Tag: Publishing

Flash Discount Sale for my book!

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I’m running a discounted sale for my recently released book A Little Bit Of Everything. It will now be available for $0.99 on all Amazon outlets (US/UK/CA … etc.) between 9/25/2017 – 9/30/2017.

Picture1

Here is the link to get you started: Amazon.Com

For those who have had the chance to read my book, I hope you enjoyed it. For those who have just stumbled onto this news recently or missed my previous updates on the release, here is a summary (detailed in an earlier post) to get you on track.

While the tale to be read is fictional in nature, A Little Bit Of Everything is the spiritual successor to my first work in Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir. The foundation of the plot is in fact inspired from very real events in my personal life involving an assortment of themes from love, hope, and dreams to personal identity, friendship, and family. An author’s copy of the book now rests in my bookshelf alongside a massive binder consisting of three different drafts of the work through the years.,

One aspect that sets apart A Little Bit of Everything from Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir involves the illustrations that accompany the story. A picture is worth a thousand words or so they say; I decided to roll with this philosophy in expressing the ideas and emotions of various scenarios through the drawings that span the book’s pages.

Having published the book, I’m both happy, and sad. I’m happy in that I succeeded in bringing to life a story that had resided in my heart for many years; sad in that this wonderful journey has come to an end. Moving onward, I relish in the joy of being able to share my story with all of you!

A Little Bit of Everything is now available through Amazon (Amazon.Com; it’s also available on amazon.ca/.uk/.de/.fr/.es/.it/.jp/.nl/.br/.mx/.in/.au/) as a Kindle e-book. Similarly, the book is also available in paperback format on most of the aforementioned links (a few more days before it will be available on all of them). The paperback format is also distributed through my Createspace E-store (ALBOECreatespace), and will be distributed through online and offline retailers such as Barnes & Noble and to distributors such as Ingram, NACSCORP, Baker & Taylor (which distributes to libraries).

 

A New Adventure…

I was hoping to have this post up last weekend but unfortunately, I couldn’t get down to it. As a good friend of mine would often say,

42445116b9365c9fb277377874a4aff9--naruto-quotes-kakashi-sensei

On the heels of a cumulative three-year journey of writing and publishing my second book A Little Bit Of Everything, as well as the completion of my Masters degree and transition to my doctoral studies, it was inevitable that at some point I was going to burn out. That is indeed what happened over the last two weeks where I got lost on the path of life, all the while feeling apathetic on just about everything.

Thankfully enough, a refreshing long-weekend trip to the nearby dino-town of Drumheller followed by a boat load of procrastination mixed in with a vicious cycle of apartment shopping, movies, anime, and Age of Empires have got me back on track. All of which leads me back to where I’m right now.

BTOOOM-04-Large-10

I’m up for a long haul of work over the next four to five years comprising my doctoral studies. Being one to never look too far ahead into the future, for now, I intend to begin my grand plans on expanding this blog. While I’m still juggling various ideas on how to organize the content that I post on this blog (for example, I intend to scrape the idea of  “Read Along With Me” exclusively in favor of book reviews), as well as setting up an author page, I will begin with going back to my regular routines of posts as usual.

For this week, I would like to lay down the hatchet by completing what has been a long overdue review of Carl Sagan’s Dragons of Eden. This will be followed by a discussion of my experiences with Amazon Kindle, and self-publishing. For those among my readers who aspire to become independent writers in their own stead, I’m hoping to share the resources I have used to find a measure of success in independent publishing.

The posts will be out by this weekend. Meanwhile, I will be continuing to run promotions on A Little Bit Of Everything, while setting the stage for the next triad of writing projects I have planned to develop over the course of my PhD studies. For all my readers who have had a chance to read my book, I really hope you enjoyed it.

I will see you all very soon with my next post!

