More Book Crap, Fun Outings, More Work in This Economy?

Well, it’s almost ready to roll.  It’s been edited, tweaked, coddled, kicked, and all sorts of stuff to get it ready.  

Honestly, IMO, it’s still a pretty crappy book.  But I would kind of think that – it’s my book, and my first book at that.

I dropped the audio book version of it thought – I could never quite get the audio quality I wanted.  My setup is good enough for the podcasting stuff, but, I just don’t feel it’s good enough for a book on CD.  I can’t isolate sound enough here – I get cats meowing for my attention (through a door), jets, etc.  It drives me apeshit. So I dumped it. (Though the podcast will continue.)

I got the first proof about two weeks ago, and that was a really bizarre moment.  Before, the book had been a set of electronic files.  I opened the package, and TADA!  There was a real book.  It was solid, had my words in it, and had my name on it.  Wow.  How cool is that shit?

BUT… I didn’t like the cover.  It wasn’t quite right yet.  Plus, I had found a couple of things I wanted to change while it was on it’s way.  So Wednesday another proof (the final) will be headed my way.  Then I just gotta approve it, and the print version will be ready to selling.

Everything is lined up for the electronic distribution versions, except the iPhone version, so, just as the print version hits Amazon, so will the electronic versions, which will be available on… well, shit, everything except your toaster (unless it happens to run Windows Mobile.) 

I’ve also got a couple of surprises up my sleeve, but, I’m not gonna talk about those yet 🙂

Ya know, a lot of work for something I don’t expect to see sell much.  Oh well – suppose if I’m gonna do it, might as well do it right 🙂

Side note: the Podcast is seeing decent traffic, both the MP3 version and the written version.  And the only promotion done on it so far is throwing it on iTunes.  Might turn out to be a decent promotional tool after all.  The third one will go up like Wens or Thurs.

Did another one of the WichiTweets tweet-ups on Saturday.  JUST barely though – I was pretty broke, but planned to drop by for just a bit.  It was at Farkin And Bull, so I figured it was probably gonna be a bit too pricy.  I commented to that to one of the Tweeps that was asking if I was going, and she offered to by me a drink.  Well, now I HAVE to go. (Keep in mind, Annette is 50+ and married, so I don’t have to go ’cause I’m meeting some gal or anything.)

Had a good time setting around shooting the shit with people, and meeting new folks.  I’m no longer the newbie – there were new folks this time around, there for their first Tweet Up (including one hot chick and her hot friend that I sat around and talked to for about an hour).  Annette didn’t buy me a drink – she bought me my drink and a prime rib sandwich.  Ok, I definitely owe her at the next tweet up, but, she wasn’t concerned.  (Annette, btw, turned out to be a recently retired Chief of Police in a small town.  Somehow I would have had a mental impression of some cold bitch after she had done that for a number of years, but, she was a really nice, friendly gal.)

Also had one of those “It’s a small world” moments.  Was chatting with Kent Cochran, Anita Cochran’s hubby (Anita is a news caster on KSN here in Wichita), and we were talking about stuff like high school reunions, etc. when he mentions his experience going to Anita’s reunion in Garden Plain.  What… what?  Come to find out, Anita graduated in ’82, but her sister was a year younger than me.  Given how few go to Garden Plain, kinda funny to run into a fellow GP graduate at a Tweet Up!

So, my both my social network and professional network continue to increase.  Kinda nice.  When I was talking to Kim (one of the hot gals I mentioned) her and I were chatting about the professional nature of the group – almost everyone in the group is a professional something or other.  That’s probably one of the two things in common among everyone in the group (the other thing in common, of course, is just using Twitter it’s self.)

At the very beginning of the year, I was expecting and planning for the worst.  I’m still planning for the worst at the moment, but, it doesn’t look like the worst is going to happen – YET.

Landed two more small web jobs, my trip to Kenosha is soon, and I just got a call today from one of the founders of Fountain St.  He owns a retail store that’s got a $50k per month advertising budget (it’s a chain), and corporate was nice enough to provide his stores with a website.  Which happens to be absolute crap.  Gonna have breakfast with him probably Friday morning at the Beacon, and discuss replacing it.  He’s expecting to pay $4k – $5k to have it replaced.  Of course, he’s planning on hiring me to do it.

One of the kick ass projects I’ve worked on WAY too many hours is Fountain Street Productions.  Check it out.  Well, looks like that one is going to be a serious hit.  On the 2nd, there was a leak of the development site – someone posted the URL online before it was fully ready.  The 10th, it went live for real.  

With no advertising besides a couple of MySpace mentions, it’s hit 10k page views in 17 days.  That’s pretty good – but that’s not enough for an enterprise like that, they sell goods.  Of which, they sold $480 in 17 days.  Which gives them a traffic to income ratio of $0.048 per page. Which is insanely high.  

So the exposure I was hoping to get from that project most likely is going to be there.  Very cool.  It’s always awesome to see a project take off so well!