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Here’s a photo of some donkeys grazing up high in the mountains, shot during the first day of my Inca Trail hike. Every time I look back on these photos I’m thankful that I decided to do the hike–there’s so much beauty along the Inca Trail that I would have missed had I chosen to take the train straight to Machu Picchu.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
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If you don’t own a Kindle you can still read The Eyes of Mictlan by installing Amazon’s free kindle reading software on your computer or mobile device. You also have the option of borrowing the book for free if you belong to Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read the book for your kind words; it means a lot to hear that you enjoyed it. When you have a few minutes, I would be most grateful if you could leave a review on Amazon and spread the word to your friends and followers. Thank you so much for your support!
While the Jersey beaches are now flooded with Independence Day revelers, here’s a photo from my walk on the Ocean City boardwalk earlier this week, a few days ahead of the madness, gazing across the water at the Atlantic City skyline.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
July 5, 2014: My first full day in Scotland got off to a hectic start. I was scheduled to embark on an all-day tour of the Highlands, culminating in a cruise on Loch Ness. The bus would be picking me up at 7 a.m. so I set my alarm for around 5 a.m. in order to have plenty of time to get ready. At one point in the morning I awoke but assumed it was still early since my alarm hadn’t gone off, so I started to go back to sleep. Something, however, told me to look at the clock and when I did, it read quarter-to-seven!! My alarm had never gone off and I now had just 15 minutes to scramble around like a chicken with its head cut off—forget breakfast or showering, it was all I could do just to get my ass out the door in time to meet the bus. I would have been devastated if I had missed out on the Highlands tour; it was my main reason for coming to Scotland.
I made it on to the bus in the nick of time and we were off . . . well, not quite. We had to pick up some more passengers, who were apparently running late, and we ended up waiting an extra 15 minutes, so perhaps the bus would have waited for me as well—but I’m glad I was there on time; I would not have wanted to make other people on the tour wait for me.
Our bus driver also turned out to be our guide, and I found him to be quite entertaining and knowledgeable. He talked over the intercom throughout our journey, treating us to interesting tidbits of Scottish history, as well as current events like the impending vote for independence from the U.K. He was a wealth of information, and I was impressed that he could be that engaging while also driving the bus (and it was a long drive to the Highlands and back). I was somewhat annoyed that other people weren’t paying attention to him, either talking loudly among themselves or playing with their mobile devices, but if that’s how they wanted to spend the long bus ride, not learning anything, to each their own, I guess.
Before reaching the Highlands we passed by several landmarks, a few of which I photographed from the bus, doing my best to minimize window glare (you can click on any image in this post for a larger view).
At our first rest stop I managed to gobble down a late breakfast, and then it was off to Braveheart country. The Highlands are absolutely breathtaking—beauty in every direction and sparsely populated so you can really envision what it must have been like to be a Highlander back in the day. I also enjoyed the best views of lakes (or lochs, as they are called in Scotland) framed by mountains I had seen since going through Switzerland, though I think I liked the Scottish Highlands even more. There’s just so much green, largely untouched by civilization, it’s like a dream. I’m sure there are harsh winters, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing about living there. Here are some photos from the bus.
About halfway into the Highlands we made a brief stop for photos, and what a gorgeous location it was.
Later in the day we made another stop for lunch and I took the opportunity to hit the ATM (my use of the ATM here was reported as potential suspicious activity to my wife back at home). Before long we were back on the bus and bound for the home of Nessie: Loch Ness. Upon arrival, we toured the ruins of Urquhart Castle, which sits on the shore of the loch. This castle was once owned by the Grant clan (the large tower is known as Grant Tower) and, as my wife’s last name is Grant and she has Scottish ancestry, I choose to believe that her family owned the castle. 🙂
After touring the castle it was time to hop on a boat for our cruise to the other end of Loch Ness. One thing you notice about the water is that it looks almost black. This is due to a high concentration of peat in the water. The low visibility resulting from this murkiness is one reason the myth of Nessie has perpetuated even into the 21st century.
The cruise was nice and relaxing, with spectacular scenery. Here are some photos.