Presenting “A Little Bit Of Everything”

After three years of hard work, words cannot express how happy I am in making this announcement today on the publication, and official release of my book, A Little Bit of Everything. It has been a long journey leading up to this moment, and I’m glad that the final product turned out to be exactly what I wished for.

While the tale to be read is fictional in nature, the book is a spiritual successor to my first work in Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir. The foundation of the plot is in fact inspired from very real events in my personal life involving an assortment of themes from love, hope, and dreams to personal identity, friendship, and family. An author’s copy of the book now rests in my bookshelf alongside a massive binder consisting of three different drafts of the work through the years.

One aspect that sets apart A Little Bit of Everything from Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir involves the illustrations that accompany the story. A picture is worth a thousand words or so they say; I decided to roll with this philosophy in expressing the ideas and emotions of various scenarios through the drawings that span the book’s pages.

Having published the book, I’m both happy, and sad. I’m happy in that I succeeded in bringing to life a story that had resided in my heart for many years; sad in that this wonderful journey has come to an end. Moving onward, I relish in the joy of being able to share my story with all of you!

A Little Bit of Everything is now available through Amazon (Amazon.Com; it’s also available on amazon.ca/.uk/.de/.fr/.es/.it/.jp/.nl/.br/.mx/.in/.au/) as a Kindle e-book. Similarly, the book is also available in paperback format on most of the aforementioned links (a few more days before it will be available on all of them). The paperback format is also distributed through my Createspace E-store (ALBOECreatespace), and will be distributed (within 6 weeks from publication) through online and offline retailers such as Barnes & Noble and to distributors such as Ingram, NACSCORP, Baker & Taylor (which distributes to libraries).

Over the days to follow, I will consistently provide promotions, and updates that would allow me to talk more in-depth about the book as well as my journey towards publication of the work. I’m thankful to my dedicated audience of readers on this blog. I hope you all get a chance to read the book, and most importantly, enjoy it!

Picture1

 

Almost there…

It has been an ascent of Sisyphean proportions to the summit of publishing my book, and the journey’s end is now in plain sight. Having toiled persistently, I have pushed against the heavy boulder of formatting, and have finally alighted upon the stage of approving the final proof of the book before it is on its way for publication.

sisyphus1

The book will be published in both paperback, and e-book format (thus, the delays and exponential workload in formatting). But, patience is a virtue. Being the perfectionist I am, I want my work to be published at its best quality, and so we continue with this waiting game temporarily. Independent publishing certainly keeps your hands full but it is a wonderful feeling once your book is out. At the least, another week remains before the official date of publication.

Having been so focused on the publishing business, I’ve had little time to post anything new and interesting on the blog, and I apologize for this. While I wait for the proof copy of my paperback to arrive at my doorstep, I will get back on those posts I promised earlier. In fact, I hope to have one up by tomorrow evening, where I will detail my most recent adventures in observing the Perseid meteor showers.

I thank all my readers for their patience. You guys are the best!

Bogged Down With Formatting…

It is a necessary step, but formatting is possibly the most irksome part of publishing a book. That’s pretty much where I’ve been in the last two weeks, wading through a murky swamp of page breaks, indentations, paragraph spacings, margins etc. Having completed the illustrations, along with the cover art for my book, I spent an entire week polishing said images to fit the prerequisite conditions for publication.

As of now I’m alighting upon the final few steps before clicking on that beautiful button “Publish” on my screen. I’m hoping to have the book out by next week, and prior to release, I will provide full details on the work (along with promotions), including where it will be available, and how you, my wonderful readers can get your hands on it. Following the publication, I intend to continue promoting the book on the blog, while getting back to the posts I had planned earlier.

I thank everyone for being patient, and I look forward to sharing my work with you very soon!! Have a great weekend!!

giphy

Getting Fired Up!!

Hi everyone, here’s a quick update!

The last few weeks have been intense, and I’ve been quite busy. Having finally completed the proofreading for my second book, I’m now all set to move into the production phase, beginning with some illustrations.

