Updates 20 Oct 2010 03:47 pm by David !

MOD-Day is OCTOBER 26

We’ve come a long way.

It was a lark, to begin with. A Dinosaur Comic, a few messageboard posts, and all of a sudden so many people had so many good ideas that it seemed natural to put a book together. It started small, but everyone we pitched the idea to was as fascinated as we were. So naturally, we ratcheted up our ambition — let’s make it a big book, get everybody involved, open submissions to the world, pay people…

We had no idea how big this would be. About 700 submissions in just a few months. We read every story, loving some, setting them aside, arguing among ourselves, wishing we could publish more, and finally, agonizingly, whittling it down to 30. We peppered the mix with some original work of our own as well, hired a ton of our friends and folks we admired from the world of comics and webcomics to illustrate the book, and we had a manuscript all set to shop to publishers.

Then we learned a little something about the anthology market. Stephen King isn’t in this book. Neither is Dave Eggers or Neil Gaiman or Nick Hornby. Nobody would buy this little book full of stories from nobody famous, we were told. We talked with six different agents who fell in love with this book; one even fell deeply in love and tried her hardest to sell it to anybody who would listen. One editor at a publishing house told us “Let me be blunt: I love this premise; I love this project; I want to read this book […] the sample stories included in the proposal are really very strong, and if they’re all that good, then this is a genre anthology of high literary quality.”

But it was 2008, 2009. “The economy,” we were told. “And it’s an anthology.”

During that time between when we opened submissions in 2007 and now, a funny thing happened. We learned a lot about how publishing works, but the most important thing we learned was that big trade publishing is like a train. Big trade publishing runs on tracks. Big trade publishing can’t turn on a dime; big trade publishing desperately needs all the coal it can find to run — meaning licensing rights. Audio rights. Electronic rights. Foreign rights and movie rights. They sell all those rights separately and hopefully make enough money from it all to pay the rent on the New York office and the salary of all the staffers in that office.

We didn’t want to sell ebook rights; we wanted to release the ebook for free as a PDF. We didn’t want to sell audio rights; we wanted to record the audiobook ourselves, and release it for free as a podcast. Movie rights remain with the authors — if you love one of the stories in this book and want to make a blockbuster film from it, contact the author and give them the money. We’re not in the middle.

And we live on the internet enough that we knew we could sell this book.

This isn’t some vanity-press sour-grapes effort. The simple truth is that we probably can’t compete on the shelves at Barnes & Noble alongside every other book in the world. The agents and the publishers are right; it might not work for a mass market. That’s okay. We don’t need to sell it to everyone. We don’t need to sell 100,000 copies; we don’t have the rent on a New York office to pay for.

We only need to sell it to you.

On October 26, we want to send a message that a little project dragged kicking and screaming from “crazy idea” past “it’ll never work” all the way to “By God, they actually did it” can make a big splash. We’re internet people; you are too. We want to prove to all the people who said “this will never sell” that internet people make things happen.

Did you know that on any given day, an Amazon.com bestseller only sells a few hundred copies? Sure, they sell a few hundred copies a day for weeks and months on end, but what we’ve learned is that it only takes a few hundred sales on a single day to become an Amazon.com bestseller.

We want Machine of Death to become a Number One bestseller for exactly one day — October 26.

Here is our book’s listing on Amazon: machineofdeath.net/oct26/ — blog it, retweet it, add your affiliate link, post it on your bulletin board at work, shout it from the rooftops, tattoo it on your dog. (Note: the title may not have populated through all of Amazon’s search databases yet. Use the direct link whenever you can, so people can find it.)

Now, if you are morally opposed to patronizing Amazon for any reason, that’s totally fine. The book will be available online in our own e-store in early November, and (hopefully) through regular bookstore distribution sometime after that. If you’re international and can’t patronize Amazon.com, you can watch for it in our own store later and help us spread the word in the meantime. Individual contributors may be retailing it themselves through various means as well, at their discretion. The ebook and audiobook are coming soon, and both of those will be free.

But if you can help us become a bestseller for a day, October 26 is that day. Here are some link banners you can use if you like — point them to this post, or to the Amazon link, or to your own affiliate-laden Amazon link, or to your elaborate MOD fanfic, or whatever. Blog, tweet, or join our Facebook event and invite your friends. Every bit of promotion helps. Let’s see if we can do this.

More posts throughout the week with more details!

P.S. Camron Miller or William Grallo, if you see this, please email us: info [at] machineofdeath.net. Thanks!

83 Responses to “MOD-Day is OCTOBER 26”

  1. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:28 am 1.Anon said …

    It was picked up by gawker’s blogs!

  2. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:41 am 2.Olli said …

    Number five! Get it now while it’s on discount!

  3. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:47 am 3.DraconicFire said …

    Order placed and reposted to facebook, I was looking a bit ago and saw you on the best seller list at #5 for the day. Since it is only 10:44 EST I am truely hopeful to see a #1 beside the title and am sure I will. Best of luck sticking it to the man. Blessed Be.

  4. on 26 Oct 2010 at 7:49 am 4.JMP said …

    UP TO RANK NO.5 IN THE BESTSELLER LIST…… KEEP IT GOING!! NO.1 SPOT IS ATTAINABLE!

  5. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:21 am 5.Olli said …

    #2 now!

  6. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:25 am 6.Matt said …

    Got a link to the sales rankings?

