If you aren’t interested in self-publishing a book, ignore this post. It’s not actually a post, it’s a boring rant.

The physical publication side of getting my book out there is driving me nuts. Writing it was one thing, but the agonies of formatting and formalities are beating me down.

Publishing Madrugada  for print seems a lot harder than when I did 2012: Deadly Awakening. First of all, it took me about ten years to write Madrugada. I like this book far more than the other one, and can’t seem to stop editing and proofing – and I always find things wrong or things that need improvement. I have to stop sometime.

There is a word in Yiddish – to patchkie. It kind of means to mess around pointlessly, like Stop patchkying with your food and eat it already! I am patchkying with my text.

I sent the idea for the cover art, done by a friend, to a professional book cover designer. I found her after a few false starts and I love what she has done. I only hope the readers like the book as much as they like the cover. Her name is Christine DeMaio-Rice at flipcitycovers.blogspot.com.

I thought I was about done, and then I remembered I need an ISBN number. I went online to that awful Bowker company, the firm that for some reason has sole rights to dispensing these numbers, and I see that they will no longer let you buy just one number. You have to buy a block of ten and that costs $275. I don’t know what I would do with ten ISBN numbers. Apparently, they are catering to publishers.

See my previous posts about Bowker:

http://gorbman.com/2009/11/14/getting-isbn-numbers/

and

http://gorbman.com/2009/11/16/bowker-company-isbn-website/

There are more, but that’s enough.

Fortunately, now there are bunch of little companies, that no doubt buy ISBNs from Bowker in bulk, and then sell them in lower denominations. A single ISBN number through one of these outfits costs $55. And it takes a few weeks!!!

Now onto the huger problem. This is totally my fault and my personal failing, but CreateSpace, the company that helps you make your manuscript into a physical book, is hard (for me) to negotiate. They provide a selection of dimensions for your book and you pick one. So far, so good.

Then they provide a number of templates, so you get to squish your copy into the template of your choice. This is a great idea, but still requires some talents that I lack.

Let me stress that CreateSpace does a fabulous job. The problems are mine. I should have paid more attention to formatting in Word a long time ago. I never even learned to do a style sheet. Despite a long career writing technical manuals, I somehow slid through.

I am stumped on several things. Like how do you number the frontmatter in those cute little lower-case roman numerals and then start the regular numbers on the first page of book text?

How do you get all the chapter heads into the same format?  Of course, this is the whole point of a template – for a normally intellignet person, this is practically done for you. But not me, nope. There are some instructions for this back on the CreateSpace site, I think, and I need to go back and look, but when you’re anxious to get your book up and running, it is frustrating (at least to me) to have to master the art of page layout. Writing and page layout are not talents that reside within the same person, at least not inside this person.

Last time I did this, they didn’t even have the templates and it was far worse, but some kind friends helped me through the worst of it.

Of course, now that the book is in the format template, I keep finding more things wrong with it. Can’t let it alone. So I’m still doing edits. Still patchkying.

I should mention here that I had similar agonies getting Madrugada into shape for electronic publication throught the fabulous company, Smashwords. The people there actually answered my stupid questions for a long time, and then finally, just took the manuscript and tweaked the damned thing themselves. I am forever grateful. The owner, Mark Coker, is dedicated to publishing the best eBook products possible.

So as things stand now, Madrugada is in a template (for print), but I have given up on headers. They are simply beyond me. For while, I had three conflicting headers all up at once, and finally managed to delete all of them. I did get page numbers going, but not the special ones for the frontmatter.

I have to go through and make sure chapters all start on a right-hand page. And that all the chapter heads are uniform (they aren’t).

I decided I don’t need a table of contents. And since I cannot master headers, I will forego putting Madrugada on top of the pages. I mean, for god’s sake, they should know what they’re reading without me pointing out every minute.

Madrugada is about the theft of artifacts from the archaeological site of Yaxum, located in a small Maya village of the same name. One of the archaeologists is ritualistically murdered with a huge obsidian axe and it is up to Miriam Glass, a detective from New York, and Jose Luis Contreras, a police captain with the Yucatan state police, to solve the grisly crime.

The secondary theme of the book is the effect of outside influence on a naive, isolated village. An encampment of American archaeologists has taken up residence in Yaxum and there are ramifications – good and bad.

There are two protagonists – Ms. Glass, and the head man of Yaxum, Avram Ek Caab. Miriam and Avram, although from different worlds, share important values.

In this, the second Miriam Glass book, Miriam explores her relationship with Captain Contreras.

Madrugada is based on a real village and a real archaeological site. Some of the less sensationalistic events are true. I wrote most of it some years ago, and just finished it recently. I have been to the village discussed in the book, may times. There was a real head man of this village, who I knew. He was wise, soft-spoken and immersed in Maya magic, as is the character in this book. And the American archaeologist who ran the dig had a personality remakably similar to Dr. Frey in this book. A lot of the anecdotes in regard to Frey are based on real events.

And of course, the book includes many bizarre American expats, based on real people who were in Merida in the 80s. Some of them even retain their real names! I can only pray that their relatives sue me. I can use the publicity.

Go to Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords, Apple eBooks and other eBook outlets and look for Madrugada.

Order from Amazon. Download to your Kindle or other reading machine. Press this link:

Have you noticed that there are orders of magnitude more people calling for the end of the world in the forseeable future? It used to be that these ideas were forced on you mostly by old guys with grey beards on the streets of New York, barefoot and holding calamitous signs. Sometimes they would stand on wooden boxes and people would drift in and out of their temporary congregations as they urged us to repent because the end was near.

Today, I was in a public building waiting for someone and innocently sat on a bench next to a grandmotherly looking lady in a yellow dress. I wasn’t there thirty seconds before she started the Jehovah’s Witness rap about how this misery of life on earth has about run its course, that the remaining time will be spent in increasing unhappiness, but that you can joyously live forever, in a manner of speaking, by joining up. She showered me with illustrated paperwork.

And today someone sent me an email having to to do with the world ending on Saturday, May 21 2011. Why, that’s right around the corner. Hardly time to prepare. On that day, arrived at by a magical confluence of random numbers and signs, there will be a giant earthquake that destroys the planet. But wait! There’s more! The planet won’t be completely decimated that day, just severely damaged and clearly doomed. May 21 will be followed by five months of complete torment as everything we know and love shrivels into nothingness.

It seems like a pointless time to change religions.

All this pales in comparison to the hubub around December 21 2012. I find this particular cataclysmic possibility exciting because it is so multi-dimensional. Absolutely everyone is involved, from intellectuals, to spiritual seers, to astrologers and more. For some reason, Italians are particularly interested in this doomsday. Also slick marketing organizations offering everything from bunker gear to silk, tie-dyed clothing appropriate for passage to the next world.

Planet X, aka Nibiru, is due to nearly collide with earth on 12/21/2012. Some say it will be possible to get seats on spaceships which will be parked and ready at Chichen Itza, for those of us interested in starting a new civilization. The University of Yucatan Department of Astronomy has academic coursework on Nibiru, affording it a smidgen of credibility.

An enterprising group of Italians have purchased a huge, isolated tract of land in a remote part of Yucatan (near Xul) where they are building bunkers to hold thousands of people. Europeans and Americans are buying in. The place is called Las Aguilas. I keep driving out there trying to get in, but to no avail. I am no match for the miles of electrified fencing and when we once ran into some people coming out of there, they were beyond unfriendly. Can’t say that I blame them.

Hundreds of thousands of people will converge on or near the fateful date at various “sacred places” in the world, including Chichen Itza. The place will be a spectacle. Merida Yucatan, where I live p/t, will be impossibly overrun. Not enough food or bathrooms. Nowhere to sleep. I hope the city is prepared.

Every few weeks I punch “2012″ into Google. A few months ago, I was amazed to see 882 MILLION references. Today, May 11 2011, there are ONE BILLION, TWO HUNDRED TWENTY THOUSAND. When you consider the creative effort that goes into every one of these references or websites, the mind boggles.

I just came upon a delightful website called Armageddon Online. It covers just about everything.

Read my book! 2012: Deadly Awakening. Buy it from Amazon or any eBook site.

Electronic version less expensive.

Madrugada will be released soon, first on eBooks and then as a hardcover. This is the beginning of the book, a tale about theft of artifacts from a Maya dig called Yaxum. The main characters are the same ones as in 2012: Deadly Awakening, but Madrugada takes place some years earlier.

MADRUGADA

by
Beryl Gorbman

Prologue

July 1995

Jesus, but it was hot. The puto maintenance boy had turned off the air conditioning at nine p.m. and even though it was nearing three a.m., the Yucatan night was still stifling both outdoors and in. The handle of the magnifying glass in Ignacio’s Lopez Uicab’s hand was slippery with sweat as he sat at his desk, and the high-wattage bulbs from his desk lamp felt like furnaces.

He dotted the final “i”s and crossed the final “t”s in his notes and reverentially replaced the jade artifacts in the wooden storage tray, ready to go into the museum vault. He glanced sideways at the three-foot-long, gleaming obsidian axe standing in the corner of his office and felt a slight shiver. I’ll be damned if I’m making two trips up and down the steps in this heat, he thought. The thing can stay in the office overnight.

Was that a muffled sound in the hall? Surprised that anyone else was there at this hour, Ignacio stuck his head outside the door.
“Who’s there?”

Silence. “Now I’m hallucinating,” he muttered, as he gathered up his things, the tray in one hand and his briefcase in the other.

He carried the tray carefully down the first flight of stairs and had started down toward the basement before he heard the sounds. Heavy breathing. A definite footstep.

The hairs went up on the back of his neck. Just as he turned, he felt the impact of the blade on his throat. Hard and swift. His eyes opened in horror as he registered the retreating mass of black obsidian, still gleaming, now dripping with deep red arterial blood. He stared stupidly for a few seconds at the regular spurts of blood – huge amounts of blood – pumping pumping pumping. My God, he thought, that’s mine!

A confusing maze of images inundated his brain. Why was the black obsidian retreating? Was he falling? No, his feet were still on the floor. He tried to scream, but strangely, he had no breath.

The impact of his head hitting the stone of the stairway confused him for a few moments.

Chapter 1.
July 1995
Seventy kilometers southeast of Merida, Yucatan

How hot must a person get before her skin starts to deteriorate like a rotting tomato left too long on the window sill? And how hot would I have to get before I passed out? My thoughts as I schlep miserably down a narrow, sun-drenched road in the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula in the killer summer afternoon heat.

About five minutes ago, Id driven through a charming town called Dzam, known for its stone carvings. As I continued north, my windows open wide to let the hot air hit my face, the engine in my un-air-conditioned rented Nissan sputtered and died, as if it had gone on strike due to unacceptable weather.

The next town up the road is Mani, a village with a giant and historic cathedral. It is six kilometers ahead. Dzam is over ten kilometers back. I walk miserably toward Mani, which happens to be my destination today.

Not only is it beastly hot, but the humidity is so high that my skirt feels damp to the touch. I’m sweating so hard that the blue bandana I’ve tied around my forehead is dripping. Everything is wet, even my usually comfortable Birkenstocks, which are rubbing against my feet and creating new areas of inflamed hell. And my camera strap has forged a permanent dent in my neck.

My plane was late getting in from New York last night, so on top of everything else, I’m sleep deprived.

This is better than frying in the car, I tell myself. I could see the headlines now. “Foreign Woman Found Dead of Dehydration In Car.” An ignominious end to a confusing and unresolved life.

In a Herculean effort, I’d pushed the Nissan to the side of the road and extracted my camera case, pack and half a bottle of precious water. Now I’m hoping I make it to Mani before sunset, when droves of mosquitoes will descend on every living thing, especially me, and dine until they can barely fly.

I’m looking forward to meeting my colleague, Ignacio Lopez Uicab, in Mani. He’s an archaeologist with the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, commonly known as INAH, the agency that oversees Mexican museums and archaeological sites. Right now he’s coordinating work at a new dig called Yaxum, about fifteen miles southwest of the world-famous Maya city of Chichen Itza.

Ignacio is writing a scholarly paper about some of the surprising findings an American archaeological team has unearthed in the Yaxum ruins, and has asked me to come down and do the documentary photography. I’ve been taking pictures professionally for about seven years. Buildings, artifacts, animals, furnishings, food, anything but people. Photographing human beings means looking into their eyes; it’s an emotionally intimate process I’d rather avoid. This assignment is perfect, even though it’s July and the weather is stultifying and horrendous. I love working with inanimate objects.

If I’m lucky, my buddy Katrina will show up in Mani too, on her way back from a week in Belize. I’d told her when I planned to be there, and she was going to try and time her drive accordingly.

Oh, if Ignacio could see me now. I’m picturing him sitting in the garden of the Mani cathedral, in back near the convent, marking up his manuscript. He is relaxed and serene, sipping away at a glass of iced tea. The thought of clinking ice cubes makes me crazy. To make my fantasy even worse, there is a second glass on the table next to the sweating pitcher as he waits for me.

Maybe after a while he’ll wonder where the hell I am and take a ride down the road to find me. Or maybe Katrina will be driving in from this direction. Wishful thinking.

Suddenly I hear a crashing in the dense bush beside the road. Maybe I’m not alone after all. I stop walking. The sounds continue and a giant anteater sidles out onto the road and majestically crosses to the other side. I wish I could get my camera out to capture him, but I don’t have the energy, so I’ll just have to remember.

He’s a bizarre looking animal, about three feet tall, with brown fur and a nose that reaches to the ground. He looks prehistoric and I am mesmerized, lucky to see this rare creature.

Maybe this awful walk is worth it – just to see him. But as I start walking again, my feet burning, sweat running into my eyes, and the sun beating on my bare head, I conclude that nothing is worth this, not even anteaters, armadillos, and deer combined.

