Category Archives: Documenting America

Documenting America, Writing

Citizen and Patriot

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Once again I am considering changing my writing course. Not changing it, exactly, but trying once again to focus it.

I came back from the Write-To-Publish Conference with too many irons in the fire. I worked on them as best I could, but have not been able to spend the brain power on them to make them into real prospects. I need to lay a couple of these works-in-progress aside.

Then today was a blog parade hosted by WordServe Literary Agency, with many of their clients posting on their platform building efforts. Out of twenty or more blog posts to that many different blogs, only a few dealt exclusively with the writer’s platform, the rest dealing with marketing of books in general. The thoughts I gleaned from the weight of these posts, and from another writer’s blog recommended to me today, were these:

  1. A network of family and friends who will champion your work is the first essential.
  2. Concentrate on one genre, to maximize marketing efforts as well as for other reasons.
  3. Social networking has become quite effective for book marketing.
  4. Blog to meet readers needs, not for other writers.
  5. Have a blog that targets the audience of your book.

These all seem like truisms to me. Well, except maybe social media. I have limited experience with it, and haven’t been able to satisfy in my own mind that is true. Certainly my initial experience with it says it is not true, but that maybe I have to work at it both harder and smarter.

So I think immediately I’ll exclusively devote my actual writing time to two works, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and the Documenting America brand, which would include The Candy Store Generation as the next installment. To build up a network, I’ve begun casting around for groups to join and participate in. I joined Conservative Arkansas today because, while I tried to take a tone in Documenting America that is not truly conservative, I think conservatives are the most likely audience. I’ve already made one post there and had a couple of people like it.

My blogs certainly have not given me an army of fans who will champion my writing. In fact, with a couple of notable exceptions, my family and friends have proven utterly disinterested in anything I write. Writing acquaintances have shown more interest. So I guess my efforts will have to be targeted to find a new army of friends.

Concerning having a blog targeted toward my work in progress, what I’ve thought of is to open a new blog page under this David A. Todd writer’s blog aimed at the potential audience of Documenting America. I would make posts in support of that work, possibly an excerpt from the book, possibly research toward a second volume, possibly editorials. Anything that would draw in and inform people who might want to buy Documenting America.

Doing this would mean making 3 posts a week in the new blog, which I’m thinking of calling “Citizen and Patriot”, after the passage in the James Otis speech around which chapters 1 and 2 of DA are built. But it would also mean having to cut back on my other two blogs. And finding time to write freelance articles would be impossible, so that would be gone for a while.

So my question to you, loyal readers, is this: Does this sound like a good idea to you? Should I write a blog targeted to US history, focused on original documents, not analysis? I’m anxious to know what you think.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

Summary of e-book sales and royalties

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Don’t be fooled by the title of this post. Nothing much has changed. Other than it’s July 25, and I’m already standing at my best month yet for both sales and royalties.

That doesn’t mean much of course, since I haven’t sold much at all. But so far this month I’ve sold 2 copies of “Mom’s Letter” and 3 copies of Documenting America. These sales have accrued $2.01 to my accounts at Kindle and Smashwords.

See, I told you these were not earth-shattering numbers. But the fact it’s still my best month so far. Previously my best month was 4 units sold and $1.68 in royalties accrued. So it is indeed a better month.

This is what the e-self-publishing experts say: More books on more e-reading platforms will result in more sales. That’s turning out to be true. In July I added “Mom’s Letter” to Smashwords. I’ve wanted to add Documenting America to it as well, but that’s a little more involved as I have to create an electronic Table of Contents. That’s not difficult; it just takes time. Maybe I’ll get a little time to work on it tonight.

That brings my total sales to 8 of “Mom’s Letter” and 7 of Documenting America. My accrued revenue stands at $6.28. That’s over five months for the former and less than three for the latter. I would love to have more, and I’d hoped the increase would come quicker than this, but I’ll take these for now, considering how little time I’ve put into promotion.

But, today I had a big surprise. I have three sales reports I can check: sales in the USA Kindle store, sales in the UK Kindle store, and sales in the German Kindle store. Normally I only check the USA one, but today I checked the UK, and discovered I have one sale of “Mom’s Letter” there in July! Surprise surprise. I earned 0.22 Pounds Sterling for that sale, which will work out to $0.35. I’m not quite sure how that gets accumulated and paid out, but it’s there in the record as a sale. I’ll take it.

