Saturday, May 28, 2016

 
Amazon, Chicago, our future & the amazing book revolution

     Do you like to read books?  Kindle?  FaceBook?  Any kind of reading material at all?  Do you hang out at your local library and frequently check stuff out?  And do you also dream of writing and publishing your very own book someday as well -- with your name on the front cover and your photo on the back and your actual words on the pages inside said book?  Hey, why not. 

     These days this dream can easily come true -- because right before our eyes (literally) there has been a huge publishing revolution going on in the past few years.  Now anybody can write and publish a book.  Anybody.  Here's how you do it:

     1.  Write the book.  Start on the first day of January and write just one page a day.  By December 31, you will have written 365 pages.  Booyah.

     2.  Go to Amazon's CreateSpace venue and pop your text into their format.  They do the rest.  And they actually publish your book and list it on Amazon as well -- at no cost to you.  How do they do that?

     3.  Order yourself a copy and then actually hold your very own book in your hands.

    Back in the Middle Ages, books were rare and wondrous things, selling for thousands of dollars.  Not just anybody could write or even read or own a book.  Times have changed since then.  A lot.

     When I went to BookExpo America in Chicago in early May, there were all kinds of people selling all kinds of books.  And I was also happily hawking my latest book there too.  Here was me, standing outside the McCormick Place exhibit hall, holding 200 bookmarks containing blurbs about my book, and trying to work up the nerve to force them onto people standing in line to get into the Expo.  "Pleeeeeze take my bookmark?"  Oh, okay.

      And now I'm trying to be brave enough to hawk my book to you as well. "Pleeeeeze buy my book?"  It's called Visions of a Lost and Future World and is the story of a small clan of pre-Columbian American Indians who somehow become immortal and then spend the next grim millennium witnessing the horror and brutality of man's incessant inhumanity to man.  http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Lost-Future-World-Stillwater/dp/1532803850/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

       And, unfortunately, after "war" ravishes our world and also pollutes it beyond redemption, this little clan is forced to witness the end of the human race as well.  Sucks to be us. 

     So.  Now you know how to get out there and become an author yourself.  And if I can do it, then anyone can.  And also buy my book.  Please?