Muddy Jungle Rivers, my Vietnam memoir, is at the publisher. I expect to receive the first print proofs for review the first week of March. TJ Design Studio, Bemidji, Minnesota has developed the electronic book formats for submission to Kindle, Nook, and Apple iStore, which will be ported by the end of March. Reach TJ Studio at: http://www.tjdesignstudio.com/
The print edition of Muddy Jungle Rivers should be available locally and through on-line bookstores by mid May.
I recently had lunch with a local author who has almost a dozen books published by traditional publishers. He was very frustrated by the state of the publishing industry and was exploring the possibility of self-publishing his next book. One his biggest complaints was that his publisher expected him to do most of the marketing—very time-consuming—yet receive a small fraction of his book’s sale price as a royalty. He refers to the new publishing world—the world of electronic books and self-publishing as, “Today’s Wild West where anything goes,” and feels that author retention of all intellectual rights is very important because of evolving technology and the fluid environment of cyber publishing platforms. He continued on with a litany of issues, commenting that even best selling authors like Barry Eisler are self publishing. I went home, Goggled Eisler, and discovered this site with a very strong argument for the self-publisher. http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20110321/00183913568/best-selling-author-turns-down-half-million-dollar-publishing-contract-to-self-publish.shtml
The Barry Eisler interview and my luncheon conversation with the Bemidji area author have reinforced my decision to self-publish. Several local writers are excited about Whispering Petals Press, LLC as a local resource to publish under.