On Tuesday I received the electronic versions of the book from the formatter, and yesterday it occurred to me that I could probably put it on my Kindle now. So, I did, and when it popped up on the screen — looking as slick and professional as any of the books I’ve purchased from major publishers — I might have let loose a womanly squeal.
The coolest part, I think, is seeing the title (and author) listed among the other books I’ve downloaded to the device. None are any more or less prominent than the others, they’re all equal in the eyes of the Kindle. And that’s an amazing thing, an opportunity that didn’t exist five years ago.
I was hoping to have the book available for purchase during the first week of April, but I think Amazon has to approve it first. Then they’ll send me a “proof copy” which I’ll need to check out. And I can’t see all that happening in one week.
Any opinions on me making the Kindle and Nook versions available a week or two before the physical book? I know it’s my decision, but you guys are a part of this and I value your opinions. How important is it to release every version at the same time? That was my original plan, but I’m kinda hooked on that “first week of April” thing. It’s been my target date from the beginning.
Here’s what I’m thinking… On April 1 (April Fool’s Day — perfect!) I’ll make the novel available for download at the Kindle Store, NookBooks, and maybe Apple’s iBooks. On that same day, I’ll start taking pre-orders, one week only, for signed copies of the physical book. The price will be roughly the same as the Amazon price, with shipping and handling. So, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 bucks.
Let me know what you think. And, unless I change my mind for some reason, I’m going to show you folks the cover tomorrow. I love it, and look forward to your feedback.
And I’m sorry to keep talking about the book, but it’s pretty much the only thing on my mind at the moment.
In case you were wondering, the site problems were fixed by my web host yesterday afternoon. I don’t know what happened, and don’t really care. It’s no longer a problem, and that’s all that matters to me. For a couple of days I couldn’t upload important photos, like the one on today’s webcam. And the world was a sadder place. Whew!
And finally, I downloaded a guilty pleasure album this morning, and am enjoying the hell out of it. This one, to be exact. And I’d like to turn that into the Question of the Day.
In the comments section, please tell us about your guilty pleasures. It doesn’t necessarily need to be music. It can be movies, TV shows, food, a Fred Flintstone buttplug… whatever floats your boat. Please tell us all about it.
And I’m gonna call it a day, my friends. Thanks for sticking with me through this current book obsession. I’ll get it under control. Probably.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
See ya then!
first!!!
Guilty pleasures = 1000 count Egyptian Cotton sheets and the best toilet paper I can find
The wife has turned into a coupon nut. She brought home a whole trunk full of free toilet paper a few weeks ago. I swear to god, there’s fucking wood chips in it.
Yeah, some of that stuff is pretty rough. The stuff here at work, you might as well wipe your ass with one of those hand held wood planers.
My brother once did a survey, where he had to use various types of toilet paper, rate each, and mail back his thoughts. I think they paid him five bucks, or something. A couple of his reviews were “afraid of splinters,” and “would rather use a sock.”
My wife got involved in some kind of shampoo testing thing. I tried one of them and it smelled like meat. Smoked meat. Who wants shampoo that smells like ham or summer sausage?
I don’t think she got paid anything, we just got to use the meat shampoo for free. Big whoop.
I can only imagine what kind of answers he would give. LMAO!
A sort of toilet paper-related guilty pleasure:
When we did our whole-house renovation in ’09 (we’d been planning/saving for it for years, and I must say the recession-era pricing on labor and materials was quite attractive), we put a Toto Neorest 550 toilet in the new master bath. The thing automagically opens when you go into the room, has a heated seat (on the “energy saver” setting it memorizes when you usually use it and only heats during that time), and is a combination toilet/bidet with an oscillating wand and warm air drier. It was stupid expensive, but I gotta say it’s worth every penny.
If they don’t have that toilet in Heaven, I’m heading south.
I would buy that. My new house has a damn low flow peggy hill back up model.
Plus it’s too damn low to the ground.
I want the heated seat, bidet, itunes/npr attachment. And I want it to tell me if I need more fiber, and I want it to compliment me if I had a good time the night before.
Question: If you are puking in it could you get bidet’d in the face?
I saw a toilet on tv that the Japanese like to use. There was an electric toothbrush looking thing that came out and (I presume) scrubbed their ass clean.
