Filed under: Amazon, Art, Book Conservation, Failure, General Musings, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, book art, book conservation, book design, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, Kickstarter, Legacy Bookbindery, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
Last week I went through the mechanics of turning words into books. Today I’d like to talk a little bit about the economics of that, as well as being an author.
When I set up the Kickstarter for St Cybi’s Well lo these many years ago, a lot of my estimates in deciding on what goals to shoot for were based on … blind faith, to be perfectly honest.
I’d published Communion of Dreams, and had some sense of the possible income that could generate, as well as the amount of work that went into writing/editing/formatting it. But I really had no idea what the costs would be for printing and hand-binding copies of that book or the yet unwritten St Cybi’s Well. I had a pretty good handle on how much time it would take me to do the hand binding, based on my book conservation work. And likewise, what the cost of materials would be, other than the printing. Now that I’ve gone through all of that with both books, I have a much better idea of how costs break down, so I thought I would share all of that.
Based on 55 copies (edition of 53, plus two author/artist proof copies), the actual out-of-pocket expense runs about $50 per copy for the two different books. That covers the cost of the oversize archival paper (so the grain/drape of the pages is correct for hand binding), the printing, and going to collect the printed pages. It also covers the cost of archival bookboard and cover cloth. (The leather copies are two or three times as much, depending on the actual leather used.) Were I to bind a single copy, it would take me about 2 hours of labor. If I bind multiple copies at a time, that drops to about 1.5 hours of labor. (Leather is about 2x the labor.)
My Kickstarter goal was $17,000. Which succeeded. After deducting the fees paid to Kickstarter, and the costs of the different “rewards/premiums” for the backers, I wound up with about $12,000. Which, truthfully, isn’t a bad advance for a relatively unknown author.
It took me seven years of writing work to finish St Cybi’s Well, rather than the one or two years I originally expected. That was both embarrassing and stressful, since I made promises to people I didn’t fulfill. But it’s over, and everyone seems happy with the end product, so let’s just talk about the amount of labor that went into it. I’d conservatively guesstimate that I have something on the order of 2,000 hours of labor in writing, rewriting, editing, and then composing (the last is mostly thanks to my Good Lady Wife) the book. That *might* be as much as twice as long as it took me to do the same with Communion of Dreams, though spread out over a longer period of time. So, do the math, and I earned about $6 per hour.
That’s just the Kickstarter, of course. Now that the book is done, I’ll continue to earn money on purchases of the downloads, printed paperbacks, and special order hand-bound copies. How much is hard to say. I have had about 40,000 downloads of Communion of Dreams, though a big chunk of those are free downloads. Still, with Amazon’s system, 2/3 of every sale goes to the author (as opposed to like 5-7% for conventional royalties with a publisher), and that adds up. To date, I’ve only had about a thousand downloads of St Cybi’s Well, and most of those have been free downloads. Which has been a little disappointing, but we’ll see how things go over time.
As for the printed paperback copies, there I earn a bit more from Amazon than I would for the downloads, but not a lot. And they don’t amount to very many sales. The signed copies I sell directly do a little better still, but again, that’s just a handful of books per year.
As for the hand–bound books, there I do make a lot more, about $150 per copy. But my conservation labor is billed at $200 per hour, so at 1.5 hours of labor, I’m making half of what I would professionally. The return on the leather bound copies is even worse.
So, why do it? Why even offer those books on the websites?
Because I enjoy it. I enjoy knowing that the books that I create will be enjoyed, perhaps cherished. Read, and passed down to children and grandchildren. Like most artists, I’m willing to trade some financial reward for that satisfaction, and I can afford to do so. Maybe it shouldn’t be the case, and it wouldn’t be the case ideally, but we do what we can under the circumstances.
Anyway, my books will be available for free download tomorrow (the First of the month, as always). Give ’em a try. If you like ’em, you’re always welcome to either purchase a download or one of the physical copies later, if you can afford to do so. But don’t feel guilty if you can’t; as noted I can afford to give them away, and take joy in knowing people read them.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Book Conservation, Pandemic, Plague, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, book conservation, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, Covid 19, Covid-19, Kickstarter, Koob, Legacy Bookbindery, life, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, writing
As I noted a couple of months ago, I found a printer to produce the pages for a hand-bound copy of St Cybi’s Well. This is a photo-essay of the process of turning those pages into finished books. This is not intended to be actual instruction on how to bind books.