  7. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:31 am 7.acob said …

    I was wondering how it could have a lower rank in a subcategory (Literature & Fiction) than its rank for all books, and the answer is kindle editions.
    MoD is already the highest “normal” book in that list, but apparently the kindle-edition of the new Grisham novel was also released today – which could be an opponent one size too big (of course I’d love to be proven wrong).

    But I’d be very surprised if MoD doesn’t take the targeted #1 for books, as it’s already in 2nd place. 😉

  8. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:31 am 8.Adam said …

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_ms_b_mte for the bestseller list

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/movers-and-shakers/books/ref=pd_ts_b_mte for the largest changes in rank (this is the one showing %age increase)

  9. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:38 am 9.fluffy said …

    I wish I’d known about the anthology competition when it was happening, because as soon as I heard about the premise of this book my mind figuratively exploded with ideas for stories! I guess it serves me right for only enjoying comics on their own and not spending all my time on their messageboards.

    Not that I’d expect to have gotten in anyway, what with all the excellent authors who did, but still, it’s nice to dream.

    Anyway I already bought my copy and I hope to get it soon.

  10. on 26 Oct 2010 at 8:41 am 10.Elisa said …

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_nr_b_mte

    Watch out, Keith. We’re coming. Your slip of paper says “too friggin’ much heroin”.

  11. on 26 Oct 2010 at 9:17 am 11.Megan said …

    Bought mine! But we’re still number two. Come on internet…

  12. on 26 Oct 2010 at 9:35 am 12.Vryali said …

    Bought one, can’t wait to read it! Good luck getting to number 1 🙂

  13. on 26 Oct 2010 at 9:59 am 13.Chris Radcliff said …

    Just bought mine. Go go go, little ranking!

    Can’t wait to read the book. Thanks for all the work you’ve put into it.

  14. on 26 Oct 2010 at 10:09 am 14.Amie said …

    Ordered! Good luck 🙂

  15. on 26 Oct 2010 at 10:09 am 15.Eimear said …

    #1! Hooray!

  16. on 26 Oct 2010 at 10:10 am 16.Juan said …

    We did it! Number 1!

  17. on 26 Oct 2010 at 10:51 am 17.Jen said …

    I ordered one. This just looked too intriguing to pass up. I owe it to Jeph Jacques for putting this on Questionable Content today.

  18. on 26 Oct 2010 at 11:14 am 18.Michelle said …

    NUMBER ONE!

    Came here from a QC link – this project is AMAZING. Congratulations, and I can’t wait to read Machine of Death.

  19. on 26 Oct 2010 at 11:25 am 19.Annie Moose said …

    Got here through io9 and ordered immediately. We did it! It’s number 1! This little Internet anthology has officially beaten out Rick Riordan’s latest, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid… we DID it!

  20. on 26 Oct 2010 at 11:54 am 20.Brad Topliff said …

    oops, I slipped and bought that Glenn Beck book. My slip of paper say EMBARRASSMENT.

  21. on 26 Oct 2010 at 11:56 am 21.some person on the internet said …

    Also #1 in fiction & literature if you go to the actual rankings page–beating the Grisham kindle edition.

  22. on 26 Oct 2010 at 2:28 pm 22.Aviva said …

    Well played, interweb dwellers. This made me happy.

    Congratulations!

  23. on 26 Oct 2010 at 4:04 pm 23.OMG said …

    Have any of you actually checked far in enough into this. This well definitely be one of the best internet hoaxes ever pulled off.

  24. on 26 Oct 2010 at 4:09 pm 24.Nice! said …

    Very nice! Just ordered my copy!!! #1 and up 218,300 percent from yesterday!!!

  25. on 26 Oct 2010 at 11:16 pm 25.Tom said …

    @OMG Considering the book is being promoted by multiple reputable people who make their livings off of the products they sell on the internet, I’d say your assertive statement is 100% false.

  26. on 27 Oct 2010 at 3:24 am 26.Quantum said …

    Wheee! I’m glad they ship to the UK so I could join in. I hope somebody got screenshots and is going to write it up?

  27. on 27 Oct 2010 at 5:42 am 27.Taekwondodo said …

    Just ordered my copy (a day late I know)! Just a shame I wont get it for at least a month but by that time I might have forgotten that I ordered it and it’ll be a surprise! Yay for surprise books!!

  28. on 27 Oct 2010 at 7:56 am 28.DawninDenver said …

    Self published books are self published for a reason. Don’t waste your money people.

  29. on 27 Oct 2010 at 9:55 am 29.mathew said …

    Will buy Kindle edition.

  30. on 27 Oct 2010 at 1:56 pm 30.JohnQ118 said …

    I bought mine YESTERDAY.
    Referred from GWS webcomic.

  31. on 27 Oct 2010 at 8:30 pm 31.Bill Young said …

    Bought mine today. Was still #1 on Amazon’s list. Can’t wait!

    Well, I can wait. I just don’t want to.

  32. on 28 Oct 2010 at 8:16 am 32.Roo said …

    Got mine Oct. 26th thanks to Willis @ Shortpacked. Sounded interesting, and always great to support Webcomic artists at the expense of GBeck

  33. on 29 Oct 2010 at 12:54 am 33.LadyT said …

    I was going to wait for the free PDF.

    And then I saw the Randall Munroe and ERIN MCKEAN have stories included!!! I LURVES them!

    I hate reading books on PDF and love actual paper books.

    My fate was sealed. My copy of MOD was shipped today.