Filed under: Amazon, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Titan
Getting ready for the official ‘launch’ of Communion of Dreams. I should have the proof copy of the paperback in hand tomorrow or the day after, and if it looks good I hope that the launch can come later this week. Have already had some sales of the Kindle version of the book, and some people have already downloaded a ‘loan’ copy under the Amazon Prime program. If you want to dive in, that’s great – but here’s another little secret: I’m going to run a promotion during the official launch whereby *anyone* can download a free copy of the Kindle version. Yup. So you might just wanna wait . . .
And in working to put the various components of all this together, I stumbled across this fun little optical illusion: The Eclipse of Titan. Check it out!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
{stage whisper} OK, here’s the news.
Communion of Dreams is now available in a Kindle version. I’m waiting for the paperback version to be ready before I make a real effort to promote it. That should happen next week.
But in the meantime, I know a lot of folks have been waiting for the Kindle version. And yeah, it *is* a lot more readable than the old .pdf version was. So you should plunk down the $4.95 for a copy. Definitely. Or, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can get it on loan for free – yeah, free.
And that is such a good idea I’m going to steal it. Here’s what I mean . . .
You can really help me out by buying a Kindle version. Seriously, a surge in sales would get people’s attention, and help me out a huge amount. But I’ll make you a deal: if you don’t like it for whatever reason, I’ll refund your money. Of course, I would rather that you liked it, and thought it was cheap cheap cheap at $4.95, and so much so that you went and told all your friends that it is the best book EVER and that they should get a copy. But as a fallback position I’ll refund your purchase if you don’t like it. I mean me, personally – I’ll send you $4.95. You can’t go wrong.
Oh, one more thing . . . anyone who will take the time to write a review of the book will earn my eternal gratitude. Really.
Watch for further news about the paperback edition next week. And maybe some other updates about things before then.
{/stage whisper}
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Failure, Feedback, Guns, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
I’m a blockhead.
No, really. Samuel Johnson’s quote establishes it beyond a doubt:
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
For years I listened to people go on and on about how beneficial my writing about being a care-giver was. All the praise, the sharing, the requests to write more, to collect my writings into a book. The final result has been for Her Final Year to sell a grand total of 32 copies, after years of work and months of flogging the book. What a staggering success.
Yup, a blockhead.
Also for years now I’ve listened to countless proclamations of how incredible and valuable Ballistics By The Inch is. How it is an amazing resource for anyone interested in hard data. This has been in discussions on different forums and blogs which I have stumbled upon. And it’s reflected in the hits & usage of the site, as well, with over 8 million hits total and something on the order of 500,000 unique visitors. There’ve been plenty of people who have written me, thanking me, telling me that we should accept donations to support our work. So, for the re-launch we have done just that – added a way for people to show how much they value the site with a small donation. And in the short time we’ve had the new site up we’ve had over 5,000 unique visitors, and gotten just one donation of $10. At that rate, we’d have gotten a stunning total of $1,000 in donations since the start – it wouldn’t even cover the cost of hosting the website.
Yup, a blockhead.
My novel has been downloaded over 35,000 times in the last 5 years. People have told me they love it, that it’s brilliant and just like the classic SF of the golden era. Sometime in the next few weeks we’ll offer a self-published version of the book in hardcopy and for the Kindle. And I’m not so much a blockhead that I expect to actually sell copies of the thing. But I bet – I just bet – that somehow I’ll manage to be disappointed, nonetheless. Probably when I start getting complaints that the book is no longer free.
Screw it. I swear, I am seriously tempted to just shut down all the websites. Yup, BBTI too. Just leave a brief description of the project up with an email address where people can contact me to buy access to the data. Like the song says:
Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City’s the place where
They said hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
They said hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side
But being a blockhead, we’ll see what happens.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI blog.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Failure, Feedback, Gardening, Hospice, Marketing, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Society, Travel
A good friend was visiting last weekend. We see each other fairly often, communicate regularly. But there are things best discussed in person.
“How’s your mom doing?”
“Not bad. I think we’re getting to the point where we need to have that conversation about her driving.”
“Ah. That’s a hard one.”
“Yeah. But my sister largely drives her everywhere as it is, anyway. So that will make it easier.”
* * * * * * *
I mentioned a week ago that I was surprised that Her Final Year hasn’t done better.
Well, I had been waiting for a couple of additional pieces to appear in different publications in the hopes that would spur awareness of the book, as well as sales. One of those being my college alumni magazine. Yesterday I saw that they had posted the Fall 2011 issue as a .pdf on their website, so I took a look.
It’s a blurb, not a review. You can find it at the bottom of page 39, if you want. Next to another book blurb, and one of about a dozen in this issue. My fellow alumni are intelligent, accomplished people.
* * * * * * *
After discovering that, I went out to pick tomatoes from my garden. The very wet summer we had meant that there was a big delay in a bunch of the tomato plants blooming and setting fruit. But I am lucky, since many people I know have had a horrible year for tomatoes, while mine were just delayed.
