Go gentle on your soul…

though body writhes in sin

and dross. With grace extol

all kindred hearts within

your own ability

to offer kindness. They

who walk beside you see

both great and small displayed

in beating heart. Wait free

on wonder’s call. Don’t fret

the moment. Charity

will never earn regret

when offered free. Give love

as if its richest stores

are yours to cull. Enough –

is here at hand – no more

required for happiness.

Beyond breath, the only

choice of moment is yes?

or no? to what awaits.

It’s finally here, Prosers,

Before we begin telling you all about our launch, we cannot ignore the events that have just unfolded. This presidential election has had passions running high; with lots of debate, healthy discussion, and unfortunately, some not so healthy discussion. Whether you agree or disagree with the outcome, we hope that everyone can continue to agree on one thing, Prose is the shit. Balls to politics right now because we are about to remove the politics and red tape from the publishing industry.

Yep, that’s right, the full bookstore is now live. Partners, you can begin to sell your books, and readers, you’re in for a treat with a plethora of word porn for you to drool over.

We have been working so hard for the past year, from concept to release, to bring you all something unique and refreshing, something that gives readers and writers alike the freedom and flexibility that a lot of you have told us conventional social media and publishing platforms do not.

Prose Coins:

With this update comes Prose coins. Prose coins are our exclusive currency enabling you to buy books. Each coin is equal to one cent. (1c)

To purchase coins, all you need to do is visit theprose.com/bookstore/coins and choose the coin package you wish to purchase. Follow the onscreen prompts to complete the purchase and those coins will deposit into your wallet. The more coins you buy, the better the reward. Most of our coin packages will offer you free coins for your purchase; because we’re nice like that. Let’s take a look at the coin packages we have to offer:

$5 = 500 coins

$10 = 1,020 coins

$20 = 2,080 coins

$35 = 3,710 coins

$50 = 5,400 coins

$100 = 11,000 coins

From that point onward, you can spend the coins on the website on any juicy title that takes your fancy.

Running out of room on your physical bookshelf? Your Prose one will hold infinite books.

**Within the upcoming weeks you will be able to buy coins on the web and then spend them on the iOS app. Currently, you will have to buy and spend the coins on the website, but once you have, you’ll be able to read the books on your iPhone. For Android users, we will be updating the app in the future, once we have all of the features built for iOS and the Website, however, you can always access Prose through mobile browsers in the interim.

Royalties:

In previous updates we spoke about our royalty structure. We’ve had to tweak this slightly to make sure that Prose can continue to bring you a platform that is always evolving, with you, our Prosers, in mind.

Up until today, we have relied solely on generous people with deep pockets to help us build up our business. Today marks our evolution as a company, the day where we pave our path to go it alone. We’ve crunched our numbers, worked on our humble budgets and costings, and have come up with a royalty structure that will forever be in your favour as writers, and they are as follows:

Full Books:

If you’re selling your book as a whole you’ll be pleased to know that we are still offering competitive royalties. Let’s first take a look at what our competitors are offering on eBook sales.

Amazon:

For books priced below $2.98 and above $10.00 the author gets just 35% royalties

For books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 the author gets 70%

Kobo:

Their royalty structure once again depends on pricing points sliding between 70% and just 45% for authors.

iBooks:

Seems like the best deal to us nerds here at Prose, whereby Apple offer 70% royalties across the board.

So, how are we better?

Prosers who publish their book will receive 75% royalties on all book sales regardless of what you choose to price them at, leaving Prose with 25%. Flexibility to choose is something we want to give you in spades and we will not penalise you for pricing your books too high or low. It really is up to you.

Per Chapter / Short Stories:

Not only can you sell your books as a whole, but you can now sell short stories, or sell your books per chapter.

There is one other company doing this and we have made sure our royalty structure for this part is far more competitive, and again, in the favour of the Proser.

Radish Fiction:

Radish sell their coins (currency) through their apps iOS and Android, thus incurring a 30% charge from the respective App Stores. Therefore their royalties work like so:

Apple / Android 30%

Radish 35%

Author 35%

We have avoided sharing your money with any app store, simply speaking. Coins are only purchasable on the Prose website, but your coins can be spent in-app. This allows us to give you a way more competitive royalty.

