The Death of David Pickett

“The Death of David Pickett” is a speculative cyberpunk mystery set in 2023 San Francisco as a prequel to my 2042 near-future science fiction thriller “1% Free.”

Part-time archivist and full-time scenester Jesse Steinfeld digs deep, questioning the enigmatic death of charismatic local political activist David Pickett as urban tensions mount. While popular demonstrations occupy San Francisco’s Mission District in the name of a revolutionary “Mission Commune,” bringing the city to the brink of social insurrection, Jesse realizes nothing is as it seems in Pickett’s cryptic life and mysterious demise. The full-throttle street politics of today collide with tomorrow’s slow-motion apocalypse in this explosive tale of identity, mortality, technology, and reality in the city by the bay.

“The Death of David Pickett” is free. Here is a link to the publisher page where you can download it for free in EPUB, MOBI, PDF, and other formats. Read, enjoy, copy, and distribute far and wide. Please review on blogs, Facebook, and websites and please include contact information.

It’s all coming together

The best laid plans…

I’d intended to link the beginning of my campaign to digitally publish, promote, and distribute my story “The Death of David Pickett” by publishing it first through Smashwords. Well, the only way Smashwords let’s me set a publication date for TDDP is by doing a pre-order which requires that I assign the book a price. But TDDP is free, to be given away for free, and so a firm and fast publication date will be impossible. Instead, I’ll send it to Smashwords the weekend of September 22/23, with initial distribution of all digital formats starting the week of September 24. That means I’m dependent on when the manuscript gets digitally published by Smashwords through their infamous “meat grinder” software.

Meanwhile, I’ve created useable EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, PDF, and DOCX files through Scrivener and Calibre and plan to construct my publisher’s download page by next week. I’ve investigated 90+ digital sites—blogging communities, document sharing sites, ebook publishing/syndication platforms—and created viable accounts on the 80 or so promising ones through which to upload my digital files. I’ve already joined a dozen science fiction and cyberpunk Facebook groups and I’m now posting regularly to them in anticipation of promoting and if possible uploading TDDP to them.

The one remaining task that I still need to do is build a MailChimp email list out of the 2,000+ addresses I’ve scrounged together to do a mass advertising email blast. Part of that will be a 150 analog snail-mail-out culled from the various Goodreads POD book giveaways I’ve done. And I’m still debating purchasing an email list from Kirkus Reviews.

All of these efforts are targeted to directly promote and distribute TDDP and indirectly advertise my novel 1% Free. TDDP is a prequel to 1% Free, so everything I’m doing is designed to hit both. The downloadable TDDP itself—the various digital files—provides links through which to purchase 1% Free.

It’s all coming together.

Digital construction report

The digital construction is almost done. I have EPUB, MOBI, and two PDF (5.08×7.8 ppbk and 6×9 trade) files from the Scrivener compiler, and AZW3, LIT, MOBI, and PDF files from running the Scrivener EPUB through Calibre. I completed the Smashwords template and will be scheduling its upload after I examine the publishing requirements for PublishDrive. I’ve paid to upgrade my WordPress website to business and downloaded a plugin to let me host ebooks. By the end of August I’ll thoroughly investigate and log onto 90 some digital sites—various blogging communities, document sharing sites, ebook/POD publishing platforms, ebook syndication, and facebook groups—to host or link to the files. I’ll also be putting together a MailChimp mailing, perhaps augmented with a mailing list purchased from Kirkus Reviews, to promote all my product. I’m on schedule to launch heavy on my digitial book “The Death of David Pickett” by the end of September.

Heavy digital construction

The past few days I’ve been learning how to create ebooks and pdf documents using a word processing program tailored for writers called Scrivener. It’s built-in compiler seems to work well, aside from a few glitches which I’m gradually working through. Troubleshooting is a snap thanks to the internet, plus I ordered a Scrivener for Dummies book as an analog backup. Along with Calibre, which permits easy document editing and conversion to other digital formats, I have all the tools I need to construct multiple digital downloads of my book “The Death of David Pickett” for wide distribution. It’s heavy digital construction.

Back to the “office”

My novel rewrite is progressing in leaps and bounds, so to speak. From February, 2013 through April, 2014, I’ve been taking Cary Tennis‘s Finishing School, a workshop designed to get literary projects done. Last month, I read the whole novel out loud from hard copy, and noted corrections on my printout. Not exactly something I can do in public. With the “reading out loud” done, I’m back to my “office” away from my home office to make the changes in my digital copy in Scrivener. Today, I’m working at an excellent local coffee shop/dining establishment in the Castro called Réveille Coffee (4076 18th St), enjoying a pot of white tea. Here are pictures of my nomadic office. PS–the food here is excellent, if limited!

My office away from the office

I’ve always been a fan of public libraries, as I’ve noted in a previous post. There’s a story that Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 at the UCLA Powell Library, where he pumped dimes into the rental typewriter until he finished the novel. One dime for a half hour of time, costing him nine dollars and change to complete the book. “Libraries raised me,” he [Bradbury] said in a 2009 interview while trying to raise money for a library in Ventura County. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities.… When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” An appreciation of Bradbury’s love for the LA Public Library system can be found here. And above is the entrance to the Eureka Valley Public Library, which I consider one of my offices away from my home office.

The Eureka Valley library is light, airy, and well-maintained. There are plenty of free public access computers, as well as the usual sections for magazines and newspapers, video rentals, childrens area, and even the occasional old-fashioned book. There are also public rest rooms, photography related to the branch’s LGBT focus on the wall, and rotating information/art installations of note.

I use one of the many tables with available outlets to set up my office “on the run” as it were. Here’s my 2011 13-inch MacBook Air, outfitted with a custom Kensington locking stand and cable lock. With my Scrivener software (open to the first “page” of my current novel-in-rewrite entitled “1% Free”) I’m all set. Everything goes back into the bag slung over the chair when I’m done. You’ll notice the copy of San Francisco library locations and hours, as well as a free book I got from the branch, research for my regular monthly MRR columns. Public libraries are truly a gift to the people, not to mention aspiring writers. I can’t repeat enough how much I love them.