I was able to pick about 25 pounds of tomatoes, a nice mix of Lemon Boy and Brandywine and Black Prince and Better Boy. Most look great, have a wonderful taste. We had some with BLTs last night for dinner, and I made up two quarts of sauce from the ones with slight blemishes. I’ll probably go ahead and can or sauce the rest in the next day or two.
But I didn’t get to picking them for about two hours, because first I had to completely re-do the netting around the garden (about 40×50). Deer had gotten in, then tore the hell out of everything getting out.
Yeah, they munched on the tomato plants, and that was annoying. But they also ate the tops out of my habanero plants. Well, not all of them. Just the ones which had done the best.
See, as bad as the summer was on tomatoes, it was worse on the habaneros. They just started setting fruit a couple of weeks ago. And it was a race to see whether any of the pods ripened fully before I leave for New Zealand.
Now I doubt whether any of the pods will ripen. Oh, the deer stayed away from the fruit. But with the bulk of the leaves eaten out of the top, I don’t know whether they can ripen. We’ll see.
* * * * * * *
A dear friend used to always say “Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Plan as if you will live forever.”
She passed away over 20 years ago from breast cancer.
* * * * * * *
“Still, once you tell her that she has to stop driving, things change.”
“I know.” He looked at me. “I got copies of your book for all four of my siblings. Told them to read it.”
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you – I don’t think any of them have really thought through how this is likely to go with Mom.”
“Every experience is different.”
“Yeah, but at least having *some* idea of what to plan for, what to watch for, will help.”
Jim Downey
*from this. Cross posted to the HFY blog.
Filed under: Feedback
Yesterday’s blog post had a passing mention of the gentleman who had been in contact with me about creating an ‘online memorial’ for my dad, and how I thought that reflected a fundamental difference in approach to how we remember and honor people. Well, unsuprisingly it prompted a response from the fellow in question, who sent the following to my sister (text unchanged):
Ma’am. The paragraph below is from your brothers daily blog. He has a right to speak his peace. I don’t know if your father was a veteran or not, but I am. If he was a veteran, then he and I both believed in the cause to keep our country safe.
Either way, I, like your father also fought on the home front too on the mean streets of Saint Louis. The only difference between your father and I is that your father died in the line of duty and I did not. I don’t any control over that issue and I wish that I did.
Apparently your brother has some issues with me merely attempting to locate your fathers grave so that the memorial that I created for him out of RESPECT, and for others to see, can be complete with a picture of his grave site.
He, your brother, has no clue where his own father is buried. That in it self is disturbing to me. He wants to cry like a child in his writings and he can’t even go to his own fathers grave because he doesn’t even know where its at. He has “head issues” and needs some help. I hope he finds the help that he desperately needs. I hope that he never gets married and fathers a child or children because his own father is probably disgusted with his actions and words that he tries to preach. I will find the grave on my own even if it has no memorial marker at all, and will photograph myself.
See that he gets this note.
Just had to share that.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Feedback, Hospice, Phil Plait, Promotion, Publishing, Science, YouTube
First, sharing this from Phil Plait:
I’d been familiar with the illusion, but this is a really good demonstration of it. Nice.
A follow-up to this post of last week: ‘Her Majesty’ is still hanging in there, though very weak. She spent a couple of hours sleeping on my chest this morning, purring quietly. Makes it hard for me to get any work done, but I don’t regret the time. At all.
We continue to get excellent reviews and comments about Her Final Year, which makes the lack of sales of the book even more frustrating. Ah well. I won’t be posting a lot here about that book, but you can follow developments on the dedicated blog. We do have a number of big things lined up which may be of interest – reviews in papers and magazines. As those come to fruition I’ll probably mention the most important items.
Oh, if you want, you can now find me on Twitter. I’m still getting the hang of it, but can see why it appeals to some folks a lot.
And another follow-up, this time to a post from several years ago: on Monday we ‘closed’ on the real estate transaction which was the resolution of that whole debacle. The property in question is now ours. There are still some lingering details which need to be dealt with over the next year, but once again that is really someone else’s concern. And now if I never have to deal with the people involved ever again, it’ll be just fine by me, as I am perfectly happy to let this little piece of small-town history finally be buried.
Lastly, yes, we *are* making some headway on the big BBTI revamp and expanded data sets. Remember, the data we collected during the tests in May was almost as much data as we had collected in all the previous tests. Then adding in the .22 tests from June, and I think that did surpass the previous amount.
It’s been a busy and productive year. And it isn’t yet 2/3 done.
Jim Downey
We’re starting to get some good feedback on the book. I posted a full review someone wrote and sent to us over on the HFY blog, thought I’d share a bit of it here as well:
Readers will not find a more real, heartfelt and honest account out there aside from your own personal experience. For folks who have already walked this path, (and could possibly walk it again), this is a must-read book.
It is assuring and comforting to know that as long term care providers to a close family member, our personal feelings and ideals are “normal” and okay. It is in many ways, a personal and solitary journey, but this memoir lets the reader know they are never completely alone.
