The meeting

I have to tell you about a meeting at work I had recently.  It was very technical but I'm going to use a restaurant metaphor so everyone can understand the frustration I went through trying to get the information I wanted.  It went something like this:

Shiraz: Can anyone tell me how to get to the Benefits restaurant?
Consultant1: Why are you going there?
Shiraz: To eat.
Consultant2: How are you getting there?
Shiraz: Will that change its location?
Consultant2: No but it'll change your route.  If you take a bus it'll be different than taking a car.
Shiraz: But I just want to know where it is.
Consultant1: They make good fish there, but avoid the prawns.
Shiraz: That's nice, but where is it?
Consultant2: And they have specials on Tuesday.
Consultant1: Tuesday?  I thought it was Thursday?
Consultant2: Hmmm, it may be Thursday.  I'll check.
Shiraz: Can you check where it is at the same time?
Consultant1: No, that's a different look up.
Shiraz: Look, I just want to know where the damn restaurant is.
Consultant2: Oh, look! It IS Thursday.
Consultant1: I thought so!  I'm glad we got that settled.
Consultant2: Yes, it's been a productive meeting.
Shiraz: ....

They came through!

Well, my family finally came through today and 20 copies of my book were sent out.  Now I just have to send out the outstanding books and that mess is behind me.  Whew!

Also I posted the promo video last night.  It uses the Ladyhawke theme intro. One of my favourite soundtracks and one of my favourite movies.  I know it'll probably get pulled eventually because I don't have the rights, but I've sent an email to Alan Parson's manager in the hopes of maybe getting them for just a little while during this promotion phase.  I actually wouldn't mind hiring Alan to do the music for the movie for DotS (if it ever gets turned into a movie).  I think the medieval music with electric guitar works great for a book set in a medieval world starring an electric guitarist.

If you want something done right...

Well, I'm out in Victoria, B.C. and I ran out of books a couple weeks ago but I had a stash across the country at my parents' place in Toronto.  I had many more bloggers I promised books to, so a call went out and I asked if they could send the box of books to me.  They volunteered (with the help of my brother and sister) to mail out all the books for me.  This was Sunday two weeks ago and the books were to go out Monday.  Well on Monday there were "issues" so they said Tuesday and on Tuesday things came up and they said Wednesday. This continued through the week until I said, "Just send me the box!", but they wouldn't calmly assuring me that the books would get sent the following day.  One of the other things I asked them to do was check to make sure they had enough books. They, of course, didn't check ... until Thursday when they told me that they were short 10 books.  So now I had to order 10 books, which I could have done almost 2 weeks and the bloggers that were waiting for already late books will have to wait an additional 2 weeks while I wait for a new shipment.  At this point I'm thinking the odds of the books going out on Monday are slim to none, so I'm making sure to get enough books to send out the whole shipment.  My book launch party is on October 31st and I was hoping to have a lot of buzz generated by blogger reviews, but that's going to be tough when many of the bloggers will only get the books around then.  I love my family and I know they have the best intentions, but this is ridiculous.  Why don't they just give up and send me the damn books???  If you're blogger who I contacted and haven't gotten a book from me yet, this is why.  I'll be sending a bunch of apology letters out this week.  I'm so embarrassed about this whole incident.  I really would have been faster for me to have driven across the country, grabbed the books, driven back, and sent them myself.  How sad is that?

Second blogger review

Review by A Bibliophile

First Blogger Review

Big thanks to Amy for the great review.  I can't believe she read it in a day!


My Overstuffed Bookshelf - DotS Review

I managed to get a 3 column blog going thanks to Mavie at http://the-bookologist.blogspot.com/


She pointed me to this page: http://www.threecolumnblogger.com/2008/09/three-column-minima-layout-version.html


Now I just need to add a little character to this place...

Google knows about the book!

Each day for the last month I've been checking on google for news about DotS.  Yes, I know you can get google alerts and I do, but whatever crawler it uses sends me random alerts sometimes pointing to things weeks or months old.  Anyway, you know how google now pops up words as you type to help to quickly form your search phrase?  Today Defenders of the Scroll finally showed up in the list. Woo hoo!

Ok, I just tried to upload a pic and I came out looking like one of the Blue Man Group.  Maybe it just looks this way in preview.  I'm going to attach it to this post to find out...

Look a blog!

Welcome to my blog, something I should have started months ago but kept putting off because of the insane list of other things I had to do. This should be a good time to have one however, since Defenders of the Scroll will be in the hands of about 60 bloggers in the next few weeks and I'm anxiously waiting to see if any of them like it. Okay, that's all for now. I have to go customize this sucker.