This is a little weird – evidently, a Japanese site did some kind of mention/review of Communion of Dreams, and in the last couple of days I’ve had thousands of hits and about 200 downloads of the book because of it.
I say “evidently” because the site is in Japanese, and even The Mighty Google fails to give any real translation. Here’s the site:
And here’s the page from whence the traffic has come. Odd thing is, while the “MP3” is clearly in the title, only about a quarter of the downloads have been the audio files, and the rest the .pdf of the book.
Anyway, if anyone can read Japanese and would like to let me know what the site says, I’d appreciate it. Who knows, maybe I can wheedle a trip to Japan as a “famous American author” or something out of this.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ballistics, Book Conservation, Guns, Marketing, Politics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
By the numbers: this is the 700th post for this blog. We’ve had over 42,000 visitors, and almost 1000 comments. I have no idea how many people get a feed of the thing.
In the last 5 weeks, another 1,300 people have downloaded the novel, bringing the total to 15,500. I really need to figure out a way to sell copies of the damned thing, since interest continues to chug along.
Part of the bump up in downloads last month was no doubt due to the BBTI project. That has now had over 935,000 hits since the initial launch last Thanksgiving, and is up 165,000 since the ‘relaunch’ just three weeks ago. Wow – it seems like it has been longer than that. But then, I’ve been busy.
And I am going to be busier still – got started on the next round of books for a big institutional client yesterday. And I figure I have about 160 billable hours to do in the next three weeks or so. So forgive me if posting a bit sporadic for a little while.
Cheers!
Jim Downey
As in, it’ll take a genius to market this stuff:
India to launch cow urine as soft drink
Does your Pepsi lack pep? Is your Coke not the real thing? India’s Hindu nationalist movement apparently has the answer: a new soft drink made from cow urine.
The bovine brew is in the final stages of development by the Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, according to the man who makes it.
Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink – called “gau jal”, or “cow water” – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”.
Is that a promise, or a threat?
As a friend said: “Gives a whole new meaning when people call bad beer ‘p*ss water’.”
The RSS in the past has promoted the use of cow urine as a cure for cancer and other medical problems. Now, I can see it as a way to lose weight – it’d certainly put me off food – but as a cancer cure? Woo!!!
So, if you’re planning a trip to India later this year, and are feeling a little adventurous, feel free to sample this lovely local beverage and report back to me, OK?
Jim Downey
(Via BB. Cross posted to UTI.)
Another brief post – been busy all day – but had to share this delightful YouTube post:
It’s a series of short advertisements that Jim Henson did which are surprisingly violent but also pretty damned funny.
Yes, I have a twisted sense of humor.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Marketing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
One afternoon last week I was delivering a batch of work to a client here in town. Everything went fine, and after we had gone over the work I had done and the charges, the person I was meeting with asked whether I knew anyone in the area from whom they could learn a particular skill.
“Sure. Contact Professor X in the art department at the University. They should be able to help you out – either get you into a workshop or tell you who you can get private lessons from here locally.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“No worries. Tell them I sent you – I used to represent Professor X at my gallery.”
“Gallery?”
“Yeah, I ran an art gallery downtown for 8 years.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
* * * * * * *
I got copied in on a note from Jim K to a magazine editor he is working with for an article about our ballistics project. It was discussing the reaction that people have had to the whole thing, and it reminded me of this passage from a post last year:
Well, from that discussion emerged an idea: conduct the necessary tests ourselves, compile all the data, then make it freely available to all on a dedicated website. Sounds like one of those great ideas which no one will ever get around to doing, because of the time and expense involved, right?
Well, as you know, we did do the whole project, and it has indeed been a pretty phenomenal success. But 18 months ago, it really was just one of those ideas that people would dismiss. That specifically happened to me at my favorite local gun shop, when I told the sales guy I usually chat with about the upcoming project.
“Oh, they did that,” he said, “back in the 30’s. Guy chopped down a rifle, measured the velocity drop-off.”
“But no one has done it with modern handgun calibers,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, true. So, when you going to get it all done?
“We’ll probably do it next spring.”
“Yeah, right.” It wasn’t said sarcastically. Well, not completely so.
