Cyberflanerie: Who's In Charge? Edition

www.slowfactory.com

Today one of my favorite blogs, my daily dose of bloggy wisdom, Seth Godin's, features "Doing More, Giving More, Who's in Charge?" (Who's in charge? Hey, Hamlet, that is question.)

More cyberflanerie:

Rare books and Iceland: Nancy Marie Brown's blog, God of Wednesday, has a scrumptiously crunchy post about the Fiske collection of Icelandia at Cornell. (I adored Brown's The Far-Traveler, about Gudrid the Far-Traveler of Iceland, and often quote from it in my literary travel writing workshops.) 

Totally heart SlowFactory's space scarves Carina Nebula and Dust Devil Lines in the Sand.

In the Globe and Mail: "When a Car Becomes a Cathedral."

On This is Colossal: Eleanor Lutz's deconstructed bird and insect wing patterns.

For the artist-in-charge: Gumroad Resource Center

(Check out my lil' gumroad shop here.) 

Eew, Frankensteiny: A worm's mind in a lego body

Soon your robot can put your seatbelt on for you: Kevin Kelly on The 3 Breakthroughs that Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World

Guerrilla mosaic artist in Chicago fills in potholes. (Potholes in Chicago can get so bad... when I lived in Hyde Park there was one year we started calling my section of University Avenue "Iwo Jima.") 

Human energy expert Rose Rosetree explains the deeply weird attraction to unwrapping stuff on YouTube.

SOL Literary Magazine is out from San Miguel de Allende and I am delighted to mention that it includes an excerpt from the opening chapter of my latest book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. That's in the nonfiction section with some excellent company, including Joseph Dispenza, Gerard Helferich and Michael K. Schuessler. Thank you, Eva Hunter and Cazz Roberts and all who work to make this beautiful literary magazine possible. It is an honor indeed.

www.sheepdogmovie.com

A documentary film about border collies and sheepherding that I really want to see (splendid trailer!): "Away to Me" by Andrew C. Hadra.

Jenny Redbug's top 5 favorite books for this year (!!!)

My own top 10 list of books read 2014 will be posted shortly.

Your COMMENTS are always welcome.

Top 10 Books Read 2013

Top 10 Books Read 2012

Cyberflanerie: 

Writerly Whatnot and Miscellaneous Missives Edition

Cyberflanerie: 

Definitely Different Edition

Cyberflanerie: 

Others Did It So I Don't Have To Edition

For Readers & Explorers 

(updated webpage)

It's Not Like Making a Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly Sandwich But It's Not Rocket Science, Either, or: How I Did My POD (And You Can, Too)

Just in the past month I've had so many of my writer friends and historians ask me how I made my print-on-demand (POD) paperback books,

METAPHYSICAL ODYSSEY INTO THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual

and the superb Spanish translation by Mexican poet and novelist Agustín Cadena, USA edition,

ODISEA METAFISICA HACIA LA REVOLUCION MEXICANA

Francisco I. Madero y su libro secreto, Manual espírita
-- the latter goes live in just a couple of days--

and knowing that many of you, dear readers, are writers, many with the same concerns about publishing, I post my answer herewith.

Now, I don't pretend to be the expert. That said, it's important to keep in mind that major innovations in digital publishing and also in book distribution and fulfillment are so recent, and a-morphing by the moment, that even the experts-- those who've set up web pages and offer to consult or even undertake to do it for you-- may not know that much more than what you can figure out for yourself. Or they may. Caveat emptor. And just try to keep your seatbelt on and your eyes uncrossed.

(I won't get into the pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, whether with a commercial, small or university press; that's another blog post for another time-- and on that subject, see some of the links for further reading below. I am what is now termed a "hybrid author," one with books published by traditional presses-- in my case, University of Georgia Press, University of Utah Press, Milkweed Editions, Planeta and Random House-Mondadori, among others-- and one or more books self-published.)

Screenshot alert! Yes, you can buy my
book from Politics & Prose in Washington DC
--and about a zillion other bookstores'
websites. Yay!