Author: 60%

Prose: 40%

Once again, we believe that you, the author, should always receive more money for your words than we do.

We’d also like to make this clear: after crunching numbers, these are the royalties we believe we need to take to cover our costs, not to become mega billionaires. If after the first quarter or two our figures turn out to be over cautious, you will benefit by a raise in your royalties and we will reduce ours. That’s a Prose Promise right there, even though it sounds cheesy.

Making Money

So, how do you make money from your words? Well, in short, once you’ve checked you meet our Partner criteria, you need to apply to be a Partner. It’s that simple. Whilst logged in, visit theprose.com/p/partners, read our Partner requirements and follow the steps to apply. We personally read and respond to all Partner requests so give us up to fourteen working days before chasing us up if you haven’t heard anything. Once you are accepted, you’re all set up.

Our terms and conditions have changed to reflect this change to our service, so be sure to give them a read if you’re a Partner and are about to sell your stories or chapters.

We have lots of promotions and giveaways coming up, along with a whole host of new ways in which we can help you reach a wide and vast audience.

All FAQ’s / Instructions / Partner requirements will be winging their way into the Community Portal within a hot minute so if you don’t subscribe to that Portal, we suggest you hit that subscribe button now.

So what’s next for Prose?

Well, this is the first brand-new chapter of a whole new book; many more will follow, where we’ll add finesse to the bookstore, and give you another new way in which to make money from your meanderings. We will keep bringing innovative technology to your screens with you, our Prosers in the forefront of every decision we make.

Until next time, Prosers,

Prose.

PS: We have a Thunderclap campaign that needs your support. All you need to do is visit the link https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/49541-set-the-book-industry-alight?locale=en and click the support button.It costs nothing but a few seconds of your time. This will enable us to reach a huge amount of people, which in turn means more readers for your books.

Greetings, Prosers 

It's time for our regular Throwback Thursday feature; but before we continue, we have another coin giveaway for you lovely people. 

With only six days to go until the launch of our Bookstore, we'd love it if you'd help us spread the word(s). So, today's giveaway is as follows: 

Go to our Twitter page (@theproseapp), like and retweet our pinned Tweet. That's all you have to do - although if you add your support to our Thunderclap Campaign, you'll get an extra gold star from us. It costs nothing, and you help us shout about it in one simultaneous social media shout. The link is in the pinned tweet.

Otherwise, just two clicks on our Twitter page will give two lovely Prosers 500 coins each. For those without Twitter, there'll be a chance to do the same on Facebook tomorrow.

All winners will be announced on launch day! 

Now back to Throwback Thursday, and as some of you will know, it's Guy Fawkes Day / Bonfire Night in the UK this Saturday. A day where we set the skies alight with fireworks galore. But why do we do that? You're about to find out... 

…and now a word or two from our sponsors:

Remember, remember!

The fifth of November,

The Gunpowder treason and plot;

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!

Guy Fawkes and his companions

Did the scheme contrive,

To blow the King and Parliament

All up alive.

Threescore barrels, laid below,

To prove old England's overthrow.

But, by God's providence, him they catch,

With a dark lantern, lighting a match!

A stick and a stake

For King James's sake!

If you won't give me one,

I'll take two,

The better for me,

And the worse for you.

A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,

A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,

A pint of beer to wash it down,

And a jolly good fire to burn him.

Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!

Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!

Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

Guy Fawkes (April 13, 1570 – January 31, 1606) is best known for attempting to blow up Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot, which is now commemorated as Guy Fawkes Night, a.k.a. Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night, Firework Night. Back to you, V –

Voila! In view, humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate.

Fawkes grew up in York and later made a name for himself militaristically while fighting for the Spanish in the Eighty Years War for Catholic Spain against the new Dutch Republic. Although his parents regularly attended the Church of England, Fawkes eventually joined a secretive group of English Catholics, who conspired against the Crown. When King James I took the throne, English Catholics thought their 45-year-long persecution – which included dozens of priests being put to death and Catholics not being allowed to celebrate Mass or be married pursuant to their tradition – by order of Queen Elizabeth I (who Mr. Pope excommunicated in 1570) was to end, and they were to receive legal power to practice their faith freely again. But when this did not happen, a group of conspirators affirmed to assassinate his Majesty and his ministers by detonating Westminster Palace. V?

