Presentation, Book Signing, and Everything Else

I had great fun doing a presentation "This Brave New ePublishing World" a couple of weeks at for the Community of Reason group that meets at the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus on Sunday afternoons. Very nice turnout. I go over how and why I got into ePublishing, what I've learned since doing so in the spring of 2011, and what still baffles me. It also gives me a chance to talk about each of my works and offer them for sale afterwards.

I'd be happy, and am searching for, other venues within a four-hour driving distance of Kansas City that would be interested in such a presentation. My bookshelf on Amazon is now 16 works deep. 

Last Saturday, I went to Emporia, KS and joined 56 other authors at the Town Crier, an wonderful Indie bookstore in downtown Emporia. A nice number of buyers and lookers came in and although I only made three sales, I'm happy I went because I think other on line sales resulted. Also, the fellow sitting beside me was Dave Burns from Ottawa, who started the Ottawa Writer's Guild and teaches creative writing. His website is here. Thank you Cheryl Unruh for the picture. He sold more books than did I (probably just because he's cuter than I am). However, on the way out of town I stopped at Mike's Tavern for a libation and the bartender asked about me. I explained who I was and why I was there. She started shouting about a local author being in the bar and her friend, Jennifer bought two books. Bottom line: new readers and enough profit to pay for the gasoline and slab of ribs from Williamsburg, still the best around. Whenever I break even, I'm happy.

I'm 30,000 words into a novel that is set in the future that has a couple of elements that are really working for me. It's called Stop Time because the stoppage of time is one of the elements. That's been done many times (I think John D. MacDonald's The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything was one of the first I read.), but one of the characters who is unaffected by this time stoppage is a student artist, a realist painter. Can you image what it would mean for a realist painter to be able to paint during a time stoppage when the model doesn't move and the natural light values of the sun don't change? It's also important to present the mechanism for the time stoppage and I use a spell from a Wiccan healer and a really cool trick for why the student painter isn't affected.

America has been destroyed by the barbarians from within, but the Kansas City Plaza Enclave has saved itself behind walls that protect its civilization, and, for all they know, perhaps the only spot of civilization left in the country. Beyond the walls is Scumtown. No need for prisons in the Plaza Enclave. Misbehave and just get booted into Scumtown.

The internet is so incredibly helpful. I've networked now with Wiccans to help me on those details. And I've also hooked into a couple of people very familiar with the APC (armored personnel carrier) that plays a role in the story. The APC has been combat locked so how do you open it with no power tools or welding torches at your disposal?

And wait until I tell you about the steam locomotive train expeditions into Western Kansas!