WHY POD (PRINT-ON-DEMAND)? (OR DID YOU HAVE ROOM IN YOUR BASEMENT FOR AN ELEPHANT IN A COMA?)
Certainly, you could self-publish your book the old-fashioned way, that is, with offset printing, in which case you would call and email around to printers and get a few estimates… which is a little bamboozling, but Dan Poynter's excellent book explains all about that. If you go this route, probably, if your printer is a good one, the book will turn out looking nicer than a POD and you'll also be allowed a far wider selection of papers, sizing and bindings. 

But with offset printing, the problem is, well, then what will you do with all the books? 

Because with offset printing, the per unit cost of a book is a function of the print run-- and any size print run has to cover the cost of just getting the machines up and running and fed with your specially ordered sheets of paper-- so, to make it worthwhile, you'll probably want to do a print run of at least 1,000-2,000 books. 

Shipping all those books will cost you more than a chunk of change, and all those boxes of books, like an elephant in a coma, will swallow up a heap of space in your basement (unless you want to help your chiropractor buy his weekend house, don't even try to lift them up to the attic). 

And then, how did you plan to distribute the books and fulfill orders? Assuming you have all the time in your life and the iron-clad personality to play salesman. Uyy.

If you go POD, while the per unit cost of printing the book is probably going to be substantially higher, the quality not as good (but pretty good; most readers won't notice the difference), it will be far less expensive for you upfront because you can print only, say, one copy. Or twenty-five. Or 57. Or whatever number you want at the moment, and shipped to wherever you please. Nor will you have to worry about storing them, nor worry about distribution and fulfillment-- if, that is, you use a POD printer that also offers distribution and fullfilment such as amazon.com's CreateSpace. 

Plus, since POD is digital, you can easily make corrections. As anyone who has published a book knows, no matter how many times and how many people proofread it, there will be typos. And sometimes, toe-curlingly embarrassing ones. (I'll admit to having updated my PDF several times already, and my book hasn't even been out a year…)

There are many other POD printers, but as of this writing-- September 2014-- hands down, amazon's CreateSpace is your best option. There are several factors to consider, such as cost, customer service, quality, color options, and you can compare and contrast with other POD printers and sellers on a spread sheet… (as did Neal Guillen in his excellent presentation for last years' "Publish Now!" seminar at the Writer's Center), but I am confident you'll come to the same conclusion I did that, all in all, as of 2014, CreateSpace wins.

AS OF 2014
I repeat, "as of 2014." Everything is changing so fast; I have no idea what this landscape will look like it 2015, never mind 2020. (Maybe there will be some kind of quantum nanobot printing, so we can dream our book and wake up to find it waiting for us there by our plate of eggs and bacon. Or, maybe Jeff Bezos will have been beamed up to one of the moons of Jupiter, and we'll all be trying to figure out how to oil a letterpress.)


WHY CREATESPACE?
Key thing to know: CreateSpace is owned by amazon.com. Once you've uploaded your book, at the click of a button, you can list it for sale on both the CreateSpace.com store and amazon.com-- right alongside, say, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, or whatever might be best-seller du jour. If someone buys it, whether in the Create Space store or on amazon.com, amazon will print it and amazon will collect the money from the customer, ship it to the buyer, and then deposit your share of the proceeds (which, by the way, is a far better percentage than the typical royalties you would get from a publisher) directly into your bank account. Oh, and you can buy copies of your own book at a discount better than most traditional publishers offer their authors.

Is that easy, or what? So why waste your time? 
> START HERE.


WAIT! DON'T I HAVE TO HAVE AN ISBN? 
(HOW DO I GET ONE?)

Yes, you do need an ISBN, your book's identifier. You have two choices: get it from CreateSpace, in which case your book will appear with the CreateSpace imprint, or get it yourself from Bowker, in which case it will show your own imprint (mine is Dancing Chiva). If you go the latter route, you will also need to buy a bar code (pictured left), also from Bowker. Just keep your credit card handy and follow the instructions on their website.

AND THEN HOW DO I PREPARE MY BOOK TO UPLOAD IT TO CREATESPACE?
Once you've visited that how-page on CreateSpace, you will see that you have the option of delivering a formatted PDF of a file made in Adobe InDesign or paying them a few hundred dollars (very reasonable for this work, by the way) to do that for you.

