Today's my birthday! It's been a very chill day. A little excursion to Pacific Grill (thanks to my sister for watching Hannah while we went!) and some hanging about the place. I spent some time on a new side project I'm working on (more on that later). I watched some good TV. I played with Hannah. All in all, a pretty nice day. And really, a pretty nice last year. What a year between May 22, 2011, and today. I ran for office, got elected (ahem, retained), published The Marinara Murders, wrote 62,000 words in a sci-fi novel (that is unfortunately not anywhere close to done) and then we had Hannah at the end of it. So yeah. Big year. Will be interesting to see what the next year holds.
South Tacoma has a new community center! It's a great space, thousands of square feet, of unique opportunities. Workout areas, dance areas, kids areas, event space, and even this cool demonstration kitchen which can be used for classes, parties, and competitions.
The grand opening was yesterday and a flash mob took the opportunity to break out in dance after the ribbon cutting.
What a great new facility for Tacoma.
She'll be 4 weeks old this Sunday!
In November, I participated on two panels with the Tacoma Arts Symposium. One of them was about social media/technology for artists. We had a lot of good questions from the audience, but a significant amount of them were about the audience member's fear of piracy. People were afraid that if they started blogging their pictures or putting there ideas online, that they would be stolen.
I came down pretty hard on the other side. I said something to the effect of piracy being a validation that you had actually produced something of value. That your art was actually good. That you'd made it. That most piracy doesn't really hurt the content creator in any meaningful way, and that efforts to prevent piracy generally just annoy the actual paying customers.
(As an aside, on the panel the only artist who I think has a serious issue with piracy was Laurie Cinotto, who posts adorable photos of cats (raising tens of thousands of dollars for the Humane Society in the process). Her work is often taken and used as LOLcats, which means it gets turned into images like this one: (photo stolen with generous permission from Laurie Cinotto)
All that is to say: I'd made a pretty strong stand.
And this spring I had the opportunity to finally put my money where my mouth is.
After my successful e-book promotion for The Marinara Murders in March, I noticed that my google alerts for the book title found it on some sites where people download pirated books. I'd been pirated.
Maybe.
(The uncertainty is that all of them require some sort of login, so I didn't test it, as often these sites make it just as likely that I would download malware as I would The Marinara Murders. This is especially true because the stated file size is much larger than my book actually is.)
But let's assume the book really is there, awaiting anyone who wants to download it for free without paying me. How should I react?
The short answer is, I probably won't do much. Obviously, I would prefer that people buy my book ( here's a link!). But let's face it--two months ago I willingly gave away 11,000 digital copies and had my best month ever. So I'm not exactly averse to people getting it for free. The truth is: authors should be much more concerned with obscurity than they are with piracy.
Seth Godin has a great post about how to think about ebook piracy.
Music is pirated because many people have an insatiable urge to listen to music, all the time, preferably with unlimited variety. And radio taught us that music to be listened to doesn’t cost money.
But books?
Books are free at the library but there’s no line out the door. Books are free to read in comfortable couches at Barnes & Noble but there aren’t teeming crowds sitting around reading all day.
Books take a long time to read, require a significant commitment, and they’re relatively cheap. And most people don’t read for fun. Most of the inputs necessary for a vibrant piracy community are missing.
I tend to agree with that analysis. I'm not saying I like that I've been pirated. But given the alternative--no one reading my book--it's probably preferable.
So, even having been pirated (maybe), I think my answer stays pretty much the same as to what I gave in November. I'd rather be pirated than be obscure.