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, was a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stood vivified, and vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

The group was led by Robert Catesby, who was determined to kill the Protestant King James and replace him with his daughter (who was third in line that game of thrones). Author Antonia Fraser described Mr. Fawkes as “a tall, powerfully built man, with thick reddish-brown hair, a flowing moustache in the tradition of the time, and a bushy reddish-brown beard…a man of action…capable of intelligent argument as well as physical endurance, somewhat to the surprise of his enemies.” Fawkes’ role in the Catesby group? Light the fuse to detonate 36 barrels of gunpowder in Parliament, and gloriously escape across the Thames.

The only verdict was vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

You could say that.

Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to –

Thanks V.

– and you may call me Guido.

That is correct, to be fair: Fawkes went by the name “Guido” while campaigning in southern Europe. We use the term “guy” all the time nowadays, as synonymous to “man,” but originally it denoted a “repulsive, ugly person” in specific reference to Fawkes. He certainly avoided an undoubtedly repulsive, ugly death. Just before lighting the fuse, guards found Fawkes and sent him to the Tower of London, where he was tortured until giving the co-conspirators’ names.

Attorney General Sir Edward Coke remarked, “[Those charged of this high treason shall be] put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both.” Genitals were to be severed and burned before their own eyes. Fawkes managed to avoid any drawing and quartering, because right before his execution day, he plummeted from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and consequently broke his neck.

Parliament declared November 5 a national day of thanksgiving, first celebrated in 1606. Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, and parades. Even today, security searches Parliament to ensure there are no explosive-dwelling conspirators attempting to pull what Fawkes could not.

See any reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot?

For the full blog piece with beautiful images, please visit blog.theprose.com later today. 

Until next time, Prosers, 

Prose.

Morning, Prosers,

We interrupt your normal reading for a very special service announcement.

A number of weeks ago we announced the launch of our brand new bookstore, promising that we were working on an extension to that bookstore that allows Prose Partners to sell their books and make money from their words.

Remember that? Well, the time is upon us.

In seven days time, that part of the Bookstore will go live. It is hugely anticipated and right now, the whole team are working through the night to bring you a new, flexible, and fair way to sell your words.

We are officially in testing.

So, why are we telling you in advance?

Well, for the next seven days we will be running Prose Coin giveaways (our new currency), so that on launch day you have a wallet that already has funds.

How do you get your hands on the coins? Get interactive! We are running a seven day event in our lovely Facebook Group (we’ll link in the comments), and across all of our other social networks (@theproseapp).

Today’s giveaway is a challenge. All you have to do is enter it to be in with the chance of winning. Let’s take a look at the prompt:

Prose countdown coin challenge: Write the first chapter of your bestseller in 50 to 500 words. The winner will be chosen based on a number of criteria, this includes: fire, form, and creative edge. Number of reads, bookmarks, and how many shares will also be taken into consideration.

The winner will receive 1000 coins! When sharing to all your social media channels, please use the hashtags #LitUp #GetLit #ItsLit #Hybrid #WeAre

This seven day countdown also gives you the opportunity to get yourselves ready to read, and write, the best word porn known to humankind.

So, what are you waiting for? Get joining our Facebook Group, get following our social networks, and get entering the giveaway challenge.

Until next time, Prosers,

Prose. 

Hi, Prosers!

Around a month ago, we crowned @Firdaus as our Proser of the Month (PotM), which was introduced eight months ago as a way to celebrate the talents and contributions of the community.

Our next Proser of the Month is someone who has been a wonderful member of our community, always providing support to his fellow Prosers. He joined our awesome community and with him brought his saucy, sexy, sultry pieces, dashed with a healthy amount of sick and twisted horror. Not only that but he brought with him challenges like no other. Yes, he’s the original NightDweller, penning his pieces in the small hours with a rum in his hand.

Yes, you guessed it! Your Proser of the Month this month is @RichWithey! Congratulations, this is absolutely deserved. You’re badass!

What does this even mean? Well, firstly, it gives you bragging rights. It also gives you a beautiful PDF version of our favourite piece of yours, voted by the team. We will send you this via email. Print it, frame it, hang it. It’s yours to do with what you will. The piece that we have chosen to showcase is, “Midnight Tonight.” And what a perfect day to share one of your spine-chilling pieces.

