I’m working on a new book. Want to help me Kickstart it?

Can you help my next book get a Kickstart?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.

Visit the book’s Kickstarter page

Coming Soon: J.M. Hardin: The Kickstarter Campaign?

I’ve been kicking around an idea for a book to write after I finish the rewrite of He’s With the Band. It’s a book of photographs of Franklin Park here in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. I’ve seen some nice books about Franklin Park but the ones I’ve seen have older pictures, and while there’s some nice sites with pictures of the park there’s no book of recent pictures. The idea is for it to be partly a travel book, but more a book for Boston residents (and former residents) to use to get more out of our beautiful park.

My biggest problem: I need some new gear to make the book and my budget for it is nonexistent, so I’m going to turn to Kickstarter to try to fund the equipment I’ll need to make the book. more “Coming Soon: J.M. Hardin: The Kickstarter Campaign?”

The Indie Author Manifesto

Smashwords Indie Author Manifesto (corrected)Yesterday I was checking my stats at Smashwords and discovered that  the Smashwords founder, Mark Coker, had written a manifesto for us independent authors. As a Smashwords author I love it, and as an indie author I gladly and wholeheartedly join Mark in posting this as a commitment from this author to his readers.

Updated 16 April to fix a typo in the infographic. Whoops!
more “The Indie Author Manifesto”

We have a new milestone!

I love looking at the stats for my ebooks every day. Even when there’s not much news I make a point to check the download numbers for He’s With the Band and the number of times the previews for Somewhere… and More and No Budget, No Pay got downloaded. It turns out that even eight months after I published WHTB I still see 200-250 downloads every month between Smashwords and their partner sites and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. more “We have a new milestone!”

Creative people

What do creative people do when they can’t create?* 

We read a lot. We drink a lot of coffee (or tea). We smoke quite a bit (if you have that lovely personality trait (no monkey)). We surf the web a lot. We get together with friends. We listen to some great music. We check out what wonderfully creative things our friends are doing and support them. And we wish we could take some of the things that come into our head down to be creative with them.

What don’t creative people do when they can’t create? more “Creative people”

My virtual workspace

Updated 1 July: I have an updated image I’m using for my wallpaper and I’ve put a sample of that after the jump. Should I make it available as a desktop wallpaper that can be downloaded?

Back in September I mentioned that I was thinking about creating some desktop wallpapers, two based on images for He’s With the Band and one image showing my virtual workspace. As I was answering the questions for the Smashwords author interview I saw that one of the questions was about my workspace. I didn’t answer that one since I don’t really have a workspace that the moment but it reminded me that I wanted to update the workspace wallpaper image to show the books I’ve released since last August and to show the online stores that carry my ebooks. more “My virtual workspace”