full version when it was ready.
That’s almost cool. Cool would be you understanding that my rocky prose can be quite rocky, and that those of you who wade through it before I’ve even gone over it might be in for a bit of a haul, and, cool would be me understanding that, too, and giving you a discount for pain and suffering. But you still get to download the edited and corrected version when it’s available, no extra charge.
So it will work like this. After I announce the two winners, I’ll put up a page in the shop on Friday (this is the real link, but will not work until the beta-book is actually available), and stick an exorbitant price on it. I mean, really exorbitant. $500, $1000 bucks, something like that. I’ll mark the page as a test page, and instruct regular shoppers not to buy the file. (I don’t want the beta e-book to end up in general circulation, and I don’t want anyone to think that’s how the finished e-book turned out. So if you buy the thing you have to promise me you’ll trash it when you download the real book.)
From Friday when the book goes up on the site until Saturday, as close to 24 hours as I can make it, the beta version of the book will be available, but you’ll need a code to get the discount price of $7.50.
That code will be:
Please don’t post the code elsewhere. This is just something special I’d like to do for those of you who have been reading my diary and following along while I wrote it and encouraging me on this book.
Put the “there is no product” in your shopping cart, click “check out” and paste the code in one of the green coupon boxes at the bottom of the page, where it says “Do you have any coupon codes? Enter them here for additional savings!” Then click the Update Cart button, and your price will drop from insanely expensive to $7.50. Make VERY, VERY sure that you Update Cart, though. Otherwise your card or your PayPal account will end up with a huge charge on it. Yes, I would refund the overage on the book price. No, I don’t want to have to do that. Much cooler if everything stays simple.
No, you don’t have to beta test. The beta testers get their books for free, remember? Just use the book, and tell me if you like it, and what you like about it.
And thank you, all of you, for being so cool and so enthusiastic about this project.
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