9b93514a555ac9fd0f92383454e9fe0a--studying-noragami

All art begins with imitation, and as such I have spent the last week pouring over a compendium of images, and ideas I had contemplated for this stage. While progress has been slow (thanks to my perfectionist ideals), I look forward to getting the book out by this fall.

In the meantime,  I also recently finished the three-part series covering various facets on the phenomenon of climate change. The first entry was posted almost a month back on June 25, 2017. Little did I know then that in the days to follow I would successfully secure a research topic for my PhD addressing the very issue I was writing about on my blog. As of now, I have begun my “doctoral” adventures focusing on interdisciplinary research involving “semiconductor mediated artificial photosynthesis…”

tumblr_m94iyfAbyu1rdkqt2o4_r1_250.gif

In simple terms, my research will involve studying, and creating technologies to assist in the mitigation of steadily increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, a major global scientific challenge of the 21st century. Carbon capture is an important issue in the context of climate change as well as the looming global energy crisis; my research, will take inspiration from nature, namely the process of natural photosynthesis (the chemical reaction at the basis of life), and mimic the same behavior through electro-mechanical systems of higher efficiency, or “artificial photosynthesis.” If I were to exaggerate slightly, it would be the same as planting artificial trees that are consistently more efficient in helping recycle the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Having spent the last few days reading an assortment of research papers on this topic, and looking like this for the most part of it,

fb3236b91d47dfa5be843834b5afae92--grey-man-otaku-mode

I’m hoping to put my brain to good use, and to a certain measure, come up with something awesome during my degree, so that one day I could celebrate like this,

tumblr_static_10i3c49kf0xcsk8sswc48g84w.gif

Beyond all this research business, I still intend to keep up to date with my blog despite my busy schedule. In that vein, my next post will be a book review on Luc Ferry’s,

A-Brief-History-of-Thought-Ferry-Luc-97800620742491

I’ve also decided to move along from my extensive summaries on Carl Sagan’s “Dragons of Eden.” Instead, I will provide a rich synopsis of the remainder of the book, while skipping on the gory details. This way I can encourage you, my readers, to read the book itself while not giving away the majority of its contents.

So when all is said and done,  I’m fired up for what’s to come in the next few months.

Carlos+you+unforgiveable+piece+of+if+you+don+t+shut+_5ecc4d3f9f03c6bdd7888f6fa1fc460e

The Pensive Reverie will also continually evolve as I intend to implement a few minor, but significant changes in its content organization. Once again, I thank you all for your patience. The next post should be up very soon!

 

 

Sorry for the wait…

Hi everyone,

Ideally, I would have had a blog post up by now. Unfortunately, I was taken unawares by a sudden bout of sickness that left me out of action for the last week.

20d6a01db545872efef3740bd07ebc36

While it has been a frustrating experience, being bedridden came with its fair share of perks, namely, a lot of reading, and brainstorming (I was physically out of it, but for some reason, my mental faculties were whizzing as usual).

Now that I have recovered to a good measure, I will have the first of a three-part series of posts discussing “Climate Change” online by next weekend. I intend to use this format such that I may be able to cover a wide spectrum of issues, concerning the topic, within the scientific, political, and socio-economic regimes. The goal is to provide for well-deserved communication, and education on a highly controversial subject that is inherently a simple, but significant, circumstance of our interaction with nature.

I will also post a book review on Luc Ferry’s, A Brief History of Thought, which I finished reading recently. Coupled with my efforts to finish my second book, I’m looking forward to a busy week of writing. I intend to move towards pre-production beginning with the necessary illustrations for the book. The goal is to have it published by the end of this summer (at the latest, fingers crossed).