I went and did something a little bit complicated: I rented the Adobe In-Design software, confident that I could format my book myself, since I had been able to format my magazine and chapbooks in ye olde now defunct Adobe PageMaker. I was much too optimistic, alas; Adobe In-Design is a bit like riding a unicycle for a couple of miles. It can be done! But it's not like making a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich! 

Screenshot of the opening of my book's first chapter in Adobe InDesign.

If you zoom in closer on that dashboard, you might get really scared.

It does look a little Apollo 13-y.

So I hired a graphic designer, a very good one named Rose Q., whom I found on www.elance.com. (Is that a typical experience on www.elance.com or was I lucky? I suspect the latter but I do not have enough experience to say.) I already knew precisely how I wanted the book to look (more about book design here), so she basically followed my instructions, formatted it in Adobe InDesign, and sent me the Adobe InDesign file and a PDF, and then I went to CreateSpace and uploaded the PDF. All in all, I was very happy with this path. I can say what CreateSpace charges for book formatting is more than fair (I suspect they outsource to India), though how the quality of the formatting is I do not know. (But I still wanted to learn how to use Adobe InDesign myself, so for another two books, not discussed here, I hired a tutor from www.wyzant.com with whom I work via Skype. Am I from Palo Alto, or what.)

(WHOA. I'M ON THE SHADY SIDE OF 50. 
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU "UPLOADED" THE PDF?)
I logged into CreateSpace, and when they prompted me to select a file to open, I clicked "browse," and a little window opened up wherein I could scroll down to find, in my own computer, the .PDF file. I clicked on that. Then I clicked on the button that said "upload." Peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. 

AND THEN HOW DO I MAKE THE COVER?
You can use a template provided by CreateSpace, though in my opinion those look a little well, Createspace-esque. You could also hire a professional graphic designer, which will cost you a chunk of change. I designed mine myself, incorporating a painting by Kelley Vandiver (with his kind permission), my own photo taken with my iPhone of Casa Piedra Road (that's actually in Texas, don't tell anybody), some fonts I purchased from the Walden Font Co., and then I had my elance.com designer do it for me in Adobe InDesign and make the PDF. And I uploaded that. Ta da.

>You can see what my book looks like on the CreateSpace store and on amazon.com. Why not order a copy and then you can really see what it looks like!

HOW CAN I GET MY POD BOOK INTO BRICK-AND-MORTAR BOOKSTORES AND LIBRARIES?

This is a two-step process. One is easy, the other is a head-banger. Quantities of Kleenex, your choice.

STEP #1 
Make your book available via a major distributor such as Ingram. 
The reason is that there are so many books and so many different publishers out there that it would be a total migraine for librarians and booksellers to have to place so many different orders with different sellers. Instead, it's, wham, Ingram, done.

If you go the route of CreateSpace, getting your book onto Ingram is just a question of clicking, "yes" on the sign up page for "Expanded Distribution." (No worries, you will see that when you get there.)

I do not know if my choice was a good one or not (time will tell), but since I wanted to use my own imprint (my own ISBN), not CreateSpace's, CreateSpace did not offer both options. So while CreateSpace does my POD for CreateSpace and amazon, to get onto Ingram I went to Ingram Spark. So Ingram distributes it (which just means they make it available to their customers) and when a bookstore or library orders it, Ingram will print it and ship it to them.

Right, my book, same ISBN, is available on amazon / Createspace and Ingram. No problem. And because it is on Ingram it automatically gets listed on major on-line bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Powell's and a whole bunch of others.

You probably won't find this on the shelf
in any B & N, but you can order it 
on-line from them, yay!

I found Ingram Spark a little frustrating to work with because their customer service, though consistently helpful and kind, was not always available by phone, and by email, they often took as long as 24 hours to answer. CreateSpace, on the other hand, had a telephone number I could call at any time and an actual live human being answered quickly, and then actually answered my questions. (Yea, verily, miracles still happen on Planet Earth.) Also, unlike amazon, Ingram Spark charges a small fee for "market access." But in all, the advantage for me of using Ingram is that now I can market my book to libraries under my own imprint, Dancing Chiva. 

