Money Report and A GREAT DEAL

The reading at the United Church of Christ went really well. We had about 50 people show up, and many bought books. This was a good week, and I made $28.52 in profits.

Total for the year now . . . $787.05.

Speaking of selling books, I have a deal for you! You can buy my novel, Into the Desperate Country and my short story collection, Emergency Stopping for $23.00. As a bonus, I'll throw in either my short story collection, The Bridge or my collection of poems, Last Name First, First Name Last . . . for free! I will sign all of the books. The $23.00 includes shipping and handling. Send me an email to act on this deal!

jcvandez@delta.edu

The Thunder Machine and Thrasher

Hasbro put out a toy called The Thunder Machine in the early nineties. It came with a dreadnok driver named Thrasher, who was loosely based on the character Mel Gibson played in The Road Warrior. There were quite a few dreadnoks, and they all worked for Zartan, who was a mercenary for Cobra.

In any case, I found an old husk of a Thunder Machine. My son is getting into G.I. Joe -- especially the dreadnoks. So, he and I went down to my workshop to make the old beat-up Thunder Machine driveable again. Eventually, the father/son project became a father project, as he got bored and I became nostalgic for my youth.

Included here are pictures of the Thunder Machine that I made from spare steel in my workshop. I think it's a lot closer to what the real Thunder Machine would look like.

Enjoy.

A New Review

Not too long ago, I reviewed Paul Elwork's novel, The Tea House. I have since put the review on amazon, where you can read it while you are buying his book. Really, it's a good book. Though, it would be better if you ordered the book directly from Casperian books.

www.casperianbooks.com

Well, Paul recently returned the favor and reviewed my novel, Into the Desperate Country. Check it out at . . .

http://paulelwork.livejournal.com/

Just by the quality of his review writing, you can tell how good his novel would be to read.

Me and Amazon

Recently, amazon.com temporarily ran out of stock of my novel, Into the Desperate Country. I noticed that the "temporary" status was becoming pretty permanent. I emailed them and brought it to their attention. They sent me an email back stating . . .

"I apologize for any inconvenience this causes, but at this time "Into the Desperate Country (Paperback)" and "short story collections" by Jeff Vande Zande's are unavailable (Temporarily out of stock) with us and we're not sure if we'll be able to obtain them in the future."

Well, I knew that copies were available, so I took to emailing them everyday, requesting that they at least restock the novel -- which has 11 reviews and does sell from time to time.

Yes, I emailed everyday. And, today I noticed that they have one (1) uno copy of the novel.

So, I'm asking someone to go there and buy it. Make amazon feel the urgency for my book. Do what you want with it when it arrives. Read it. Give it away as a gift. Burn it. (okay, well I guess I shouldn't suggest burning books -- even my own)

In any case, I want amazon to know that they made the right decision in restocking my book. So, please go buy the thing.

Thanks.

A Few Things

Since John Palen is doing such an excellent job getting the word out about our poetry reading, I thought I better use the means available to me (this pitiful blog) to do my part.

So, one more time. This Thursday at 7:00 p.m., John and I will be reading at the United Church of Christ on Chestnut Hill Drive in Midland. I'm told that there will be coffee, some snacks, and books for sale after the event. I know a few local people stop by this blog, and I hope they take the time to stop by the reading.

In reading news, I finished Stegner's Second Growth. Excellent. Incredible, really. His characters are very rich, his plots complex, and his ability to write only that which needs to be written is wonderful to watch. I wonder if Second Growth was overlooked for some reason. I never heard of it, and it's so much better than the Beat stuff that was going on around that same time. In any case, check out the book. Great read.

I also started Dangling Man, Saul Bellow's first novel. Already, I'm glued. Sheesh -- good writing!

Week 25: Le Post de la Cash

This monetary report is dedicated to Dave Larsen who, while on our annual fishing trip this weekend, happened to mention that he checks my monetary reports from time to time.

Here's to you Dave . . . the profits for this past week totalled in at $8.04. Not bad, considering that I was really expecting a big goose egg.