At the end of the boat ride it was time for the long drive back to Edinburgh. As the bus driver dropped us off, I noticed that nobody else appeared to be tipping him, but I felt that he’d more than earned it, so I gave him ten pounds and thanked him. I wish I remembered his name so I could recommend him as the driver/guide to ask for on this tour.
I arrived back at my room around 8 p.m., but my night was not over. Soon I would be heading out for a late dinner followed by a hike up Calton Hill to catch some views of Edinburgh at sunset, which in this case was around 10:30, but that excursion will be covered in the next installment. In the meantime, I leave you with one final panorama of Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle. If you are ever in Scotland, a trip to the Highlands is a must. It is one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever visited.
View more of my photos from Scotland.
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To help spread the word about my novel, I’ve decided to begin sharing selected quotes on a weekly basis. Most of these will be in the form of small snippets on my social media feeds, but from time to time I will share graphical passages like the one below, especially for longer quotes that won’t fit in a Twitter post. When I do create a visual passage, I will also share it here, but the smaller snippets will only be posted to my Twitter feed and Facebook page so that I can keep my book-related posts on this blog to a minimum. So, while there will be an uptick in posts about my book, I won’t be neglecting my travel stories and photos. In fact, I am currently working on a post about my visit to the Scottish Highlands.
It’s been a while since I shared a Machu Picchu photo, but I was inspired by my cousin’s current trip to the fabled Lost City of the Incas. In fact, he may be standing on its hallowed grounds as I write this. Hopefully he is enjoying a sunnier day than I did, as my photos from that day are mostly gloomy, though no photo could ever do justice to the sensation of walking through Machu Picchu up high in the clouds anyway. Nevertheless, I always liked this photo of a lone tree standing among the ruins.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
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July 4, 2014: While the rest of my American brethren were busy celebrating Independence Day, I was hopping on a train in the country from which we won our independence, bound for Scotland.
Following a late night at the Monty Python concert, I awoke at 4 a.m. to get ready and check out of my London flat. It would have been nice to keep the apartment through the weekend and just bring a small suitcase for my three-day Scotland trip, but doing so would have been too expensive (the rental prices really skyrocket on weekends), so I packed everything up and lugged it all the way to King’s Cross station, where I met up with my tour group.
This was my first of two tours booked with International Friends (the second would be Amsterdam on the following weekend) and would prove to be the best part of my entire two-week stay in the U.K.; I just loved Scotland.
Our guide, George, introduced himself and gave us our train tickets, and before long we were on our way. There were reserved seats on the train for our group, which was nice, as I was able to have a pair of seats to myself. The ride took about 4.5 hours. After arriving in Edinburgh we hopped on a bus for a driving tour of the city. Here are a couple of photos from the bus ride.
Following the tour, we were dropped off at our guest houses. Most of the people on the tour chose the cheaper, shared rooms, but I upgraded to a nicer guest house with my own room. The only other person from the tour staying in my guest house was our guide George. The guest house was a cute, old building. The room was basic, no frills, but it was fine for two nights. The evenings were cool enough that the lack of AC didn’t bother me. The wi-fi was too weak to reach my room, but I didn’t really care about that—I hadn’t traveled to Scotland to surf the web.
After getting settled in I took a walk toward the center of the newer part of the city (we stayed on the New City side of the river); it was about a half-hour walk to the city center. Along the way I got my first taste of Scottish weather as it began pour. I ducked into a pub to eat a late lunch while waiting out the rain. The bacon and brie sandwich was pretty tasty and the glass of prosecco hit the spot.
I then ventured back out. Here are a couple of photos from my walk. Due to the weather, I didn’t take too many photos on this day, but I would take a ton over the next two days.
I meandered a while longer and then headed back to my room. Later in the evening I accompanied George to a bar in the center of the city, where we would be having an optional group get together. For a while it was just the two of us, but then a few more people from the group showed up. I treated myself to some fine ale as well as a small glass of whiskey. I’m normally not a big whiskey drinker but Scotland is famous for its whiskey, so I had to try some.
