Twenty-odd years ago, my son, Rob, and I wrote a screenplay based on my novel, The Krone Experiment. Rob made it into a full length, microbudget film. One of the best experiences of my life was watching the enthusiastic volunteer film crew turn my ideas into a movie. The film did not go anywhere at the time. One of the fantasies I harbor is that someday, somehow, I will strike a deal to remake the film with a proper budget, maybe with a streaming service. Last December, I listed the project with an online outfit called The Blacklist that makes screenplays available to professionals. I recently got the faintest whiff of interest from a young graduate of a film production school. That led me to wonder if my rights were properly protected. That, in turn, led me to wonder whether it is worth my while to set up a limited liability corporation, LLC, to protect and pass down the rights to my books and the screenplay. On June 23, my sons and I had an hour long Zoom call with a friend, a lawyer who handles such things. We decided that my current meager book income is too small to warrant such a step. My will is probably adequate, and if lightning should strike, we can cobble up an LLC in a couple of weeks.
I griped in a previous blog (#15) about my Prometheus publicist leaving and not hearing who her replacement would be. After another couple of weeks, I checked the Marketing and Sales information that Prometheus had originally provided to me and confirmed that after a certain interval, my book would be put on a backlist. I wrote to my agent, Regina Ryan, asking her opinion of the matter on June 24 and got a typical honest blunt reply. She was not sure about the formalities of a backlist but said that publishers often give books about three months to see whether they are going to flourish. We have not sold out the initial hardback print run - no one's idea of flourishing - a disappointment to me and those who supported and depended on me. I may have been lucky to get six month's support from Prometheus. On July 12, I realized that the Prometheus link to "Path" had been broken or removed. It turns out you can find the publisher's link to the book by tunneling into the Globe Pequot web site, but that means that the QR code on the special business cards that I have been handing out don't link directly to the book.
I had another idea to promote the book, a local TV appearance, and wrote to my editor again on July 14 about publicist assistance. The mail bounced. I then wrote to Regina and got a revised email, higher up the corporate structure at Globe Pequot rather than the Prometheus imprint, and wrote again on July 15. No response yet. I may forge ahead on my own.
In late June, I nominated myself and The Path to Singularity for a Chambliss Writing Award sponsored by the American Astronomical Society. I shared the award with my friend and colleague David Branch in 2017 for our book Supernova Explosions. The AAS is looking primarily for textbooks and may not want to duplicate an award. We'll see. On July 17, David and I got a note from our editor at Springer Verlag saying that the book was still doing remarkably well for a technical book of its sort and inquiring whether we might do a second edition. It's not that clear to either of us that much has changed in the intervening eight years.
I attended a webinar on June 26 presented by futurist Peter Diamandis on research progress on extending lifespans. Some have the goal of living long enough to live forever as aging is "cured." There were 785 people on the call. I was a little naughty. After Diamandis gave his pitch I wrote in the chat "In case you are interested, in The Path to Singularity (I embedded the link), I discuss some of the possible ramifications of extending lifetimes." At least one person DM'd me that she would buy my book.
I've been working on the logistics of delivering a keynote address to Tory Technologies in Houston in August (see also #15). Tory wanted to buy some books to hand to certain people and arrange to sell books to others that I could sign at the symposium. My cousin-in-law, naturalist and author Bob Pyle, told me that he tries to arrange local independent bookstores to handle book sales at his signings. I contacted one Houston bookstore that explicitly advertised that they handled such sales opportunities, but they declared they were already booked in August. I contacted a Houston Barnes and Noble but after a couple of days I had the insight to ask the first bookstore for another suggestion and they referred me to Good on Paper, which embraced my suggestion enthusiastically. If things work out, I'll do a book signing at their store after doing the Tory gig. I spoke to the CEO and CTO of Tory on a Zoom call. We agreed I would participate in a panel discussion as well as giving the keynote address and reviewed the coordination with Good on Paper for book sales. I've drafted my keynote in PowerPoint but still need to think about the panel discussion.
Bob Pyle recently read The Krone Experiment and the sequel, Krone Ascending (both available on Amazon). Then he read The Krone Experiment again and sent compliments which I deeply appreciated from an accomplished wordsmith. He also had a brilliant suggestion for a plot device for the third book in the series, Krone Triumphant, which remains on my bucket list.
I have a friend, John Tonetti, whom I met when he first serviced our rudimentary solar-boosted water heater 30 years ago. Shameless shill that I am, I had told him about "Path" on one of his recent service visits. On June 30, he emailed to say that he had listened to an Audible copy of the book as he drove his service truck, which he found to be "as stimulating, fascinating, and humiliating an experience as I have had since my days in Social Theory Seminars at the UT Austin Graduate School of Sociology some fifty years ago." He then listened again sitting at his desk and taking notes. I am deeply flattered.