Meanwhile, I shall continue to fight the good fight as I juggle my temporary term of unemployment with my academic endeavors, and my writing. It is quite difficult to keep a regular working schedule, especially when I’m spread thin over various fronts, but hey that is life! As excited as I am now to publish my second book, I can’t wait to get started on the subsequent writing projects I have in store. Similarly, there is a lot to look forward to in the near future, not to mention “evolving” another year  in two weeks’ time. This post was to just inform all of you that I’m still here. Once again, I apologize for the delay!

I will see you all again next weekend!

Memories of a Forgotten Summer

Hi everyone,

Firstly, this post doesn’t pertain to any discussion On the Nature of Knowledge. I’m still piecing together my ideas for that post, and will post it later this week. I’m here today to simply talk about the fun I had this weekend revisiting old memories! Just this Saturday, I attended a series of events celebrating Indie Author Day at the Edmonton Public Library.

indieauthorday_webbanner_780x150_sept2016-670x129

The experience was a lot of fun, and was a motivational reminder on my aspirations to become a successful writer. Having attended a few sessions ranging from discussions on self-publishing, marketing, to friendly advice on just getting your stories heard, I was thoroughly enthused to get back on my writer’s bandwagon by the time I returned home. For those among my followers who may not know, I’m a self-published author. My first book was Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir detailing my experiences in Sudan where I completed my secondary education. The book is dedicated to my closest friends, in memory of our time together at Khartoum American School (K.A.S.), as well as my loving family.

picture-21

I started writing the book back in 2009, and it was published around the summer of 2013 after having undergone a tedious but highly enlightening process of editing, book binding, and marketing with the assistance of iUniverse, a self-publishing company. My original intentions were to continuously promote the book afterward and hopefully help in its sales. My earlier blog, ourlastsummer2013, was meant for this. But, life happened, and following the publication of the book, I became quite jaded about writing and myself. I was also enmeshed in my personal identity crisis. Consequently, my promotional efforts were cut short, and I took a break from writing.

Three years down the road, I found myself sitting in a room filled with Indie authors, spending a few hours re-reading the passages in my book, and revisiting many forgotten memories of my past. I had recovered from my identity crisis thanks to my friends, and family, and am now close to completing a second book that has been in the works for two years. By revisiting said memories of a forgotten summer, I was able to reassess my growth as an individual during the last seven years of my life, ever since I commenced my post-secondary education at the University of Alberta. I was also able to recognize the significant influence writing Our Last Summer had in my life, and felt sad that the book never got the personal recognition it deserved from its own author.

Ever since my childhood, I’ve been passionate about two things: learning and asking questions. These two attributes contribute to my personality as an autodidact and have been the main benefactors towards my motivation for higher studies, and academic pursuits in various fields from astrophysics, biophysics, plasma physics, and in the near future, robotics. My academic interests were also complemented by my love for writing, music, and art. Throughout my life, I’ve been able to engage and enhance my creativity and skills in these different subjects.

Having completed my Masters, and on the verge of finishing my second book, I’m now motivated to unite my interests toward a unique career. I have no idea what exactly it will be, but it certainly will have a mix of everything from being a scientist, writer, and an artist. It will be an infusion of the freedom and happiness I’ve found in my writing, engaging my imaginations and bringing them to fruition through my art and music, and sharing my comprehension of what I learn about the surrounding world to my friends, family, and to all of you! Part of that effort will now involve my dedication toward revamping the promotions on my first book  Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir. I will use The Pensive Reverie (and the Facebook group) along with my Twitter account to provide for promotional materials every now and then ranging from tidbits from the book, to free e-book passes, and reviews.

I sincerely ask all those who follow this blog to help and support my efforts by spreading the word as much as they can and getting others to tune in to the blog as well as my book. The book is available online (just Google it), as well as on popular bookstores (Chapters, Barnes and Noble, Kobo etc.) I will provide more info, including some promo materials, and sneak peeks on Our Last Summer along with my next post On the Nature of Knowledge. 

 

bfb619f7ad5bac6e2f1d7c856b3ad917
Until then, thanks so much everyone, and have a great day!