* * * * * * *
The last few days have been filled with the news of the Madoff debacle, the latest in a long string of examples of poor judgment and questionable ethics in the financial sector, all of which have played a major part in the economic collapse that we are experiencing. This one meant losses of some $50 billion last I heard, though of course there is still a lot of uncertainty about the actual numbers.
It’s weird, but it actually makes me feel somewhat better about the losses I caused my investors with the gallery.
See, for 8 years we struggled to make a go of it. Most of that time I (and my business partner) did without a salary, scrimping and saving to make the most of the capital we had. Still, when the end came I felt really guilty about having cost my friends and family members the thousands of dollars they had invested in the business, because I couldn’t make my dream work out exactly the way I wanted. In spite of their disappointment, I don’t think any of my investors agreed with my sense of guilt – they knew they were taking a risk and that I had done all that was possible to make the business succeed.
But still, I have continued to feel guilty about it. Blame my Catholic upbringing.
Now, that sense of guilt has been blunted a bit. I wasn’t running some Ponzi scheme, violating the law and the trust of my investors. I wasn’t living high on the hog, bilking people of their entire life’s savings. I was doing my level best, and we just failed (financially – the gallery was a success by about any other measure). That’s life. I still have debts to pay, and will be getting to that this next year if my bookbinding business holds steady.
* * * * * * *
In spite of my (mock) complaining about resenting the success of the ballistics project, I c0ntinue to be very pleased with the ongoing (though slowing) spread of my novel. The ‘official’ tally on the website is 12,500 but this last week alone almost another 150 people have downloaded the book. Yeah, I’d still love to see it conventionally published, with a “Bestseller” table at the local bookstore featuring the book – but given the broken nature of the publishing industry at present, that is pretty unlikely.
And I’m looking forward to getting more serious writing done this next year. First, a book on being a care-provider, then the long-delayed prequel to Communion. Something to look forward to.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow I deliver another 104 volumes to a client, as I mentioned on Monday. I have confidence that the client will be quite pleased with the work, and consider my fee for doing it more than fair.
And as I have worked on these books the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Some of that has peeped out here on this blog, but a lot of it has just been simmering. The comment from the client I mentioned in the first section of this post sort of gelled a number of things for me. That client, and the one tomorrow, consider me to be a talented and successful craftsman. And that is a good feeling.
But it is also only one aspect of who I am.
On gun forums around the world people now know me as one of the guys involved in the ballistics project that almost everyone praises.
Over 12 thousand people have downloaded my novel. It’s just a guess how many have actually read it, or how many of those found it interesting, but I do get some positive feedback about it on a regular basis.
My art gallery was something of an institution here in my community for almost a decade. Now there is a used CD store where it used to be.
My Paint the Moon project captivated the imaginations of many around the world – but also gave plenty of fodder to those who wanted a good laugh.
Things change. Most people know you for only one slice of time, from seldom more than one perspective. What does it all add up to?
I dunno. But the common thread for me through it all is passion. Coming up with an idea, evaluating it, then attempting to do it whole-heartedly. Being passionate enough to be willing to risk failure.
I don’t care if people don’t know something about me. But I do hope that what they do know about me reflects my passion about that one thing.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Book Conservation, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Marketing, Music, NYT, Promotion, Publishing
Here comes the latest round of this generation’s British Invasion:
‘Beedle the Bard,’ on View at the Library
Illustrations by J. K. Rowling accompany one of seven handmade copies of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” the latest book by the best-selling children’s author. The copy is on view at the New York Public Library. The skull above accompanies one of the stories, “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” (Photo: Scholastic)
The wizard book is now available for muggle eyes. A hand-written and hand-illustrated copy of J. K. Rowling’s newest book, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” was unveiled on Wednesday at the New York Public Library, an event to garner publicity for the commercial release of the book Thursday.
I’ve written about these custom bindings before, as well as the collector’s edition. But still, it is rather exciting that this book is available. And as I am currently listening to Deathly Hallows as I work in the bindery, I’ve been thinking about the (still?) unknown bookbinder who did the custom volumes, and understand the desire of fans of the series to have their own copy of Beedle. But as I said before, if anyone spends the money for a “collector’s edition” for me as a gift, I will kick them. Get a trade edition and donate the balance of what you would have spent to a charity, instead.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, BoingBoing, Emergency, Failure, Feedback, Government, Guns, Kindle, Marketing, NYT, Politics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA, Society
An update to this post… In the four days since the site went public, we’ve had almost 75,000 hits. That’s more hits than I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site this entire year. I’d say it’s off to a good start. Interesting that it has already started to propagate beyond the usual gun forums and whatnot – we got a lot of hits from a link on SomethingAwful, and we’re seeing some links from people’s Facebook and Myspace pages.