If you would like your own hand-bound copy of St Cybi’s Well or Communion of Dreams, click the links. Each edition is limited to just 53 numbered copies, plus two Artist’s/Author’s proof copies. At either link you can also order one of the remaining copies of the Amazing Koob, as well as signed paperback copies. And of course, you can always download the books from Amazon (remember, they’re free on the first of each month).
That completes the next-to-last phases of my Kickstarter. The final phase will be the design and completion of the leather bindings.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Emergency, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Plague, Preparedness, Society, Survival, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: bipolar, book conservation, bookbinding, Covid 19, Covid-19, health, Legacy Bookbindery, life, mental health, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, about a year ago I made a fairly big change in my life, and posted the following to my professional website:
September 1, 2019 – Please note: due to increasing difficulties with arthritis in my hands, I am curtailing how much conservation work I am doing. Henceforth I am prioritizing established clients and works of notable historic value.
Yeah, this has been a developing problem for me the last few years, limiting just how much detailed work I could do. It’s gotten to the point where I can typically do only a few hours a week of the difficult, careful work required. Other kinds of hand work isn’t nearly as demanding, unless it involves shock to my hands, so for the most part I’ve been able to continue with the rest of my life with minimal difficulty.
So, after posting that, I started referring new queries about conservation work elsewhere, and focused on my established clients and institutional work.
Then Covid-19 showed up.
After we got a good handle on just what that meant, I stopped meeting with even established clients. Because while my health today is just about better than it ever has been, I am nonetheless at very high risk of having a very bad case of C-19, should I catch it. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t survive it. So I’ve been telling clients that things can wait until there’s a safe & effective vaccine, and I’ve gotten my dose(s) of it.
Which is fine, because there’s rarely a reason to “rush” conservation work. And besides, I had a backlog of work waiting for me in my safe, as I always have.
Well, had.
Last week one of my institutional clients popped by to collect the last couple of items I had to work on. Just a brief, masked, socially-distanced visit. Previous projects had been mailed off, or likewise returned to clients with minimal contact/interaction.
And now the cupboard is bare, so to speak. For the first time in literal decades.
I mentioned a couple of months ago that Covid had likewise changed something else for the first time in decades: my usual mild bipolar cycle. That’s still disrupted. Well, honestly, it’s almost nonexistent. I don’t really have any sense of change currently; I’m in just a new, vague limbo which is neither good nor bad. It’s an odd feeling. Like so much, these days.
Anyway, to ‘run out’ of conservation work isn’t really a problem for me. We’re fortunate enough to be financially stable at this point in our lives, and I had been accounting on much reduced income from conservation for a while.
And, in a way, it’s good. Just this last week I also got the ‘proof’ of the printed pages of St Cybi’s Well, so I can do the hand-bound editions of that book soon. Here’s the proof copy:
That’ll keep me busy for some time.
And beyond that? Well, reinvention is an American’s birthright. I have more artistic impulses to explore and revisit. I have more writing I want to do (no, I’m making no promises of anything). I have life I want to enjoy.
So, for the time being, I’m going to take reasonable precautions to make sure that I can enjoy it, and do those things. I’ll get back to meeting with clients, and doing book conservation, when it is safe (in my assessment) to do so.
Take care of yourself.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Faith healing, Feedback, Government, Kindle, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Wales | Tags: Amazon, coronavirus, Covid 19, Darnell Sidwell, faith healing, hope, Kindle, News, pandemic, police, politics, racism, reviews, St. Cybi's Well, survival, Wales, writing
I’m just going to post this entire review:
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Astronomy, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Alyn Wallace Photography, Amazon, Carreg Cennen Castle, Comet NEOWISE, space, St. Cybi's Well, travel, Wales, writing
I Love this image:
That’s from a Facebook post by Alyn Wallace Photography. It’s an image of Comet NEOWISE over Carreg Cennen Castle in Wales.
Carreg Cennen has long been one of my favorite castles, and plays a role in “Chapter 10 — Y Garn Goch” of St Cybi’s Well. The view of the castle seen above is from the south.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Connections, Emergency, Feedback, Flu, Google, Humor, Kindle, Pandemic, Predictions, Science Fiction, tech, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, Communion of Dreams, coronavirus, Covid 19, Craig Rhosyfelin, epidemic, Google, pandemic, predictions, reviews, St. Cybi's Well, technology, travel, writing
One of the early reviews of St Cybi’s Well added this note under “TRIVIA”:
And several people have commented both on Amazon and on Facebook that the book could function as something of a travelog.