Go check out the whole thing. If you’ve read the book, and would like to either leave a comment over there or send me a full review, please feel free to do so. Reviews on Amazon are also most welcome. And if you haven’t read the book, then you should go ahead and get a copy of it, right? Right. That’s how this self-publishing thing is supposed to work. Kindle version here, paperback here. Well, go on.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Feedback, Hospice, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Writing stuff
I’ve written a lot here over the last few years on the disfunctional nature of the publishing industry today. This blog was ostensibly started to chronicle the process of finding an agent and/or publisher for Communion of Dreams, after all. That was four years, and almost 31,000 downloads of the book, ago. Trapdoor Books is supposed to publish Communion of Dreams sometime soon, though that has been pending (and driving me somewhat nuts) for four months.
Also pending for four months has been a submission of Her Final Year to a publisher. They were supposed to get back to us a month ago, according to what they told us in our initial submission. A number of other publishers and agents we’ve also contacted have not bothered to respond at all.
Now, I’m not ready to give up on Trapdoor – they seem to be honestly working hard to establish themselves in the “geek fiction” world, and whenever everything comes together to get Communion of Dreams actually published, I think it’ll work to my benefit (and theirs).
But my co-author and I are giving very serious consideration to publishing Her Final Year ourselves. And I would appreciate your feedback on whether we should or not. Let me outline what I see as the advantages and disadvantages
First, and foremost, it gets the book out there where it can do some good. This is actually very important to us – there is a great need for more “nuts & bolts” care-giving information regarding Alzheimer’s/Dementia in general, and from a male care-giver’s perspective in particular. So, immediacy.
Next, there’s cost. Particularly if we concentrate on e-book sales (predominately through Amazon), we can likely keep the price down a fair amount over a conventional paper book (though we would likely set it up so that people could get a Print-On-Demand version if they wanted it). This will help get the book to people who need it. We could designate some portion of all sales to go to charities such as the Alzheimer’s association and still get a fair payment akin to conventional book royalties for myself and my co-author. There’s cost.
We would have more direct control over not just the book, but also for an associated website which could function as a support group for care-givers and their families. We’ve intended to do this from the start, but by bypassing a publisher we avoid issues related to control over the site. That’s control.
The disadvantages? A lot more work. We would probably form a small corporation to function as the umbrella under which all of this would be done. That doesn’t bother me, as I know how to do such things from previous experience with the gallery, but it would be more work and some cost. We’d have to do all the promotion ourselves . . . but these days, authors are expected to take a very active role in promotion, anyway. We wouldn’t have the gravitas of an established publisher behind us, and that would mean limitations in getting the book distributed though conventional bookstores. We wouldn’t have the benefit of an in-house editor and design team. Those are the big disadvantages that I see.
So, I’d like your thoughts. Do you think a niche book like this could be done successfully as a self-publishing project? Would you trust it enough to buy a copy, or would you want to see a ‘name’ behind it? What price point for the electronic version would compensate for that? $9.99? $4.99? Would say a pledge to donate $1.00 from every sale to the Alzheimer’s Assn or a Hospice organization make a difference?
Like I said, we’re giving this serious consideration – but it is a big step. Part of my motivation to do this is just based on how long the whole process of getting Communion of Dreams published has taken (and continues to take). Do you think I am letting my frustration over that outweigh more practical considerations?
Let me know, either in comments here, on Facebook, or in a private email.
Thanks.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Feedback, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
Well. Post 999. Who woulda thunk it?
I started this blog one month short of 4 years ago, ostensibly to discuss the process of revising, then submitting for publication Communion of Dreams.
Of course, along the way it became something much more than that. Another book emerged from it. I made a lot of friends. I connected with old friends. I documented the twistings and turnings of my life and fortunes. Stared into my navel far too much. Stared into the bright sun upon occasion. Started a new project, and watched it become insanely popular (though not exactly remunerative.)
I’m still waiting for final confirmation of the publication date and details from the publisher who is interested in CoD – even at this late date in the whole process, things could fall through. But with a little luck, the book will actually be out sometime in the new year, and we’ll see whether the over 29,000 downloads it has had since I first launched this blog translate into actual sales.
Wow – 29,000 downloads. That still amazes me, given that it has all been word of mouth and informal promotion.
So, thanks for the ride, everyone.
Jim Downey
Well, if you want it, that is.
See, the query last Friday attracted some interest from an agent, who said that she wanted to see a full formal book proposal from us for Her Final Year. Between getting ready for my class (which is going great, thanks), and getting other promised projects done, I didn’t have a chance to turn my attention to the proposal until yesterday afternoon. After about 8 hours working on it, I got it done – in ‘first draft’ form. It runs some 32 pages.
Anyway, I just thought that I’d make it available, if anyone wanted to get a sense of what the book will be like. This proposal contains a synopsis of each chapter of the book, along with an excerpt from each chapter. I don’t intend this to be a public document, but am willing to share with any friends or readers on a limited basis. And no, I won’t be offended if no one else wants to see it at this time. Feedback on the proposal welcome, but isn’t a requirement to look at it.
So, if you’re interested, drop me a note, or post a comment here.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 