As for brick-and-mortar bookstores, I don't see them being very important for a self-published book on a niche subject such as a mine. (Yours, of course, may be a different case, and you might be willing, as I am not, to visit bookstores and try to sell to them directly.) I am assuming that the majority of my sales will be of Kindles and POD paperbacks via amazon. Yep, it is sad (I play a wee violin): most brick-and-mortar bookstores have already gone the way of the brontosaurus. 

Furthermore, my understanding is that most bookstores insist on being able to order whatever quantity they want and then return any unsold books-- at the publishers' or author's expense. When you set up your account on Ingram Spark, you can click that option, allow returns, if you so desire. But know that bookstores are notorious for ordering boxes of books and then returning them-- sometimes without even having brought them out of the back room. Oh well, you could click the option "destroy" the unsold books, however many those might be, if you don't want to pay the cost, whatever that might be, of their return freight. As for me, sorry, if you order my books, they're yours.

Screenshot alert!
My book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution
is also carried by the famous Powell's on-line bookstore, double yay!

STEP #2. 

I'd never even heard of this store,
but yay, they're offering my POD!
(If you order it, they source it from Ingram.)

You have to market your book. (Grrr. Advil. $$$. Guilt Management 101)
Just because it's for sale on amazon.com doesn't mean any one will notice it, never mind review it, and just because it's distributed by Ingram, huge step as that may be, doesn't mean, abracadabra, it will sell. 

Marketing a book is a whole different blog post and anyway, I am not the expert, and I am mainly focussed on writing my next book because… that's what I do! 

My own rather lazy-daisy, low-key strategy with Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution has been to give autographed copies to selected individuals (if you teach Mexican history, don't be shy, ask me for a review copy here), blog, guest-blog, do a bit of social media, attend and speak at relevant conferences and wherever they'll have me (thank you, American Literary Translators Association, Rice University, and the UCSD US-Mexico Center, and the major book fair about to make an announcement today Texas Book Festival), give interviews (as for example, here and here and here), and do a postcard campaign to U.S. libraries. 

UPDATE: 

I'll be talking about my book for a lecture series at Mexico City's National Palace, with Mexican novelist Ignacio Solares (athor of Madero, el otro), on December 2, 2014. 

And also at La Sombra del Sabino in Tepoztlan on November 29, 2014 and for PEN San Miguel (in English) January 13, 2015.

More about these and other events here.

For postcard campaigns, I can recommend www.modernpostcard.com and renting the mailing lists of libraries available on www.newpages.com. For the latter, hat tip to my fellow Women Writing the West member and very successful self-published author, Susan Wittig Albert, who so generously shares her tips for getting a self-published book into libraries.

For reviews, I might also try Netgalley.com later this fall-- though I haven't really gotten my mind around that yet. My understanding is that it's a good way to reach bloggers, teachers, and librarians. (Yes, it costs a few hundred dollars, but it's cheaper than sending that many paperbacks through the mail.)

> Join the Independent Book Publisher's Association for advice, webinars, more resources and discounts-- the discounts alone just about cover the cost of membership. (That's where I got the story straight about CreateSpace and Ingram and first heard about Netgalley.)

IN MODEST BUT DELIGHTED CONCLUSION
As they say, aim for the stars and you won't blast off your toes. I did aim for the stars with my book, I put my heart into it, and I believe it is a paradigm-changing work on the Mexican Revolution, on Francisco I. Madero, and the history of Spiritism. That said, I take my own advice: As a self-published author, in a world where the big publishers still have the money and muscle, it's best for your Kleenex supply to keep your expectations modest.  

(That said: Dear Oprah Winfrey, If you invite me on your show, I promise to be nice. And you might be interested to know that in my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual-- fair use-- I quote from your interview with Wayne Dwyer about his "psychic surgery.")

P.S. New York Times best-selling author and also, on occasion, self-published author, marketing guru Seth Godin, offers his perennial words of wisdom for authors > here. < After having published nearly a dozen works over the past 20+ years with publishers both big and small, Yours Truly vouches for Mr. Godin's profound wisdom on this subject and, by the by, sends him a cyber shower of jpeg lotus petals. 