Well, it's been just over two weeks since we welcomed Hannah into the world. It's been a crazy joyful sleep-deprived time. We're all healthy and happy. We enjoyed the beautiful weather these past few days and got out to Wright Park and the Ruston Way Waterfront. It feels good to get out, and Hannah sleeps through the whole thing, so it's pretty chill. Amid all the time caring for Hannah, recovering from caring for Hannah, and working, my writing has taken a definite backseat. It's very difficult to find time to do it. And when I do, it looks something like this. Not the most productive way to write. It works, just slowly. So all my writing timelines are off. I'm just happy to get anything down onto the page these days. I'm going to try to keep this blog still focused on writing, books, parks, movies, travel, Tacoma and all the things I regularly blog about. Obviously, Hannah is already an incredibly important part of my life and affects all of those things, so I'm sure she'll creep in to those posts regularly. :)
So ... this weekend Mary gave birth to our first child, a beautiful baby girl named Hannah. It's been a crazy few days. Not much sleep, a lot of diapers, and plenty of new experiences. We were admitted to the hospital Saturday night, Hannah was delivered Sunday morning, we were discharged Tuesday, and are just now finishing our first 48 hours in our own home (and it feels fabulous!). So! The exciting part ... Pictures! I think most of these are pretty self-explanatory. But the view of Tacoma is from our window in the post-partum room (we faced the other way in the delivery room). We've had a great few days, ones I know we will always treasure, despite the lack of sleep. :)
About two months ago I posted about a short story I'd finished in my mystery series. I still like it, but I think I'm going to hold off publishing it.
Why?
Because I think it's better as a novel. A member of my writing group made a suggestion, and it really got me thinking. I think I like it a lot better as a full-length novel than as a 30 page short story.
Unfortunately, that means it's going to take longer to come out. I'm working hard on my sci-fi novel--it's already 56,000 words, about as long as The Saints Go Dying, with plenty more to go. And it's going really really well.
Finishing that is my primary writing goal right now. When it's done, I'll have to take a break from it before beginning the editing process. So that will be a good time to start the work of turning this Beautyman short story into something bigger.
So that's where things stand right now! A short story that's going to get a lot longer soon, and a sci-fi novel that is really fun. I'm so excited to get that one out into the world.
There's a feature on the Kindle that I rarely use: highlighting lines of text so you can find them later. I can count only a few times I've found this to be helpful. But! As an author, it turns out that it can be enormously encouraging. The Little Book of Gold, my fundraising guide for small nonprofits, has spent almost four months on the Kindle best-selling list for nonprofits. Crazy! One of the features of Amazon is that they will show you commonly highlighted passages in a book. That means that I (and anyone else) can see what people find valuable in the book. Here are some of the quotes: start with the board, then “friends” of the nonprofit, and then use a fundraising event to increase contacts from the general public and bring them into your circle. --Highlighted by 4 Kindle users a serious mistake to try to introduce people to your organization at the same time you make an ask --Highlighted by 4 Kindle users also important to note here that no matter what the donor said after Linda made the ask, she acted as if it was the most generous gift she’d received. --Highlighted by 3 Kindle users The most effective fundraising is done with people who already know what your nonprofit is about. --Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
There were a few more snippets that were highlighted as well. Seeing this is really encouraging. It's a good reminder that this book really is helping people. And it helps me know what kinds of things people are looking for as well.
It's been almost two full weeks since my trip to DC. I thought I should share some of the more interesting pictures from the trip. Here is the Washington Monument, reflected in the (under construction) Reflecting Pool.
This is from the steps of the Supreme Court looking back at the Capitol and all the protestors and media out front. It was a real circus.
I have visited Arlington National Cemetery twice now. I find it a truly solemn place. Here is the door of the USS Maine memorial.
And the rows of tombstones under the cherry blossoms.
And just for fun, here is the back of Newt Gingrich's head. On my flight home, I shad a layover in Milwaukee. Newt Gingrich was on the plane going to the Wisconsin caucuses. Notice also the Secret Service agent. He sat right in front of me.
All in all, a really great trip to DC! There was biking, tours, museums, and more. We hit all three branches of the government as well. A tour of the White House, 3 minutes at the Supreme Court, and 20 minutes watching the House of Representatives deliberate. Democracy in action!
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