I saw another toilet at a guy’s house here in Alabama. Had a corded remote to it. All kinds of contraptions came out of it to fondle your balls, or whatever.
I wouldn’t want a toilet that automatically opens when I go in the room because I like it closed when I am not actually using it, but growing up in a house with limited heat (wood stove would go out at night), a heated seat sounds amazing!
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…..
Guilty pleasure would definitely be scratch off lottery tickets. I just know one of these days I’m gonna hit the big payout.
Hoping anyway…
I hit one for 100K a few years back.
That was good day!
How much was the ticket?
Ten bucks.
I hit one for $2 at lunch.
I’ll download the book on Day 1 – the sooner the better!
and if we use the Amazon link, do you get paid twice?
Yes! Brilliant! He WILL get paid twice!
If, for any reason, your $$$ take on the physical book is more, then hold all versions for the physical book.
Otherwise, guilty pleasure = sitting naked in a pile of real mayonnaisy tuna salad, chock full of onions.
LOL!
Howzabout kickin in a free e-version when we pre-pay for the dead tree physical version?
They don’t make books from paper anymore. They are made from recycled Bizzaks.
Blizzaks. Dammit!
Surely you jest? Where would one even find a worn out Blizzak to recycle?
good point…
I wouldn’t be opposed to it, cashoe. But I’d have to figure out a good way to do it. I don’t want to just start attaching files to emails… that could get out of hand.
Don’t do it man, the web can stick it in deep, and on a slant.
Burn it to a CD and stick it in the cover?
or stick it in a envelope and post it with the limited edition book?
Get all fancy and get a stack of those mini-cd’s or the “business card” cd’s and use them?
have your web-guy stick it on your site as a password-needed download?
Maybe I can just discount the price of the signed book, equal to the cost of the ebook, for people who want both? That would probably be the safest way to go about it.
I want both!
dammit, Jeff, don’t start a discount program until you and Toney are doing better financially. If Reporters want discounts from a hard working short form writer, perhaps they can log onto the Twilight site. I understand the author gives discounts to Mormons. Just drink 7-up and treat women badly. You’ll get the discount.
jtb
Look at you, you’re the great white hope.
guilty pleasures:
-watching cartoons from the 1940s and 50s (You know, real cartoons, the ones that usually have dynamite and anvils in them.)
-Peanut Buster Parfait @ DQ (or a Heath Bar Blizzard, in a pinch.)
-Blizzak snow tires.
A pleasure that some people feel guilty about, but I don’t: Cabin Boy with Chris Elliott. It’s a movie that people automatically list as one of the worst of all time, and I don’t know how that got started. ‘Cause it’s funny as hell, and I’ve watched it five or six times.
And……The Homecoming…….
Guilty pleasures – Blizzak tars. Not very often, though, just when I feeling special sporty.
Murder.
Okay, while I fucking HATE Styx, I can’t give you any shit because my guilty pleasure is Whitesnake. (Hangs head in shame)
I supppose I’m gonna have to Kindle the book over here, so, by all means, Kindle first, please. (I really wanted an autographed copy, though…)
Happy Thursday, Surfers!
I only liked their music up through the album Jeff mentions (from 1978). After that, their music was just smudged shit on vinyl. And, Mr. Roboto can GFHS !!
18 year old scotch
Old Milwaukee Light
“When Harry met Sally”
Only two of the three above are true, I’ll let ya’ll ponder which.
Guilty pleasure #1 is, hands down, Five Guys. Then there’s the movies (which I fo’ sho’ know will make the guys cringe) – Moonstruck, A Walk to Remember, and Where the Heart Is (yeah, the Walmart girl). Shut UP. And cheesecake.
And, soon enough, the new Jeff Kay book.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Where the Heart Is on any of Natalie Portman’s bios…I think SHE has some shame about it. And yet, it’s one of my guilty pleasures too, whenever it’s on.
I LOVE Moonstruck. Every minute of it. I don’t care who knows. Moonstruck and cheesecake sounds like a perfect evening.
Count me in on Moonstruck. LOVE it. When my ex and I broke up, he took the DVD player with the Moonstruck DVD still in it. Fucker.
Guilty pleasures are hard for me to describe, because I have no conscience. But I guess I can describe things that might make others blush.