Then came the big decision: do I try haggis? I had been leaning against it but I decided that I couldn’t go to Scotland without at least trying it—besides, I figured that if I can eat scrapple at home, there was no reason not to give haggis a go. So I ordered chicken stuffed with haggis in a whiskey gravy. It was actually pretty good, though probably not something I would ever crave.
Shortly after finishing dinner I headed back to the room. I had been functioning on just a few hours of sleep and I had a very long day ahead of me in the morning—a 13-hour round-trip journey into the Scottish Highlands. But before heading to bed I gazed out my window upon the latest sunset I had ever witnessed.
In New Jersey we’re used to it getting dark, even in the summer, by 9 p.m., but here in Edinburgh, the sky still had not gone completely dark by 11:30 p.m. Pretty wild.
View more of my photos from Scotland.
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July 3, 2014: Today was the day around which I had planned my entire two-week trip: the Monty Python reunion concert. But first, I toured the Tower of London and walked across the Tower Bridge.
The day began with a bit of a subway misadventure—I got on the tube heading in the wrong direction. I had done pretty well to that point navigating the London Underground, but the Circle line was a bit confusing. However, righting my course was simple enough once I realized I was going the wrong way—I just had to hop off at the next stop, make my way to the other side of the tracks, and hop back on.
The Tower of London is an interesting window into London’s medieval past, and definitely a must-see when you visit the city. There is a lot to see among the various buildings, so plan on spending a good portion of your day there, especially if, like me, you read all of the plaques describing the exhibits and the history behind them. Here are some photos from my visit (click on any image to open a gallery):
One of the main attractions of the Tower for many people is the chance to see the Crown Jewels. To be honest, I really didn’t care that much about seeing them, but since the line was relatively short, I decided to head in. The wait to get in can reach astronomical portions at peak times, so you need to decide how badly you want to see them. As I said, my wait was fairly short, about 20 to 30 minutes, so in my case it was worth it. It can be a bit claustrophobic as you’re herded through the exhibit, and at one point you’re moving through on one of those conveyor belts like they have in airports. There is much more on display than just the Crown Jewels: all manner of crowns, scepters, and similar items, but no photography is allowed inside so I don’t have any photos.
After finishing up at the Tower of London it was time walk across the Tower Bridge. You can also pay to walk on the upper level of the bridge for a bird’s eye view of the city but I decided against it since I had already gotten a similar view during my visit to The Shard. If the view had been unobstructed, I probably would have gone up, but the upper level is enclosed in glass, so my photos would have been no better than the ones I had gotten at The Shard. Anyway, here are some pics from my walk across the bridge (and also a couple of the bridge taken from the Tower of London).
I then headed back to my apartment to do some packing (I would be checking out in the very early morning) and grab some dinner before heading to the Greenwich peninsula for the Monty Python concert. There wasn’t enough time to head back into the center of the city so I found a small Chinese restaurant near the apartment and ate there. The pineapple chicken fried rice was a bit bland, not one of the most memorable meals of my trip, but not the worst, either (that was still to come).
The subway ride to the O2 (the concert venue) was long, probably about an hour if you count walking to and from the stations and changing lines. The O2 is a massive stadium complex containing multiple venues, restaurants, and other facilities. Although I didn’t take any pictures that night (I chose to leave the bulky camera in my apartment), here is a shot I took of the stadium from down the river the following week:
My seats were much better than I was expecting. I had a great view of the stage and the show itself was splendid, everything you’d expect from Python, ending, of course, with an entire arena full of people singing and whistling to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Here’s a bad cell phone photo of the stage:
Afterward I went directly home to finish packing for my three-day trip to Scotland. It was around 11 p.m. by the time I got back to the apartment and I had a 4 a.m. wakeup call, so I would not be getting much sleep, but Scotland would prove to be more than worth it.
And with that, my first week in London had come to a close. One big regret is that I never made it out to Wimbledon, which had been in its second week when I arrived. I had just crammed too much activity into all of my days so I never had the time. Oh well. That aside, my first week in London was a blast and I looked forward to seeing more of the city when I returned after three days in Scotland.
View more of my photos from London.
