After years of living in extremes, I decided to spend this year looking at and working toward living the Middle Way. To be honest, I’ve been fascinated with meditation for a long time. I met Sharon Salzberg when I was working in the Open Grove. She is a truly fascinating woman.

In this 8 minute video, she explains her experience of overcoming

The problem with being a human being is that we get in our own way. When challenged, many of us roll over and play dead.  What if you were a 2,000 year old tree?   Richard Preston shares the Northern California rain forest, my heart’s true home, and it’s fabulous trees. This video is 19.31 minutes long and soooooo worth it.  

You must see these trees.

After posting about some interesting movements in the music industry, Colleen at Loose Leaf Notes asked me to look into book publishing.

Inspired, I set out to answer her question.

At little background first.? Book publicity has changed drastically in the last seven years. When we started the Open Grove in January, 2001:

• In-house publicists from hundreds of publishers sent dozens of copies of books. I received 12+ books a day.? I heard that Oprah received over 50 books a day.? Yikes!
• Almost every author went on some form of a multi-city book tour.
• I received telephone calls, letters, and a few emails (2001) from publicists hungry to get their clients on the Open Grove.

Within two years:

• publishers began to merge into multinational conglomerates,
• the tide of books became a trickle, (Thank God)
• authors financed their own book tours,
• some savvy best selling authors began publishing their own books, and
• small book presses were growing.

By 2007:

• many of the major book publishers had closed their publicity departments,
• authors whispered that they spent their entire advance on a publicist – some where helpful, most were not, and
• the publishing industry lost 17%!? Book publishers closed left and right.

Walt Whitman sold his book door to door. What’s an author in 2008 supposed to do to sell his or her book??

• What works?
• What doesn’t work?
• What are people doing to promote themselves?
• What was the data? Which marketing endeavors increased sales? What had no effect at all?
• Self publishing? Big New York Publisher? No advance publishing? E-book publishing?

I asked my favorite Marketing forum and came up with some good ideas, but no data. I sat through ridiculous seminars run by sharks and charlatans. (No, Janet, I didn’t kill them, I only WANTED to kill them.)

What sells books in 2008?

No one knows.

I mean, I have some ideas? But I’ve already written about them.

Unsure of what to do, I did nothing. Then I noticed a little project of Brad Feld’s (Liz, he’s the venture capitalist I was talking about).? I decided to steal his idea.

I’m sending out an SOS.

Let’s collect our information and experience. We don’t have to toil alone. Together, we can create a resource for authors. With information, we wrestle our creative efforts from the mouth’s of sharks.

(100% of these proceeds will go to Wounded Warriors. )

What I’m looking for:

• Direct experience marketing a book, selling a book or even getting a book published.
• What is working for you?
• What hasn’t worked for you?
• What do you believe is the single most important factor in selling your book?
• You book can be a self-published book, an e-book, a New York publisher.
• Did your book tour work?
• How much publicity help did you get from your publisher?
• What sells your book?

I’m thinking a short (100 – 300 words) this worked, this didn’t.

In return for participating, you will receive a free copy of the book. I’m hoping to collect 100 authors to participate in this project. If you are interested, please send me an email at: opengrove@gmail.com or leave a comment at On a Limb with Claudia.? If you know a published author, please let them know about this project.

Help an author out.? Please repost this call for entry.

In exchange for re-posting this on your blog, I will enter you in a contest for either a honey lover’s package – 2006 (dark brown spicy), 2007 (minty, light colored) honey and 2008 honey (yet to be determined) – or a $25 gift certificate to Amazon, Starbucks, Target or whatever – or a cool seed kit like I made for my friend Van.? Hell, if you want some tomatoes I can send those along too! Make sure to leave a link to the post in the comments. I’ll draw a winner from the comments to this post.

Check out this video about happiness. Dr. Dan Gilbert shares some fascinating research about choice and happiness.The vid is 20 minutes long – and well worth the time. Check it out!

Video blurb:

Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don’t go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness “synthetic happiness,” and he says it’s “every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.”

And he’s not a complete moron – go ahead, check it out.

You’re Brigitte Bardot!
Take this quiz!

Yeah baby!! I just wish my feet weren’t so swollen from the freakin’ stiletto boots I wore to DeVotchKa last night.

No, not that Seth.

Seth Godin, of course.

I wrote a book review for his new book, The Dip, for the Bring me up book club. Check it out!

Update:?

Ok, here’s what makes Seth Godin cool.

I had a question. In the Dip, Seth describes a dead end as “cul de sac”.? Dead end jobs.? Dead end relationships.? You get the picture.

But the problem/question I had was very simply:

Sometimes a dip feels like a cul de sac.? How can you tell the difference.

I emailed him this question.? Now, I am a fan of his, but we are not friends or buds or anything.? I’d be surprised if he knew who I was.

An hour later he replied:

“I think it’s about either

a. modeling on other people who have made it through

or

b. figuring out what sort of progress you’re seeing.

hope that helps”

And, not surprisingly, this does help.

“All we can do (about CCD) is watch our hives die.”

This blog is paused while I go beat my head against a wall.

“Have you ever seen how Jello mold jiggles?” D. says to our dinner guest, J.

“It’s fascinating,” she replies. “Once it catches my eye, I can’t stop looking.”

We are talking about the restaurant opening I went to with Rocker Boy. I was standing in line in front of a woman who had absolutely huge, torpedo sized, false breasts.

The model of decorum, I was in the middle of telling Rocker Boy how we should key the car that drove into the parking space I was backing into, when I saw them – just jiggling there. I was so transfixed at the movement that I wasn’t able to finish relating my plan of criminal behavior revenge.

“You’re having dinner with Aunt Susie,” J’s husband continues, “and you accidentally knock the table.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. All eyes go to the Jello mold. You can’t help yourself.”

“I just want to pat them. You know like bongos,” J begins to make the hand gestures of someone patting a torpedo sized false breast as a bongo.

“Do you think they would make a sound?” Our other dinner guest says.

“The jiggling would start… I don’t know… a seismic earthquake.”

I look up from my meal to see the four adults making hand gestures to jiggle the Jello mold like torpedo sized fake breasts.

What would you do?

I had to walk away from the table I was laughing so hard.

(Want to be transfixed? Close the door and check this out – flash used to create breast jiggling.)

I talked to my friend Steve, at Ela Family Farms, last night. He’s agreed to host our bees on his organic apple farm. YIPPEE!! We are going to the farm on April 22, 2007 to look for appropriate sites. Keep your fingers crossed.

While on vacation, I had the opportunity to watch the honey bee hearings in Washington. It’s very depressing that NO ONE was willing to say that it was a pesticide even though France outlawed the pesticide Fipronil two years ago and the problem disappeared.

Maybe we should elect the ten year old as a President.

I love fortune cookies.? I love their taste and, to be truthful, I love the bits of random wisdom stated in one sentence. I collect them then place them around the house.? Here’s a few that live in our house.
This one lives under my keyboard:

“The simplest answer is to act.”

These three live on our refrigerator:

“Through the eyes of love all things take on new meaning”
(This lives as an inscription to a vacation photo where we are sun touched and laughing)

“There will be delightful mysteries in your life”
(This sits near a photo of my niece and nephew)

“You will be successful in a business of your own”
(This lives under some comics – it’s a secret fortune)

This one lives in my wallet:

“Think highly of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate.”

This guy made his resume out of fortune cookie sayings.

Fess up.? What fortunes do you have around the house?