Brainstorm

Sunday, July 24, 2022

2:15 a.m. So I promised myself I’d review my big idea here, and send off our discussion to the lists and see what people think. Only, I’m not sure I have the energy to do it now. What do you think, guys?

You can at least set out the background, and if your energy flags, continue later.

Yes, that makes sense. But – even saying that, I realize, no, I don’t have energy enough to do it justice. So, later.

6:20 a.m. Okay, let’s begin. Did I discover that the answer to my abiding concern had been in front of me all along, lacking only one thought, to come to completion? I feel as if that’s what happened. But I need to discuss it with others, see what I may not be considering.

For the past several months, particularly, I have been worried about what happens to all the work I’ve done, once I die. I hate the idea of it being lost and forgotten, even though that is naturally what happens to nearly everything humans do. Yes, everything lives on in the human mind, and yes, the critical part was the living it, not the remembering having lived it. But I never made the impact in life; it would be nice to think there was a chance, at least, that I could make it after death.

You might go into that a little.

Well, as I wrote that, I realized, there is usually a window during which time one’s writing can still be understood – even, perhaps, be understood more easily than when one wrote it. A generation, two? A hundred years, maybe, stretching it? After that time, too many things need interpreting. Very few works survive a century mark and still make an impact. Who today reads Sartor Resartus, for example?

Well, you did. There are always a few, and those will influence others in their turn not by quoting the books they have read but by quoting who they have become. Thoreau read all those English poets. Hemingway read all those Russian authors. The influence of a few is easily underrated.

Still, you know what I mean. Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God books were very influential for a while; he wrote best-sellers. But will they still influence anybody when they are read only by a scattered few?

Your point really is that some books influence immediately, and some only after the fact, and since yours didn’t do the former, you hope they will do the latter.

Yes, good summary. All those books, all these conversations, so much you have given us, and so carefully; for that matter, the record of my mistakes as I learned my trade, so to speak; I can’t believe it has done what it can do. And, I very much feared that once I am gone, it would disperse, forgotten and unused.

We recognize that this is not you doubting the universe, but you realize, that’s what it will sound like.

Oh, I know. I’m just setting out the situation.

And you never felt able or willing to do the things people do to get seen.

True. I hate most aspects of competition. It always seemed to me that if you, or the universe, whatever, wanted this material to get out there, you could do it. And if you couldn’t, I didn’t know how I could. Take the Rita books. I went through six months of talking to her, transcribing, sending each day’s talk to my lists, and I wasn’t thinking of publication at all. It was Bob Friedman, reading the daily reports, who suggested to me that we put them into book form, and it was Bob who shepherded Rita’s World I and II, and Awakening from the 3D World, and It’s All One World. Valuable stuff in those books – but then Bob died and what do I do?

Your attitude, basically, was and is, “I’m doing what only I can do, and why should I be expected to do the other necessary things that I can’t do?”

Right again.

And so you were stuck.

Well, Chris Nelson was (is) willing to get the material into book form, both printed and electronic. That’s how we put out Papa’s Trial. But that still doesn’t answer the one question every publisher faces. As Bob said to me long ago, “The product is never the problem.” The problem is, how do you let the person who would be interested in the book know that it exists? In the days when we started Hampton Roads, the established paths were obvious. But even then, it was never easy. Today, with the industry having been restructured repeatedly, and with my not even knowing the ropes as they currently exist –

And yesterday you recognized what you could do.

I did. We can give it away. But even that raises issues.

That’s what we are here for.

Of 14 books published, only two involve a publisher with a contract. I could give away the others at my discretion, and I think maybe that’s what I should do.

To be more specific, I could send people the electronic version of my books; the computer files from which they were published. No need to do this for US citizens; they can buy eBooks via Amazon. But foreigners might not find it so easy, and sending them the file – telling them to give it to anyone they know who would be interested – would potentially put an English-language file in many foreign countries where there is no availability otherwise. In other words, we skip the process of finding an agent, and a publisher, and a translator. Anyone who can read English could have the book available.

So, you see why we nudged you to write all this out, asking for people’s opinions.

I do. I see that it isn’t as simple as I thought for a moment. But I think the potential is there.

Making your work available for free does not give it any assured visibility, even among those who would be most likely to value it.

No, but word of mouth is what always has sold books; surely word of mouth combined with an immediate, free, book would be effective.

You are making a distinction between domestic readers and all others. Why not offer the books free to anyone interested?

Somehow that seems like begging: “These books aren’t worth anything. Take a virtual copy off my hands.”

Yet you don’t feel that about foreign language countries.

Chris set up SNN Publishing partly so I would have a way to get my manuscripts into eBook and print format. Doesn’t he deserve to make a little money from those who can easily afford a book?

So you really want a hybrid operation. An English-language publisher domestically and a free-distribution list for anyone in other countries.

I suppose. One step would be to get Chris the various files so he can manage all the books, not just Papa’s Trial. Another step would be to activate the small group I had asked to help me preserve the legacy, see what they think.

So ask yourself, what do you want from the people you send this to? Opinions? Advice? Cautions? Suggestions?

All those, I guess. I suspect that some people will see things I don’t see.

But all this started from a charitable impulse.

It did. Sharon Durand has a friend in Russia who liked Muddy Tracks, so I thought, why not send her more things to read? Then I thought, she may have similarly inclined friends; let them get the files from her, and they’ll have the books too. Then I thought, if Sharon had all the files, she could given them to people as she met them, as she found people who might be interested. Then I thought, why limit it? And that is about as far as I’ve gotten.

Besides, you have more manuscripts ready or nearly ready, and no publishers.

Yep. Okay, let’s send this out and see if anybody has anything to suggest.