That’s very much by design. The chapter header URLs & info I used in the book are straight from real sites online, though I intentionally used versions which date back to ~ 2012 (the date in the novel) whenever possible. And likewise, each location specified in the book is real. As well as every bit of Welsh history or myth I used.
I did this to lend the book verisimilitude. I really want readers to wonder just how possible the story is, to feel that ‘thinness’ I describe between one reality and another in the book. I want them to visit the sites mentioned, to feel what I have felt there.
I didn’t start writing the book with this in mind. I figured that I would simply use my own experience in traveling in Wales to ground the book in reality, and use what little I knew of Welsh history & mythology to help add color. But as I wrote, I found myself digging deeper and deeper, spending more time visiting sites virtually, until they became very well known to me.
After a while, I started to lose track of whether I had actually visited some of the sites in person, or had only visited them online. This led to the very surreal experience during a trip we took in 2017 where in going to Craig Rhosyfelin I was absolutely certain that we had visited the site previously … but also absolutely certain that we never had (the latter which was confirmed by my wife). I had spent so much time exploring the site virtually, working through the descriptions and history of it, writing the interaction of characters there, that it really did feel like I had my own personal memories of the place. Bizarre.
The same is true of several other locations in the book, to the point where my wife and I now joke about it. “Did we actually go there, or … ?” has become a standard in our travels.
And of course now, with the limitations imposed by our own real pandemic, such virtual travel is all we have at present. So if you need a vacation, maybe spend a little time in my novel. The links included on the website will help.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Emergency, Faith healing, Feedback, Flu, Government, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, cytokine storm, emergency, epidemic, fire-flu, flu, influenza, Llandudno, News, pandemic, reviews, Spanish flu, St Melangell Centre, St. Cybi's Well, Wales, writing
I mentioned the other day that many of the early reviews of St Cybi’s Well talk about how eerily prescient the book seems now.
Well, judge for yourself. This is an excerpt from the book (Chapter 14: Llangelynnin) when news of the pandemic is just really getting started. The main characters are discussing it, and their plans to collect medical supplies since the St Melangell Centre is a designated rural care center. I first wrote this portion of the book about two years ago, did major revisions last fall.
“The government here is asking people to just stay home if they have any indications of illness. They’ve implemented a week-long ‘bank holiday’, so people don’t go in to work or school, and declared that only essential government employees and emergency workers are to report in. All the bus and train lines have been shut down. They’re even talking about closing all the restaurants and pubs. We’ll probably hear more about that later today. And there have been more anti-immigrant riots in London and some other places. And not just the so-called ‘Tommys’.”
“People are frightened.”
“Yeah, no surprise.” Darnell nodded at the stereo again. “There was also some science reporting about VCS itself. Looks like it is caused by a flu strain which is similar to the 1918 virus, the Spanish Flu, but one which is even more virulent.”
Megan paused, her hands lowered. The towel hung limply by her side. “Didn’t that kill millions, world-wide?”
“Yeah, something like fifty million.”
“And this looks to be worse?”
“Yeah,” Darnell repeated. “This seems to spread just as easily, but kills faster. Well, kills healthy adults faster – that cytokine storm thing, which is basically the immune system going crazy, creating high fever and complete exhaustion, leading to the inability to get enough oxygen and general system collapse. Victims often develop cyanosis – a blueish tint to the skin, particularly on the face and hands. Anyone who is very young, or old, or otherwise has a compromised immune system, can still get the flu, but don’t generally have the VCS reaction. But there’s a good chance that they’ll develop pneumonia which can kill them in a week or so without proper treatment.”
“But there are treatments for pneumonia.”
“There are. And even some things that can be done for someone with Cytokine Syndrome, if you get to them soon enough. Or anti-virals, like Theraflu.” He sighed. “But there’s not nearly enough of those stockpiled. And how well do you think the health system here or anywhere will be able to handle such a fast-moving epidemic, particularly if health workers are among the most vulnerable group because of massive exposure? Do you remember how devastating hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola have been in isolated areas, because health workers are often among the first victims of the disease? And those require direct contact with bodily fluids . . . this flu is airborne.”