In conclusion, yes, it takes a little work, a little money, and a trudge up the learning curve to make it happen, but the advantage of doing a POD on CreateSpace / amazon / Ingram is that, rain or shine, night or day, and around the world, 

YOUR PAPERBACK BOOK
IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR SALE ON-LINE 

FROM MULTIPLE MAJOR BOOKSELLERS, 

AND NOT, AS IN THE DAYS OF BRICK-AND-MORTAR YORE,

 FOR THE SAME DURATION AS A TUB OF COTTAGE CHEESE, 
BUT, AS YOU PLEASE, 
INDEFINITELY. 

Anyone with a credit card can easily order your book and receive it as quickly as any other book, and if and when they do, you will be paid a very generous royalty by direct deposit in a timely manner. That simple fact is a TOTAL LET'S-DRINK-TANG-ON-THE-MOON GAME-CHANGER. 

FURTHER READING
> APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur
Highly recommended how-to book. One excellent tip offered by the authors, Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch: stick with 6" x 9" for the size.  

=====>>> Your COMMENTS always welcome. And I also welcome you to sign up for my newsletter.

+ + + + + + + + 

MORE MADAM MAYO:

+Traditional + Indie = Hybrid Publishing: Three Authors Dish at Jane Friedman's Blog
(Highly recommended)

+Self-Publishing for All the Right Reasons (Reporting on the Writer's Center's "Publish Now!" Seminar)

+How I Published My Kindles

+Seven Reasons Why E-books Will Be Big in Mexico

AND OVER ON THE HOME PAGE, www.cmmayo.com

+Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution
Excerpts, podcasts, resources for researchers and more, and you betcha, it is available on Kindle, too.

+The Manuscript is Ready-- (Or Is It?)-- What Now? 
(From the "Publish Now!" Seminar at the Writer's Center)

+ New Events: My Literary Travel Writing Workshop 
one day only, Saturday, October 11, 2014 at the Writer's Center.


***UPDATE: >>Listen in<< anytime to the podcast of my talk about this book for the University of California San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies.

Cyberflanerie: Chapeaux, UFOs & Other Sundry Communications Edition

+Oh, how civilization has declined! Anita Loos' astonishing hat collection, of all things. 

+Blomqvist 's Swedish UFO site on Kripal's article, "Visions of the Impossible" and book, Authors of the Impossible, and more. Great links to Kripal.

+Jacques F. Vallee on Boing Boing and home page.

+Seth Godin on Really Bad Powerpoint and on Reconstructing Generosity.

+Wink Books Tumblr.

+San Miguel Writers Conference Blog on 25 Literary Magazines You Can Submit to for Free.

+Charlotte Peltz offers a most original use for a rolled-up newspaper in 10 easy Steps to Housetraining.

COMMENTS always welcome.

Cyberflanerie: Mitch Horowitz on Occult of Personality; Reese on Rare Books; Desert Breath; Regina Leeds; Money is a Story

Over at Greg Kaminsky's Occult of Personality podcast, a long interview with Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America and One Simple Idea. Highly recommended.

Whither the book biz? An oldie but goodie: William Reese's talk about rare books at the Library of Congress.

Whither the book biz? Take 2 (sigh):  Desert Breath sculpture in Egypt, from 1997.

One Year to an Organized Life Regina Leeds' blog

Seth Godin on how (indeed) money is a story

COMMENTS

Cyberflanerie: Wondering About Books Edition

Seth Godin on An End of Books.

Methinks antiquarian book collecting is going to be very big. Check out the not-yet-but surely-soon-to-be-ABAA-member Honey & Wax's lovely, oh so lovely first catalog.

Elephantine thoughts are a-dancing in tutus with The Swerve.

"A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships."

-- Jorge Luis Borges, "A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"

COMMENTS

Cyberflanerie: Entertaining Edition

Beeville Memories An entertaining bit of history by resident Yvonne Hastings on the website for the town of Beeville, Texas. If I were teaching a writing workshop this fall (but I'm not), I would use this as a splendid example of the use of vivid detail.  Seriously, great storytelling.

The Mexican Kitchen's Islamic Connections by Rachel Laudan. Read this aloud to a Mexican. There will be huffing and puffing. 

Entertain the kiddies with these nifty projects.

