Hermit Blog

Photography

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:12:38 -0700

With a new and better camera in hand this week, I realized something.

The science of photography is to help you see what is.
The art of photography is to help you see what I see.

If you’re on facebook, you can see a lot of the photos I’m taking by ‘liking’ my facebook page.

Angelo’s Journey Now an Audiobook

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 10:47:05 -0700

Angelo and I are delighted to announce that his first book of fiction, Angelo’s Journey, is now available as an audio book! It’s been on the Kindle dog book best seller list for nearly 10 months.

You can pick it up at Amazon.com, through Audible.com, or through iTunes!

The narrator, Brian McCracken, did an outstanding job of voicing the characters. He did such a good job that when Brian growled in the book, Angelo growled back at the speakers!

Here’s a quick link to the Amazon page with all three editions of Angelo’s Journey (Paperback, Kindle, and now audiobook):

http://www.amazon.com/Angelos-Journey-Border-Collies-Quest/dp/B006UC8PKE/?tag=augiedocom-20

There’s even a free sample so you can hear what the book sounds like! Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

Reviewers

Sun, 8 Jan 2012 12:00:27 -0700

With all the changes going on in book publishing, sometimes I wonder how it will all shake out. This week, I’m thinking about book reviewers. Really, reviewers of all media.

In particular, I’m talking about reviewers who are paid for their reviews, and the question is, how should they make money?

The old model was that a newspaper, like the New York Times, would write reviews to attract readers so they could sell ads. The NYT Book Review was the holy grail of book reviews. If you were reviewed positively there, you were virtually assured of a nice bump in sales and a place on the bestseller list.

Fast forward to today: The Executive Editor of the New York Times writes a blog about her dog, repackages it into a book, and the book reviewers at her paper are asked to review it. Waddya think? How fair and balanced is THAT review going to be? And how do you think the poor reviewer is even supposed to try to be impartial?

Another model is where the publisher pays a review service (like Kirkus) to give an independent review of the book. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get a positive review, but they make their money from the publisher (or today, sometimes the self-published author). While I have a lot of confidence in Kirkus’ ability to remain fairly fair, in the long run, if they provide more negative reviews than positive, word will get out, and fewer people will pay for their services, so there’s still some bias built into the system. Oddly enough, a lot of self-published authors are castigated for paying for a review, especially if it turns out to be positive. No one seems to criticize them if they pay for a review and it turns out badly.

A newer model of business for the reviewer is being an “affiliate.” This basically translates into a link that appears on the reviewer’s website. If a purchase is made through the reviewer’s website, a small commission is paid by the bookseller (usually Amazon) to the reviewer. I’ve known a lot of reviewers who use this model, and surprisingly, every one that I have known has had astonishing integrity. It makes no sense, as they should want to inflate the reviews so that more books would sell, so that their commission would be larger.

And then there are the delightful people who review books for no pay at all. They do it for the love of books. Some of them post their reviews on Amazon, some on Goodreads.com, some on Barnes and Noble’s website, and a lot post on their own blogs. These are the reviews that I personally love. I know they’re unbiased, and they’ll tell me what an author did right, and what they did wrong.

With book sales (particularly ebook sales) growing exponentially, it seems to me that we need to figure out a model of reviewing that makes sense for the reviewer and for the readers. None of us have time to read everything. It seems we need someone to filter through the hundreds of thousands of books to find what we’re interested in. Who will do that work for us, and how will we compensate them?

What reviews do YOU pay attention to?

World AIDS Day

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 09:37:17 -0700

The other day, in the continuing task of unpacking and finding homes for my possessions (will I ever be done?), I came across my address book from the 1980s. I read through it, name by name. More than half the people in it have passed on. Many of them died during the days before there were treatments for HIV. So many beautiful, creative, intelligent, witty people. I remember the funerals. I remember the ugly battles between grieving parents in denial and loved ones left behind. Lovers locked out of apartments they’d shared with the deceased. Businesses sold, leaving a loving partner unemployed and destitute and grieving. Families refusing to acknowledge they even had a son.

And I remember the many lessons I’ve learned from those who died of AIDS. Being present in the moment. Appreciating the now. Saying what matters now, because we have no idea how long the now will last. A little sparkle is always appropriate. Learning to say good-bye with grace and love and humor.

And I appreciate those I know today, who deal with the virus still inside them, dealing with the multitude of drugs that stave off but do not yet prevent the virus’s effects. Their quiet courage puts my dealing with the aches and pains of age to shame.

My life, and the world, is poorer without those we’ve lost. But I try to carry a little bit of their spirit in my heart every day that I have on this earth. I try to keep a little bit of their legacy alive in me.

I thumb through that address book... and I weep. I remember the gifts they gave me, and I smile.

A Revelation

Fri, 7 Oct 2011 17:14:14 -0600

This afternoon, Maggie, Angelo, neighbor dog Misty, and I were walking along the creek. It’s the first time I’ve felt safe (from rattle snakes) enough to walk along our path there since spring. The willows are changing to a pale yellow, a nice change from the aspens’ gaudy (and lovely) gold... and all at once, I realized something, something so powerful that it made me cry.

I realized that God has either given me outright, or given me the tools to achieve, almost every dream that has mattered to me. I’ve lived in cities that I wanted to: Denver, San Francisco, Antwerp. I’ve traveled 49 of the 50 United States, and more than a few countries in Europe. I was blessed with finding this little piece of heaven when I was tired of the city. I have had the opportunity to build an off-grid, green, and pretty self-sufficient house. I’m even a published author, making a few bucks along the way. And good friends, new and old, human and canine, have been there every step of the way.

What an astounding realization... the power of imagination, the power of believing, the power of hope. God has blessed me richly indeed. I hope you dream big, and that you dream often, and in enough detail to REALLY believe... And I hope you’re not afraid to ask for help in making those dreams come true.