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I finally got around to editing the movie of my visit to San Francisco in October of 2014. It begins with a visit to the California coast before seguing into San Francisco, accompanied by a couple of familiar San Francisco-related tunes. You can watch it in HD by changing the quality settings of the video.
Still to come: the journal from my visit to California, but first I have to finish the journal from my Eurotrip last summer. I’m falling way behind–working on publishing a book will do that to you.
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For those of you who prefer the tactile feel of a book in your hands, the paperback version is $9.99. If you would like both versions, you can buy the Kindle version for 99 cents after purchasing the paperback. You can also order either version by clicking on the cover image to the left.
Well, that takes care of the promo portion of this post. The rest, should you choose to keep reading, is the story of my journey from concept to publication.
To quote the infamous theme song from Star Trek: Enterprise: “It’s been a long road, getting from there to here.” I first put pen to paper (yes, pen and paper) back in 1997 when I wrote the first chapter and outlined the rest of the novel. The idea for the novel originally sprung from a text-based online role-playing game I was considering playing on AOL back in the days of dial-up modems (kids, ask your parents). As part of creating a character for the game, you were supposed to come up with a back story for your character. I never ended up playing the game, but I liked the character I created, so I decided to turn his story into a novel.
My original intention was to write it as an experimental serial novel, in which I would post a new chapter at regular intervals. In fact, the first chapter has been available online in one form or another since 1998.
However, when I realized that there was enough material for a full-blown novel, I altered my plans. It took many years to complete—as any aspiring writer will tell you, one of the biggest obstacles to completing a novel is finding the time between your job, housework, and various other adult responsibilities—but eventually (and with the help of a period of unemployment) I finished the first draft in early 2009. Subsequent drafts followed and I finally had a draft that I deemed worthy of submission in the winter of 2012.
I tried the traditional publishing route first, submitting queries to agents, but then I began to notice that more and more people were self-publishing and that the self-publishing industry was growing at an astronomical rate, with even established authors beginning to self-publish. I like the idea of maintaining full control over my property and earning higher royalties on each sale, not that I’m expecting to earn much (you don’t really make any money on a book unless it becomes a best-seller). It’s more about the work itself, getting it out there into the world, and self-publishing seemed like the best way for me to accomplish that. The traditional querying process did have its benefits, though—it helped me to hone the marketing of my book, specifically the synopsis I eventually used for the back cover—but I am happy with my decision to go the indie route.
Self-publishing is a lot of work, especially if you choose to do everything yourself as I did. I broke a couple of self-publishing rules of thumb: don’t be your own editor and don’t design your own cover. Handling everything myself was like having a second job. My wife, who has an editorial background, was a big help in proofing an early draft, but I performed all subsequent editorial passes of the manuscript myself. The big danger in editing your own manuscript, even if you have an editorial background as I do, is that you are too close to the material to make the cuts that are necessary—and there is a lot of truth to that—but I revisited the manuscript a couple of years later when I made the decision to self-publish, and by then I was far enough removed from the material that I was able to make some ruthless cuts that I had resisted making in earlier drafts.
One major thing you need to keep an eye on when self-publishing is whether you are using any material that might be subject to copyright (such as song lyrics) because you will not have a publisher to handle obtaining the necessary permissions. You could try to obtain the rights yourself, but in my case I found it easier to go back through the entire manuscript and remove any such references either through deletion or by altering the prose to make the references non-explicit. I don’t think these edits had any negative impact on the story anyway—in fact they forced me to be a bit more inventive—so I’d say it’s best for self-publishing authors to just avoid copyrightable references altogether.
As for the cover, I am not even close to being an artist, but I have enough Photoshop experience that I was able to make a cover that looks decently professional. I had first tried one of Amazon’s online cover templates, but these were too plain and I didn’t want my cover to look like everyone else’s, so I spent a lot of time getting the look I wanted. The front art includes a real photo of mine that I manipulated via Photoshop to depict a scene from the novel. For the back cover (of the paperback) I chose to use an author photo rather than create another image. A professional designer probably could have created a better cover in half the time it took me, but I am pleased with it overall.