The Secret of the Top Five: Seth Godin says tables of 10 don't work, but five people at a table for 4 do. Yep. I say, the worst, the absolute yawningly horrible, are those long narrow banquet tables. Especially if you're sitting next to people who must, even as the salad arrives, remain glued to their Blackberries (I call them "the leashed people").

COMMENTS

Cyberflanerie: Timothy McSweeney, Seth Godin, Paul Nicklen, You Are Not So Smart, Skillshare, Moon Calendar, Fox Sisters

Light blogging here because I am still (OMG) working out the revisions on my introduction to Francisco I. Madero's book of 1911... I've got some 150 pages so far...and and a result, have fallen woefully behind on the Marfa Mondays podcasts... but I will be catching up soon. The revisions are almost finished. Stay tuned for a batch of Marfa Mondays podcasts in August and September...

Pictured right: The Fox sisters, who star in the opening of my revised intro. Yes, they did have something to do with the Mexican Revolution. If indirectly.

The Fox Sisters

Meanwhile:

Free online moon calendar (recommended for historians and historical novelists)

Timothy McSweeney's update on tweetspeak & etc

Seth Godin on the Art of Noticing, and Then Creating

Paul Nicklen: Tales of Ice-Bound Wonderlands (TED video)

You are not so smart: Survivorship Bias
(OK, so no need to ask J.K. Rowling how she did it?)

Oyyy, will I ever teach again in person? Skillshare
(Re robots and bots)

>Comments?

Cyberflanerie: Podcasts by Seth Godin, Margaret Dulaney, and James Howard Kunstler

Driving out to Marfa from El Paso (and back) I had a luxury of time to listen to marketing guru Seth Godin's free lecture series, Startup School by EarWolf, which was like three pots of coffee and a nasal-passages-clearing bouquet of lavender. Um, really! You too can download the whole fandango free from iTunes.

On a more cosmic note, Margaret Dulaney's Listen Well podcast for this month is especially consoling-- highly recommended.

On a brasher note, in his Kunstler Cast, James Howard Kunstler continues to beat the same danged doom drum, but most amusingly and insightfully. Be sure to catch Kunstler's interview with (yes) the Archdruid.

On a yes-Seth-I-took-your-advice note:
>Buy my ebook, Podcasting for Writers & Other Creative Entrepreneurs
>Listen to my podcast about podcasting
>Sign up for my once-in-a-while info and podcast-packed free newsletter here.

Speaking of podcasts, #11 in the Marfa Mondays series is "Cowboy Is a Verb"-- should be posted in the next 48 hours. Stay tuned.

Why Aren't There More Readers? A Note on Curiosity, Creativity, and Courage

I live books. I read books every day. I review books, translate books, edit books, and write books. I have always had a hard time fathoming why other people don't shimmer with the same enthusiasm. Perhaps they never developed the habit of reading-- it does take some effort to learn, after all; perhaps they simply don't have a clue about what treasures await them, silently gathering dust upon an infinite number of shelves (both real and digital, pay and free, as in archive.org); or, perhaps they find it too frightening to reach beyond the incuriosity of those around them. (What if they were to arouse some bully? "Hey, Egghead!")

Of course, many citizens have been gypped-- there is really no other word-- by their public education system. But over the centuries, and particularly the past two, some of the least privileged, by luck and pluck, have become avid readers and writers. (I speak as a descendant of Irish immigrants.) And indifference and even hostility towards reading and books can be found all across the social spectrum. Some of the wealthiest people, graduates of private schools, don't have anything beyond a coffee table book and maybe a thriller in their mansions-- though, true, some hire decorators who order books by the yard. (One dead giveaway: when the maid rearranges the books by size and no one objects.)

In today's New York Times David Toscana laments the lack of readers in Mexico and the woeful state of public education. Though I celebrate Mexico's vibrant and long-standing literary tradition, I have to agree with his sad portrait, alas. And it is not just the less fortunate Mexicans who do not read. When I taught the thesis seminar for seniors at a leading private university in Mexico City, I found the general level of reading and writing skills, shall we say... underwhelming. But why light on Mexicans? Plenty of people in other countries, including my own country, the United States, don't read. A few years ago, I used to do PEN Writers in the Schools visits in some Washington DC public high schools. In one instance, in their assignment about my collection of short stories, seniors were allowed to draw pictures with crayons instead of writing an essay (I am not kidding). Many graduates of even the finest U.S. colleges don't read much, either, and oftentimes, in terms of any aesthetic or intellectual nutrition, what they read would be about on par with, say, a Big Mac.

