Disappointing audiobook news

January 31, 2010 — T J Pontious

There may not be additional outlets for the audiobook version of the Jefferson Bible project. I just spent a solid hour navigating the (labyrinthine) depths of lulu.com, trying to figure out how to do an audiobook download format project. The multimedia download options simply don’t exist any longer. Meanwhile, the audiobook version IS available at eztolistento.com.

I don’t recall getting any communication from lulu.com about the change in availability of audiobooks, and I have another audiobook already published there.

I’ve had heartburn with lulu.com’s commission structures, and how much they take in profit per sale (my average share is about $0.75) and now part of my whole strategy has been removed.

This means the podcast version may be next, which I may do in two different formats – one that is audio only, and another that is more like a picturebook video.  And I may be moving my other business from lulu.com if I find another option that I can afford.  We’ll see. Meanwhile, come back for future updates.

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Jefferson Bible audiobook

January 6, 2010 — T J Pontious

The Jefferson Bible for the 21st Century will be available as an audiobook very soon.  It has been recorded. The post production should wrap up by this weekend.

The first stop for the audiobook is going to be http://eztolistento.com.  They already carry my pilot audiobook project (Alice in Wonderland), but I think this audiobook will make a far more significant splash.  A short sample of the audio, and the complete audiobook will next be moving to lulu.com.

What should I record next? Contenders include Moby Dick, The Age of Reason, or something else?  Feel free to make suggestions on what you’d like to hear at http://thereadingdesk.com.

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Audio book is in progress

December 5, 2009 — T J Pontious

Good news – the audio book version of this project is in progress now. The bad news is that I have had to take a break from production due to a a head cold this week. I’m quite sure you don’t want to listen to my snuffles.  The audio book will go back into active production as soon as I can record clean audio – and hopefully have it up in time for the holiday season.

The first six chapters are done, so that’s something like one-third of the meat of the book.

I appreciate your patience, and feel badly for the delays.

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Misquoting Jesus – book review

October 18, 2009 — T J Pontious

Bart D. Ehrman, 2005, HarperCollins Books

Every once in awhile I find a book that I wish I had found years ago.  Misquoting Jesus came years ago, and I missed it.  I’m just glad I found it when I did.

Misquoting Jesus has an obligatory chapter or two of autobiography, followed by a fairly thorough discussion – in layman’s terms – of just how badly the New Testament has been copied and edited through the years.

He traces the problems of the scribes of the first century, down through the professional scribes of the later centuries, to the Middle Ages and the politics between the Reformation and the Roman Catholic Church.  He points out that the same problems theologians were wrestling with as far as the textual concerns were also fuel for the rational movement.  No wonder it was with vehemence that Thomas Jefferson edited his own selection of verses together.

The point he drives home several times is that even if you believe in the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy (that the words were inspired by God and directed to be written down precisely) the original manuscripts are lost and there is no reckoning of how many changes may have occurred between then and our first printed copies.  You may fervently believe that Scripture is Truth, but you cannot prove that what God intended is what is in your hands on Sunday morning.  Among all of the many manuscripts, he counts over 300,000 discrepancies among those texts, which is more words than the New Testament contains in the first place.

Whether you count yourself as a believer or as someone interested in how the Bible came to us, this is a solid and informative narrative from a very learned point of view.

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Why is Christianity Shrinking?

August 21, 2009 — T J Pontious

Christian churches spend millions of dollars every year in America, on ministries, missionaries, evangelism, and outreach programs.  For whatever reason, however, membership in Christian churches has declined.  This report (New York Times) talks about a new social awareness of atheist (or humanist) groups and their new-found social activism.  Compare and contrast that report with this view from Pew Research that describes a much larger percentage of Americans now who are unaffiliated (Atheist, Agnostic, between churches, or undecided) over the last 20 years.

Why? What’s going on?

Let’s go back in time 20 years.  The 1980s saw the merger of Christianity and conservative American politics.  These were the high-water years of the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration.  Conservative Christianity was feeling its oats – part of the mainstream of political thought.

Ah, perhaps that’s it then.  The church became part of the political landscape and thus became redundant, irrelevant, and a part of the furniture.  Perhaps the Pharisees will never learn?

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Join the marketing party!

August 11, 2009 — T J Pontious

There are three web sites to download the eBook from - Lulu.com (PDF), Scribd.com, (PDF download and free preview) and Smashwords.com (Smashwords has free previews and just about any eBook format download you might need!).  If I have all of these planets in alignment, the download cost is only $1 on all sites now.

Now here is a way for you to help push this project forward:   Smashwords has created an affiliate program.  The simple deal is that if you choose to link to my eBook on Smashwords, you will receive 11% commission on every sale from those visits from your site(s).  You don’t need permission from me, and the link above goes directly to the Smashwords documentation.  You’ll be paid within 48 hours of each sale!

I’m also trying to direct informational links here (to http://jeffbible21.com). This site is my new blog specifically for the book project, and I have set up a Twitter account to go with it.  You can follow @JeffBible21 or browse to http://www.twitter.com/jeffbible21/.

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Google Book Search

August 11, 2009 — T J Pontious

Good news today – the Google book search mavens (I have no idea who these guys are) have determined that yes, I own the copyright to my own book.  I had to sign an email in blood to prove it, but I think they believe me.  I’m glad they are being cautious about which books they are scanning into their search system.  But I also think they could have taken my word for it the first time?

At any rate, this means that this web site will be more visible in search results as search strings match Google what people are searching for on Google.  Yay!

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Re-launching

August 8, 2009 — T J Pontious

Google Book Search – here I come.  I have uploaded the entire text of The Jefferson Bible for the 21st Century! to Google. When anybody is searching for a text string that matches something from the book, they will be given a link here.  Some publishers are really against the idea, even suing Google for even thinking about stealing the copyright to their book.

But it seems the thing to do, since Google isn’t going to be selling books directly – at least not yet.  This gives a marketing outlet that is not the Amazon behemoth, and that’s a good thing.

I’m also going to post a sample chapter or two here so that everybody can get a free preview of what it’s all about. Fair enough?

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The Grey Zone

July 19, 2009 — T J Pontious

The grey zone is the part of the life of a book where it’s sorta published.  Yes, The Jefferson Bible for the 21st Century! is available in paperback and electronic versions, and an audio book version is planned for release soon.  But there are catches.  There are some typos to correct and some marketing to figure out, but we’re nearly there.

We’ve been trying to figure out how to market the book successfully from lulu.com and amazon.com.  Since it is a fairly small book, really.  By the time you add up the printing costs, marketing fees, and associate fees – there’s too many dollars for too few pages. By the time a little profit is factored in, the cost of the book is unattractive in the market.  So we’re re-thinking that strategy.

The eBook version is available on Smashwords right now!  Also a free preview and PDF download are available at Scribd. Stay tuned – there may be coupons in the near future as well.

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