Bookshelf Battle

Ahem.  *clears throat*

Bookshelf Q. Battle Dog…in a rare moment where he isn’t licking his nose.

Going forward, the gist of “Bookshelf Battle” is this:

It’s a fictional blog chronicling the adventures of Bookshelf Q. Battler, a nerd/blogger/caretaker of a magic bookshelf. He is the proprietor of “The Bookshelf Battle Blog,” a site that caters only to 3.5 readers. No matter how many readers this site actually gets, in “the story” BQB only gets 3.5 readers.

While pursuing his dream of becoming a writer, BQB faces all manner of villains, yetis, a mad scientist, zombies and more.  He’s haunted by his deceased grumpy uncle and his alive aunt runs circles around him with all the debauchery she gets into.

He lives in East Randomtown, a burg filled with all manner of weirdos, degenerates, and losers, several of whom look to BQB as a leader due to the fact that he’s created a WordPress blog with 3.5 readers, which shows how little the citizenry has achieved. Others argue its the late Doug Hauser, who was an extra for 30 seconds in a 1980’s cop drama, or the late Leo McKoy, the man who’s 95 percent sure he delivered a reuben sandwich to James Van Der Beek at the height of his Dawson’s Creek glory.

In short, East Randomtowners have a tendency to crap on BQB only to then call on him whenever disaster strikes, and as one of few citizens with more than two brain cells to rub together, he feels obliged to save the day.

BQB and his girlfriend, Video Game Rack Fighter are a team.  They support one another in their dreams and goals and also in fighting the various crazies that come their way.

To complicate matters, a maniacal alien despot, “The Mighty Potentate” has deemed BQB to be “the Chosen One,” i.e. the writer who will one day publish a book so finely crafted that it will convince Earthlings to abandon reality television, that form of entertainment truly despised by the Potent One, who prefers scripted media.

To that end, the Mighty Potentate’s emissary, Alien Jones, acts as BQB’s trusted advisor, protector, and confidant. Alien Jones views it as a crap assignment, but sucks it up and does the best he can with it, but often feels dejected whenever he catches BQB staring at his navel and eating cookies when he should be writing.

BQB feels tremendous pressure to write and bring hits to his blog, due to the fact that the Mighty Potentate has declared that he’ll conquer Earth if BQB fails to write a glorious novel.

Finally, there’s a spinoff, “Pop Culture Mysteries.” Jake Dashing, a 1950’s private eye who fell asleep for 60 years only to wake up in modern times, has essentially been blackmailed by BQB.

BQB claims to know why Jake took such a long nap and how he can get back to his own time, but he’ll have to solve 100 pop culture mysteries first.  Along the way, Jake will share tales of actual mysteries he solves, from the past and the present.

<GASP> Oh my god that was such a longwinded explanation.

That last paragraph, I hope, is where the desperately needed effort to monetize this whole shebang will come in.

If the “Pop Culture Mysteries” blog takes off, Jake’s first novel will be about how he punched Hitler in the face.  If people like it, there will be more Jake novels in the future.

The Pop Culture Mysteries site can be considered a stand alone from the novels.  They are about Jake’s efforts to solve pop culture questions and to make it in a world much different from the one he’s used to.

The tricky part is the stories on the blog will refer to things that happened, whereas the novels will get into more detail about what happened.

You won’t need to have read the blog or the novels to enjoy the other.

MY HOPE: is that enough people like the Pop Culture Mysteries blog that they’ll continue with Jake’s first novel…even if it’s like a hundred people that might be a worthwhile boost.

MY FEAR: I’m setting myself up to write two novels – one being a “season” of posts on the blog and then a novel.  Should I just write two novels and put ’em up on Amazon?

And also…I love writing and its my passion but I want to do it right, even if that means it takes more time…so potentially I might not get a novel out in 2016.  I hope I do.  It could end up that I focus on Pop Culture Mysteries blog in 2016 and then get the novel out in 2017.

I worry about that because I know getting a novel out there is what I need to move this all forward so…I don’t know.

Advise me 3.5 readers.  Is my fictional blog/novel tie in a good idea or the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of?