As mentioned, the care-giving book is coming together well. As with Communion of Dreams, my Good Lady Wife has taken on the task of finding an agent/publisher for it. To that end yesterday she asked me for another query letter to use for some contacts who wanted a slightly different presentation from the initial query letter we crafted. Here’s a bit I thought I would share, and see if anyone had thoughts on it:
Her Final Year is a joint memoir told using a 12-month format as an analogy for the Alzheimer’s cycle, where each ‘month’ represents one phase of the disease progression. The authors, two men caring for their respective mothers-in-law, explore the process of discovering and dealing with the decline of the family matriarch by interweaving their own thoughts and experiences with what they learned along the way from — and about — health insurance providers, medical professionals, Hospice nurses, social workers and nursing homes. The first part of the book (about two-thirds of the text) ends with the death of the Alzheimer’s patient, but then the second part of the book (subtitled His First Year) is the story of recovery of the men and their families from the care-giving experience, and how they were enriched by it.
Given that there are currently no memoirs from this POV, but that a growing number of men find themselves in the role of care provider, the authors hope that this book will fill a need and find a wide audience. Some people will want to read it straight through as a story of love and redemption, others will use it as a resource by finding which ‘month’ most fits their situation and looking there for guidance and support. It should appeal not just to care providers, but also to people who know someone in that role and wish to understand how best to help them. With the aging of our population, this includes the majority of Americans.
Thoughts?
Jim Downey
A bit early for my birthday, but last night after I got home from our trip out west and spent appropriate time petting the pets, I got around to checking the stats on my novel. And saw that while I was gone, we crossed 25,000 total downloads of the book.
As I noted two years ago when the downloads crossed the 10,000 mark, that’s kinda cool. And I am likewise pleased that the book seems to be maintaining its popularity.
So, thanks to one and all for helping to spread the word. With a little luck, I’ll have some more information soon about the actual publication date to share.
Jim Downey
Whew – this morning I completed transferring entries for Her Final Year from the website my co-author set up so we could jointly work on it, and organizing them into files by “month” (this allows me to print out the entries and shift them around to find a good organic narrative in each month). Anyway, it was the first time that I had an actual sense of just how large a body of material we’re working with. And that material is 98,470 words in the current form – the length of a solid, commercial novel.
Now, there will be some adjustments to that total. Some editing will be done, and we still need to do the introductions for each month. Also, the entire body of the second (shorter) part of the book – His First Year, which is the recovery period following caregiving – still needs to be tallied. Even with trimming, I expect the final version of the book will still be in excess of 100,000 words – likely more on the order of 110,000 to 120,000.
No wonder it seems like a lot of work. It is.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Feedback, Guns, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
Time for a recap of April.
There were another 484 downloads of the ‘classic’ Communion of Dreams, and another 70 downloads of the 2010 revision. 134 people downloaded at least one of the MP3 files of the book, and 32 people downloaded at least one individual chapter. We’re quickly approaching at least 24,000 downloads of the book. Who woulda thunk it? I hope some % of those who have downloaded the book will also buy a hardcopy once it is published and out.
And over at Ballistics By The Inch, things continue apace. April was the third-highest month for total hits since we launched the site in November 2008, with a total of 178,170 hits. That puts us at 2,351,313 hits. I spent some time yesterday afternoon finally getting some links to BBTI on Wikipedia, and I’m sure that will help to keep hits climbing.
And so it goes.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI Blog.)
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Politics, Publishing, Society, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, University of Missouri, Writing stuff
Earlier this year I got a nice note from the Director of Libraries at MU, asking whether I would be able to attend the Library Society annual dinner. As part of the evening’s event they were going to have on display some of the more noteworthy items from Special Collections Adopt-a-Book Program – work I had done, supported by donations – and they wanted to introduce me to their membership. Director Cogswell kindly offered to have my wife and I attend the fundraiser as guests of the Library Society.
* * * * * * *
It’s been a long week. I was sorely disappointed in the outcome of our local elections held on Tuesday, which saw a shift from Smart Growth advocates to a more “pro-development” slate of candidates for our city council/mayoral positions.
