View Full Version : Overview of Publishing Successes: Ideas for Others


RonPrice
03-26-2008, 11:30 PM
SUMMARY OF RON PRICE’S INTERNET PUBLISHING:
HIS CUP OF PUBLISHING TEA:cool:


1. BOOKS:

1.1. The Emergence of a Baha’i Consciousness in World Literature: The Poetry of Roger White. This 350 page ebook is available at Juxta Publishing Limited AND Bahá’í Library Online and can be downloaded free of charge.
1.2. A paperback edition of the above book is available at Lulu.com for $11.48 plus shipping costs from the USA.(ebook and soft cover)
1.3. This self-publishing site also has a four volume work, a study in autobiography, entitled Pioneering Over Four Epochs which is 2500 pages long. Another eBook site: eBookMall has an abridged edition of 1800 pages of this work for $2.98.

2. Internet Site Postings:

Many of my essays, poems and a myriad of different kinds of postings/writings in smaller, more manageable, chunks of an A-4 page or less in size--or a little more--are all free and can be accessed by simply: (a) going to any one of approximately 2000 sites on the WWW or (b) typing some specific words into the goggle(or one of many other) search engines as follows:

2.1 Approximately 2000 Sites:

I post at a wide range of poetry, literature, social science and humanities sites across a wide range of subjects, topics and intellectual disciplines in both popular and academic culture. The list of these sites(some 60 pages of them @30 sites per page) is available to anyone interested by writing to me at: ronprice9@gmail.com. But a simpler method of accessing my postings is to:

2.2 Types of Sets of Words At Google:

There are literally hundreds of sets of words now that will access my writing at various sites. If you type, for example, Ron Price, followed by any one of the following words or word sequences: (i) poetry, (ii) literature, (iii) religion, (iv) Baha’i, (v) history, (vi) Shakespeare, (vii) ancient history, (viii) philosophy, (ix) Islam, (x) Australia Baha’i, (xi) Launceston Baha’i, et cetera, et cetera, you will get anywhere from a few sub-sites to over 300 sub-sites arranged in blocks of ten sites as is the internet convention. The main problem with this way of accessing what I have written is that my work is side by side with dozens of items from other writers and posters who have the same name as mine, the same topic or some other key word that is the same. I have counted some 50 other Ron Prices. You may find their work more interesting. There are some wife bashers, car salesmen, evangelists, media celebrities, a pornographer or two, a fascinating array of chaps who have different things and ideas to flog, names of fame and notoriety and ideas to both support your assumptions or raise questions about them.

2.3 My Personal Internet Site:

http://www.users.on.net/~ronprice/

This tapestry of 42 links endows Baha'i themes and a wide range of social science and humanities subjects with many layers of meaning. The author has tried over several decades to develop a style which is highly individual and, by fusing together much from the humanities and the social and physical sciences, from his own life and his religion, appeals to both the novitiate, the veteran believer and others on a multitude of paths. There are some 3000 pages of autobiographical narrative, poetry, essays and interviews on this website. They can be seen as one long diary or journal.

The author is a Canadian who has been living in Australia for 36 years. He has been married to a Tasmanian for 33 years and they have three children ages 41, 37 and 30(in 2007). He is now retired and at the age of 63 spends most of my time writing. He has some 800 pages of his autobiography on this website. This site is really more of a study in and of autobiography. It links quotations, over 2000, from the social sciences and the humanities, with his life, his society and his religion--the Baha'i Faith. The title of this site is: Pioneering Over Four Epochs.

3. Specific Sites With Much Material:

Some sites have hundreds of pages of my writing and these sites are a sort of middle ground, a different ground, between the above two major categories. The Baha’i Academics Resource Library, for example, has more of my material than at any other site. My writings are listed there under: (a) books, (b) personal letters(#14), (c) poetry, (d) biographies and (e) essays, among other categories/listings. The Roger White book is here under “Secondary Resource Material>Books>Item #55” as is a lengthy slice of my autobiography at #124 and an epic poetry section #125. I find this site useful personally. My material is all free and easily accessed. If readers go to the following URL they will find some 44 categories of my prose-poetry:
http://bahai-library.com/author.php5?author=price


There are some sites at which my writing is found in a very pleasing form with photos and pictures and general settings to catch the eye. Some site organizers have their location beautifully arranged. I leave it to readers to read what pleases them and leave what doesn’t. Don’t feel any obligation to read any of it. After more than 50 years of having to read stuff others/students/teachers gave to read because: (i) they thought it would be good for me and/or (ii) I had to read it as a responsibility of my job or role in life—I like to leave those who read this outline with no sense of any obligation personally or professionally to even cast their glance at words I’ve written.