There was a wild look in her eyes, and for a moment Darnell thought he even saw fear. Then Megan closed her eyes, clasped the small crucifix necklace she wore, and muttered what he assumed to be a prayer. When she opened her eyes again, the wildness was gone, replaced with a cold determination. “We already have basic personal protection gear – surgical masks, gloves, even disposable gowns – and it sounds like we should wear them when we go to Llandudno. I’ll get them and meet you downstairs when you’re done with your shower.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Connections, Emergency, Flu, General Musings, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Pandemic, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, Uncategorized, Ursula K. Le Guin, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, Donald Trump, dystopia, fire-flu, Lathe of Heaven, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, theocracy, Ursula K. Le Guin, writing
So, since I haven’t been blogging here much in the last couple of years, I haven’t said anything about just how surreal it was working to finish my novel about a global pandemic … while an actual global pandemic was unfolding around us.
Yeah. Seriously. Real Lathe of Heaven stuff, making me wonder about just how much my envisioning a given reality was bleeding into this reality.
To a certain extent this had been an ongoing problem with writing St Cybi’s Well, as I had mentioned previously. I had to keep going back and making the ‘dystopia’ of SCW worse as our own world took a turn for the worse with the election of Trump, elements of Christian fascism seemed to be in ascendancy, et cetera.
But this year, after I had gotten a solid re-start on finishing St Cybi’s Well, watching the Covid-19 virus start to spread, was just … bizarre. And as you’ll see when you read the book, how the virus spread and the efforts that various governments tried to curtail it was pretty much exactly as what happened in real life. Fortunately, of course, C-19 hasn’t proven to be nearly as deadly as the Fire-Flu.
Well, at least not yet.
< shiver >
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Emergency, Faith healing, Feedback, Flu, Health, Kindle, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Uncategorized, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, News, reviews, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, almost two months ago I ‘officially’ launched the publication of St Cybi’s Well.
No, I didn’t forget to mention it here. Since I have allowed this blog to go quiet, I didn’t see it as an important venue to announce it, and figured that it would make a little more sense to just let the book exist in the wild for a little while, then write about the reactions to it.
Currently, there are 14 reviews on Amazon, with an overall rating of 4.9 stars. Some are from friends. Some are from acquaintances. Some are from complete strangers. Among the reviews I have my favorites, and not necessarily ones which say good things. At this point, after struggling with the book for so long, I have very mixed feelings about it.
But my strongest emotion about the book, and something that keeps coming up in the reviews of it, is just how surreal it is to have finished the book during the middle of a real pandemic, and having our reality seeming to follow the path I had laid out in the book. Here are some excerpts as examples of what I mean.
The first review, by someone who backed my Kickstarter and had an advance copy of St Cybi’s:
With some recent political developments and COVID-19, I found this unsettlingly realistic.
That he wrote this well before our current pandemic was even a thing is a testament to his spooky prescience …
And:
The images are vivid and remain. No one took epidemic plagues too seriously anymore, Polio was long ago. But since Covid and Ebola, there is a realization that the 4 Horsemen of the Apocolypse are alive and kicking.
And:
What I found most compelling is the almost prescient storyline of the Fire Flu and its attendant effects on society. I can’t imagine a more difficult proposition than trying to finish your novel about an apocalyptic disease while having to do so with one currently taking over the news. There are some eerie moments in the book where it feels as though it’s a ‘ripped from the headlines’ story.
And:
Set in 2012, the overlap with current events in 2020 is uncanny.
And:
… the story is kind of terrifying considering its striking similarity to current events …
Of course, I’m not prescient. I had no real idea that the coronavirus pandemic was coming, though I had long known that we were about due for another pandemic and were likely unprepared for it. And what I put into the book about how the FireFlu virus spread, and how people reacted to it, was just based on history. What we’re seeing now … all the good and bad of it … was entirely predictable, because it is the sort of reaction that human societies have always had to pandemics.
Which, of course, doesn’t give me any comfort. As is said in one of the reviews:
… I ended up feeling that the story is part of what science fiction does best – telling you a tale that just *might* be real.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Download my book, or order a paper copy. If money is a little tight, wait until the first of the month, and download it for free. And please, if you do read it, leave a review.
Thanks.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Nuclear weapons, Scotland, Travel, Wales | Tags: Aberdeen, blogging, Corgarff Castle, Culsh Earth House, Doune Castle, Dunvegan Castle, Eilean Donan Castle, Glenbuchat castle, jim downey, Kildrummy Castle, nuclear weapons, Scotland, Stirling Castle, Tomnaverie Stone Circle, travel, Urquhart Castle, Wikipedia
Being a photo-heavy travelog of our 2018 trip to Scotland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday, May 12.
We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and considered our options for the day. Aberdeen and the surrounding area has a lot to offer — our preliminary list had about a dozen possibilities on it, and we had identified at least that many more in looking through “Vistor’s Guides” and such there in the hotel.
