As some of you may have seen, I published a young adult fantasy novel a few years ago. This was followed by a sequel, and audiobooks (narrated by Hollywood actor David Stifel) and acceptance into the Authors Guild.
What some of you may not know is that for a few days last year, I outsold George R.R. Martin on Amazon (true story, bro!). I originally thought I’d use all that extra royalty money to replenish my stock of whistles. I’ve owned nearly all of the most known whistles made today, at one time or another.
But I’ve been down this road before–back in 1999ish, I had a lot of disposable income due to the tech bubble boom, and spent a lot of money on whistles. Only to sell them when the downturn came around. So, I thought to myself, instead of spending money, why not invest it? Plus, high-end whistles are so dang expensive.
In the grand scheme of things, getting a fully functioning machine shop up and running isn’t that expensive, and I’ve been down this road before (though on a much smaller and cheaper scale). I’ve been working for a while now, with the proper expert help, and so I’m ready to make the announcement today.
Very soon, I will offering my own line of inexpensive “high-end” whistles, modeled after some of the best whistles made today. Did you know that with resin casting, you can make near-perfect duplicates of simple objects? I plan on offering a Copeland clone first, since Mr. Copeland’s not really making many whistles these days, but I plan on expanding to other hard-to-acquire whistles soon thereafter: Bleazy, Swayne, MK, O’Riordan, etc. I eventually plan on offering a clone copy of every high-end whistle in existence. Well, except for Chieftains. We’re having trouble making a good clone of them–a copy of a copy and all that.
Taking advantage of state-of-the-art manufacturing overseas, with the lower cost of overhead, we will be able to offer these whistles at a flat rate of $35.00 each, no matter what make or model is being cloned, without sacrificing quality. No longer will we have to argue about “high end” vs “low end”, but instead, people will be able to choose the whistle they like without the stigma of price or availability. It will truly democratize WHOAD.
We’ve already gotten sample instruments into the hands of some of the world’s foremost players. We’ve been hearing great things. We’ve even heard that our $35.00 Generation clone is light years better than the “real thing.”
I look forward to unveiling the website in the upcoming days, and hope that you’re as excited as I am.
(April fools–of course! All jokes and digs intended as tongue-in-cheek humor. No offense was intended to any whistler or maker. I love you all!)
No foolin’.