"He obviously wants to self publish, why doesn't he just go to Amazon KDP?"

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Yes, One Can Be a Writer Without Affording a Secretary · I Think I Know What I am Looking For as Income Pretty Well · A Psychologist Pretended to be Expert on Fact Checking Skills · Language · New blog on the kid: "He obviously wants to self publish, why doesn't he just go to Amazon KDP?" · Diverse People are Pretending I'm Irresponsible, And Have No Idea of What I'm Doing, If I Think I Can Live as an Author

I have actually (probably more than a year ago) been tipped about Amazon KDP.

I concluded back then it would be a trap, for other reasons. Here is how M. K. Williams describes a trap I hadn't even completely reckoned with:

now it's 5:52 been a year and Amy's book is selling 5:55 well on Amazon she has great reviews ...

when she goes to take those same 6:18 files and the same ISBN and upload them 6:21 elsewhere she can't because Amazon owns 6:23 [that] ISBN and the other platforms won't 6:25 accept it so she could fib and cheat the 6:28 system and use a new free ISBN but when 6:31 the bookstores who want to stock the 6:33 book or the libraries search for that 6:34 book it comes up as a totally new book 6:36 with no reviews

NEVER use the "free" ISBN from Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, or any other platform! | Self-Publishing Tip
M.K. Williams | 27 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojSAxJzk1Zs

The one self publishing I am in fact doing is, for free, on my blogs.

The re-publishing, which would be read by people paying to read, should be:

• in physical books on paper;
• by editors (myself in principle not excluded, but that can't happen as long as I have no appartment, and I prefer to have no appartment from the social system, since that precludes giving your flat as adress of a company including obviously a publishing company) and not on the Amazon KDP market
• possible exception for a local self publishing company where I can negotiate conditions.

It should definitely NOT be a question of push-button publishing. For the reason stated above, but also:

• I have by my conditions given a right to every reader to become my (traditional!) publisher (already extant traditional publishers not excluded), and self publishing by Amazon KDP or any similar platform for pushbutton publishing would automatically deprive them of that right, since I would enter a contractual obligation to have given no previous copyright related obligations;
• I know that Pope Michael I used Amazon KDP to republish old books not by him, apart from the copyright implication in pretending a booklet of Nine Papal Condemnations of Heliocentrism (with pre-Conciliar Imprimatur!) was a book by himself, he also fared ill in the sales, and if he concluded "that's how things are" I'm not with him: I think the processing of feeds on Amazon, including Amazon KDP gets some manual input, and I think that those inputs did not favour the visibility of his republishing. I told him he ought to make a publishing company, with paper editions. Apparently he didn't (or at least he didn't extend to me to republish things of mine, despote having vetted lots of posts as doctrinally sane).

So, anyone who pretends that I'm simply too lazy to do the proper initiatives to get my things going, or incoherent, is wrong. I am simply not volunteering for walking into booby traps that do not serve my purpose, and that could hinder it a lot later on.

Now, a French publishing company did publish a French translation of Revd. Victor P. Warkulwiz.* A Catholic (and Novus Ordo, or just possibly Extraordinary Form, so, to Novus Ordos, a priest). They were selling through Chiré. And I contacted Chiré to ask whether they were reprinting it. That's when I discovered Chiré themselves were not that publisher, and the publisher was a no longer extant company. I tried to get hold of them and the new company who had bought their rights was not answering me. So, the French translation for his book is for copyright reasons tied up with "épuisé chez l'éditeur" / "out of stock with the publisher" ...

This is one of the things I try to avoid by my conditions. "Everyone who wants" = no exclusivity on the copyright. You want to publish my Geocentric stuff and go broke tomorrow? As long as you comply with the conditions I've expressed as applying for most of my blogs (three from 42 are no monetary remuneration sought for, all three of them are small), that's not a problem. Because the day after tomorrow, someone else could want to publish them, and you had no exclusivity but just a general licence. Which equally applies to the other guy. When he wants to take up the cause you forsook (by choice or by weakness), he's not hampered by the rights I gave you, because those rights did not exclude him.

Now, some guys in traditional publishing, but ALL platforms for push-button publishing would not see it this way. "If I don't get exclusivity, why should I send you royalty" ... well, a general licence, if you take action and profit from it, is worth something. I even leave it up to you to decide how much it is worth and how much you can afford (intended mainly as a bonus to young aspiring publishers). That's why voluntary royalties are also part of my conditions.

I know perfectly well why I am making the conditions I make, and I also know that I am NOT in a very clumsy and naive way expressing a wish to actually go e-book through the process of push-button publishing. Now you should know that too.

There are other ways in which people have pretended to "question" my ambition to be a writer. Am I a megalomaniac gambler who thinks I can become as famous as Tolkien? Whether I can or not is not the issue. This time of history is not so measly against authors that only the very, very, very best and most known can survive. 5000 authors and translators were having that as their insurance policy for old age in France, back in 2016. I am very certain that you don't know 5000 contemporary people in France who strike you as equally famous as Tolkien. Probably not even 5, certainly you don't know 5000, and that alone makes them less known than Tolkien. Even so, they gain a livelihood from writing and translating books.

Or other way, a writer needs to write every day, could this homeless man really keep up a writing routine? Stephen King writes 2000 words per day, Neil Gaiman 1500. For September I published over 4300 words per day.**

But I think the main pretense for "not taking me seriously" in my project to get my blog posts republished breaks down to three. The one closest to this post is already dealt with, I have conditions that exclude pushg-button publishing, and I have conditions that are probably not attractive to most big traditional publishers.

The other two would be:

• who'd be interested in reading what a homeless person has to say?
• why should YEC and Geocentrism be published?

To the first, I'd answer it should by now be a very interesting thing, since I could have been off the street 14 years ago, if certain other people (at St. Nicolas du Chardonnet) hadn't totally blocked all my attempts at getting a publisher through the parish. So, if fourteen years on a row I remain homeless because of a refusal to publish me (not just that one, but several since then), I think this puts the question on its head. Except to some Hindoos who'd think being homeless shows a bad karma incompatible with the good karma necessary to be a writer. Is that the real rationale for that parish?

To the second, I'd answer, because it's true. It's Evolutionism and Heliocentrism that deserve to find no publisher. If lies find too many publishers and truth finds none, how is that not being in the last days, when those refusing to take a mark cannot buy or sell? But the form of the objection boils down to a left wing "holy war" on "disinformation" ...

So, the perfect excuse for the enemies I have, those who think homelessness should inspire more modesty than shown by writing, and those who think Christianity should not be accessible, is to point to some fatal flaw or omission in what I did myself. There isn't that. There is just a huge amount of people keeping watch and blocking around the very correct initiative I took.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus
3.X.2024

Sanctae Teresiae a Jesu Infante, ex Ordine Carmelitarum Excalceatorum, Virginis, peculiaris omnium Missionum Patronae; cujus dies natalis pridie Kalendas Octobris recensetur.

* I partly cover the story, for those who read French, in this blog post:

New blog on the kid : "Sola Scriptura" ... erreur réelle mais moins grave de Luther, accusation fictice contre Catholiques fidèles
Sunday 16 June 2024 | Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 16:46
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2024/06/sola-scriptura-erreur-reel-mais-moins.html

** New blog on the kid: Production September 2024
Monday 30 September 2024 | Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 16:30
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2024/09/production-september-2024.html