I wasn’t online much on Monday thanks to an afternoon doctor’s appointment but when I looked at my download numbers for He’s With the Band on Amazon I was floored. when I saw Monday’s final numbers I tanj near fell out of my chair. more “Finagle’s eyes! I can’t believe the downloads I’m getting on Amazon this week!”
Earlier this year WordPress, the company that hosts this site, announced that they now support site logos for their hosted websites. That got me thinking and I have come up with some possible site logos but I’d like my readers to help me pick which of the possible logos will represent my writing. The logo I end up going with won’t only go on this site and the books I write, including any updated ebooks or even covers for the three books I already have published. It will also be used on Twitter and any other platform I use to connect with my readers.
I just got an email update from my congressman, Michael E. Capuano (D-MA 7th) about a bill coming up for a vote tomorrow. There’s no federal budget passed yet for the new fiscal year that will begin on 1 October and they want to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open. My readers may recall that I’ve suggested that if our elected officials in Washington DC can’t pass a budget by the start of a fiscal year they should get their pay docked. Is it time to let our elected officials find out that their paychecks will get a little lighter? more “It’s time for another CR on Capital Hill. Is it time to dock our lawmakers’ paychecks?”
Tuesday marked one year since I published He’s With the Band and it’s been an amazing year. I had no idea that within a year I’d have two more ebooks published, be available in so many stores, and have my ebooks downloaded so many times! more “Can you believe it’s been a whole year?”
Unfortunately the Kickstarter project simply didn’t get the backing it needed and I’ve closed it early. This obviously means the Franklin Park ebook won’t get made at this point, but since the laptop to replace my old one was part of the budget for that project it means that it will continue being difficult for me to do much writing. I still have the rewrite of He’s With the Band that I want to finish but it will take time during the day that gets taken from other tasks to work on it.
Thanks to everyone who backed me and got the word out, especially Amy, Tara and Danielle, as well as Pareesa and everyone over at the Franklin Park Coalition. Perhaps we can try it again at some point because I’d love to get this book made.
As I write this there are only nine days left in my Kickstarter project to create a photobook of Franklin Park but we’re still sitting at only 4% of the needed $2,900 raised. That’s puzzling because I’ve talked to a lot of people around Boston and I’ve heard a lot of excitement about the book, and with the exception of my very last backer all the money has come from out-of-state family members. The one Boston backer is a friend who used to live in Jamaica Plain and still raves about the area.
If you’re planning on backing my project I need to ask you to do it this weekend. After running the numbers I’ve decided to set a challenge for my backers and prospective backers: I need to raise $1,200 for the project by noon Eastern Time on Monday, 4 August. That’s just over 40%, and I it’s a lot of scratch to raise in a mere four days. But if we can’t meet that goal there’s no way we’ll raise 96% in the remaining seven days.
If we can hit that goal we’ll still need to raise about $250 every day for the remaining week of the campaign. Some will say it’s too much to raise after raising less than that in the past three weeks but if we can hit Monday’s goal I know we can all get the word out and put the project over the top.
If it turns out that Monday’s goal is missed I’ll cancel the funding and thank everyone for their help. Depending on how much money is raised by noon on Monday I”ll look into possibly trying again, either with a smaller goal or possibly through another crowd funding site. I’ve seen recently that there’s another service that can let you choose to accept whatever money gets raised rather than being all or nothing like Kickstarter does but if I don’t see the possibility of at least replacing the laptop that died back in September I’m not sure if it will make sense to try again.
If the laptop can get replaced I’ll at least be able to finish the rewrite of He’s With the Band that I’ve been trying to do for the past few months, and it should let me get back the mystery I was working on when the laptop crashed one last time and took the hard drive with it. I may not be able to make the photobook at that point but at least I can get back to writing and try to give my readers something to read. I can’t tell you how many people have told me they loved He’s With the Band and want me to write more, even if it’s not a continuation of Al’s story. Without a laptop there’s just not enough hours in the day to do the things I need to do online and to be able to write.
The ball’s in your court. If you’ve been thinking of backing my next book now’s the time. It doesn’t have to be a big amount, even small pledges can add up to make a difference, and the more people back me the more others will be wiling to join the crowd. You won’t need to pay your pledge until after the campaign ends on Sunday, 10 August, and then only if the project is fully funded. This way you can look to see what your budget will be able to handle before making your pledge.
… Twenty-four little hours
That song by Dinah Washington got cued up in my head as I was checking the stats on my books today. Not only have I seen He’s With the Band downloaded 80 times just this month, over the weekend someone bought Somewhere… and More over at Amazon. Of course that’s good news but I didn’t realize how much difference a single sale would make in my stats in the Kindle Store. How big a difference? Wow. more “What a diff’rence a day made…”
The other day I was looking at the countries that have gotten my ebooks and I was amazed at some of them. more “A map of countries that have gotten my books”
Two weeks ago I posted that my ebooks are half price 
for the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale. But I was thinking about it yesterday after I logged off for the night and decided to give my readers an even better deal than half off. How about free? more “Get all my ebooks for FREE!”
I’ve lived in Boston for 25 years now and didn’t know a lot about Franklin Park, part of the Emerald Necklace of public park space Frederick Law Olmstead’s firm designed back in the late 1800’s. But earlier this year I discovered Julie Arrison’s book Images of America: Franklin Park (Arcadia Publishing), about the design and creation of the park. There’s a whole lot more park than I had any idea about.
That’s how I start describing the book I’d like to make on the project’s Kickstarter page. Over the next 30 days I’m looking for people to help me raise $2,900 to fund the purchase of a new laptop and a smartphone to use to take pictures of Boston’s Franklin Park over the course of the next year.
Of course there’s more to pay for in that $2,900 bucks, like some really great premiums for people who help me fund the creation of the book. If you back me with as little as $25 US you will get a free copy of the ebook version of the book as well as access to a funders’ area that will have a lot of the pictures for the book as they’re taken. If you can donate more there’s some great added goodies waiting for you, including a signed copy of the paperback edition of the book when it comes out if you back me at the top level with $250.
The book will be published as an ebook in Fall 2015 both as an ebook via Smashwords (and their partner stores) and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, as well as a print on demand paperback through Amazon’s CreateSpace. But you can get a free copy if you’re one of the book’s backers.
There’s only 30 days to get this done so if you can help you can’t wait too long to do it. Head on over to the project page and see what you can do to help make this book real. I promise there’s going to be a lot to like in it, even if you don’t live in Boston and don’t plan to visit. Our park really is that beautiful.
