Why and What
Last year for New Years I made a blog post about all the things I wanted to accomplish. Pretty high up on the list was for me to write a book. I began work sometime May-ish, and eventually took a hiatus from posting to my blog sometime around July to work on the book full-time. Six or so months, and two complete re-writes later, I have a "finished" product that I'm almost ready to release into the wild.
The book is officially called "The Essence of Free: A Collection of Essays and Letters to My Friends." The book cover can be seen over on the left. See those feet? Yeah, those are mine. Sex appeal worked for selling the polished turd that is the Twilight saga, so I figured what could it hurt for my book?
Just a note about the length: I say it's a book, but it's a short book. Some people call those Singles. It is about 20,000 words long, and probably won't take more than an hour or two to read. It comes out to 111 pages on the Kindle. Books take too long to read, that's why I made mine manageable, and cut out some of the long-winded stuff. You're welcome.
The following is a long, detailed look at the book. Feel free to jump down to the bottom to read about when the darn thing will be available.
The Contents
Part One: Planting Seeds Community
This one is about the role that community plays in my life, and how a simple garden planted a seed. Part Two: Free as in Beer, Free as in Freedom Freedom and Passion
Here I talk about open source software, what Ubuntu is and how I found it, and what role passion plays in our lives. I also talk about the differences between the two definitions of ‘freedom.’ Part Three: The Real World Scenario Work
Here I talk about how important work is (and avoid talking about how much I suck at it). Think Different
This is all about the having the right attitude, why people need to stop whining all the time on various social media websites (hhmpff… Facebook), why freedom is so essential, and a long political rant about why we all need to support and rally around the Occupy Wall Street movement. Part Four: Above the Clouds Opportunity
Here I wrap things up with the story of my trip to Washington with Mountain Electric as part of the Washington Youth Tour. I also tell about my amazing experience in an airport.
Epilogue: A Comet Appears
A few pages to tell another story and apologize for making you sit through 111 pages of nonsense.
References
Quotes, Mentions, and Letters
Disclaimer: I may be forgetting some people. If I do, sorry. You can find out officially when you read it.
Skip Watts - Mention
Madison Vance - Letter
Mr. Hardin - Letter
Jono Bacon - Quotes
Andrea Guinn, Greta Brugess, and Hollie Harrison - Mentions
Louis C.K. - Quote
Matt Asay - An Article About Apple
Milton Canupp - Hinted at if not directly mentioned (final draft pending)
Landon Powell - Mention
Dillon Cable - Mention, I think. Don’t hold me to that. It’s been awhile.
My co-workers from Pal’s - Not directly named, but still important.
And maybe more… if I think of any I’ll edit them in.
When and Where Can I Get It?
I finished the draft two days ago and submitted it to my editor. But, as it turns out, some people actually take the week off after Christmas. Who knew?
I promised it would be ready on December 31st, but that probably won't happen. No matter what, I will post the first chapter as a blog post on December 31st.
After I hear back from my first editor and make my semi-final revisions, I will post the entire thing in full to my website. You can download it and read it on your computers, phones, tablets, and eReaders. Please note- the version I will be putting out will be specially formatted for use with the Kindle and Nook eReaders. It will work with everything else, it will just work slightly better on those platforms. I'll also post a .doc and .odt, so you can just read them in a text editor if you'd prefer.
I will then send it to my final editor, and if people are enjoying the slightly rough copy, I will then make any necessary corrections and publish it on the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook stores.
How Much?
It is available completely free of charge, and always will be.
When the book releases, you can download it at http://nathandyer.me/book (just a note: the current download page is ugly. I'm working on getting it ready for the big day). I will have an Adobe PDF file formatted for eReaders, a .doc, and a .odt file to begin with. I will eventually have special versions for tablets, like the iPad, and other formats, like .mobi and .epub.
Digital only, folks. I never plan on a dead-tree version.
Like I said, you can always download for free on my website. If I decide that it is worth putting on the Kindle and Nook stores, and you would like to support me, they'll be available to purchase for about $0.99. The only reason that I'm charging is because Amazon and B&N charge a small amount to deliver it to your devices, and I need to be able to cover that cost.
How Can I Get My Name in the Back of the Book?
Good question. As I said, I'm giving you a completely unrestricted, unprotected version of the book, in .odt and .doc (Microsoft Word) formats. If you find a mistake, a typo, a whoopsy-daisy- anything, you can fix it and e-mail it back to me. In your e-mail, please list exactly what you changed (for my own reference), and what you would like your name to appear as in the book and- hey, presto! I'll list you as a contributor.
And if it's not clear, contributors make no money. But they get their name in an eBook- which is just as good. I mean, I don't even plan on making money from this thing!
Questions, Comments, or Concerns?
I’m going to post Creative Commons junk at the bottom of this post to explain your rights, if you’re curious.
Still have questions burning inside of you? Leave a comment of this blog post, on Facebook, send me a tweet (twitter.com/nathandyer_me), or drop me an e-mail: [email protected]
Thanks, guys! Hope you enjoy it when it finally comes out. And, if this is the last blog post of mine you read this year, Happy New Year!
-Nathan
Creative Commons
You are free and encouraged to download the book free of charge, share with your friends, and modify the content in any way, under the terms of the license.
The eBook and all related material is licensed under a Creative Commons Non-commercial Share-alike license.
You are free to:
Share – to download, copy, distribute, and transmit the work
Remix – adapt and alter the work
With the understanding that you must:
Attribute – you must physically accredit the author by providing his name, and preferably list his website (nathandyer.me) so that others may obtain additional information.
Non-commercial – not sell or otherwise make money from resulting works
Share-alike – license any modified or altered content under the same license.