So, I’m on a roll, albeit a very small and slow roll. I really need to get Documenting America up on Smashwords, and find something else to publish. Doctor Luke’s Assistant is more or less ready to go. I could probably have that on Kindle in a week and on Smashwords in two. I also still have to do the work needed to get Documenting America on CreateSpace, so that I have a physical book for sale. I don’t want to do a lot of promotion before having the physical book for those who don’t want an e-book. Then I’d better get busy finishing In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People so that I can slide over to another volume of Documenting America. Or maybe get serious with The Candy Store Generation.

That’s a plate full. Oh, well, better to have ambitious goals than to sit and watch TV all night.

Documenting America

The Sacred Calls of Country

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As I write in my Documenting America series, I read much in historical American documents that does not ring a bell as having been covered in my history classes. Why is that? Is it simply a matter of time—too many decades passes since freshman year at URI? Maybe they were covered and I just can’t remember. Is it that my interests have changed? Rather than merely wanting to pass a class, I want to know the history of this great nation. History was a favorite topic for me, but the needs to pass the class often precluded the joy of mere study. That pendulum has swung, never to return.

Is it the experience of years? Maybe I now know that a history book covering one semester can’t possibly hold everything that’s important. The historian, or the history book writer, must sift through mountains of material to result in a manageable amount for the purpose at hand. Or is it perhaps the perspective of hindsight? Forty years of watching the USA in action, observing politics and all that politics affects, and five years of living in the Middle East gives a man a perspective markedly different than a student.

For any or all of these reasons, or perhaps for reasons unstated, I find myself drawn to these original documents out of America’s history. My entry point was James Otis’ court argument concerning the Writs of Assistance. This took place in 1761, a full fourteen years before the Revolutionary War broke out, fifteen before we declared the thirteen colonies to be independent, twenty-two before the treaty that established the USA in the roll call of nations, and twenty-eight before we had a working, sustainable government in place. This was, in my judgment, the opening step in our march to independence. While only a part of the argument is extant, what we have is a great example of legal and political rhetoric, and inspiring to this American, and should be to many others. I give this short quote to illustrate:

The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a…man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.

Magnificent.

So how come this wasn’t covered in my history classes? Why have I not, for forty if not fifty years, put James Otis on the pedestal next to Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin? Is the fault that of the student, the teachers, or the history textbook writers? Who knows?

The bigger question for me, having found this among a treasure trove of documents now available in the Information Age, is will my book(s) make a difference? That only time and sales will tell.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, self-publishing

"Documenting America" Kindle e-book for Sale

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So Sunday I uploaded it. Twenty-four hours later they said it was accepted for publication. Another twenty-four hours and it went live, for sale at a bargain price of $1.25. Do I sound like a shameless self-promoter?

Here’s the link:
Documenting America, Volume 1

So far I have two sales! One coming from my Facebook announcement, and one from my announcement on the Suite101 forums. I’ll probably do more promotion for this than I did with “Mom’s Letter”, and see if that results in better sales. A 40,000 word book for $1.25 will seem like a better deal than a 1850 word short story for $0.99. That might help sales. I wonder, too, if the recent taking out of Osama bin Laden will result in a surge of American nationalism, which in turn might help sales. I don’t say that I’m hoping his death feeds my sales, just thinking out loud at what the possible reaction of the American buying public might be.

I still have so much work to do. I have to figure out how to get a properly formatted Table of Contents for the book. I have to get it—and “Mom’s Letter”—formatted for and uploaded to the SmashWords distribution platform. And I have to get DA formatted though CreateSpace to have a print-on-demand book for sale.

But I’ll take an evening to enjoy the moment, and dream a little.

Documenting America, Essential John Wesley, self-publishing

So Little Progress on a Weekend

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Saturday just past dawned clear, but went cloudy quite fast. Then the sun broke through. I was up around 8:30 AM, as usual for a Saturday. Read my devotions, then went outside for my normal yard work. The sun was out, then behind clouds, then out again. The wind blew in gusts, then it was dead calm, then it blew again. I did such minor things as clean a little in the garage, then pick up sticks from the front yard (a rock yard), then pull weeds from the front yard. Then I was ready for my weekly sawing on the downed tree on the wood lot next to us.

