Anatomy of a Book Release

On Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, the United States Pirate Party released their first book, No Safe Harbor. As I was the editor of the book, this is not a review, I cannot objectively critique this book, nor do I wish to try.

We released the book as an ebook in several formats, including .mobi, .epub, .PDF, and others. There was also a printed book available for those who wanted them. The book costs $9.99.

The original price of the book was set at $13.99, the price gave the USPP $2 per book. Clearly we didn’t want to overprice the book, but we did still want some kind of residual from it.

The change came about a few days before release when Createspace, the company doing the Print-on-Demand services for the book, altered their royalty and pay structure. Amazingly it was in our favor. I decided to lower the price to $9.99. At this price, no one could say we were price gouging, and it still gave us the $2 royalty rate we wanted.

Whether anyone but I wanted that, is beyond me. While Andrew Norton and a few others worked on the book, I was the “main” editor. I contacted the authors, set terms, wrote contracts, and figured out what order to put the essays in.

While it was tedious at times, I’d still do it again, and plan to, actually.

The book, both ebook and printed book, were released under a Creative Commons license, BY-NC-SA.

Sometime on Jan 24th, the website went down. Andrew, myself, another guy named Andrew, Chris, and some others rallied to fix what was wrong. We created a page on Blogger and redirected our link, www.nosafeharbor.com, to it.

While we waited for traffic to pick back up, we scoured the Net and saw what happened. The site was Slashdotted. A deluge occurred.

The files for the book were hosted on the PPI site, no problem there. All we needed was a page for people to get to, hence, the Blogger page.

While watching the site stats, we saw it take off. First a hundred, then two, then, not even two hours after the site was back up, we had over 2000 hits to the page.

At the end of the day, it would go up to 13,000 hits.

At the same time, we had a Torrent set up. I have personally seeded nearly 3GB of a 50MB file (of course if someone is using uTorrent or a cooler system, they could download only the files they wanted and not worry about the 40MB RTF file.

We haven’t sold many copies of the physical book, we didn’t expect to. It was actually my idea to have a physical book, as I am struck by what Whitman called, “The mania of owning things.”

Somehow people seem to care more if your book/film/album is in a physical format, that it doesn’t “matter” if it’s not in something made of matter.

Within the day of the book’s release, I found somewhere I now forget where, someone translating the book into Spanish. I did however remember the link to the people translating it into Russian.

http://notabenoid.com/book/25510

I couldn’t believe it, Russians want to translate this book into Russian!? More power to them.

I love this, I really do. I keep Googling and seeing what I come up with.

Pictures

Hi guys.

Get in the Raft With Taft

WordPress tells me that I only uploaded 50 posts during 2011 which brings my total up to 349. However, I know I uploaded 51 which brings me up to 350. Regardless, I seek to post ever more in 2012.

The first book to review this year is Taft 2012 by Jason Heller. As everyone knows, Taft was President of the United States a hundred years ago. After the Presidency, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the job he wanted all along.

This book negates the post-presidency Taft, instead having him disappear just before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. His disappearance is seen at first as a snub at Wilson, then one of the great conspiracy theories of the day.

I was saddened that the book sought to negate the work he did in the Supreme Court, as work he did there makes the world of today, well, today. No doubt some cases he heard while there would have turned out differently had he not been there to hear them. How different the world would have become without Taft in the Supreme Court is unknown.

Taft’s desire to become the Chief Justice does, however, make an appearance in the book.

It does play on a question that has plagued people since the earliest days of our country, “What would [insert former President here] do about [insert problem of today]?”

How would Jefferson handle WWII? How would Lincoln handle Iran-Contra? And on and on.

This book is a “What if” of course, but the author has definitely done his homework, and it shows.

That video, while not made for the book, uses Taft’s own, actual campaign song.

A Story From A Few Days Ago

This post was actually sent in November 2010 as a newsletter item on the United States Pirate Party mailing list. It is mirrored here because of its mention in No Safe Harbor, a publication of the USPP for those who wish to read the article. Odds are it has dispersed to other corners of the Internet as well.

This past Sunday I went out to the local flea market. There was an item I needed to acquire and one of the shops in the market typically has a good deal on them. I also like stopping by the coin collector guy’s booth and grab a few world coins, only one dollar for five coins. I once bought a handful of coins from him only to return home and investigate my haul to find that one coin in the mix was worth around $28. A good find indeed seeing as I paid 20 cent for it, but I digress.