In the end we decided that we really wanted to see more of the Highlands, and figured that driving up into the Cairngorms was the best way to do that. It was probably the best decision that we made on the entire trip.
Why do I say that? Well, read on …
The Cairngorm Mountains are just incredibly beautiful on their own. Seriously, like the inter-mountain range of the Rockies in Colorado, though of course they’re not as tall.
And Martha had seen something promising on one of her research forays: Kildrummy Castle.
I admit, I was somewhat unimpressed with the number and quality of medieval castles in Scotland. That’s because for the most part, castles were repeatedly upgraded and renovated … or they were allowed to disappear completely. So you get those magnificent structures like Stirling, Dunvegan, and Edinburgh, or private fortresses such as Eilean Donan and Doune, all of which saw significant rebuilding and modernization through their history. But places like Urquhart and Old Inverlochy are pretty rare in Scotland, whereas in Wales they’re seemingly around every river bend.
But Kildrummy Castle is a magnificent ruin, substantial in structure and easy to understand in terms of layout and architecture. It would have been a formidable stronghold, and played an important part in Scottish history. We stopped in at the ticketing office, and had a chat with the caretaker — who was both enthusiastic about the castle, and a little surprised to find a couple of American tourists stopping in to check out the place. Then we walked up the path to the castle, which I hadn’t seen at all while driving.
But this is what we saw:
Promising …
Up the hill and across the dry moat.
Across the drawbridge, left …
… and right.
Elphinstone Tower.
Great Hall and Warden Tower.
Chapel.
Exterior of the Chapel and Warden Tower.
Martha in the inner ward.
More of the inner ward.
I want to note that we were the only people there, the entire hour or so we spent exploring the castle. On a beautiful Saturday, in the largest National Park in the U.K.
And this, I think, is important, and in itself changed the way I thought about the entire trip. Scotland has done a fair amount of work to promote tourism, and there were places we visited which were crowded with tourists from all over the world. But just a little work to get off the beaten path always took us away from the madness, into a part of the country which was just as beautiful, just as full of history, and a whole lot more enjoyable (at least for this introvert).
We stopped back by the ticketing office. I thanked the caretaker, and told him that I thought that Kildrummy was one of the best medieval ruins I had seen anywhere, in Scotland, Wales, the UK, or on the continent. I’m sure it made his day. Visiting Kildrummy made mine.
Spirits high, we headed further into the mountains. First we stopped at Glenbuchat castle, a nearby fortified home dating to the 16th century. It was well-sited, but closed for renovations. Then we went to Corgarff Castle, a medieval tower which had been expanded in the 18th century, but didn’t hold our interest. We had a nice lunch at a little cafe, then proceeded south across the moors on the Old Military Road:
Stairway to heaven.
We took the A93 back towards Aberdeen for a while, but then went north again towards the small village of Tarland, but stopped at the Tomnaverie Stone Circle. From another website about the circle:
The restored circle is a truly beautiful site to visit, the circle is now neatly grassed over, the quarried area to the south has been filled, and there is a small car parking space available below the hill. The raised location allows for panoramic views in all directions, and there is also an information plaque which gives details of the circle and its history. Those with an interest in prehistory or megalithic monuments will need no coaxing to visit Tomnaverie, and for the casual visitor it is wonderful place for a stroll or a picnic.
See for yourself:
Oh, say can you see?
One unusual feature of the Tomnaverie Stone Circle is noted on the information board:
Which is here:
The small structure just right of center is the bunker entrance.
Strange juxtaposition.
We decided to make one last stop before heading back to Aberdeen, which was just a short way away: Culsh Earth House. Description from that site:
Earth houses, or souterrains, can seem mysterious structures: stone-lined tunnels dug into the earth, usually leading to a dead end and with no obvious purpose. The reality is actually fairly mundane, and it seems that earth houses were simply built as underground storage for agricultural produce.
Culsh Earth House probably dates back to some time before AD100. At the time a timber roundhouse farmstead would have stood nearby, perhaps a direct predecessor of the farm which stands immediately to the south today. The entrance to the earth house might have been inside the roundhouse to next to it, and the earth house itself would probably have been used for the storage of grain or other produce.
Here ya go:
Wonder where that goes?
Cool!
Looking back.
Reemergence.
The rest of the drive to the hotel was uneventful. We had a nice dinner in the pub, and crashed relatively early.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 