. . . to Communion of Dreams, you might hop on over to SFFaudio and check out some of the many other resources and reviews that they have. From their site:
We think audio is the best medium for Science Fiction literature and drama. We’re not against the dead tree, cathode ray, and celluloid versions, we just know them to be the inferior medium for transmission of story, mood, and ideas.
Before the creation of printed books, stories were told by the Greek aoidos, the Celtic bards and other poets of the human voice. After the printing press allowed for greater numbers of “novels” to be written, the families and friends in all the households that could afford to buy them would gather together and spend their evenings reading books aloud to each other. In the late 1970s the audio cassette allowed for the creation of a new industry, a new medium, the audiobook. Over the last three decades new technologies, CDs, MP3-CDs, and especially the portable MP3 player have made the audiobook even more popular.
Audio drama, too, is our passion. It goes by many names: audio theatre, audio cinema, and of course “radio drama” – the name of the place where it got started. We love this stuff. And if you’re reading this, we bet you do too.
Indeed.
Hat tip to Scot of OwnMade AudioBooks (who did the unabridged production of Communion available on my site) for the heads up!!
UPDATE: The folks at SFFaudio have added Communion of Dreams to their list of goodies. You can find the entry here.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Well, I just checked the stats, and according to my calculations we’re closing in on the elusive 10,000 downloads goal. About 110 to go, way I figure.
That’s really cool. I suppose I should go pick up a current edition of the Guide to Literary Agents or something. Rework my contact letter. Select a half-dozen or so agents and contact them, tell them what a great opportunity it would be for them to represent me and Communion of Dreams.
Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just rework the homepage for Communion a bit, freshen things up in celebration. Because contacting agents has been so effective in the past.
Gah.
Anyway, chill the champagne, order the cake, let’s get ready to party!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, Fireworks, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Fairly quick post.
Delivered the first substantial chunk of books to the seminary yesterday – they were very pleased, sent back with me another 85 books. With a little luck, now that I am recovering further I’ll be able to get these done and back to them in 4-6 weeks.
Things are in chaos here, and having my home disrupted this way is extremely stressful. Why the chaos? Because we’re now to the point where my wife and her siblings have sorted out who gets what of Martha Sr’s household possessions and things are getting ready to be moved out. Some has already been taken, but the bulk of stuff is leaving today for California – lots of boxes everywhere, furniture stacked up and ready to load. I’ll be helping with that this morning, then trying to get some order imposed on the mess following. I’ve been looking forward to having all of this resolved, so that my wife and I can really get settled in here, but going through it is just painful.
And tomorrow is my birthday (additional downloads this week have amounted to about 60, so we have a ways to go to cross that 10,000 threshold.) So I may not get much of substance posted for another day or two – though I do have a number of items bookmarked I want to write about.
Well then, have a good weekend, enjoy some fireworks. You’ll hear from me when you hear from me.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
OK, I know that it’s a bit tactless to ask someone to give you a gift. So I’m tactless.
Last time I updated the count on downloads, we were at 9,500 (give or take a few). That was June second. Since then, we’ve had 160 downloads of Communion of Dreams. I don’t know if it is the summer doldrums, or what, but that is a big drop-off from the previous months averages of 500+ downloads a month.
My birthday is July 4th. I will turn 50. And I’m asking for a gift: help get the download count over 10,000. All we need is 340 downloads. I’ve had twice that number downloaded in one day, previously, when someone somewhere posted a link on a bulletin board or some such. So that’s what I’m asking – just help spread the word. If you belong to a SF discussion forum, or blog about books, or whatever, help me cross that 10,000 threshold. It won’t cost you anything, and it won’t cost the people who want to download the book anything. Just a couple of minutes of your time. And I’d appreciate it.
I never really thought that Communion of Dreams would get so much attention – but now that we’re so close to 10,000, it’d be a cool thing to reach that number before I cross a threshold of my own.
Thanks!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, BoingBoing, Humor, Marketing, Music, Society, Star Trek, tech
Man, I loves me some Star Trek technobabble as much as the next guy. But get a load of this:
Amazon.com Product Description
Get the purest digital audio you’ve ever experienced from multi-channel DVD and CD playback through your Denon home theater receiver with the AK-DL1 dedicated cable. Made of high-purity copper wire, it’s designed to thoroughly eliminate adverse effects from vibration and helps stabilize the digital transmission from occurrences of jitter and ripple. A tin-bearing copper alloy is used for the cable’s shield while the insulation is made of a fluoropolymer material with superior heat resistance, weather resistance, and anti-aging properties. The connector features a rounded plug lever to prevent bending or breaking and direction marks to indicate correct direction for connecting cable.
And it can be yours for the low, low price of $499.99.
Seriously. A $5 ethernet cable.
But what is even funnier than considering the fact that they probably sell these things to the gullible are the merciless reviews right there on Amazon. Here’s one:
One of the unmentioned qualities of these cables is the reduced latency of the signal. Normal copper cables pass signals at about half the speed of light, but these puppies pass the signal at up to 3/4ths of lightspeed! This means that your data arrives faster, and since the Ethernet protocol involves collision detection, backoff, and retransmission this added speed means YOUR data is more likely to go ahead of competing data! Further, if there is no issue with other data sources, your data arrives 100s of picoseconds faster than with other cables. This can be important for gamers in multi-player situations! Or even for folks who just hate to wait for their data to arrive.