I love my realistic Asian fake vagina. It plays a song when you fuck it, “It’s a Small World Afterall.” My wife got it for me when we had our 5 year anniversary, because I devolped “yellow fever” and her German flesh just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.
I also enjoy vodka, almost daily.
I used to smoke a lot of marijuanna pot weed, but I got a holt of some bad shit one time and I thought I was gonna die.
I smoke cigs now and then (if he smokes, he fucks).
I used to like to go to gentleman clubs, but turns out there were almost no gentleman there. So I quit that.
I don’t know. I’m tapped out today.
Ok….I’m gonna ask but probably be sorry….
How can you tell the fake Va-JJ is Asian? Is it “yellow”?
It’s yellow and hairy as all get out.
Yeah, it looks like Yoko Ono, circa 1970.
Yep. It’s a sascrotch.
Does it have a slanted slit?
No. But it does whimper when you poke it in the ass.
Jeff, I’m going to buy a hard (signed) copy anyway, so giving me a chance to read the Nook version early will just be icing on the bride-shaped cake.
Guilty pleasure? I would eat McDonald’s every meal, every day if I could get away with it, health- and cash-wise.
Have you had a McRib? I had one not too long ago. Nasty. It was like eating a kitchen sponge, soaked in BBQ sauce. What about a McFish, or whatever? I’ve never ever eaten a fish sandwich in my life. It just doesn’t sound good to me.
Omg. That is EXACTLY what a McRib taste like. ‘A kitchen sponge soaked in BBQ sauce’. McFucking Gross.
Whoever made mine went batshit with the onions. I swear, there must have been about a 1-1/2 cups on my “sandwich”. I scraped them off and some landing between the seats of my new car. Stunk it up for weeks.
I would no sooner eat a McRib or Filet O’ Fish than a dirty diaper. Give me beef patties, maybe nuzzled next to one another in twos or threes, maybe separated by a middle bun and special sauce. This is a strictly no-nonsense Mickey D’s fetish.
Sex with a woman with a small vagina, comfortable footwear and a climate-controlled place to defecate.
I don’t know if anyone got that, but I did. Great disguise of a great joke!
Earl Butz! Where ya been, man?
Ya know…if we request Jeff’s book at the library they have to buy it. There are a pant-load of libraries. Just a thought.
Oh dear god, a signed copy of one of the greatest writer of our age’s first book? And only $20? If this is an April Fool’s joke, let it be known, sir, that prefacing a paragraph with “On April 1 (April Fool’s Day — perfect!)” does not allow one to make an April Fool’s joke.
Patty Melt and Fries
Duckies and Bunnies
Take me down to the river, tell me all about the rabbit farm, then blow my fucking brains out.
Oh yeah, I forgot the Blizzaks…
Blizzaks aren’t a guilty pleasure, they’re a goddamn necessity. That is, of course, unless you’re a homosexer. Homosexers are famous for driving around on dunlap tires. And they’ll often rant about ducks and bunnies. Who knows? Whatever blows your hair back, I guess.
Guilty Pleasure–Brownies & Stone Soup Comic Strip.
Release the Kindle & Paperback–At the same time.
$20.00 for the book–seems steep to me.
Nobody’s required to buy, Snaffy. The trade paperback will probably be $13.95 at Amazon, plus $3.99 for shipping. I don’t think $20.00 is too much, but you’re welcome to disagree.
Jeff…
There’s no defence against intentional ignorance, and you aren’t obligated to respond to it.
Snaff…
If you were buying a Chagall, would you feel the canvas and tell the dealer it just wasn’t worth it? This is art son, not five dogs playing poker, not to insult your guilty pleasure. Stay off Jeff’s ass.
jtb
“This is art son, not five dogs playing poker, not to insult your guilty pleasure.”
I hope it’s not too late to add this as one of those literary critic quotes on the back cover.
WTF?? $20 pricey for the words of our fearless leader? i think not.
I’ll tie guilty pleasure into this thread, I once paid $500 for a first edition, first print, Hunt for Red October. If it was signed it would be “worth” $1,800.00.
I plan on putting my signed edition of Crossroads Road into my saftey deposit box then selling it once they are going for $1,800.00, a nice tidy profit of 4 million dollars. BLIZZAK suckas!