I’ve been involved in local politics at a very low level the last couple of years, mostly in trying to make sure that there was some balance between neighborhood interests and development. I’ve served as our neighborhood association president, and that has led to my participation in a variety of training workshops, as well as keeping a weather eye on development & rezoning issues in our area. I’m not against development – hardly – but I think it ought to be done with some intelligence and awareness of how it serves a community rather than just the bank account of a developer.
* * * * * * *
I confirmed that my Good Lady Wife and I would be happy to attend the Library Society dinner, though I preferred to pay the modest fund-raising donation for the dinner, and that I likewise would enjoy chatting with anyone in the Society who had an interest in my work. I’ve always been willing to do this sort of thing, meeting with donors, explaining the work I do and why it is important. In one sense, it’s self-serving – the donors are helping me earn a living – but beyond that my motivation is to help make sure the historically valuable books in these collections get the care they need.
It may sound a bit odd, but I’m actually fairly passionate about that. Yes, I do get paid for my conservation work, and it is a business – but I have always done a lot more work on rare books than I actually bill for. I don’t make a big deal out of this, it’s just my way of contributing something to the community and culture. If I were financially independent I would probably continue to do my conservation work, just as an in-kind donation to appropriate collections.
* * * * * * *
After Tuesday’s depressing election results, I had the last in a series of workshops scheduled on Wednesday to attend. The topic was “infill development” – a series set up by our Department of Planning to help explain why utilizing unused or neglected property within the city was a good strategy, and what the various issues pertaining to this kind of development were, and how development in cooperation with an established neighborhood could be to everyone’s benefit.
Let me tell you, it was damned hard to work up the motivation to attend that session. But I went, and was glad I did so.
* * * * * * *
The featured speaker for the Library Society dinner was to be Peter Hessler. Cool – I’ve read some of his work, heard him in interviews, respected his intelligence and humor. That alone would be worth the price of admission.
It was.
* * * * * * *
Thursday night there was another public event I needed to attend. It was the 2010 Neighborhood Leadership class. I had been in the 2009 class (the first one), and had been asked to sit in on a panel discussion about my actual experiences with building my neighborhood association. The other panel member is a fellow I know, like, and respect for the things he has done in his (much larger) neighborhood in this regard, and I knew that we would make a good team discussing this topic.
It went really well. I did a variation of my “don’t be afraid of failure” spiel in saying that each neighborhood would present a unique set of challenges and would need a unique set of solutions – that the neighborhood leaders would need to experiment, innovate, risk failure if they were to find the set of solutions that worked for them.
But like all such public speaking situations, it left me pretty much wrung out and a bit jittery after. Being an introvert is hell, sometimes.
* * * * * * *
We got to the pre-dinner reception, and it didn’t take very long to figure out that what I thought was going to be just a bit of a mention and some chatting with donors was actually a bigger deal than that.
These sorts of functions usually have assigned seating, with the ‘top table’ reserved for the emcee and featured speaker, a few Really Important muckity-mucks, right in front of whatever podium is being used. Well, my Good Lady Wife and I got our name tags, and discovered that we were assigned to table #2. And that our assigned seats were in perfect sight-line to the podium. And that we had the honor of sitting with the much-beloved chancellor-emeritus of the University, a couple of Deans, and assorted other Pretty Important People.
Furthermore the Director of Development caught me shortly after we got into the room, and pointed out that the centerpiece of each table was a nice flat cake. A nice flat cake which had “before” and “after” images of conservation work I had done, complete with the name of the donor who supported that work. And the cake on the #2 table was a book of Mark Twain’s “In Honor of James T. Downey”.
Huh.
* * * * * * *
Friday afternoon, before the Library Society dinner, we had another function to attend. A former employer of my Good Lady Wife’s, who is still a professional colleague and friend of hers, was celebrating his 70th birthday.
We got to the party late (it was being done as an Open House at the offices of his architecture firm), knowing that the evening event would take at least a fair amount of energy. This was a good decision.
Oh, it wasn’t riotous or anything, but there were a lot of people in attendance – current and former employees, other architects and engineers in the community. It was relaxed and informal, and I felt a little out of place in a suit & tie (we were going directly from this party to the Library Society event). I hate feeling out of place. But at least I wasn’t under-dressed for the occasion.
