< Previous: The Harris-Sullivan Debate: III Up: Site Index Next: A Freethinker in Congress! >
Book Update

In October of last year, I posed the question: Daylight Atheism: The Book?, on whether it would be worth the effort to try to compile some of my writings into a form suitable for publication. The response, to my delight, was overwhelmingly positive, and that response combined with other reasons convinced me that this was an endeavor worth embarking upon.

However, the last few months - February in particular - have been a time of great activity here on Daylight Atheism, the blog. There have been far too many major world events and stories relating to atheism for me to resist writing about them. Besides that, I'm very encouraged by the steady growth this site has seen, and I want to continue to cultivate that growth with regular updates and new essays. I want to write this book, but not at the cost of letting my websites languish.

But none of that is an excuse. I owe you, readers, an update on the status of the book, and that's why I'm happy to report I've finished a first draft of the introduction! Although I anticipate this introductory chapter being the shortest one of the book, it will also contain what will probably be the largest amount of new material. It uses excerpts from some of my previous essays and posts, most notably "Unapologetic," but I've written a substantial amount of new content to weave it all together into a coherent theme.

With that in mind, I'd like to extend my readers an offer. For obvious reasons, I don't intend to post the book's content on this site in its entirety. However, I'm grateful to the regular readers and commenters who've made this site what it is, and I would welcome any editorial assistance or suggestions they'd like to make.

Here, then, is my offer - open to anyone who commented on the first book post, as well as all other frequent contributors (you know who you are). If you're interested, e-mail me, and I'll send you the first draft of what I've written so far. In exchange, I want to hear your feedback, whether positive or negative. What parts do you like, what parts need to be strengthened, what other topics should I touch on, and what could stand to be removed altogether? Let's see if we can craft something together that'll send all fundamentalists and would-be theocrats scuttling back into the darkness they came from!

March 6, 2007, 12:23 am • Posted in: The FoyerCommentOptions

Bookmark This:   Del.icio.us del.icio.us   Digg Digg   Reddit Reddit   StumbleUpon StumbleUpon  

5 Comments

Hi Ebonmuse,

I like your writing quite a good deal and I think a book is a great idea, but why stop there? I think that you could have a saturday morning cartoon series which may, in time, spawn a line of action figures and full-size playsets. You could also inspire a videogame for one of the new gaming platforms. For the adults, perhaps a line of collector's plates or commemorative coins would be in order. The sky is the limit!

:)

Cheers,

Matt

A cartoon!?! For CHILDREN??
Can you imagine a cartoon extolling the virtues of godlessness! I think you'll see alternative lifestyles depicted on Saturday mornings long before positive aspects of atheism. I can only imgaine the vitriol, the boycotts, the prophecies of doom such a 'toon would inspire...come to think of it, that's a great idea!

"Dora the Little Paleontologist"

Do it. It's tough to get a publisher though. Most mainstream publishers require an agent who sifts through the bad stuff to present your book to them. I self-published through http://www.trafford.com. My experience is good with them. Some self-publishers just print the book for you, while others demand up to $40,000 for them to promote it. Check Trafford out. However, as a self-published author I could not get my book into any national bookstore.

But with this Blog of yours, and your excellent writing, someone will notice before too long, like what happened with me. My book just got picked up by Prometheus Books and is set to be out in the Fall. Perfect timing, since atheist books are selling well now. I'm pretty excited. Victor J. Stenger's book just made it into the NY Times Best Seller list, and he published through Prometheus Books!

Check Lulu, too - it's what Bora used to publish The Open Laboratory

I've sent out the first chapter to everyone who's requested it so far. If you haven't received it, let me know.

Leave a comment

This comment form is a trap for spambots. If you can see it, don't use it. Use the comment form below.

Please uncheck this box before submitting your comment

Do not uncheck this box

Please uncheck this box before submitting your comment

Do not uncheck this box

Please note: First-time commenters are subject to moderation.

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Comment preview:

Other options:

RECENT POSTS

MUST-READ POSTS (view all)

RECENT COMMENTS

SITE CATEGORIES (explanation)

ARCHIVES

BLOGROLL

PODCASTS

OTHER LINKS

THIS BLOG'S PARENT SITE

SEARCH THIS SITE

WHAT I'M READING

The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins

past books >

The Humanist Symposium
The Out Campaign

RSS 2.0 FEED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WHY "DAYLIGHT ATHEISM"?

FEEDBACK

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Opera
Firefox

Powered by WordPress