* * *
Did you see this post in the NYT about the future of publishing? I was going to write about it, but have been occupied with other matters. Then I saw this piece by Clay Shirky in response, and figured I’d just tell people to read what he said. An excerpt:
There are book lovers, yes, but there are also readers, a much larger group. By Gleick’s logic, all of us who are just readers, everyone who buys paperbacks or trades books after we’ve read them, everyone who prints PDFs or owns a Kindle, falls out of his imagined future market. Publishers should forsake mere readers, and become purveyors of Commemorative Text Objects. It’s the Franklin Mint business model, now with 1000% more words!
* * *
Got a note from a friend in response to yesterday’s doom & gloom report. He asked what my advice would be for anyone wondering about how to handle some modest investments (and acknowledged that I am not a financial advisor in any professional way). My reply:
Warm clothes and sturdy shoes.
* * *
Well, I have other matters to attend to. Have a longer post working in the back of my mind, perhaps for later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Fermi's Paradox, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Survival, Writing stuff
Yeah, I know I said I’d try and get a nice cheery travelogue up next. Oh well. This has more relevance to Communion of Dreams, which is ostensibly the focus for this blog, anyway, right?
Right. So, here: seems that researchers have for the first time clearly determined the extinction of a mammal to have been caused by disease.
In 1899, an English ship stopped at Christmas Island, near Australia. Within nine years, the island’s entire native rat population had gone extinct, and scientists have wondered ever since what exactly happened.Now, researchers led by an Old Dominion University scientist think they have unraveled the mystery – and, they say, the lessons of Christmas Island apply today to issues such as disease, invasive species and the law of unintended consequenceTurns out, says ODU biology professor Alex Greenwood, that a British black rat had stowed away on the ship in a bale of hay. Upon reaching the island, the rat – or several rats – escaped on land and spread a “hyperdisease” among the native population.“Anyone who has ever tried to kill a rat – let alone a whole population – knows how hard that can be,” Greenwood said in an interview Monday. “That’s what made Christmas Island so fascinating for so long. Imagine, a whole species – especially one as tough as a rat – gone within 10 years of exposure!”
OK, for those of us who are non-biologists, this may be something of a surprise: why wouldn’t extinction occur due to disease? But the prevailing theory has long been that it was virtually impossible that a disease would wipe out all members of a species – and that any survivors would pass on their immunity to their descendants, thus continuing the Darwinian arms race. To determine that this has happened – and to a robust and fast-reproducing species such as a rat – is real news.
Which touches on an older item I came across recently:
Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction
Jason G. MathenyAbstract: In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives. We review the challenges to studying human extinction risks and, by way of example, estimate the cost effectiveness of preventing extinction-level asteroid impacts.
* * *
3. Estimating the Near-Term Probability of Extinction
It is possible for humanity (or its descendents) to survive a million years or more, but we could succumb to extinction as soon as this century. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President Kennedy estimated the probability of a nuclear holocaust as “somewhere between one out of three and even” (Kennedy, 1969, p. 110). John von Neumann, as Chairman of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee, predicted that it was “absolutely certain (1) that there would be a nuclear war; and (2) that everyone would die in it” (Leslie, 1996, p. 26).