I have decided to enjoy all things without guilt, shame, or giving a shit what others think. Don’t like my 60s easy-listening record library? Tough Shit. Don’t like my eating White Castles by the sack? Fuck You. Think my collection of old locomotive pictures is stupid? Kiss my ass.
Have a nice day.
I’d love to see the pics P.R. My Dad ( R.I.P. 1997 ) Worked for Pullman Standard for 40 years. Hands the size of catcher mitts. Heart the size of a coal car and a right cross that made men crumble. Old trains are cool.
I like Deuchars IPA,but beer is getting really expensive.
Freshly ground Papua New Guinea coffee is very nice.
Fettercairn single malt is very good.
Them Crooked Vultures at high volume are wonderfull.
These are a few of my printable guilty pleasures.
Lying in a hot bath reading a book with a whisky and no distractions is about as good as it gets these days.
My life is good.
Ian, When I was in London I became fond of a beer called Timothy Taylor Landlord — from the cask. Are you familiar with that one? It’s impossible to find over here. I wish I had one right now.
I certainly am, and it is very good.
All this talk of beer has compelled me to have one!
Hurrah!!
I think Tim “The Toolman” Taylor can be found somewhere in the higher-numbered realm of channels late at night. Does that help?
I don’t have a Kindle. But I would want a signed copy regardless.
Guilty pleasures:
Hot buttered popcorn. Not that yellow grease that the movie theaters use. REAL Land-o-Lakes salted butter. And a lot of it. I want all the leavins’ at the bottom of the bowl floating in butter soup.
Big Mac with fries. I would eat it everyday if I wouldn’t look like a bowling ball with legs.
King crab legs with melted butter rolling down my arm. So messy it’s just easier to eat them while sitting in a trashbag.
80’s music. Big hair bands. I can feel the tomatoes being lobbed at me now. Sorry. That was my shit.
Lay’s Potato Chips. So salty I look like a blow fish the next morning.
“King crab legs with melted butter rolling down my arm. So messy it’s just easier to eat them while sitting in a trashbag.”
That actually made me laugh out loud.
Sooner the better for the book. I’d prefer the iBooks version but will settle for the Kindle version.
If you buy the E-book, do you have to have a kindle or nook to read it? or can i read it on my PC with Adobe .pdf file reader thing?
If you have a smartphone, there’s a free Kindle app.
There’s also the Kindle for PC app, which is free and really good. I read two books on it, before I got my Kindle.
Jeff, how do I get that? I’m not quite up to speed with the Kindle.
You can download it at:
http://amazon.com/KindleForPC
Done. Thanks Jeff!
IT’S A FUCKING BOOK. WRITTEN BY THE GUY YOU ENJOY READING EVERY DAY. BUY IT. READ IT. LEND IT. LOSE IT. BUY ANOTHER COPY. CARRY IT IN YOUR BACKPACK. GOOD LORD IN HEAVEN, HAVE SOME PERSPECTIVE.
.
Uh, Jeff, I have a Lon Dik smartfone that plays only mp5. If I convert from the Kindle format through the Nook format and shoot it through my firewall, will all the original capital letters vanish?
IT’S A BOOK. BUY. READ. ENJOY.
That’s just about fuckin’ all for now.
love,
jtb
Kevin, that wasn’t aimed at you. It was the previous dozen tech questions and questions about saving 5 bucks that sent me over the edge. Live and be well.
jtb
This is what technology has brought us.
Probably why JD Salinger avoided the general public.
Brilliantly true,
That may be the funniest non-Jeff K. written things I have read in years!
WTF? How big is her whoohaa? Two dimes and and two pennies? Jesus, can you just see the Dr’s face as he is removing all that stuff. Not sure how big a bag is, but JESUS – bad enough to put monthly plugs in there! (I know TMI)
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Police in northeastern Pennsylvania say they recovered more than 50 bags of heroin, cash and loose change from a woman following a cavity search.
Authorities say 27-year-old Karin Mackaliunas was detained last weekend following a crash. Scranton police say they found three bags of heroin in her jacket and after being taken to the police station she told investigators she had more hidden in her vagina.
A doctor performed a search and recovered 54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, prescription pills and $51.22.