This brings my total for the year so far to . . . $758.53.

I often lament how pitiful my profits seem to be, but Dave often reminds me that my total to date would buy a pretty nice fly rod. Thanks for keeping me grounded, Dave.

And, thanks for the fellowship on our trip. It was a good couple days, wasn't it? Long live Dinty More!

I'm looking forward to our Cedar River venture.

Week Twenty-Four: The Cash Flow

This was a "better than nothing" week . . . seeing profits of a pitiful $1. That brings the total to $750.49 for the year. I think things will do nothing but get worse from here. Summer is a hard time for book sales -- hard to get readings or signings, hard to draw people to events, hard -- in general -- to make that face-to-face sale. For D-list writers, that face-to-face sale is often the only kind of sale. If my profits have climbed past $800.00 by September 1st, I'll be surprised. I'll keep you posted.

In reading news, I did start a new book this week that seems perfect for summer. It's called Second Growth, by Wallace Stegner. It just feels so summery. It's about an East Coast village that gets invaded every summer by, well . . . summer people. Rich people come and vacation and make the town theirs for a few months of the year. It doesn't all come down to class conflict. Stegner's summer people are not all snobs. The villagers are not romanticized. Stegner is a really good writer. I like his characters, and I like the conflicts he develops for them. I always had Stegner vaguely on my radar, but while watching a dvd documentary of Ken Kesey, I learned that Kesey studied under Stegner while at Stanford. Kesey spoke so highly of Stegner that when I went down to my book shelves of endless books that I haven't read yet, Second Growth kind of jumped out at me. Might be worth checking out if you're looking for a summer read.

A Review of The Tea House

I went into Paul Elwork’s The Tea House (Casperian Books) guessing that I wouldn’t like it. Thirteen-year-old main character. Historical novel (set in 1925). Some hint that the paranormal would be involved. It’s just not the type of novel I gravitate toward. How ironic, then, that it is for these three reasons, and others, that I really loved this book.

I don’t pretend to be a book reviewer. There are already some great reviews on amazon.com about The Tea House. In short, the book follows twins Michael and Emily Stewart, and what happens to them when Emily discovers that she can make a disembodied knocking sound with her ankle. They use the sound to trick neighborhood kids into believing that Emily can communicate with ghosts. Eventually, they have the opportunity to trick adults . . . and that’s where things get, well, tricky. And complicated.

It’s funny how in a book with a teenage protagonist that the real focus is on the adults. They are the ones who, made weak by life’s trials, turn to reclusiveness, abandonment, manipulation, reinvention, and despair. Throughout the book, it is the past that haunts these characters and keeps them from fully living in the present. Even when seemingly forgiven for their transgressions, they can’t let the past go. It reminds me of how I often feel. When I was thirteen, I think I felt like I understood life better than I do now at thirty-eight. Like the characters in The Tea House, I often feel like I’m floundering -- wishing for ways to relive the past and make a few different decisions.

For a 168-page book, The Tea House is very complex and weaves together many different sub-plots and characters. Loss. Mourning. Discovery. Empowerment. Clandestine Love. Betrayal. Given its brevity, that’s a lot. Still, Elwork pulls it off because he’s such a skilled writer. I really enjoyed reading and then rereading some of his sentences. After having Emily visit with a group of ladies who desperately want to communicate with the ghosts of their past, Elwork writes, “She knew, even then, though she could hardly tell herself so, that the fear the ladies sat down with on that afternoon had been tended so long it had become hope.” At another point, Emily discovers a locked drawer in her mother’s bedroom, the contents of which her mother uses to commune with her past, and Elwork writes, “It was not lost on Emily that locks on interior doors, cabinets, chests, and dressers protected those within the locked doors of a house from one another.”

The Tea House is haunted by the past of its characters. In the end, what most of us have are the stories of what we’ve been through and how we judge ourselves in the actions and failed actions of those stories. Elwork writes of Emily, “For all she could see, the trees may as well have sprawled away from the Delaware in a vast and continuous forest out to the Atlantic Ocean, a forest full of all the stories told by the people leaving broken arrowheads along the river; living stories that clung to the trees in the same way things waited in the earth; stories upon stories falling backward in time to the sea.”