Prior to my current health kick, improving both weight and blood sugar, I was lucky to be able to saw one section from this tree. The diameter is only 8 inches or so where I’m sawing. Then, two weeks ago, I was able to saw two sections, and felt good at the end. Saturday I decided to shoot for three sections, which would finish the tree. And I was able to do it, feeling at the end that I could have done another if I wasn’t down to the stump. That was such a good feeling: to finish the tree, and to see my arm strength and stamina built up from even a month ago.

So then it was inside to see what else I had to do and to write. I pulled up my latest Documenting America file, and decided to have one more go at the Introduction. I knew I needed to add something about how I came to select the documents included in the book. So I did that, then went on to some work on Essential John Wesley. Two hours later I found it was time to head to Wal-Mart for the weekly acquisition of groceries.

Saturday evening was devoted to my Wesley studies, as well as preparing to teach Life Group on Sunday. The Wesley reference book I have out on inter-library loan was due Monday, and I was determined to get my $2.00 ILL fee’s worth. So I read through the slim book again, taking some different notes. This continued into Sunday. To make sure I “got my money’s worth,” I wrote a review of that book for this blog, and posted it Saturday. I may have spent too much time on the slavery writings of Wesley, but I consider the research not only for EJW but also for future articles or essays.

Sunday afternoon I went through the work of formatting and uploading Documenting America for and to the Kindle Store. It’s there, not live yet (as of this writing), but in the review queue. Should go live Monday evening or sometime on Tuesday. I still don’t have a decent cover, so I’m just using the one I developed with my limited graphics skills. But I can change the cover at any time, so I decided to upload. Upon review I realized the spacing in the Table of Contents was messed up, but I decided to run with it. The Kindle uploading software allows for a separate TOC upload. Somehow I sensed that wouldn’t be easy, so I decided to put it off.

Sunday evening was devoted to Wesley studies, in an old article I found about him as a literary man, and in his journals. That meant I did not do any writing in the Wesley book. That gave me a feeling of lack of accomplishment. All together, this weekend I wrote less than 1,000 words, including the blog post. I need to get in 3,000 on the weekends to have a prayer of ever finishing anything. Other things I wanted to do was to look into Amazon’s CreateSpace, to have a physical book for Documenting America. I have a feeling it’s not too difficult. I also wanted to look into the Barnes & Noble e-book tool, and SmashWords, so as to have my stuff available on multiple e-reader platforms. Alas, I didn’t get to any of that.

Why is it so difficult to make writing progress on the weekends? With Saturday evening and Sunday all day being rainy, I couldn’t walk, so I had plenty of time to write. Yet production was minimal. All I can do is try harder in the future.

Oh, and I was right about creating a TOC for Kindle. Just did some research into it, and it involves HTML code—simple stuff I think, if any HTML can be considered simple. Well, I’ll let the book get up, then see what I can do.

Documenting America, Wesley

Status of Two Works-in-Progress

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So these are my two current (that is, I’m actively working on them) works-in-progress:

Documenting America, hopefully volume 1 of several, an historical/political non-fiction books

Essential John Wesley, a small group study, such as for an adult Sunday school class, of Wesley’s writings. The title is a place-holder, and not necessarily final.

I am finished with Documenting America. I could upload it to the Kindle store tonight, with its imperfect, self-created cover. I was hoping to get some critique on it from the new writers group, but, alas, we ran out of time Tuesday. I don’t really want to wait two weeks to get the critique and then upload it. This weekend is supposed to be rainy. Not much chance of getting significant outside work done. I think I will do the formatting and uploading Saturday.

The John Wesley study is in its infancy. The outline is done, including the addition I made today. One chapter is done, except for tweaks I might do. That chapter is Wesley’s stand on slavery. Today I found two scholarly papers on the topic, read them, and will likely make a few changes to the chapter. A second chapter is well along, the chapter on Wesley’s other political writings. I have the excerpting fully done, and have much marginalia in my copies to form the basis of the rest of the chapter. I anticipate I’ll have it done by Sunday, and will be ready to think about which chapter to work on next.

I can already see that this will be a larger book than I at first anticipated, probably 100,000 words: half of them Wesley’s, half of them mine. But it can’t be helped. The project is too important to me not to do it in a way I think is right. I also think I will have a separate volume, much smaller, to serve as a leader’s guide. I’m just beginning to think of some things for that now.