A book is not necessarily expensive. There are public libraries, Internet archives, free Kindles... In Mexico City, I've seen street vendors by the metro stations offering scads of used books, many for the price of a glass of orange juice. So why do so many people, whether well off or poor, ignore the riches around them? This is actually a very interesting question. We all do it some way, and not just with books. I don't pretend to have all the answers. But I believe the future belongs to those with curiosity, creativity, and courage-- and anyone with those three attributes is more likely than not to end up in a library, either bricks-and-mortar or on-line, and with heartfelt zest.

Toscana writes, "Books give people ambitions, expectations, a sense of dignity." I know, I know in my bones, this is true.

A few links to surf:

One of the best books about books (and a hilarious read) is Mexican writer Gabriel Zaid's So Many Books.

Ediciones El Naranjo, a fine Mexican children's book publisher that is also dedicated to promoting reading. Truly a great endeavor and a wonderful website. Even if you don't read Spanish I think you'll enjoy the visit.

A few years ago, my amiga DC librarian Jane Kenney Meyers started the Lubuto Library Project to provide uniquely stocked and super low-cost libraries for homeless AIDs orphans in Africa-- and it has been a roaring success.

Check out my collection of 24 Mexican writers on Mexico, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion. 
>Listen to the prologue as a podcast

The book that --really-- launched the Mexican Revolution of 1910. And a secret book published in 1911 by the same author, Francisco I. Madero, translated into English for the first time by Yours Truly.

Seven Reasons Why Ebooks Will be Big in Mexico (according to Yours Truly)
>Check out Dr Yolia Tortolero's magnificent Kindle, El espíritismo seduce a don Francisco I. Madero and the Mexican writer (and my translator) Agustin Cadena's latest novel, also a Kindle, Marjuna Knabino.

A Conversation with Michael K. Schuessler, author of Guadalupe Amor, the biography of one of Mexico's greatest poets (better known as Pita Amor)-- among many other works on Mexican literary figures and Mexican history.

Free podcast series: Seth Godin's Startup School 
(Speaking of curiosity, creativity and courage-- this guy is the guru.)

My dad's book, Captured: The Forgotten Men of Guam

My great great uncle William Wirt Calkin's book, History of the 104th Illinois

Cyberflanerie: Creatives Edition

Poet and literary translator Zack Rogow is blogging his excellent advice--check out his recent post on why write poetry.

Novelist and short story writer Leslie Pietrzyk offers tips and reflections (Agony & Ecstasy) and recipes and a literary magazine-- Redux-- on her marvelous and long-standing blog, Work-in-Progress.

I just love-love-love Swiss Miss for her wide-open eyes and bodacious links-- most recently, to a treasure trove of designers' podcasts.

Over at Creative Bloq, 1000 Free Resources for Designers (weeeeeeee!!!)

Get seriously revved with Seth Godin's Lynchpin talk

I am pretty sure I'd feel more creative wearing some of these cosmic stockings (available from shadowplaynyc on etsy.com

Links: DosankoDebbie, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Seth Godin, Carla Marina Marchese

DosankoDebbie's Etegami Notebook In the beloved Japanese tradition, Debbie's etegami are both gorgeous and charming. Seriously, click on that link and feast!

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman on North Korean Writers in a Land of the Rising Sun

Seth Godin on Choosing Your Own Category (Before They Choose for You)
P.S. This is why I maintain a website with an author bio. (Ayy, people come up with the nuttiest ideas. Now there's another novel...)

Watch this brief and well-done video about backyard beekeeper and honey sommelier Carla Marina Marchese.

P.S. Now that we're all educated about artisanal honey, the next step is providing quality transparency in beeswax. A lot of the beeswax out there is recycled (hives are often stocked with starter frames) and plumb packed with fungicides and such. None of it is labeled.