My Little Gumroad Shop Now Featuring "From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion"

It's been a most eye-crossing, shoulder-clenching, but fab-a-roni experience learning how to make ebooks. So far: a batch of Kindles, a few iBooks, two free PDFs, and now a fully-formatted PDF available on ...drum roll… Gumroad. Oh, I luuuuv Gumroad-- mainly because it is so supersonically easy peasy! Really! Well, check out my ebook, a novela-length nonfiction essay, From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion, here (Gumroad) and here (my webpage).

Cover for the Gumroad ebook edition features
the painting "Cazador de Nubes"
by Edgar Soberón
www.edgarsoberon.com

A nonfiction novela about a fairytale: a visit to the Italian castle of Maximilian von Habsburg, Emperor of Mexico. Originally published in The Massachusetts Review (winner, Washington Prize for Best Personal Essay). By the author of the novel based on the true story, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. 

Now you might be wondering, dear reader, why, as a writer, would I dedicate so much time and effort to making ebooks? Isn't that something one's publisher can do? Or, if not, then can't one outsource it to one of those newfangled freelancers or companies, such as CreateSpace or Smashwords? A two part answer: First, though I'll admit the learning curve has been steep (and rocky and muddy and slippery) at times, making an ebook is not rocket science, and I relish both learning and designing. Second, the economist in me sees the long tail, that is, a modest but steady number of sales spread out over many years. In other words, once an ebook is up, it is like a variable interest rate annuity-- which I prefer to keep, thank you very much. In my view, when it comes to ebooks, publishers are taking way too big a bite.

Back to the new Gumroad edition of From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion: It has a different design from the Kindle  (Kindle is plain, no color, generic fonts) and iBook (fully designed and full-color, made with the iBook Author app): it's a PDF download (I recommend opening it in iBooks, if you have an iPad), for a landscape orientation (I mean, turn the screen on its side). And yes, because it's a PDF, I had some fun playing with the fonts and colors. (I suppose Kindle will improve its design options, but I am not holding my breath.) As for that gorgeous cover, which is on all the ebook editions, as well as the CDBaby double audio CD,  check out more of Edgar Soberón's beautiful still lifes here.

P.S. In-progress, coming very soon: podcasts with Rose Mary Salum and the Apaches for Marfa Mondays. Stay tuned.


Your comments are always welcome.

New Podcast on Podcasting: The Introduction to Podcasting for Writers

-->Listen now here.

In this brief audio introduction to my new ebook, Podcasting for Writers & Other Creative Entrepreneurs (Dancing Chiva), "Naples Dave" and others from fiverr.com are the big voices, along with music clips from istockaudio.com, uniquetracks,com, plus silly sound effects, etc. I recorded this at ye olde writing desk using my iPhone's dictation app and, for editing, GarageBand.

New ebook

Take home message: If I can podcast, so can you.

>>More about the new ebook here.

>>More about Dancing Chiva

>>Listen to more podcasts by Yours Truly

New iBook: Los Visitantes ~ Una visita a Todos Santos

New in the iBookstore is Los Visitantes, the Spanish translation by the wonderful Bertha Ruiz de la Concha of chapter 2 "The Visitors," from my travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico.


>>Miraculous Air is available in a paperback edition from Milkweed Editions
>>and a Kindle edition.

An iBook edition of the whole enchilada is coming soon.

SCREENSHOT FROM IBOOK EDITION

Also in the iBook store:

From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion

The Building of Quality

Astral Projection, Interplanetary Reincarnation (and Way More!)

Working on the website for the Spiritist Manual, my translation of Francisco I. Madero's 1911 secret book, Manual espírita. Read all about it here.

Watch the plummy new video here:


I'll be presenting and discussing my translation of this most unusual work in San Miguel de Allende next Thursday November 10th at the Author's Sala reading series.

The book will be available as an e-book, both PDF and Kindle. (And a print edition? Stay tuned.)