Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    


Capt, I'm not holding my breath. All's I'd like to do at the moment is
sell through the first printing of 35,000. There is a trade paperback
on the way, but not until after Christmas. I'm not counting on any
royalties at the moment, and as such, am easing into this writing
project for the Sand County Foundation.
  

    
Boy, if that isn't a comment on the publishing industry: this is a
book made for trade paper, it would seem to me. A popular subject, good
reviews, and they're not putting the trade paperback out before
Christmas? Of course, it might step on the sales of those 35K they have
out, but that just seems goofy to me. 

As does the publishing biz in general, of course. 

What's the Sand County Foundation, and what're you doing for them?
  

    
No that's not goofy at all. The whole hardback deal is, it's new.
Trade paper not so much, although more affordable and easier to take on
the airplane. 

But yeah the more I've talked with other authors, the bidness is way
goofy with the old guard still running the show while the indies and
self-published are bubbling under on the streets. Publishing technology
allows anyone to make a cool looking book. Some friends of mine who
recently married had a book of their photos that really looked
profession that was published on an iMac. Jim Franklin JFLKN is putting
out a book of his art via Lulu. So DIY actually can be competitive.
But like the music bidness, it all boils down to distribution, with
Amazon in the role of ITunes. It's all shifting rapidly and I'm not
sure where it's going, but I want to hanging on for the ride.

The Sand County Foundation is an organization based on the writings
and work of Aldo Leopold, an early 20th century Thoreau who wrote the
Sand County Almanac, and emphasized individual stewardship, land
ethics, and sustainability. The foundation awards Leopold Conservation
Awards annually. I'm going to visit and profile ten families they've
designated, including the Coleman Natural Beef folks in Colorado, a
family in western Wisconsin that does sustainable forestry, and an
uncle and nephew in Texas restoring land that their forefathers wore
out by overgrazing sheep. All that's being rolled into a big ol'
coffeetable book that Texas A&M Press will publish.
  

    
No that's not goofy at all. The whole hardback deal is, it's new.
Trade paper not so much, although more affordable and easier to take on
the airplane. 

But yeah the more I've talked with other authors, the bidness is way
goofy with the old guard still running the show while the indies and
self-published are bubbling under on the streets. Publishing technology
allows anyone to make a cool looking book. Some friends of mine who
recently married had a book of their photos that really looked
profession that was published on an iMac. Jim Franklin JFLKN is putting
out a book of his art via Lulu. So DIY actually can be competitive.
But like the music bidness, it all boils down to distribution, with
Amazon in the role of ITunes. It's all shifting rapidly and I'm not
sure where it's going, but I want to hanging on for the ride.

The Sand County Foundation is an organization based on the writings
and work of Aldo Leopold, an early 20th century Thoreau who wrote the
Sand County Almanac, and emphasized individual stewardship, land
ethics, and sustainability. The foundation awards Leopold Conservation
Awards annually. I'm going to visit and profile ten families they've
designated, including the Coleman Natural Beef folks in Colorado, a
family in western Wisconsin that does sustainable forestry, and an
uncle and nephew in Texas restoring land that their forefathers wore
out by overgrazing sheep. All that's being rolled into a big ol'
coffeetable book that Texas A&M Press will publish.
  

    
That's a very cool project. As a coffee table book, will it be rich with 
photos?

There's a vibrant and growing sustainability community in Austin. Are you 
plugged into that scene at all?
  

    

The Sand County Foundation landowner project is indeed a coffee table
book rich with pictures. It better be since I'm writing a mere 20,000
words of text. Fixin' to meet with the first family tomorrow.

I'm not as plugged into Austin's sustainability community as I should
be. I am pushing to have it part of the dialogue about regional growth
and government. As far as the Legislature goes (which is where the
power is in Texas), sustainability is a foreign concept. Austin, per
usual, is light years ahead of the rest of Texas, and almost as up to
par with cities in California, Oregon, and elsewhere. The city has a
great rebate deal to encourage folks to buy solar panels at less than
half the usual price. Meanwhile, although Hays County, where I live,
just rejected an agreement from a new development to put treated sewage
in a seasonal creek, the best incentive is a $100 tax break if you
install rainwater catchment, which costs aboout $10,000 minimum. I've
got a rainwater system but there's been so little rain in the last nine
months, I'm back on well water.
  

    

Willie Report: 
I went up to Carl's Corner for the free 3d of July bash inaugurating
Willie's Place, a performance theatre, bar, restaurant, Willie's Place
XM radio studio headquarters, and state of the art truck stop.

I got to hear snippets of Johnny Bush, Darrell McCall, Justin Trevino,
David Allan Coe, and Ray Price before the crowd in the theatre started
overflowing and jamming up, and listened to Willie's set on his XM
radio channel while I was driving home.

Today, Sunday, I drove up to Abbott to the Methodist Church that
Willie and his sister Bobbie bought and have kept open with volunteer
help. Willie and Bobbie and Willie's wife Annie and Willie's daughter
Lana all came up from Houston where they did the Fifth of July Picnic,
and a nice service was staged. Some of the volunteers sang accompanied
by a musical tape but towards the end, Bobbie sat at the piano and
Willie sang "Family Bible."

Maybe it was because he didn't have his band behind him. Maybe it was
because Bobbie was playing. Maybe it was because they were bringing it
all back home, but his singing on "Family Bible," the sprititual song
he wrote and sold to Paul Buskirk and Claude Gray that punched his
ticket to Nashville, was nothing short of great. He sang strong and
confident with the range of an Irish tenor. I dig his shows, but seeing
him and his sister in the church they grew up in was beyond cool.   
  

    
Man, you should have noted that you have a report -- with pictures! --
on your blog!

<http://joenickp.blogspot.com/>
  

    
somehow i missed that there was a blog separate from the other website.
nice photos, man!
  

    
I like this sentence: "'Family Bible' is a gospel classic and Willie sung the 
song with inspiration, power, and with the soaring range of an Irish tenor." 
That makes me wish I'd been there to be lifted up. 
  

    

Some of the service was corny and even cheesy, but yeah, Willie hit
the note, all right. I was glad I was there to witness.
  

    
For those of you in San Francisco:

Texas writer Joe Nick Patoski talks (in a drawl) and signs copies of
his critically-acclaimed biography "Willie Nelson:  An Epic Life" at 
The Booksmith 1644 Haight Street in San Francisco 
Tuesday, September 2 at 7:30 pm 
 
He’ll be joined by Mickey Raphael from Willie Nelson’s Family Band who
will discuss the harmonica and life on the road. 


Tell Joe Nick you're from the Well: he wants to put faces to these
folks he's been talking with!
  

    
The hell with road stories.   This is a guy who was sleeping with Ali
McGraw.    I'm sure he has some tales.