What I wrote to Tim about self publishing - via FB

A coworker noticed that I self-published books of my work; and asked me about how to make them. So I gave him this blowhard-length answer. I can't recall when we had this exchange now, must have been late 2012? This is what I told him:
"Tim, I apologize for not being more illuminating earlier about books and publishing. I'd be happy to talk about it if you were interested.

I go into it in greater detail in the foreword of my first book. But the gist of the "Why?" is the having of a legacy of some kind.

I'm not much of a builder, or a physical media artist. So beyond my kids, I wanted to leave something with my name on it behind when I go. For me, that meant writing, and subsequently publishing what I wrote into some books that could survive beyond me.

It's been a lot of fun so far. I initially looked into www.lulu.com for self publishing, as they make it insanely easy to put together just about any kind of book you'd like to have. Photo books, poetry books, novels, etc. And you can have just one made for yourself, or a thousand. Prices not bad either.

I gravitated to Amazon's Kindle publishing site, as well as their Createspace physical book site; for the simple fact of having a larger audience via Amazon able to see and get my books. It fit my goal a little better.

Amazon give me exposure, but not necessarily lots of sales. I get more traffic as far as downloads using Smashwords.com where my books are available for free as ebooks.

It's not as physical as I'd like, but it lets people read them if they wish.

I don't plan on getting rich, or famous, off my books. The best thing I could envision happening, would be someone becoming inspired by something I came up with, to write, or make, something really great. So I just imagine what I write to be "Seeds" for human creativity.

Keeps me realistic, and humble.

But yeah, if you wanted to put something together, I'd be happy to give any advice I might have gained so far.

My first book, was a real monster to put together: Over 700 pages, 75,000 words, 366 chapters. It was a real learning experience. And basically chronicled what I did as far as writing, every day, in 2011.

Sorry this got so long. Hour long lunch, plus idle hands, equals this. Sometimes.

Cheers!"



1/24/2015 update: he never got back with me. So either my advice was so good that he didn't need to; or ..... other.

I'm betting hard on 'other'.

Cheers
To not knowing as much as I think.

Beware The Shithouse Fool

"You should've been a lawyer"

I get that a lot.  Often from my wife, or my mother.  I used to get it from my dad, but he doesn't say much anymore; though I try to get his opinions on things when I think about visiting his grave*.  And I'm sure that people I work with sometimes think to themselves "Shithouse lawyer", when I lay some of my oh-so-reasoned-logical arguments upon them.

I say a lot of that with tongue firmly in cheek of course.  Because I shouldn't have been, and they do, and no they really are not.  Answered and commented in order with reference to the above.

I should be a lawyer, for about the first three minutes of a conflict; whether it be a debate, discussion, argument, whatever.  After that, I start to wonder why I'm there, and what all the fuss was about.

But by then, I've said things I have to stick with now.  Why?  Pride?  Not sure.  But I try to.  Often for as much as five minutes more.  By which time I've mentally thrown in the towel.  Fuck it.  Because few things are worth the kind of effort it takes to maintain a logical repartee in debate for that long.  We are talking upwards of 8 minutes here, people!

I try not to do it anymore really.

I'd go on about this as I have about things in the past, but to be honest, I'm feeling too down about the latest of such incidents last night.  After the other person really only showed concern for me on a certain subject, that I did not want to discuss; I got defensive, I got dicky, and after an appropriate amount of defensive offense, which hurt the other person's feelings; I disengaged.

Because.  Effort.  Fuck it.

If an argument isn't even worth it to me to finish, I should probably start to preemptively stop myself from starting it.  I think I'd be better off in the long run.

The only question is:  Will my wife get sick of my bullshit, before I stop?

Cheers
To being a complete fool, apparently.


*Me thinking of visiting my dad's grave, consists of me driving right by where he is buried.  Probably only about 75 yards away.  Twice a day, every day that I work.  When I'm feeling emotionally peckish, I will think thoughts of him and his morals and opinions as I go by.  But never stop.

And the answer to that why, would take a much longer separate post.  And just not today, thanks.

Oh, but I did visit my Grandparent's grave a week or so ago.  My Mom's mom and dad.  They are down in Saginaw, in a Mausoleum.  A place which reminds me of Hellraiser, and gave me bad dreams.  I miss them though, and I plan on going back to leave some pictures of them on the wall next to their names, as we saw a lot of the other one's had.  1980 was so very long ago.