I’m going to miss this book. I like this creation of Elwork’s. It felt mysterious and good to live there for a time with his characters. I remember circling page 102 because it was at that point that I couldn’t stop reading. I was supposed to go online and track a package due to arrive for our daughter’s birthday. My wife was pretty insistent that I track this package (it was late), but I found myself sitting on the couch in front of the laptop with The Tea House in my hands – turning to the next page and then the next, unable to put it down to do the task at hand. I was risking spousal retribution; I mean, that’s got to be a good book.

So, what I’m saying is that I thought The Tea House was a good book. A really good book. You should read it. Don’t borrow it. Don’t buy it used. Buy it from Casperian Books. One of the important things about The Tea House is that it came out from a small press. Small presses need your support.

Buy the book:

http://www.casperianbooks.com/catalog/shop.html

Paul Elwork’s blog:

http://www.paulelwork.com/The%20Tea%20House.htm

Week 23: $$$$ Report

Power's out at our house, so this is coming a day late. I apologize to those who can't live without it.

This past week I earned $4.00 in profits from my writing. The total for the year thus far is $749.49.

Check out the next post below. There's a poetry reading coming up that you could attend.

If You're in the Area

Midland poet John Palen and I will be doing a reading in Midland soon. Here's a press release that John made up . . .

Two poets who live in Midland will read from their work at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at Midland United Church of Christ, 4100 Chestnut Hill Drive.
The reading by Jeff Vande Zande and John Palen is open free to the public.
Vande Zande, who also writes fiction, teaches writing at Delta College. His latest book of poems is “Poems New, Used, and Rebuilds,” published last year by March Street Press.
Palen teaches journalism at Central Michigan University. His latest book of poetry is “Harry Truman All the Way,” published in January by Pudding House Publications.
Both have also published work frequently in literary magazines.

If you can make it, please stop by.

Just A Wine-Induced Ramble

Not that I've had a lot of wine (just a second glass), but it's enough.

So, today I was out for a run. Man, it was hot. I forgot how the sun can really sap one's strength.

As I running, I saw a full page of newspaper ahead of me on the side of the road. I've been studying existentialism lately, which tells us that a person is the sum total of his/her actions -- not thoughts, beliefs, etc. An action is the actualization of a belief.

In any case, I convinced myself that I had to pick up that piece of paper, crumple it in my fist, and carry it with me until I found a garbage can. There was other garbage around, but this was the piece I had dedicated myself to, and I hoped others would do the same.

I ran with my refuse.

So . . . an eighth of a mile later, what do I find? On the shoulder of the road, I found a Verizon cell phone charger that plugs into a cigarette lighter. I always run with my cell phone (a Verizon), so I tried plugging the charger into it . . . just for laughs.

It fit! Not only that, the damn thing works. I don't have a cigarette lighter charger of my own, so this find was a real boon.

This is my question. Was this Karma or coincidence? Was I being rewarded for my altruistic action. Of course, an existentialist would say no.

What would you say?

Week Twenty-Two Monetary Report

Relatively speaking, another profitable week. I made $8.00 from book sales. To clarify, I sold six books and was handed $62.00. But, the books cost me $54.00 to buy from my publisher. So, the profit is only $8.00. If I had sold the books at full price (which I seldom do), I would have actually had $36.00 in profits. Clearly, I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to turning a profit.

So, let's see . . . adding the eight bucks . . . my profits for the year thus far stand at $745.49.

Pitiful, really, but it's something.

On another note, I did reach a milestone. I wanted to have sold 400 copies of my novel by June 16th of this year (the two-year aniversary of its release). Well, I don't have to wait . . . I can announce now that my novel, Into the Desperate Country, has sold 402 copies.

My new goal? . . . 500 copies sold by next June.

Only 98 to go.

Want to buy one?