More recent predictions of human extinction are little more optimistic. In their catalogs of extinction risks, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees (2003), gives humanity 50-50 odds on surviving the 21st century; philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that it would be “misguided” to assume that the probability of extinction is less than 25%; and philosopher John Leslie (1996) assigns a 30% probability to extinction during the next five centuries. The “Stern Review” for the U.K. Treasury (2006) assumes that the probability of human extinction during the next century is 10%. And some explanations of the “Fermi Paradox” imply a high probability (close to100%)of extinction among technological civilizations (Pisani, 2006).4
I haven’t spent the time to look up the entire paper and read it, though I have followed this topic in the (popular) scientific news for most of my adult life. It is, in fact, one of the reasons why I decided to write Communion of Dreams – to explore the idea of humanity on the brink of extinction (as well as to examine Fermi’s Paradox, as I have written about previously). Just as most people seem to prefer ignoring their own mortality, we as a species seem to prefer ignoring the possibility of our own extinction. Even the vast majority of Science Fiction (including my own) written with humankind facing the possibility of extinction is resolved with some kind of salvation – it’d just be too bleak for most readers, otherwise.
And that doesn’t sell.
Jim Downey
It looks as though there will indeed be some manner of bailout/loan package for the “Big Three” automakers, now that the Bush administration is joining the cries from Democrats. And I’m really not sure how I feel about that, since there are good arguments pro and con, and given the mountains of money we are already throwing at the financial industry why the hell shouldn’t we also help out people who actually make something real?
But it comes as no surprise to me that the automakers are hurting. Sure, there’s the well understood economic forces at work – the ‘legacy health costs’, the lack of financing availability, the volatility of the cost of gas – but there is something else, too: buying a car is a major pain in the ass.
Yeah, I know, everybody knows this. Everybody has written about it. The lack of popularity of car salesmen is a cliche. But that’s exactly my point – it has been like this forever, and there has been no real effort to make any changes in the system. That, right there, tells you that there is something fundamentally wrong with the entire industry.
A case in point. A couple of weeks ago a friend decided that the time had come to get a new car. That with the economy being the way it is, she’d be able to get a decent deal. She did her homework, knew what was the fair market value of the model she wanted, and that there were models with the options she wanted, and in the color that she wanted, in our vicinity.
So she called the local dealership. Said she wanted thus & such car, and that she knew five specific versions of that car was available in the surrounding area. “Yup, we can get that,” said the dealership, “here’s what it will cost. Financing will be zero percent, keeping with our current promotion.”
“Let me think about it,” said my friend. She did, ran the numbers, everything looked good. Not great, but the price was fair. She called the dealership back. “I’ll come in tomorrow (Wednesday) on my way to work, and we’ll take care of the paperwork.”
She was assured that everything would be ready, wouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.
OK, now, complete the story. No, no, go ahead – tell yourself what happened. Got it?
And that’s my point. You *know* what happens next. My friend went in at the appointed time. Of course, there “was a problem.” The “sales manager said we can’t do that price with 0%.”
“What if I just write you a check for the car?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“What would the price be if I just wrote you a check for the car I want, right now?” (My friend was dead serious about this.)
Salesman goes off to confer with his manager. Comes back. “Well, the car you want . . . ”
Go ahead, finish the sentence. Yeah: “. . . isn’t here on the lot, so we’d have to have it brought in, and there’ll be transport charges, and the other dealership will need something for their trouble, so . . .”
“Wait. We had an agreement on the price of the car. I just wanted to know what the taxes and whatnot on it would add, so I could write the check.”
“But we can’t sell it to you for that.”
My friend got up, walked out. Within an hour she had an agreement from a dealer in a neighboring state for the car she wanted, at a specific price. The manufacturer’s website showed the car in their inventory, so there’d be no problem. They’d hold it for her to come pick up on Saturday.
She and her husband drove up Friday night, stayed with friends in the area. Saturday, they went over to the dealership.
Yeah, you guessed it: Much the same initial song and dance.
Yes, my friend did come home with the car, after telling them that she had left one dealer’s showroom when they tried to pull this crap, and she was perfectly ready to do so again. But it is simply ridiculous that she had to do so.
And yet, this story (all of it true), comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has had to go through the hassle of buying a car anytime in the last four decades. Maybe longer – I’m only aware of it that far back. Even people who live here and who have never bought a car from a dealership know to expect this kind of bullshit. It is absurd.
Now, you can say that such a system continues to exist because the profit derived from it for dealers is great enough to overcome the alienation that buyers feel. And besides, everyone else does the same thing. I’ll say instead that this system is proof that car makers in the US do not care about consumers, and are just looking for a way to screw them over at each and every opportunity.
And there’s a big part of me that says payback is a real bitch.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Communion Of Dreams 