One thing not yet clear to me is if I will be able to work on this Wesley study continuously, or if I will have to take breaks from it. As I said a few days ago, the pressure to have it done for teaching around September 1st is off. I’ve probably got till the first of the year, possibly longer. But that still means I need to do two chapters very three weeks, or a minimum of 3,000 words a week. I’m not sure I can keep up that intensity that long. Plus, my novel beckons, as does volume two of Documenting America and a sequel to “Mom’s Letter”. Cursed day job!

So why am I writing this post? I’ve talked about these books several times, perhaps ad nauseum for some readers. I don’t really know. Maybe it’s to “clear my head”, do a self-appraisal of where I am with my writing career, or at least to be putting this in writing as a sort of accountability. If so, I guess that’s a good reason for writing.

Documenting America

A Cover for "Documenting America"

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Okay, loyal blog followers. Today I finished those few things I needed to do to call Documenting America, Vol. 1 done. Completed the Introduction, added a few lines to the quote in one chapter, and typed all the quote revisions–or maybe I finished them last night. Printed a copy for my final review and reading by my wife.
That gave me time to think about a cover. My thoughts were to have the title, subtitle, and my name superimposed over one of those documents in the book. I chose the 1816 letter of Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, which I downloaded from the Library of Congress (a public domain document. Try as I could, I couldn’t get done in Paint what I wanted to get done. So I pulled the picture file into MS Word and did what I wanted with a text box and a footer, screening out the document picture using the Word picture editor. You can see the result.
Obviously, I am not a graphics designer. I’m just trying out the concept. If this is a valid concept for a book such as this, then I’ll see about getting a proper cover made according to the concept. I wanted to make something that I could, in a pinch, upload to the Kindle publishing platform and make work for a while during the wait for a proper cover.
What say you, loyal readers? Is the concept for this cover valid? I’m not looking to have the background document readable, just there for show. Let me know in the comments, if you would. Try to look past the specifics of these graphics to the concept.
Documenting America, self-publishing

Progress on Documenting America

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My non-fiction book Documenting America continues to inch its way toward publication via Kindle, Smashwords, and hopefully in print via CreateSpace. Last week I did almost nothing with it. I was consumed with meeting date-certain demands of the IRS, and the Arkansas DFA. What time I spent on writing went mainly to the small group study on John Wesley that is my next project. I know, that was probably not the best use of time. DA is a few hours of work away from being ready to upload, whereas the Wesley study is hours of work and months of time away.

But I can’t fully explain why I go off on whichever project seems to command my attention. I wanted to make some progress on Wesley, something beyond just gathering materials. The planning was essentially done, so I mainly had to pick a place to start and start. I did that with Wesley’s views on slavery. This was actually going to be part of a chapter on political and health writings by Wesley, but after reading Thoughts Upon Slavery and some other items, I decided this needed to be a chapter of its own. So I redid the outline/table of contents, and set to work on Wesley on Slavery. I managed to identify the basic excerpt I’ll use, and write a few hundred words of text. I did this in manuscript, with typing to being soon.

So what of Documenting America? Early last week I left it at the proof-reading stage, about 1/3 done. Over the weekend I finished the proof-reading, did a little editing, and typed all that. In the course of this I found a few things in the quotes in most chapters that I want to verify against the original document. Today in my before-work private time I began doing that. I’m through exactly half the chapters, and so should finish that today. These changes are minor, so I should be able to make them tonight, print it tonight or tomorrow, and begin the second review. I’ll ask my wife to read it and see what she thinks, as I value her opinion. It would be nice if my three or four beta readers would get back with me.

Beta readers are a problem. I’m not one to push people. I put out a call for beta readers, and several people said, “Yes, I’d like to read that, and will give you my opinion.” However, so far none of them have come back with comments. I’m just not going to e-mail them another time and push. That’s not in my nature. So I’ll wait a little, then forge ahead. Right now it looks as if I’ll be ready to upload to Kindle next weekend, assuming I can come up with a cover.

So this is kind of exciting. It will be my first book-length eSP work, and later in book form.

