Archive for the ‘Publishing’ Category

Unstoppable Joy! Available for Kindle on Amazon!

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

While waiting for the printed verson to show up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble I paid a programmer back east to convert Unstoppable Joy! from the print ready PDF files to a version for Amazon’s new digital book reader the Kindle.

Unstoppable Joy! on Amazon

Unstoppable Joy! on Amazon

The conversion was quite tricky.

I had put the conversion job up for bid at rent-a- coder and elance and had very few takers. Two programmers who started gave up.

The Kindle is brand new and has many quirks in the way it displays text, fonts and images. Getting a book to look right for the Kindle is an exercise in both programming and patience.

But patience paid off.

For the first time when folks search for Unstoppable Joy! at Amazon – they are taken to the Kindle version.

For an author – that is when it Really feels like a book – when it shows up on Amazon!

The print version will be up shortly but due to a upload glitch at selfpublishing.com the process has been delayed by about 5 weeks. Unfortunately I wasn’t made aware of the glitch till last week.

So for all you self publishers – prepare for the unexpected – I have seen a ton of it publishing this book. But it has all been more than worth the effort.

Click here for the link to the Kindle version of Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You in 12 Simple Steps on Amazon.com

BTW: Authors, the programmer who did the conversion calls his business Factory-H and can be visited if you click here. Highly recommended!

Unstoppable Joy! at Eugene Oregon Saturday Market

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

I have just een approved to sell Unstoppable Joy! at the world famous Eugene Saturday Market. It is the longest running Saturday market in the country and a whole lot of fun.

It’s in a way kind of a miniature of the famous “Oregon Country Fair” in Veneta – many of the same vendors show at both venues.

So if you ar in the area and would like to meet – stop on by. It’s located smack in the middle of downtown Eugene.

Joy and Abundance
Ed Osworth

The Joy Professor

Back in the Saddle Again – Uncooperative Technology Creates Major Challenge For Book Launch

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Whew…. what a week this has been.

Haven’t been able to post for several days. Life threw some interesting curve balls at me.

First the books finally arrived last Thursday and I was all ramped up to start promoting.

But the technolgy simply would not cooperate.

Friday night it was 100 degrees plus – so everyone in the area was running their air conditiors big time.

I had all 3 of my computers going on the network and “boom” huge power surge and outage.

To make a long story short – my main box – a fancy new Gateway – went bye bye that night. Nothing remained – fried motherboard. Two days of working with the best tech in Oregon couldn’t recover anything.

OK – well that iust one big reason I run multiple boxes. Redundancy.

Monday morning the unthinkable happened. Box #2 also lost its motherboard. Yikes!!

They must have both been fried by the surge – but #2 had a delayed reaction. More time with tech, at least the hard drive didn’t fry on the second one. We lost the box – but not the data.

So it took several days to get back up – recover and transfer data etc. etc. etc.

It was quite a challenge to stay in centered in joy while everything seemed to be exploding around me.

But I did…

Mostly :-)

It’s A Book – Safely Delivered at 1400 Lbs

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Whew – what a wild few days. the books finally arrived on Thursday. It was the hottest day of the year here in Central Oregon. Well over 100°.

The trucking company gave me a window that they were delivering in. That window was from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. A friend of mine was familiar with LTL “less than truckload” shipping laughed when I called him and told him the window. He said from my experience it will arrive either at 10 a.m. or 3:00 p.m.

He was right!

Where I live is up a narrow dirt road are there was no way they would be able to deliver to my house. Because of that I have them delivered to the house of my co-author and editor, Jenifer Hood.

When they finally arrived it was in a full-length semi-truck trailer. At first they thought they were going to have to leave the palette in the street but it turned out there actually was room for them to back the trailer up Jennifer’s driveway.

I was actually surprised at how small the palette was. 3000 books only took up about 4′ x 4′ x 4′.

After I signed a bill of waiting we ripped through the plastic like anxious little children. opened the box and there was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. My book in print.

So if the book arrived Thursday why has it taken until Sunday or be post this exciting news to my blog? Well the nature of business being what it is life created at a little setback for me after the books arrived.

With everybody running their air conditioners like crazy around here turns out we had a big powers surge. Unfortunately that power surge fried the motherboard on the computer that I primarily use. I do use surge protectors and stuff but unfortunately in this case they didn’t help.

The timing couldn’t have been crazier. The website is still a little bit unfinished. I still need to get the bonus material and audios posted up. The book will start shipping on Monday. And my fancy pants Gateway desktop decides that it’s just got off work for good.

I called my tech Mark Hasting (who owns PCHell.com) this morning and we went through the usual procedures but in this case the motherboard is completely fried. It’s in such bad shape that you can’t even get the bios to appear. The bios controller can’t find any devices to boot from at all, even though the hard drive and CD seem to be working.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to get the data off the hard drive primarily for bookkeeping entries that are in there. Luckily most of my work is backed up in several locations. Also lucky that I have a backup computer I can switch it for a while.

For those of you who are waiting for the book they are going to start shipping on Monday and I really appreciate the patience of those of you pre ordered and have been anxiously waiting.

Time for me to get back to shuttling computers and data around.

Joy
Ed Osworth
The Joy Professor

Crossing my fingers – will Thursday be the Big Day?

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Still waiting… Roadway only sends trucks out this direction (I live in the boonies on a lake) once a week – so they told me “most likely” this Thursday! The reason it isn’t 100% solid is because they have older stuff coming out this direction and only so much room in the truck.

Personally I am sure they will be here Thursday.

Already receiving pre-orders on the website and from lots of folks locally who are waiting to get their hands on a copy. Sop far I have had orders as far as Great Britain – even without any advertising or promotion.

Still waiting…

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Well the books are now on a loading dock in Portland Oregon waiting to be transferred to another shipper Roadway Trucking. Called Roadway this morning and they still don’t know exactly when delivery will take place as there is yet another transfer that will take place at the Roadway depot in Eugene.

She said probably tomorrow, maybe Wed.

Last time I felt like this was when I was a kid. They used to track the coming of Santa on radio and TV stations. I would follow the every move of Santa from the North Pole.

SelfPublishing.com told me originally the day they shipped that they would be arriving at my location last Friday. So if you ever publish your own book be sure to take delivery estimates with a big grain of salt. Don’t plan a signing the day of arrival – that is for sure.

Large shipments of books like mine (3000) are shipped by what is known as LTL trucking (stands for less than truckload). It’s not like FedEx or UPS. It get’s there when it gets there….

Joy and Abundance

Ed

Sitting on Pins and Needles…..

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

Waiting for the arrival of the first 3000 copies of “Unstoppable Joy”.  They are on a “Yellow Freight” truck somewhere between here (Oregon) and Minnesota.

Seven years discovering and perfecting the concepts followed by three years in the writing and refining of the book.

Countless rewrites, edits, corrections, deletions, additions, delays, snafus, challenges and red eyed nights at the computer till the crack of dawn.

All 10 years culminating in a 1/2 pound of paper with a pretty cover.  Whew.

Now I know where the expression “Everyone wants to have written a book but nobody wants to actually write one” comes from :-)

It is impossible to accurately describe the feeling of apprehension and adventure that awaits. I have invested a huge chunk of my time on this planet to this project. I have perhaps neglected some “responsibilities” while in this 10 year fever that drove the creation of what is no less than my life’s dream.

Why would I invest 10 years into something like this? Something where the eventual outcome is dependent entirely on whether the masses decides they like it?

I did it for you. So that you can be happier than you were before you read it.

If I accomplish that – I am more than satisfied – I am ecstatic.

Bless

ED O
The Joy Professor