Mackaliunas was jailed on $25,000 bail on charges including possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. It was not clear if she had an attorney.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday.
They left out that she had an extra pair of gloves, some chapstick, a hand mirror, tweezers, and a reciept in case she need to return anything.
Just joking about everything else but the story I read said there was a reciept in there too.
She was released after she pulled the 25 grand in cash from her anus. Denominations were not revealed.
I doesn’t matter to me if they are released the same day or not. It will be an awesome read regardless of format!
Puerto Rican whores with big butts, my god, I can’t get enough of them.
I will def. buy the Kindle edition!
Guilty pleasures…. looking at wimmins wearing FMPs. Preferably, wearing only FMP’s.
Hey, go look at the further evidence link. The guy has his arm around the bride. Looks like his left arm is about 8 feet long.
And you’d think that she would have made the cake a bit thinner. Hell, it looks like the cake is has more heft than she does! (I said heft.)
“Honey, does this cake make my ass look big?”
I wonder if the hair on the cake is edible?
I wonder if she has a hair pie?
Ut oh, somebody just woke up “little jason”.
“On that same day, I’ll start taking pre-orders, one week only, for signed copies of the physical book. The price will be roughly the same as the Amazon price, with shipping and handling. So, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 bucks.”
Count me in on this deal. I know it’s sad but it will be the first book I’ve read from cover to cover in a long time.
Guilty pleasures??? Would masturbation count if you feel bad about it after? lol.
Count me in for the hard copy edition! Can’t wait!
My guilty pleasure is hot wings. I sincerely love hot wings and could probably eat 30 of them if I tried. But not hooters wings, cos those are too…breaded. Buffalo Wild Wings has pretty awesome wings. Some spicy garlic or hot sauce…mmmmmmmmmmmmm. My other guilty pleasure is cheese. Just cheese. If I could get away with devouring a block of 8 year aged smoked cheddar straight from Wisconsin, I would.
CHEESE!!! I too love cheese but do not feel guilty about it.
I used that kind as an example because I just bought some while we were in Wisconsin a few weeks ago:)
If you ever make it to Jeff’s hometown, you need to check out Cold Spot, where Jeff and I used to buy and consume beer (in mass quantities) at age 15.
http://www.thecoldspot.com
Thanks! I’d love too! I’m drinking beer as we speak 🙂 I trust that this bar is somewhat of a ‘hole in the wall’ because if so, it makes it that much better!
Love me some buffalo wings as well, dunked in bleu cheese dressing, and the hotter the better. Also, not a fan of Hooters in general, going to place where I’m SUPPOSED to look at boobies takes all the fun out of it.
Other guilty pleasures not pertaining to food: Dave Ghrol (Foo Fighters) and Brandon Boyd (Incubus)…those voices. Ohhh those voices. I also love wasting money on make-up…screw clothes and shoes…just make up. And I don’t even wear that much, I just love buying it for some reason…
I too love makeup. Mostly eye shadow. But I do feel guilty about it.
Gah, I knew it.
You don’t wear that much what? Clothes? Hmmmm?
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If I like something, I like it.
I didn’t care what people thought of what I liked when I was young, and I certainty don’t care what they think now that I am old.
I am not really a fan of much so-called indie rock, or punk rock or whatever it is called – so I would rather listen to Styx anyhow.
Renegade is a fantastic running song
The first song I ever played onstage (drums) in a combo was in fact The Queen of Spades from the Pieces of Eight Album. I was in 8th grade.
I guess I still have a soft spot in my heart for this record
I would have guessd “Aku Aku”.
Kiss & Olivia Newton-John
I belonged to the Kiss Army and the Olivia Newton-John fan club at the same time in the 70s.
Jeff, will the orders for the hard copy be through Amazon or will you offer it here?
Jeff, I am going to Three Floyds brewery on Saturday for a tour of the brewery, there just may very well be a new smokin’ fish sighting there 😉
I love brewery tours! Looking forward to the pics, and a full report in the comments.
My friend who lurks here hits dark lord day at three floyds every year. Probably not this year since his second secret is due and it’s probably bad form to go into labor in the super awesome beer line.