The most work, however, revolved around formatting both the paperback and Kindle versions. The easiest approach would have been to format the paperback version in Word and then convert it to an html file for the eBook version, but I did it backwards because I had not originally intended to do a paperback version. I started with a Word doc and converted it to an HTML file. However, I was not entirely pleased with the conversion, so I put on my Web Designer hat and began editing the HTML file (this would later come back to bite me when I began formatting the Word doc for paperback).
After uploading the HTML file and viewing it on Amazon’s previewer (a nifty feature that shows you how the eBook will display on various mobile devices), I had to make even further edits to account for display issues on certain devices. By this point, I had made so many tweaks to the HTML file directly that when I discovered new edits that needed to be made to the original manuscript during the paperback phase, I had to edit both the Word and HTML versions separately—I couldn’t simply re-convert from the Word file or I would have lost all of the extra work I had done on the HTML file. My advice: do not do it the way I did. 🙂
Once I finally got the eBook version looking good in all devices, it was time to format the paperback version. The paperback is created through a separate site called CreateSpace, which is owned by Amazon. The nice thing about using this service is that it does not cost you any money upfront—the books are printed on demand and you make a percentage of the profits minus the manufacturing costs. If you already have a Kindle version of your book, Amazon will automatically link it to the paperback version once it goes live.
As with the Kindle version, it took a lot of work to get the paperback looking perfect (fonts, page headers/numbers, gutter/margin settings, etc.), but at least with the paperback version you only have to format it correctly once and then you’re done—no worrying about cross-device compatibility. After completing the paperback version it was then time to create author pages on Amazon and CreateSpace, as well as update my blog to help market the release.
Some of you may have noticed the new title. Life’s Blood had been the title of my novel since I wrote the first chapter all the way back in 1997, but when I began the self-publishing process, I noticed that there are roughly a dozen books on Amazon with either Life’s Blood or Life Blood in the title. I didn’t want my book to get lost in a sea of similar titles, so even though I did not relish the idea of making copy changes, redoing my cover, and editing all references on my blog to Life’s Blood, I decided that I needed to come up with a new title.
After brainstorming a bunch of ideas and scanning my novel for a line or phrase that might make for a good title, I settled on The Eyes of Mictlan. It is certainly unique, as I saw just one other book on Amazon with Mictlan in the title. It is also significant to the plot and has an aura of mystery about it, something that the more generic-sounding previous title did not, so I think it may end up being a blessing in disguise. Sometimes necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Whether it translates to more sales remains to be seen, but at least I’ve given it a fighting chance to stand out.
I decided to join Amazon’s KDP Select program for the Kindle version, which lets you earn up to 70% royalties as opposed to the normal 35% and also makes the book available in the lending library for Amazon Prime members (for which you can earn a small royalty each time it is read). The trade-off is that you must make the eBook exclusive to Amazon for three months and re-commit to additional three month-periods for as long as you remain in the program. Established authors may balk at the exclusivity requirement but overall it seems like a good deal for new authors. I decided to price the eBook at $2.99, which is the minimum price you can set under the rules of KDP Select, though I have the option of making it available for cheaper or free for short periods of time as part of promotions.
The design of the paperback is trade rather than mass market, so it has a good size to it, similar to a small hardcover. However, it is expensive to produce, so $9.99 was basically as cheap as I could make it while still earning a small profit (I will actually earn twice as much on sales of the eBook, despite it being $7 cheaper). In order to make the paperback $9.99, I had to decline the expanded distribution option, which would have made it available to libraries, book stores, and similar entities. The production costs would have skyrocketed under this option and I would have needed to set the price around $14 to make even a tiny profit. I just didn’t think that was worth it—who’s going to spend $14 on a paperback from a first-time author? I’m not concerned about missing out on extra distribution channels at this point since I don’t expect to sell many paperbacks anyway; I imagine most people will opt for the less-expensive Kindle version.
So anyway, that’s the story of my story. If nothing else ever happens with the novel, at least I finished it and it’s out there in the world. If you decide to read it, I hope you enjoy it. If you like it, please spread the word . . . and if you don’t like it—well, maybe don’t spread the word. 😉
Michael Rappa 