Documenting America, Writing

A Few More Tasks During this Time

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As I mentioned in the last two posts, I’m in an interim time presently. Documenting America is done; the next project is to be decided. During this time I’ll be proofreading Documenting America, working on my income taxes (okay, not writing related except for my writing income and expenses), and deciding on my next writing project.

However, as I’ve thought about it, that’s not the only things this writer will have to accomplish over the next month. Here’s a few more I’ve thought of.

  • File my many source documents for Documenting America. I printed off a lot of pages of as many as twenty documents. These are in piles here, piles there, in my carry to work portfolio, and some who knows where. I have a small hanging file box ready for these, so this should be a relatively quick project. File the obvious ones immediately, and move the others there as I find them.
  • Set up my writer’s web site. My son has been bugging me to get this done, says he’ll even help me. Said if I made him an administrator he would be able to do updates. And he promised not to post any communist/socialist propaganda on there. This is something I know I need to do. With freelance work in four different publications, engineering articles in three others, plus a few newspaper features, I need to get this done, now especially that I have “Mom’s Letter” up for sale. I haven’t felt like going to the monthly hosting expense until I was really, really sure I needed it. I think it’s time, probably past time.
  • Format “Mom’s Letter” for the Nook reader, and any other e-reader (Sony, Apple) that could generate a sale or two, and get it listed.
  • Related to that last one, some better research into the whole self-publishing arena. I’ve crossed the first hurdle in Kindle eSP, but I’ve far from mastered it. The other e-readers may all support Pubit, which would be nice. Then there’s the paper self-publishing as print on demand books. There’s a couple of different platforms available: Smashwords and CreateSpace are the two I know by name, but much more research is needed. After Documenting America goes up as an e-book, I plan to make it a POD book. Plus others in the future.

As I said, I’ve no shortage of things to do. None of this is going to be done quickly, and income taxes take precedence over all things writing, with my proofreading tasks holding second place. It’s good for me to list these, however, lest I think I have some free time available and goof off.

Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Screwtape's Good Advice, Wesley

Time to Move to a Different Project

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Documenting America, Volume 1, is finished, all but the Introduction, which I started last night and should finish tonight. My attention will now turn in three directions.

One is to proofread Documenting America and get it ready for self-publishing. I intend to go through it slowly, both my text and the text I’m quoting, looking both for typos and better ways to say things. I’ll also hope my beta readers give me some comments.

Second is income taxes. I need one evening to file trading papers for the year (those not yet done; I have some filed), one to assemble all my documentation, and a third to actually begin. I think all my spreadsheets are built, so I’m ready to go.

Third will be to turn to another writing project. Unfortunately I don’t have time to rest on my success of completing Documenting America. Gotta keep writing, keep researching, keep pressing on. I will call the Buildipedia.com editor this week about my next batch of assignments, and I may write one or two articles for Suite101.com. Those are on-going freelance work and I don’t count them as projects. I also have a prospect to write for a legal website, concerning construction law. Don’t know if that will come through or not.

I have to decide on my next writing project I could divide my available hours between two project for a while, but one must eventually have supremacy. The projects I have going, in various degrees of completion, are the following.

  • In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, my baseball novel. I’ve written around 15,000 words on the way to about 85,000 words. Haven’t looked at this for at least two months.
  • Screwtape’s Good Advice, a small group study. I have the introduction and four chapters done, on the way to 32 chapters. Given that the Narnia movies are being rolled out, which gives a little increase in the interest of all things C.S. Lewis, maybe I should finish this and self-publish.
  • A Harmony of the Gospels, a non-commercial project. Last week I gave a copy of this to our new pastor, which has renewed my interest. The harmony is done. I have about 40 pages (estimated) to write to complete the appendixes and passage notes. It’s tempting to plow ahead with this, even though it’s not for profit.
  • Essential John Wesley, a small group study. I’ve done some of the research, and would love to get this done and teach it next time my turn to teach our Life Group comes around. We have about twenty-two weeks of lessons lined up, so that’s the time frame for completing this. This would be partly a labor of love and partly a ministry/commercial project.
  • To Exile and Back, a small group study. I’ve done “all” the research on this, and outlined the project. Time to start writing. I put “all” in quotes because I’m sure as I write it I’ll find holes in the research.

So, what say you, faithful readers of this blog, and drop by readers? Does any of these look like a good direction for me to go next? Anything that sticks out, positively or negatively?