Concluding Comments:

I had no idea when I retired from full-time employment eight years ago this week in 1999, from part-time work in 2003 and from most volunteer work in 2005, to devote my time as much as possible to writing and promoting various causes---that the internet would be as fertile a base for my offerings as it has become. There are literally millions of words that I have written and posted on this international web of words in the last eight years---since I stopped teaching in post-secondary education in Western Australia in the first week of April 1999 and stopped involving myself in casual and part-time work(2003) and the many causes and leisure pursuits(by 2005) that occupied my time in the earlier stages of my life.

From the early eighties to the early years of this new millennium I tried to get published in a hard or soft cover or in a multitude of magazines and journals in the periodical and popular press. But I had little to no success. My guess is that in the decades/centuries ahead the world will be awash with books and postings from millions of people like me. What I write may not be your cup-of-tea. In that case drink someone else’s tea from someone else’s cup. But for those who may enjoy my writings, I hope the above is a useful outline. This posting certainly indicates what I do—and I leave this information with you for whatever purpose it serves and for anyone who is interested. I shall not be waiting for an avalanche of responses; even one that comes my way always surprises me.

Ron Price
7 April 2007
(updated for Writing Forums
27/3/08):cool:

mammamaia
03-27-2008, 03:20 PM
some questions, if you don't mind, to fill in gaps [or i might have missed the info]:

are all of your books self-published, or have some been taken on by a traditional [paying] press?... if the former, what did it cost you?... if the latter, what kind of advance did they pay?...

are any/all of your books in print, or are they all e-books?

and have you been making a living from the sales?... if so, for how long?... if not, have you at least broken even?...

how many copies has each of your books sold to date?

RonPrice
05-10-2008, 07:59 PM
:cool:are all of your books self-published, or have some been taken on by a traditional [paying] press?... if the former, what did it cost you?... if the latter, what kind of advance did they pay?...
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I did all of the abovethrough eBookMall, Juxta Publishing, Lulu.com
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are any/all of your books in print, or are they all e-books?
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They are all ebooks. I got my first cheque from eBookMall after three years of ebook sales. The cheque was for $1.49 and the laugh was worth its weight in gold.
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and have you been making a living from the sales?... if so, for how long?... if not, have you at least broken even?...
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I make no money; I live on a disability pension in Australia, enough to keep a roof over the heads of my wife and I, feed us and pay for internet facilities, medications and the odd extra. My superannuation package I retired with at 55 paid for our house here in Tasmania; by the time I get to 65 in 14 months I will get the Old Age Pension enough to break even from month to month.-Ron
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how many copies has each of your books sold to date?
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I really have no idea, but let me put my internet work, my writing in context, at least the writing that is read--to whatever extent if difficult to precisely quantify:
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There are now several hundred thousand readers engaged in parts of my internet tapestry, my literary product, my creation, my immense pile of words across the internet--and hundreds of people with whom I correspond on occasion as a result. This amazing technical facility, the world wide web, has made this literary success possible. If my writing had been left in the hands of the traditional hard/soft cover publishers, where it had been languishing without success when I was employed full time as a teacher, lecturer, adult educator and casual/volunteer teacher from 1981 to 2001, these results would never have been achieved.

I have been asked how I have come to have so many readers at my website and in the tapestry of writing I have created across the internet. Let me clarify and describe my tapestry of writing in more detail, a tapestry which for millions of internet users is just another form of ‘published’ writing in addition to the traditional forms. The literally hundreds of thousands of readers I have at locations on my tapestry of prose and poetry, a tapestry I have sewn in a loose-fitting warp and weft across the internet, are found at over 4000 websites where I have registered: forums, message boards, discussion sites, blogs, locations for debate and the exchange of views and sites to place essays, articles, books, ebooks, poems and other genres of writing.

I have registered at this multitude of sites, placed my literary products and engaged in discussions now with enough people to provide some cross-fertilization, but not too much to detract from my own creative work--little by little day by day, as it were.-Ron Price, Tasmania