I met with a good friend and former student Friday afternoon. His name is
Danny Lasko, and if there were one person who personified the outcomes of this social media emphasis, it would be him.
He wrote and self-published,
The Children of Hamelin, which he describes as a young adult dystopian fantasy and fairy tale. Up to the point of reading Danny's book, I didn't know what dystopian meant.
If you're a fan of Hunger Games you'll eat this up along with many of his fans awaiting the prequel. Amazon.com describes the book.
"After soundly throttling The Escape National Champions, seventeen year-old Horatio Gaph is approached by a short, stubby creature delivering a curious box wrapped in nine pieces of brown paper and smelling like...peppermint. Inside, a somewhat plain, somewhat boring music pipe and a note requesting its return, but with no return address. While working to unravel the origin of the music pipe, Horatio learns baffling truths about himself and his family-that he is a descendant of the Children of Hamelin, the famed boys and girls led away by the notorious Pied Piper.
"Horatio Gaph teams up with Annie Walker, his girlfriend with an extraordinary gift for music and Linus Sob, a fairytale know-it-all. They discover clues and instruction in the writings and actions of L. Frank Baum, the Brothers Grimm, JM Barrie, and Lewis Carroll that not only suggest that the fairy tales told by these men are real, but the delivery of Horatio's music pipe will dramatically change the nature of this world's existence.
"In a thrilling race around the globe, Horatio, Annie and Linus seek the four keys that will unlock the secrets of the music pipe while being pursued by the fierce, apocalyptic government, The Synarch, and the powerful, mysterious group known as the Wizards, an organization hell-bent on stopping Horatio from returning the music pipe to its proper owner. Unless Horatio can solve the fantastic riddles before being caught or worse, the truths about these fairytales-and the unrealized potential of this world-will forever be lost.
"The Children of Hamelin is a blistering-paced, thoughtful Young Adult adventure that keeps readers guessing through its explosive conclusion."
Danny is a story-teller. He's been one since I've known him. In 2008 he released
Storyweaver on iTunes, a dramatic retelling of two fairytale classics, The Pied Piper and The Brave Little Tailor.
My first experience with him was as a competitor on my forensic team. Danny interpreted a piece I wrote, "Think I'll East Some Worms," prose that extolls the plight of the average white American male. He shook up audiences with his interp, polarizing opinions and evaluations alike. Judges loved him or hated him.
He's taking a big risk with Children of Hamelin. Self-publishing is no small feat, especially with paperback distribution. But he's been able to capitalize on an eBook trend in using Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. While there's a price in doing so, exclusivity and 70% return, the service is free and better yet, Danny's getting paid monthly.
So, he's in print and he's in ePrint, reaching distribution goals not just through sales but through KDP's lending program, a loaning trend much like you'd find at our local library.
But not everyone's eager to market stories based on a lending paradigm, the very one upon which this nation's literacy could be attributed.
Alex Alben explains in his The Seattle Times Od-Ed:
