Head Spinnin'

[RichardGraham]

Hey Folks,

Sorry I haven't been on here much lately... and it's my own site. Yikes.

It's for a good cause, however. I'm wrapping up the production on my book.

(If you haven't already heard about it a million times, you're not listening or you're dead. In that case, please stop reading now.)

I knew writing "Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks: A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International" would provide some challenges and some difficulties, but I never dreamed how many of those problems would come AFTER I'd finished the writing. Lawsuit threats over the puck chapter, a three-month depression, potential litigation with the art director... who can say what will come next?

The bottom line, however, is that the book WILL be published soon -- and I hope that will before the end of June. THIS year. Thanks for your patience. I do believe it will be a book well worth reading, and I hope, well worth waiting for.

Rock and roll!

[STEMM]

Sounds like it's been tough going - hopefully the book is a success and makes it all worth it.

[RichardGraham]

Hey Stemm,

It's ridiculous, actually. The writing of the book went very well. Only took a year after about four years of research and interviews.

That's when the you know what hit the fan. Alex Bellehumeur threatened lawsuits over the puck chapter, sending me into a three-month depression. When I got out of that, I realized that except for two sentences, which I deleted, the chapter was not actionable.

Then T-Mobile hit me with a $720 overcharge in ONE month that I'm still fighting, because it makes no sense. There's no way I went over in phone calls, as I had unlimited data and text, and I didn't talk on the phone 10 times as much in February and March as I did the previous 10 months. They gave me 24 hours to pay, the bastards.

Then a "friend," the art director on this project, must have smelled money. He claimed I promised him $10,000 to do a job that's worth about $1,000 and took six months to do a job that should take a few weeks.... and still never finished it. I had to get a lawyer, which my father is paying for. Another debt for me to repay. I figure I'm probably $120k in the hole since starting the project.

But you know what? I believe in this book. I think it's very, very good, and I'm proud of it. I just want it to see the light of day. Then let the market decide. I've got a new art director who is going to lay out the text and photographs and he's going to try to do it in a week. Then it will go to Amazon.com's CreateSpace, which will print the first 100 copies that I'm pre-selling. A few weeks after that, the book will be available as a print-on-demand paperback. Sometime after that, I'm not sure how long, it will be available as a Kindle ebook.

Then I have to have it designed for iPad and other reading devices in COLOR! That'll be cool! Thanks for your support -- and patience. The book ABOUT the book should be a doozy. lol