Marked down 1 star because it still won’t let you do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
And:
I wish that I could give this product the full five stars. Based on its ability to enhance the musical, spatial, temporal and spiritual qualities of any recording, it is worth many multiples of the reasonable asking price. Unfortunately, Denon does not provide the necessary warning regarding the directionality of the cable. As I write this email, a small black hole is tearing through the space time fabric of my living room, consuming everything in its path (including my former pet Chihuahua, Wolfgang). A simple warning to prevent me from having reverse cabled my new joy for experimental reasons would have also spared me the horror of bidding adieu to 20 years woth of collecting (yes my cabbage patch dolls and hummel figurines are now faint memories of the past, for this dimension anyway). I bid you all adieu as I now see my walls dissolving… goodbye cruel worl
And:
You pretend tech-jokers, laugh all you want – this cable is the real deal. When I first received mine, I rushed to hook it up to my system. and was crestfallen; the edge of the music sounded as if it had been routed through an echo chamber. It only lasted for a fraction of a millisecond, but *I* could hear it. I immediately got on the phone to Denon, and as you can imagine, their support was superb. After asking me a few questions about my rig, the support person said “this is a question I am hating to be asking you, but did you follow the directional arrows when you plugged it in?” Well, I felt like he could see the face go beet red.
I regained my composure, and explained how embarassed I was, especially as a binary engineer. How could I have expected to get clean ones and zeroes through a backwards wire? The best way I can try to explain this to a neophyte is this: imagine grating cheese with the grater upside-down. Now, you might argue that if you push hard enough, cheese will still go through, and I will concede this point. But is the cheese the same? No, of course not. Instead of smooth strands worthy of a gourmet taco, you end up with a mushy facsimile better left to melting on a bowl of chili (no offense, chili fans).
None taken.
Anyway, there’s like 16 pages of such hilarious mocking. Deservedly so, but it is nice to see it happen. Sort of restores my hope for humankind. For a few hours, anyway.
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Astronomy, Ben Bova, Feedback, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Space, Titan, Writing stuff
I discovered a couple of years ago that someone had created a Wikipedia entry for me. It was weird to stumble across that when I was looking for something else (I no longer remember what). Particularly since it seemed that the initial entry was made by someone for whom English was not a native tongue, and who only had some of their facts right. In other words, it wasn’t a friend who did it, laying the foundation for some kind of joke on me. My wife and I cleaned up the language a bit, got the facts corrected, expanded the entry to include stuff which had been missed.
But it is still a weird feeling.
And something similar happened again today.
This morning, I was doing my routine check on the stats for the download of Communion of Dreams, and saw that there had been another of the periodic spikes. As I have mentioned previously, when this happens I will sometimes check to see if there is a referring site where a link to the novel has been posted. I’m just curious as to how word of the book spreads, and whether someone has some commentary or criticism that I should know about. And this morning in the ‘referring’ stats was a link to a Wiki page titled “Titan in fiction“, explained by this simple single sentence:
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It has a substantial atmosphere and is the most Earth-like satellite in the Solar System, making it a popular science fiction setting.
And there, next-to-last in the ‘Literature’ section, just two entries after Ben Bova’s novel Titan, was this:
Communion of Dreams (2007), a novel by Jim Downey. An alien artifact is discovered on Titan that has strange effects on anyone who observes it.
I could quibble with the description, but I won’t. I’m too weirded-out by seeing it. With almost 10,000 downloads of the book, it is unsurprising that someone who has read it would think to add links in Wikipedia about it. Unsurprising, that is, unless you’re the one it happens to.
I do not have ‘false modesty’. I’ve got an ego, as any of my friends will attest, and I’m not afraid of a bit of self promotion. But in the face of repeated rejections from publishers and agents, it is more than a little odd to see that Communion is slowly creeping into the culture this way. It’s just plain weird – a touch of dissonance.
Well, anyway. As always, if anyone knows of places where Communion has been recommended, and now I suppose where it has been linked in another context, please let me know.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
In the month or so since I posted this, there have been more than an additional 800 downloads of Communion of Dreams. Meaning that we’re now approaching 9,000 downloads altogether. This tends to happen in ‘clumps’ for some unknown (to me) reason, where there will be a baseline of 5 – 10 people a day downloading the thing and then it will suddenly jump to a seventy-five or a hundred or a couple hundred downloads for a day or two.
Anyway, it’s likely that sometime in the next month or two, total downloads will cross the 10,000 mark. Going to 5 digits seems like a cool threshold, and I’m thinking that I should do something to note/celebrate/mark the occasion. But I have no idea what. So if anyone has any suggestions, leave a comment or drop me a note, OK?
Oh, and that contact of the agent mentioned in the post a month ago? Still haven’t heard back from them. Because of other things I’ve mentioned being busy with here, I haven’t gotten around to contacting any other agents. I suppose I should do that. Ah, well.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Comics, Humor, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
The 4/13 Non Sequitur nails it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: George Lucas, Humor, Marketing, movies, Press, Promotion, Religion, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Star Wars
You may recall the 2001 effort to get people to register their religion as “Jedi”. Like some of the other silliness at the turn of the century, it was mostly harmless.
Well, it seems that earlier this year a couple of brothers in Wales decided to take it a step further:
Force strong for new Jedi church
Two Star Wars-loving brothers planning a Jedi church hope it will be much nearer than a galaxy far, far away.
Barney and Daniel Jones want fellow devotees to be able to join them close to their home on Anglesey.
Barney, 26 – or Master Jonba Hehol – and Daniel, 21 – Master Morda Hehol – head the UK Church of the Jedi, in honour of the film’s good knights.
And you gotta give the guys credit – they know how to keep their name in the news:
Anglesey Jedi Church announces plans for Moon colony
AN ORDER of Holyhead Jedis has begun steps to colonise the moon.
The UK Church of the Jedi, run by brothers Daniel and Barney Jones, of Holyhead, are setting up a micro nation on the moon.
They have bought a plot of land on the moon and the order plan to have a capital city and appoint worthy Jedi to positions such as Head of Galactic Affairs and Country Ambassador.
Alas, with notoriety also comes occasional tragedy:
Star Wars comes to Holyhead as Darth Vader strikes back in Jedi’s back garden
A Star Wars fan got closer to his idols than he would perhaps have liked when he was attacked in his garden by Darth Vader.
Jedi Master Jonba Hehol – known to family and friends as Barney Jones, 36, of Holyhead – was giving a TV interview in his back garden for a documentary when a man, dressed in a black bin-bag and wearing Darth Vader’s trademark shiny black helmet, leapt over his garden fence.
Wielding a metal crutch – his lightsaber presumably being in for repairs – the Sith Lord proceeded to lay about his opponent, whose Jedi powers proved inadequate for the task of defending himself.
After besting Master Hehol in single combat, Vader, who The Sun reports was under the influence of alcohol, went on to assault the camera crew and a hairdresser.
It’s always something.
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Failure, Feedback, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Well, there’s been another surge of interest in the book the last few days, and now there have been over 8,100 downloads of it.
As I told my wife on our morning walk today, saying “over eight thousand” sounds like a lot. I mean, it’s not just some kind of flash-in-the-pan interest thanks to one posting on a SF discussion forum or something. Over the last thirteen or so months, there has been a continued interest in the novel. And one of the most interesting things is that it largely seems to be due to word-of-mouth – I can only track about 1,200 downloads back to people visiting from other sites (and that is being generous in figuring that just because someone visits from a link on a site they decide to download the book.)
So, I decided to take a step I have been putting off for a long time: this morning I sent a query to a literary agency. In fact, I sent it to one of the agencies I had selected as being a good fit a year ago – they were one of only three who even bothered to respond to my query (of 9 or 10). And they turned me down, saying that they thought the book sounded interesting but were “insufficiently excited” about it. Here’s an excerpt from what I sent them today:
About a year ago, I contacted you concerning the possibility of representing me and my work. Your assistant at the time kindly declined on your behalf. But a lot has happened in the intervening year, and I would like you to reconsider. Given your long history working with science fiction authors, I still think that you are the agent for me.
My finished novel is discussed below. But first allow me to explain briefly why I think you may want to reconsider representing me.
When I set out to find an agent early last year, I also decided to put my novel online, available as a free download in .pdf form. Since then, over 8,000 people have downloaded the book. Some of this has been due to mention of the book in various forums, but that only accounts for about 15% of the downloads, according to my server statistics. The vast majority seems to have come about entirely because of word-of-mouth. And those numbers of downloads have continued to slowly grow. In the last week alone, almost 350 people have downloaded the book.
Shortly after posting the book online, I also started a related blog. The numbers there are not huge, but typically run about 100 visitors per day. Comments pertaining to the novel are almost uniformly very positive. Many people indicate that they are eager to buy the book in conventionally printed form. One person who produces audio books as a sideline was so enthusiastic about the book that he produced an unabridged audio version and made it freely available to me to use – this has just been added to my website in recent days.
Over the past year, as I was the primary care-provider for a family member with Alzheimer’s living here at home (culminating in her death last month), I also wrote about the experience of being a male care-giver for my blog. When I cross posted those entries to other forums, they always received a very enthusiastic response. That series of blog posts runs to about 40,000 words, and I am now planning on developing them into a book on the subject – a memoir, if you will.
So, we’ll see – see whether that is sufficient to entice them to represent me, or if I just get another rejection. Rejection hurts, kicks you right in the ego, there’s no doubt about it. But it is a necessary part of the process. And all of you who have downloaded the book, who have told others about it (and my blog), who have sent me comments and feedback – you all have made it easier to face the prospect of rejection. Thank you.
I’ll keep you posted. This is just the first step – in coming days, I will probably spend some time to select a couple of other agencies and contact them as well. We’ll see what happens.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 