Behind the scenes of The Tourist Trail

Answer: Probably never.

The Tourist Trail has been out for eight months now and I’m still sending out review copies. Granted, I’m only sending out one or two a week at most, but if I find someone who has an audience and might be willing to devote time to reading the book, I’m more than happy to send a copy along.

Of course, not everyone who promises to write a review actually follows through. And I don’t like to nag so I just let it go. That’s part of the process — letting things go, particularly if the reviews aren’t what you expect. Fortunately, I’ve received mostly great reviews so far.

And I’m always looking for more.

I have found that reviews are the most important way to get this book noticed. If you’re a blogger with an audience and you think you might want to review The Tourist Trail, let me know. I’ve got copies…

• The Tourist Trail: Six Months On
• Print edition available July 26th
• The Kindle Nation Effect: From 25,000 to 234 overnight
• The book is published. Now the hard work begins…
• If you want to sell lots of books, you’ve got to give away lots of books

Perhaps Midge and I took Earth Day a bit seriously this year.

We visited Oregon Caves Nationals Monument and spent the afternoon underground getting dripped on (euphemistically called ‘cave kisses’).

I really recommend the tour. Ranger Joe was excellent (and great with the kids) and his passion for the caves was evident. This cave is rather unique in that it is carved out of marble (only about 5% of caves are marble). They also found the oldest grizzly bear on record deep within — more than 50,000 years old.

Here are a few pics. First, the old wood lodge near the entrance.

And the entrance (a bit narrower than I expected):

And during the course of the tour I got a refresher on stalactites, mites, columns (everything I forgot long ago).

• The penguin counters
• Perhaps it’s not a question of why Knut died, but why he lived so long
• The penguins of Punta Tombo, 28 years later
• When parents don’t return in time
• Amazon doubles Kindle royalties (with strings attached)

I came across a live video stream today of a pair of bald eagles and their three chicks living in a tree in Decorah, Iowa.

You can check it out here. Warning: It’s highly addictive.

And here is a screen grab…

• The penguins of Punta Tombo, 28 years later
• When will a self-published book win the National Book Award? (When it’s not self-published)
• Pay Attention to Penguins
• About the cover: Yes, those are penguins
• Thinking about visiting Patagonia?

Despite the success of the Kindle and the iPad, many people still prefer the old-fashioned print book.

Like me. I have a Kindle and yet I still buy print books. Partly out of habit. Partly because many of the books I buy are reference and tutorial books. I have a book on programming (don’t ask) and I’m constantly paging through it as I sit at the computer, yanking out what’s left of my hair. Kindles just aren’t conducive to scanning large chunks of code.

But I digress.

I published The Tourist Trail in print not just because I knew readers wanted a print version, but because reviewers wanted a print version.

And whatever reviewers want reviewers will get.

So I wanted to briefly share a little about the printer I selected. It wasn’t an easy decision because it’s easy to find fellow authors who love or hate whichever printer you ultimately select.

Out of more than a dozen printers, I narrowed my list down the following:

• Lightning Source
• CreateSpace
• Lulu

I selected Lightning Source. It was a good decision. The quality of the book is quite good (and Lightning Source just announced support for matte covers, which I am now testing out — a topic for a later post).

I primarily selected Lightning Source was because it is owned by Ingram, the world’s largest book distributor. So by going with Lightning Source I was confident that bookstores would have no trouble getting my book. And, of course, Lightning Source also works with Amazon and other online vendors. Lightning Source also does printing work for

Some people have said that Lightning Source is more expensive than CreateSpace, but I didn’t find this to be the case. I found Lightning Source to be the best overall value of the three. Lightning Source does charge more in set-up costs but the per-unit printing costs were better.

But there is a huge caveat with Lightning Source — you need to know a lot about book production. There is not much in the way of hand holding. Lightning Source expects you to provide a print-ready PDF, preferably output from Adobe InDesign. If all this sounds like a foreign language to you, then you might want to use Lulu or CreateSpace — or hire a book designer who can do this for you.

I recommend working with a professional designer. My feeling here is that a self-published book shouldn’t look self-published. I can tell when a book has been more or less just exported out of Word. The fonts sometimes look blurry, the page alignments are off, the columns are too wide (or too narrow). I could go on.

My best advice is not to rush into it. Spend some time on user forums such as this one on Lulu. Ask questions. Ask other self-published authors what they’ve learned along the way. And be prepared to do a bit of learning yourself.

• To self-publish is to self-doubt
• Why I won’t be getting a review from Publishers Weekly
• If you want to sell lots of books, you’ve got to give away lots of books
• When will a self-published book win the National Book Award? (When it’s not self-published)
• The Tourist Trail: Six Months On

So now the questions begin: What caused the death of the celebrity polar bear Knut?

Early indications point to some form of brain disease.

Environmentalists say Knut was overly stressed.

Zoo officials deny this, of course.

But when I look at the photo of the polar bear above, I think the question should be: Why don’t more polar bears die in captivity each year?

In the Arctic, polar bears roam hundreds of miles as virtual loners. This is in their DNA, this life of freedom and solitude. So when one is raised in a confined cell and subjected to hundreds of thousands of people taking pictures and shouting, how does any polar bear survive this? Just the smells must be overwhelming. A polar bear can pick up the scent of food a dozen miles away; how does it cope in an environment in which it is surrounded by smells, overstimulated to such a degree?

When I was a child I was always bothered by watching the large animals at the zoo. The way they paced back and forth. Even then I suspected something wasn’t right. Now I know something isn’t right.

Zoos shouldn’t be in the business of keeping large animals in small containers. From lions to whales to polar bears, zoos don’t give them the room they need. Perhaps no container is large enough.

Perhaps we don’t need zoos any longer. I wouldn’t miss them.

The major argument I hear in support of zoos is the educational value they offer to young children. If Billy doesn’t get to see a polar bear up close, the argument goes, how will he come to appreciate nature? And yet this argument fails to account for the fact that Billy isn’t witnessing nature, just some watered down version of it. A video of a polar bear in its element is of far more educational value, as it shows the polar bear doing what it does naturally. And it shows the importance of seals and ice and ecosystem, lessons that are going to be critical to ensuring we protect this planet for generations to come.

There is another argument in support of zoos that points to all the good things they do for animals — for helping species bounce back from near extinction. For breeding animals that had failed to breed successfully in the wild. These are far stronger arguments in support of zoological programs, but not necessarily zoos.

I’ve been reading Fear of the Animal Planet — a book that details countless abuses of animals by zoos and circuses alike, so maybe I’m too jaded.

But today I read that Berlin zoo officials plan to have Knut stuffed, adding insult to injury. Even in death he is not given a moment of peace.

• If everyone just stopped going to SeaWorld…
• Penguins don’t need Google Maps
• Whales granted a reprieve, but penguins not so fortunate
• Penguins may waddle over ground but they fly through the water
• Sometimes the only evidence of an oil spill are its victims