Filed under: Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, General Musings, Health, movies, Preparedness, Publishing, Society, Writing stuff
I mentioned in passing last week that I was working on all my care-giving posts for a book. Here’s a bit more about that project, as it is tentatively shaping up.
Sometime last year, when I cross-posted one of those entries on Daily Kos, I discovered that there was someone else there who was in pretty much the exact same situation: caring for a beloved mother-in-law. For a variety of reasons, it is fairly unusual to find a man caring for a mother-in-law with dementia. We didn’t strike up what I would call a friendship, since both of us were preoccupied with the tasks at hand, but we did develop something of a kinship, commenting back and forth in one another’s diaries on that site. Our paths diverged – he and his wife eventually needed to get his mother-in-law into a care facility, whereas my wife and I were able to keep Martha Sr home until the end. But the parallels were made all the more striking by those slight differences. In the end, his “Mumsie” passed away about six weeks before Martha Sr died.
Recently this fellow and I picked up the thread of our occasional conversation once again. And discovered that both of us, independently, had been thinking of writing up a book about the experience of care giving. It didn’t take long before we realized that together we could produce a more comprehensive book, and a lot more easily, drawing on our individual experiences to show similarities and different choices. A few quick emails sorted out the pertinent details – basic structure of the book, that all proceeds from it will go to the Alzheimer’s Association (or them and other related organizations), some thoughts on publishing and promotion – and we were off and running.
For now, I’ll just identify him by his screen name: GreyHawk. By way of introduction, check out this excellent post of his at ePluribus Media, where he very neatly explains the *why* of our decision to write this book:
Special thanks to Jim Downey for the supplying the links to the video and to his blog, and just for being him; my wife and I took comfort from the fact that we were not alone in our situation, and that we knew at least one other couple who were going through a very similar experience to our own.
That’s it right there. Millions of Americans are facing this situation today, and millions more will in coming years as the baby-boomer generation ages. I’m not a scientist who can help find a cure to the diseases of age-related dementia. I’m not wealthy and able to make a significant difference in funding such research. But I can perhaps help others to understand the experience. GreyHawk and I are going to try, anyway. I know that my wife and I found comfort in knowing that we were not alone in this. So did he and his wife. If we can share that with others, and make their experience a little more understandable, a little easier, then that will be a worthy thing.
Wish us luck.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Humor, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
Last Friday we crossed 10,000 downloads of Communion of Dreams. By Monday we had another 500 downloads. By this morning it was another 435. That’s 935 downloads in a week. Or, put it another way, that’s a 9.35% increase. Sorta like a return on investment. Let’s see . . . a simple interest calculation . . . 10,000 (base) x 0.0935 (% increase) x 52 (weeks per year) . . . in one year, another 48,620 people will have downloaded Communion at this rate. Of course, if we *compound* the increase (saying that we’ll not have 935 downloads each week, but rather a 9.35% increase each week) then that results in over a million downloads (check it yourself).
Woo-hoo! Time to get a publisher – who wouldn’t want a million-seller book?
Big-time, here I come!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society
Well, as I noted the other day, we crossed the threshold of 10,000 downloads of Communion of Dreams sometime last Friday. This after a bit of a slow crawl the last couple of months to reach that number.
Of course, what happens this weekend? Another 500 downloads.
Because, clearly, 9,775 downloads doesn’t indicate that something is popular. But 10,000 does, and so other people want to check it out.
Man, I love marketing. We hairless apes sure have some funny quirks.
But thanks to all those who decided to check out the book this weekend. And, again, thanks to all who downloaded it previously and helped to spread the word about it.
Jim Downey
*with apologies.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, Feedback, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Huh. It finally happened, a week after I turned 50. Over 10,000 downloads of Communion of Dreams.
I’ve posted a ‘thank you’ to both UTI and dKos, but I want to extend a personal thanks to all who follow the blog and have helped to spread the word of the novel. As I noted on dKos:
When I set up a website to allow people to download the novel early last year, I thought that I would just make it available until I got around to finding a publisher for the book. But then my life became completely preoccupied with the deteriorating condition of my mother-in-law (see my diaries here tagged “Alzheimer’s”, or go to my blog), and just didn’t have the time/energy for doing the legwork of finding an agent or publisher.
So the book remained available for download. And surprise, surprise, word of it spread. The most I ever did to promote it was to put a link in my .sig file here and a couple of other places where I post. The whole thing took on a bit of a life of its own, to be honest, and watching the numbers of downloads slowly climb helped to bolster my spirits during some very dark and depressing times.
OK, that’s not entirely true – I did start this blog with the goal of promoting the book and documenting the process of finding an agent and then landing a publishing deal. But the part about watching the numbers climb helping me through those difficult times of caring for Martha Sr are certainly true. The same for the feedback I have gotten through this blog. Thanks to one and all for your support, criticism, and friendship.
Huh. 10,000. That’s kinda cool.
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: Climate Change, Comics, Failure, Humor, Publishing, Writing stuff
I’m just being environmentally conscientious.
Jim Downey
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
Communion Of Dreams 