New Book

While I was wondering what to write about next, my sister Sharon was in a quandary as to whether or not to retire. So after many discussions and a little math she was on the edge of doing it. Then her doctor pushed her over the edge and told her to retire. So on November first 2008 she retired. At the same time our discussions about her work led me to the next project. So starting on the day after she retired we agreed to collaborate on a project. What is it you say? Well Sharon spent the past twenty three years of her life working as a care giver for mental patients. I guess the politically correct label is Mentally challenged persons.
I was aware of some of the trials and tribulations that she had gone through over the years but not to the extent that I now know and am learning about. The book is a biographical sketch of her life as it pertains to her work and about the patients and other caregivers during this time. There is also a lawsuit brought against the state by her that will be included together with the difficulties she had while the suit was going on and while she continued to work and advocate for her clients. Some of the details of this I cannot divulge until we get the go ahead from the attorney. But what we can put in the book we will put in the book.
Many people believe that closing institutions for the mentally handicapped is a good thing. After listening to Sharon I have come to believe the opposite. The reasons for my belief will be outlined in the book and there are many.
The title for the book comes from an incident that occurred on the first day of her employment and will be used many times throughout the book. "Such a simple task". We are currently looking for an agent to represent this work as we work on it and hope to have a finished product by the end of 2009.
Sharon's goal in this is to shed light on a subject and a people who have been in the shadows for many, many generations. Although they are challenged, they are still people with unique personalities and their treatment should be according to the respect and courtesy accorded a normal person.
So here is to a great project and to a good understanding of another side of life.

Publicity

Or free publicity to be more exact. How does one get free publicity? I am a member of the NorthWest Association of Book Publishers (NWABP), and at our last meeting we had a speaker who talked about just that. He got his by contracting a water born disease while he was an expert on water purity. Not positive publicity and no doubt a very uncomfortable learning process, but he did get notoriety. He now gives lectures on getting free publicity. If you go on the Oprah show and if she likes you then you make a million dollars. Hey Oprah, over here, take me, take me. So now I start thinking, how do I get some of that? Well my book is fiction, or is it? My story is about a young man who gets caught up in the military contractor business due to his knowledge of explosives. I was an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician (EOD) for the military department. The character is a young, brash, self assured, smart ass. Hmmm, well that fit then and some of it still does. I was a civilian who went through the US Naval EOD school in Indian Head Maryland. How did he do that? My wife remembers when I disappeared for two months in 1969, I did? Well now I could make a case for this being a true story then couldn't I. Well I can verify the EOD school and the work with the military department. And I can get many people to testify as to my smart mouth and arrogant attitude back then. But of course the other stuff is not verifiable. Of course the young load master who got shot down in Honduras or one of those places could not verify his either but after an extensive investigation of Ollie North on the Iran Contra deal it became common knowledge who he worked for. Well sort of, was he an employee of the airline or the CIA. Well neither the CIA or Evergreen airlines was ready to step up to the plate on that admission. Of course after that it became common knowledge that these two were in cahoots. I am not sure how it became common knowledge because neither one of them ever admitted to any of their involvement. But there was that aircraft.
At any rate I cannot claim that my story is true even though many parts of it are true because I cannot verify the core of it. Some of it is true about me, some of it is true of others who I knew at the time and listened to their stories and some of it I just made up. Pretty good story though, you should read it. go to http://www.everettede.com/ and download my collections of short stories and see how you like them. One of the short stories is an excerpt from the book. Actually it is a short story that became the book and I incorporated it into the book. Then go to the site for the book (there is a link on the page to do that, Jae thinks of everything) and buy one. It is only $9.95 plus shipping and handling. I do the shipping and handling. And if you buy one this month I will sign all copies that are purchased until October 1st.
And if Ellen wants to talk to me about this I will be more than happy to do that. Oprah too.

Dreams of Death

New Books!
Well actually two new books. I am in the final stages of publishing two e-books comprised of short stories that I have written over the past twenty five years. These books will be available free of any charge to anyone who would like to read them. The sites that they will be available on will be www.everettede.com and www.everettede.net "The" book (Dreams of Death) will be available on those sites as well but it has a cost of $9.95 plus $3.05 shipping and can be purchased using a paypal buy now button on the page. The e-books will have a seperate download button. I am also working on a seperate paypal buy now button for an e-book version of the hard copy of Dreams of Death. I have not worked out the details for this version yet including how much I will need to charge for it.
The two free e-books of short stories includes the short story "Dreams of Death" which I wrote nearly thirty years ago as an assignment for a college creative writing class. This story is a segment of the full book. Read the short version and if you like that then order the hard copy. I am sure that you will enjoy it. Everyone who has given me feedback on it has said that they could not put it down. If you want to wait for the e-book version I should have it ready withing the next two months.

Writing a book

Many people have a book inside them. Some of us actually write one. Then the real work begins. Getting a publisher or an agent to even look at the manuscript much less actually read it is next to impossible.

I wrote a book titled Dreams of Death. It is a story of a young man's thirst for adventure and money and how that thirst was used by the government to seduce him into a secret mission fraught with mis-information, bad information and no information. On a routine mission that was supposed to be a walk in the park a group of highly trained military and para military people have every problem possible confront them, and the walk in the park becomes a run for their lives.

The story is fiction but has some fact in it. I was a Navy trained Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician (EOD) for about ten years. I used this knowledge together with some actual experiences and the experiences of other people who told me their stories to come up with this story line. I also use a precognitive dream or not) to set the stage for the entire book and then the ending is still in question right up until the last sentence.

Unable to find an agent or publisher I decided to publish the book myself. I started my own publishing company (Rivendell Farms Publications) and then went to a printer and had 300 copies printed. I then set up a webpage (http://www.vietnamdreams.com/) to promote and sell the book. I set up a paypal account and put a "buy now" button in the webpage.

It was only then that I realized that I needed some way to get people to navigate to the webpage. Not an easy task, i learned. There are literaly millions of webpages and even when you narrow that to a catagory or even a specific title there are many thousands of competitors for your work. I then found a way to list my book on http://www.amazon.com/ and sent them a box of books so that they could ship them upon purchase.

Then I waited for the money to roll in. I am still waiting. It turns out that even though Amazon lists pretty much every book there is, well... that they list pretty much every book there is. So I am listed on Amazon but so are over 28,000 other people who have books in my catagory. There are even 3 pages of books with the same or similar titles.

Then my son Ethan Ede, who works in marketing, gave me the idea to start a blog. So here i am on my 64th birthday writing my first blog. And since it is my first attempt i would appreciate any feedback from anyone who wishes to convey it.