After I found my item, I had a few hours to kill until I had to be back home so I walked around the flea market. There was quite a few new shops open since the last time I had been there. I noticed one shop in particular had a lot of people buzzing about. Upon closer examination, the shop contained a table with a some containers on it. Behind the table was the proprietor, answering questions and selling things as fast as he could.

What was he selling? DVDs.

More to the point, he was selling DVD-Rs onto which he used a Sharpie to write the name of a movie, such as A Bug’s Life, or Rocky, or any other number of movies. He had a sign advertising his prices. Five dollars for one movie, eight dollars for two, etc.

If you’re wondering why I was saddened at this sight, let me explain. The United States Pirate Party is against this blatant form of copyright infringement (and others as well). Am I the only one that reads the FBI warning that precedes every movie?

There was another thing that rather irked me. The stupidity of the shoppers. Were they really wanting A Bug’s Life so much that they’d spend $5 on a bootleg copy? Or, more likely, was it the “stick it to the man” attitude of buying an obviously bootleg DVD? I say stupidity because the first rule of flea markets is to buy it right when you find it if you can’t live without it as you can routinely find another copy of a book or film elsewhere in the flea market.

Oh, and that item I bought? It was a DVD. A legal, legit, albeit used, DVD. Cost? Only $2, disc doesn’t even have a scratch on it, even came with the original box and artwork. The shop I bought it from sells all of their used DVDs for $2, yes, even A Bug’s Life.

Sometimes sticking it to the man isn’t exactly cost effective… or legal.

Steve Jobs

Some of you might remember that this blog actually came about due to my need to create my own space after the blog I used to write a bit for, Style Mac, changed formats to its new style.

Most of my early posts here were originally posted on that site. So, if you think about it, I kinda owe my blogging career to Steve Jobs.

Think of him how you will, but the man is one of the few people who could say he touched the lives of just about everyone on the planet, if not the United States.

Sure you may not have used an iDevice, but surely you watched a Pixar movie. Well, guess who owned Pixar… until he sold it to Disney and became the single largest shareholder at the same time…

Yep, Steve Jobs.

The Third Birthday

If you haven’t played this game, be warned, there are spoilers.

I just played The 3rd Birthday. You know, the game that probably should have been called Parasite Eve 3. But then, once you play it, you realize that it isn’t Parasite Eve 3. They could have named the game anything. Heck, I’m going to call it Source Code: The Hot Randomly Half Nude Woman Edition.

I liked the OverDive system of Aya being able to jump into random soldiers on the battlefield and use their bodies to kill the critters that you have to kill. Also, why did some random guy pull the name “Babel” out of his ass to name the giant structures the Twisted create? It’s totally un-Babel-like.

One thing I didn’t like is that in the beginning it’s pretty much said there’s ONE Babel, but then there’s like five.

Did it piss anyone else off that in Episode 2 or 3 you have to go back in time three days to save Cray because they need him alive and then you do that and then THE VERY NEXT MISSION you go back a year and find that Cray was a bad guy so you kill him… then he doesn’t exist in the future… which means that you should have just said “screw him” when you were told to go save his ass the first time and it would have been the right choice.

There’s no Mitochondria Powers or anything like that from the first two games. Oh, and you’re not even playing as Aya, you’re playing as her sister, who I thought DIED before the first game even began (of course I’ve not played PE2).

Oh, and what’s with Aya not remembering her past? Other than the obvious, she’s not Aya. Like, wouldn’t there be SOME RECORD OF HER!??! Did everyone forget how to use Google?

If someone input “Aya Brea” into Google, they’d probably get a pile of creepy fansites with poorly drawn nude images of her, but eventually, they’d come across something that said something like “She’s got Mitochondrial powers and is a Jedi stronger than Yoda” as well as stuff about the events of PE1 and PE2.

Oh, and what’s the deal with Kunihiko Maeda? Since when did he turn into a pervert? I liked him in the first game. In this one he comes across as a paedophile.

The book says that Aya and Eve lost their blood relation… HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?

The only reason I can think of why they didn’t call this Parasite Eve 3 is because they would have had to pay money to the guy who wrote the original novel. Because all of the characters in any of the games were original Square creations, they could do whatever they wanted with them, as long as it wasn’t called PE3.

Cool gameplay vs. Sucky story.