Across our social media each week we will be sharing your profile and prose to our followers. We believe that it’s important to show the world what talent you have, the journey you have been on, and the growth that you have made as a writer.

Karen, our super talented designer, has made a video of your piece, which is available to watch now on our YouTube channel. (We will embed the link in this piece.) We will share this across our social media channels, and we hope that all Prosers will too!

We couldn’t be more proud to have you as a part of the community, a community that we know will join in with congratulating you on this achievement. Thank you for sticking around, thank you for being an integral part of Prose.

Until next time, Prosers, keep doing what you do. Write.

Prose.

As many of you know, each Friday we twitch our collective curtains and peer into the lives of another Prose neighbour, finding out what makes them tick. Well, time has efficiently and ceaselessly marched by and brings us here to another Friday Feature. HUZZAH! This week sees a Proser that most of you, we are sure, will know. It’s @BJC

P: What is your given name and your Proser username?

B: My given name is Robert Richard Joseph Canuel but I go by the name of Bob. Proser name is Bjc.

P: Where, pray tell, do you live?

B: I live with my wife, daughter and son-in-law in Calgary, Alberta. But most of my life was spent in the province of Ontario.

P: What is your occupation?

B: I am happily retired but when people actually paid me to do things, I was a self-employed management consultant specializing in Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity. If you want to know what that is, you’ll have to send me a PM here on Prose.

P: What is your relationship with writing and how has it evolved?

B: I’ve been writing a long time. It began when I was a teenager, so that would mean over 50 years. Tried my hand at short stories a few times but the rest of the time has been devoted to poetry. To analogize, I think I’d make a better photographer than film-maker. Writing is a part of who I am and always will be. In terms of my evolution as a writer, let’s say that my first efforts were the usual wordy tales of woe and pain and passion. As I grew older, though, my writing took on a ‘show/don’t tell’ approach that relies on using as few words as possible to get the thought/feeling/idea clearly and consisely on the page. I would describe my writing today as 'spare and strong and evocative'.

P: What value does reading add to both your personal and professional life?

B: I am always reading…all kinds of material in all kinds of forms…online, ebooks, hardcopy…on subjects as varied as sci-fi, fantasy, history, biography, politics, current events, science, music. I’m not sure what I would do if I couldn’t read. Life and work would certainly feel so much the poorer without it.

P: Can you describe your current literary ventures and what we can look forward to?

B: I’m planning to publish some chapbooks…waiting for Prose’s launch of a book facility [EXTREMELY, INCREDIBLY IMMINENT – Prose] to help with that…and perhaps a collection of poems. Now that I am situated in Calgary, I’m hoping to join local writer’s groups here, attend some workshops and do some public readings again. Looking forward to all of that.

P: What do you love about Prose?

B: I enjoy Prose for its role as an open forum for writers at all levels of skill and maturity from so many different backgrounds with an integrity I find to be rare in the online world. I’ve been a part of other sites but, in my opinion, they never quite managed to do what Prose has been able to do.

P: Is there one book that you would recommend everybody should read before they die?

B: Anything from Frank Herbert’s Dune series…hell, read all six books..they’re a treat for the eye, ear and mind. On the history side, anything by Barbara W. Tuchman but, particularly, The Guns of August or The March of Folly. In science, I’d recommend Dr. Richard Dawkins.

P: Do you have an unsung hero who got you into reading and/or writing?

B: Hardly unsung…J.R.R. Tolkien got me reading and ignited something in me that burns to this day. On a personal level, a good friend/playwright who taught me that writing was who I was rather than something I did.

P: Describe yourself in three words!

B: Playful, curious and direct.

P: Is there one quote, from a writer or otherwise, that sums you up?

B: A paraphrase actually from Bilbo’s party at the beginning of Lord of the Rings...'I don't know half of me as well as I should like, and I like less than half of me half as well as I deserve.’

P: Favourite music to write and/or read to?

B: Different kinds…classical (Joseph Haydn, Beethoven, JS Bach)…alternative (Sigur Rós, Godspeed You! Black Emperor).

P: You climb out of a time machine into a dystopian future with no books. What do you tell them?

B: How the hell did that happen? And since you probably have no idea how it happened, you don’t know what you’re missing.

P: Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you/your work/social media accounts?