We chatted, enjoyed ourselves. People asked what we were doing these days. It was a good warm-up for me.
* * * * * * *
I went over to the display of the rare books, said hello to Mike Holland, who is the University Archivist, Director of Special Collections. One of his staff people was there as well, and they were doing a fine job of talking about the books on display. I joined in – introducing myself to the donors who were looking, explaining some of my working methods and materials, and so forth. It was exactly what I expected, and thanks to my previous socializing at the birthday party, I was already past my nervousness and in full “GalleryMan” mode. I had several very nice conversations.
Then we were called to take our seats so the evening festivities could begin.
The program listed my Good Lady Wife and I among the ‘sponsors’ of the dinner. I did indeed get a very nice introduction to the crowd, and a round of applause for my work. During the course of dinner several people came by the table to talk with me further, ask opinions and advice about books they owned, et cetera. We had delightful dinner conversation with our table mates. It was, all in all, a very affirming experience that helped me see that my efforts have been worthwhile and appreciated.
So, as I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation by Peter Hessler after dinner, it was easy to not feel any jealousy for his recognition as a writer and author. Yeah, I did flash on how fun it would be to return to that dinner in a couple of years as the “noted author and featured speaker” of the event, but I could see that as just a fantasy. Knowing that if I got hit by a truck tomorrow my life would not have been in any sense wasted was extremely rewarding.
We all need that, now and again.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Feedback, Guns, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
OK. It’s April 1. A day which I have come to hate, at least online.
Be that as it may, I’m not joking around about looking back at the past month, and I have some good numbers to report. As noted, I did get news that Communion of Dreams is going to be published, though I am still waiting to sort out all the details. As well as the psychological boost that gave me, it seemed to also have a boost in terms of downloads of the book. March saw a total of 891 downloads of the original “complete” manuscript, 224 downloads of the revised manuscript (which will be basically what is published), at least 61 downloads of the MP3 version of the book, and at least 17 downloads of all the individual chapters. That’s over 1100 downloads in one month, no matter how you slice it, and puts the total number of downloads over 23,000.
BBTI has continued to do very well, as well. Late in February we crossed 2 million hits to that site, and March saw another 155,165 hits – the fourth largest monthly total to date – to bring us to a total of 2,173,143 hits. We have been forced to delay doing the next round of testing, due to ammo shortages, but that hasn’t hurt the popularity of the site at all.
So, no foolin’ – March was a good month. And it is bright, and sunny, and wonderfully spring outside. April seems to be off to a decent start.
Jim Downey
Cross posted to the BBTI blog.
I mentioned the other day that things were progressing on Her Final Year, the care-giving book I am working on with my co-author(s). Well, as part of that my Good Lady Wife has started looking for an agent – the idea being that now that I have one book (almost) ready to be published by Trapdoor Press, it’ll be easier to find an agent who can get this memoir to the right publisher for that genre. In the process of looking over agency websites, she came across this one: Lindstrom Literary Management.
Go take a look at their website. Poke around a bit. It’s a nice design conceit, using a 19th century book style, combined with the different marbled paper backgrounds. I could have done those marbled papers – they’re all classics, and I am actually quite good at that particular art (you can see an example on my professional bio page). I don’t know whether Lindstrom will make the final cut of agents that we decide to contact, but if we do I’ll append a note drawing out the connection between what they have on their site and what I do in that aspect of my life.
Fun!
Jim Downey
I haven’t mentioned it much, just a passing note last month, but I have been working a fair amount on the care-giving book these last weeks. And I’m about halfway done with my part of the editing work – at this point, I’m going through all of my co-author’s posts, and my co-author is going through all of mine.
In terms of actual editing work, it’s very minor, mostly consisting of looking for issues with spelling & clarity. But it is also emotionally exhausting, because each entry is a journey back into care-giving. I can only put myself through that for about an hour a day.
It is also extremely rewarding, though. Each time I work with this material – each pass through it I make – the more I find it to be powerful and affirming, and the more I think it will prove to be a very valuable resource for others who are taking that journey (or recovering from it.)
At least, I hope so.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 