The gameplay is great, as I said. I just wish there was more of it. It took me two days to complete this game. No I didn’t play it nonstop, I have a life you know.

All I can say is I’m glad I picked this up for half price.

The Emergency Room

I’m a big fan of Alkaline Trio. It’s one of my favorite bands in the whole world. Seriously.

If there’s one thing I DON’T like about Alkaline Trio it’s that Dan Andriano only sings lead vocals on one or two songs per album. I took all of the songs Dan sang and compiled them into a CD-R so I could listen to my favorite member’s music.

The Alkaline Trio Facebook page was full of fans clamoring for Dan to release a solo album. It’s been in the making for a year or more.

Finally, the album has been released, and it was worth it.

Don’t believe me? Listen to this song from the album.

Beautiful isn’t it?

It’s so simple, no hard rock sounds, just a dude, a guitar, sometimes a piano. It’s peaceful. It’s calming. Dan doesn’t yell or shout, he has a message, a story, he wants you to hear it, to understand it.

I don’t really know what else I can say about this record. I really love this record. I even got the special set that came with a T-shirt and an autographed copy of the album.

National Cemetery

A few years ago they built a National Cemetery just a few miles down the road from my house. I checked it out back in June, I just forgot to post this image of it.

All of the graves are full of people who served in the US Armed Forces and/or their spouses.

Many of the graves list death dates that predate the creation of the cemetery.

There’s really nothing else I can say.

I just got an email from Hosni Mubarak

Seriously, it’s an email from the deposed ruler of Egypt. He’s begging for my help and everything.

Of course, I know this is just another of those “deposed Nigerian Prince” style emails, it still makes me laugh that they started using a real deposed Egyptian guy for these. I look forward to receiving mail from Muammar Ghaddafi.

22/08/2011

Attn; My Noble Fellow

It will indeed be a pleasure to get associated with a good person of nobility like you. With this letter, I am making an appeal for your kindest attention. I only have limited access to communication so I will address straight to the point.

This is Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak, deposed President of Egypt, I was allegedly deposed and forced to step down by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after the Egyptians protestsfor faster political reforms and demanded that I and my officials in my administration be forced to step down for political corruption, prompting the cabinet to look into reviving a law drafted after the 1952 revolution that overthrew the monarchy.

I would have called you on phone, but because the Egyptian Security Networking with Armed Forces is taping and monitoring myofficials’phone numbers, so it is no longer safe for me to call you which is why I think it is safe to send you this mail. I am placed under surveillance and still on detention and trials with my ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, and six more senior ministry officials including my two sons.

However my main point of contacting you is to seek your sincere suggestion and guideline to move some allocatedfunds from my offshore accounts toyour country. Now I amcurrently incapacitated and suffering partial stroke and extremely worried over the political crisis which I cannot endure the ongoing catastrophe here, and please because of my position in the government now, I do not need to tell you of the absolute confidentiality which we both must have to observe as you are to help me in investing the funds in your country as my tycoon business representative.

Most of my private assets, bank accounts, my portfolio is being seized and confiscated by the Supreme Council, adding to that, the next session of my court trial is scheduled for September 5, that is why I decided to contact you now, though we are still going to court but the environment is good now to handle the transaction very safely before the specific date.

From the brief explanation of my present predicament which has befallen me now, you will understand my catastrophe with the Egyptian government now.I thank you very much for taking time to go through my mail, and please if you are sure you are truly capable to handle this transaction, revert back to me immediately.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely
Hosni Mubarak
Cairo, Egypt.

I love it, it really speaks to me, but more than that, it makes me laugh.

Nodal Points

Hidden in the rarely seen, often missed, corners of the Internet lies a website I first encountered several years ago. It is http://nodalpoints.com/ and contains only a few orange words on a black background. In their entirety, they read as follows:

According to Laney, last time we had one like this was 1911.
Can you see them?
If you can, contact us.
You will know how.
Help us direct them to positive ends.

Of course, there is no contact information. To find that, I did a WHOIS search.

In 2006, I sent an email to the address given. No response came back. In 2008, I sent again. Still nothing. Again in 2010 I queried. Silence.

Before I first found that site, it was shortly after I read William Gibson’s Bridge Trilogy of books.

I’m reasonably sure that text was due to those books. An exchange similar to that above takes place in All Tomorrow’s Parties.

Why write a website and then ignore all those who find it? There’s more to do on Zombocom.