B: I truly enjoy getting and giving feedback. I consider it a special privilege when someone reads my poetry and takes the time to comment. My work, such as it is, is poetry itself. I read a lot of it and, where I can, I try to offer comments back. As to social media, I honestly don’t participate in them.

If you don’t already, please follow @BJC and interact with him, like his words and just do what makes Prose so special. If you want to feature, or you know anyone that would (or you’d like them to), then please let us know at paul@theprose.com

They linger here, my demons shady

sailing in storm in yawning mind.

“Come to me,” my mortal demons implore

nibbling on my brain, chewing my psyche.

I smile to hide malignant spirits hovering

thriving darkness commandeering my mind.

Beasts with human faces and coated red skins

dripping with blood, pouring poison on wounds,

smothering me with outstretched screams, as

freezing knife of terror plunges within

while monsters gaily play checkers on my soul.

I suppress these spirits but I can’t release them -

they torment, swimming backstrokes in my skull

I want to flee to the moon to escape their wrath

but they wear dreadful disguise of flaming madness

I cry for relief but no one hears my plaintive cries

Don’t navigate my mind, that’s where demons dwell.

When the end is never the 

End is never the end,

And you can't comprehend the 

Meaning of peace,

Chaos reigns as the only state of

Mind you'll ever know.

Yet, in the midst, the wisp of a myth

Tickles your thoughts,

And you think that you deserve a 

Little thing called closure.

As if it's a cure-all in life, this belief

That no matter what you go 

Through, everything will be okay as 

Long as you obtain some kind

Of absolution, false or not, always

Holds firm in circumstances

Full of pain and the disparity

Of confusion.

I don't get it, because for those

Like me, who do obtain a moment

Of clarity amongst their own personal

Shitstorm of would-haves, could-haves

And should-haves, realize that 

The calm never lasts, as the

Panic always comes back in little

Stricken moments, and I guess

That's the loop, that's life,

The endlessness of mistakes,

Because the end is never the 

End is never the end.

between the beautiful lies and deceptive truth

Wherever i go, you're the ghost in the room

Whenever i sleep, you're the only entity in my dreams.

you're not here with me, but at least i have the memory

in every face, in every possible way i look for you

i've been searching for you..

Where are you hiding, my love?

The dishonesty floats in the air around me, i can feel it in my lungs as i breathe it in constantly hoping to catch a glimpse of you..

A glimpse one gets when observing a shooting star.

i even glanced at the moon, wondering how you could have gotten so far; far away.

Some people pray to God for miracles

i prayed to God for a sign from you

i got down on my knees for you.

i cried tears ocean-deep.

and i do believe he granted me the strength to continue searching, to the ends of the galaxy..

Because a life without you, is a life hard to imagine worth living

Constantly wishing upon stars for you to come back to me, will be the death of me.

I hear voices. I’ve heard them since I was little. I talk to them, debate with them, and they give me ideas; both good and bad.

Some people may call me a schizophrenic, but I don’t think so. I know the voices aren’t real, well not third party real. They are part of me, the Devil on one shoulder and God, I guess, on the other.

What’s weird is that the voices change, from time to time, currently the Devil is in the voice of Bane (Tom Hardy from Batman: The Dark Knight Rises). And God, has been a stalwart for many years, Patrick Stewart.

Bane normally steers me while I drive, shouting out his thoughts on the other drivers – though I think, at times, I really shout, the words emit at high volume. Not always in my own voice either, sometimes Bane rears his true self – but so far he always lets me back in to control.

Patrick is there when I am with my family, at peace, calm, serenity flows from his voice, so similar to Bane’s yet with such differing passion.

Patrick helps me to create fine upstanding protagonists in my work; and Bane, oh such marvellous, evil, deceitful antagonists…

In my next project, I will have one person who is both protagonist and antagonist, acting the good guy beautifully, while truly delving deeply into his dark centre. So my two friends will meet; I hope that they get on, and allow me to continue to be their friends.

But if I suddenly change, if I find God, or become an evil-doer, then one has destroyed the other, breaking the balance. And this, would rip out my soul, making me disappear.

I can hear them coming, the footsteps, both in time, yet eerily separate. I close my eyes, joining them in a dark antechamber, water, or blood, flowing through the middle of the room. I smile a greeting, and wait, patiently, hopefully…