Almost There

I have been making much progress towards publishing my first eBook,  which I still hope is going to happen on or shortly before July 1st.      I know my homemade cover looks nothing like a professionally designed one would  (and I do hope to be able to afford a real cover at some point in the future).    It's also going to be a very short little eBook-- only about 18 word processor pages.

(I can here the snorts and derision alreadey--  'it took you a couple of months to write 18 freaking pages?!???'    Yes, actually.    Empire Avenue changes and evolves every day and many of the sections have had to be re-written multiple times as changes on the Avenue made them inaccurate,  in some cases within minutes of being written.)     I play to continue updating, revising and expanding and expect to release new versions every month or so.    I have tried to upload the book to iWriteReadRate-- my friend Adam's great new eBook site.   Unfortunately,  it did not work properly for me.   The site produced a  .pdf file that is 2700 pages long and has text in on the middle 1.5 inches or so of each page.    Adam has his tech folks looking into it and I am hopeful of being ready to sell on that site by Friday.  

Meanwhile,  my project for today is to add and link a table of contents and make a couple of other changes to comply with the Smashwords style guide,  which will enable me to upload to Smashwords, which would make my little book available via a huge number of eBook vendors including Amazon kindle, B &N Nook, etc.    I am very hopeful of finding success in the brave new world of eBooks and honestly can't wait to see what this week will bring.

Reserve a free copy of Walking Down the Avenue now!

So I'm writing a book.   About Empire Avenue as a matter of fact.   Honestly,   it is slow going.   EAv is evolving and changing so rapidly that even in the early pages of  draft,  I've had to re-write sections several times due to changes in the rules and procedures.  

I find myself very taken with Empire Avenue as I become more and more involved with and spend more and more time hanging out with great friends like Holly, Jake, Suspiria, Anise, Gina, Casey, Dirk, Scott and Ryan.   Not to mention Shannon, Travis, Hank, Carole, Stu, Sheree, Robert, Peter,  Mike, Paulo, Cyril, Caleb and Adriel.   Or Nakeva, Sharon, Michael and Jeffrey and so on and so on.   Honestly,  I've met so many people from all over the world since joining Empire Avenue that I have to mark it as a life changing experience.  My one gripe is that Empire Avenue can be very confusing to newcomers.   So much so that it  is even a bit off-putting.   Even to people who have mastered Twitter.     Which is why I decided to write a book specifically directed at Empire Avenue newcomers.   I am trying to be definitive without being verbose.   Authoritative without ever talking down to anyone.    A book that is short, useful and cheap.

I hope to have the beta edition  (this is going to be an eBook and I plan to number the frequently updated editions like software) available for sale by mid July.    If you would like to receive a copy of the beta edition, not at the amazingly low list price of  79 cents,  but instead absolutely free of charge,  please sign up for my very low volume mailing list-- using the widget in the right sidebar.   The first message I will send to this list will be when the eBook is published and ready for download,  as I said hopefully in early to mid July.   After that you can expect that I will write to you at most every four to six weeks.   (Yeah,  I am going a bit overboard to avoid being spammish*)