Me and Ben got tickets to Dark Lord Fest there, it should be a blasty blast. I’m definitely not what you would call a beer connoisseur seeing as though my beer of choice is Select 55, but I’m gonna try goddammit. I’m gonna swish the beers around and bask in all there glory…I will probably gag and my eyes will be watering alot from gagging them down, but I’ll be having fun doing it! By the way, Dark Lord is there Russian Imperial stout that is as black as molassas and tastes like furniture polish that they only sell once a year. They sold 6000 tickets this year and they sold out in appx 3 minutes. We got our 2 tickets by a stroke of luck. They will have food and bands and people can take their homemade brews in for tastings and tradings. Ben’s got some brewing at home right now. Some kind of boysenberry concoction that I’m waiting to try. Should be fun!
Jeff, I will!
I have a bad habit of sending messages unfinished, I will post pics!
I know what you mean sometimes I
Guilty pleasures– small arms ammunition and guns, also girl country and candles…goddamn do I love candles.
Count me in for a signed hard copy too!
bear…
Just a question, combining your pleasures. How many candles can you extinguish in 10 shots with a handgun (your choice) from 50 feet? Or, if you don’t have a 50 foot long house, from 30 feet (this is best done indoors because of the wind/flicker effect outside).
jtb
I’ll buy a physical book and then scan it in page by page and read it on my Tstindle.
Guilty pleasure? Screwing over fledgling writers.
Seriously though, what about a free book for every keg purchase? Not exactly economical but I think we’ve shown that we’ll pay for things we want.
I am really, really hoping for an iBooks release, that would certainly be my preferred way to read the book, but I will be ordering a signed copy as well. Can’t wait!
I’ll be ordering a signed paper copy for sure.
Look forward to reading the book, Jeff.
When I turned 16 & before I got my first car, I drove the family’s “spare car”…a ’71 Impala convertible with a factory 8-track tape player. This was in1980, so cassettes were taking over & 8-tracks on the way out. I bought some used 8 tracks to play in that car & “Pieces of Eight” was one of them. Later, I found out that my Dad was playing it whenever he drove the car. I remember being shocked that my he would listen to Styx, when he was more of a Dave Brubeck or Kingston Trio kind of guy. I could never get over the image of him rocking out to “Renegade”, but he seemed to like Styx, so..who knew?
I’ll buy both book & kindle download, but I want the book signed by the author, not one of his secrets.
I’ll pay double if the author has Sunshine, Mumbles, Nancy or Nostrils sign the book.
How do people’s noses make that horrible honking sound when they blow their nose.?
When I blow my nose it just sounds like air whooshing through then a splat of snot on the wall just above the urinal (that’s where it’s supposed to go, I learned it in corporate America). There is no elaborate clown horn sound or comical kablooie or any of that shit.
We used to have an employee that would wipe his boogers on the wall in the bathroom. What is up with that? Don’t people grow up at some point? AND to top it off – I used to be the one that had to clean that nasty crap off the walls. The cleaning company that we hired refused to go in there and clean it. We did get a new company, and the guy finally quit. But Christ – I wouldn’t go to his house and do that, why should he do it at my business?
Thats just frickin gross! I would’ve fired his ass.
We weren’t positive who it was until he left and the booger wall trophies stopped.
Ice, I’ll have to admit I make that horrible honking sound. It’s the only way to clear my sinuses. They’re very restricted. The vibration loosens the material better than any other method. The whooshing method does nothing for me. I might as well be breathing through my nose. maybe you’ve heard me. I do it really well.
I will definitely order a signed copy of “The Book”!!!
I never feel guilty about any of the pleasures I indulge…..
All my pleasures are guilty ones….
Damnit Jeff!! Just release the freaking book already! Kindle, Nook, Paperback, toilet paper version*, whatever!! Just give us a dang link and see what happens!
*If you do a version printed on toilet paper more people who never read would. But I want credit for the idea.*
plus You could print it in a four pack. teehee
I want a signed copy of the real thing but if the virtual version is released first I’ll pick up one of those too…now that I’ve downloaded the free kindle pc app. I don’t want to be in the dark when the surf reporters start discussing that oh so important plot twist in chapter 9.
wAIT? You know about the plot twist? The part where Ralph Maccio learns to play guitar and starts a non-denominational church in Cincinnati?
Shit.