Despite my whining about the heat, I love the Yucatan. I have a long history here. I used to come down with Michael, my then-husband, and my son Jay. Ten years ago my life changed drastically when Jay was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Riverside Drive, Manhattan, right in front of our apartment building. It’s been hard to get me happy since Jay died. The best I usually go for is peaceful.

I am fighting to keep from thinking about my son right now, because I need to concentrate on what I’m doing. Even after all these years, if I dwell on his death, I go to a place in my heart that I’m sick of visiting. I don’t want to shed another tear; I’m tired of crying. I avoid children of all ages.

The heat isn’t helping me shift my concentration. Despite my best efforts, I’m beginning to slow down – it’s getting to me. I’m feeling a little dizzy and there isn’t anywhere to sit down or get out of the sun. My water bottle is empty. The two-lane country road has tall, dense bush on both sides. The vegetation is thick and bristly and filled with biting ants, scorpions, snakes, and other delights. Although these little beasts are fascinating, I don’t want to meet them today.

The sound of a car engine approaching makes my heart leap with optimism. Just the sound changes everything. No one would pass a pitiful person like me walking in this heat. No matter who it is, they’ll stop and give me a ride, I’m sure of it. As the sound gets closer, I turn around and see a State of Yucatan police car coming my way, shimmering in the heat like a vision. Absolutely, they’ll stop, but they’ll annoy me with endless questions. A small price to pay.

The car slows and halts about ten feet from me and two police officers unfold themselves from the car, clanking with violence-oriented accoutrements. They’re both in their thirties, one tall, one short, both wearing the unattractive brown uniforms and little visored caps of the State police. The tall one has a huge, carefully cultivated mustache and a swagger to go with it. The short one, a bit on the chunky side, simply looks bored. They’re both wearing big wraparound sunglasses, the kind I’ve seen on police officers all over the world.

“Good afternoon, Senora,” says the mustache in English, as they approach.
“Buenas tardes,” I reply, and he smiles, obviously glad to be relieved of the struggle to speak English. We continue our conversation in Spanish.
“Is that your Nissan down the road?” asks the officer.
“Yes. The engine died, so I’m walking to Mani.”
“We would be glad to give you a ride, if you wish.” Of course, I take them up on this kind offer and mustache holds the back door open as I almost leap into the air-conditioned freshness of their vehicle.

“Thank you so much,” I breathe as I relax, knowing that in a few minutes I’ll feel human. Right now my feet are throbbing with pain and my head aches.
“My name is Santos and this is Ku,” says the same mustachioed officer, turning to talk to me over the front passenger seat. “Why are you going to Mani?”

Ku fires up the engine and we head north. How efficient the car is, compared to my miserable pedestrian snail’s pace. I appreciate every meter that I don’t have to walk. I can feel my body slowly coming alive, my brain not far behind.

I tell them that I’m on my way to meet a colleague and do some work in Mani. “My name is Miriam Glass. I’m a photographer,” I explain, gesturing toward my camera bag. “The person waiting for me is an archaeologist from INAH and we’re working together on some documents.”

Officer Santos raises an eyebrow. “Who is this person?” he asks.

“His name is Dr. Ignacio Lopez Uicab.”

Santos stiffens, and Ku turns briefly to give me a sharp look. The name seems to jar them.

“Are you a friend of Dr. Lopez Uicab?” asks Santos.

“Yes, a very good friend. Why?”

Santos’s expression changes. He looks at me knowingly and asks whether I often meet Ignacio in out-of-the way places. Of course he has the wrong idea. I try to explain, but can see I’m not making much headway. I’m so wiped out, I really don’t care.

My mind flashes to a time many years ago when I first came to Yucatan with Michael and Jay. We were a happy little family. One Sunday, we met the Lopez family on the Gulf beach at Progreso. Jay and the two Lopez kids hit it off right away, and Ignacio and his wife Mercedes ended up inviting us to dinner at their place in Merida. We were friends ever since.

And when I lost my son, I crawled down here like an injured animal, wanting only to be alone and away from New York. Ignacio and Mercedes had called my room at the Hotel Caribe daily and came to drag me out for dinner or expeditions without let-up, until I finally started to come out of my shell. I stayed nearly eight months that time. I think of the Yucatan as my place of recovery, and Ignacio and his wife are part of that. They are dear friends.

Let the officers think whatever they want. They would never understand.

But why are they asking about Ignacio? I feel a flutter of alarm. “Why are you asking if I know Dr. Lopez?”

They seem hesitant.
“Dr. Lopez has been missing for three days. Our captain sent us to Mani to see whether he’s here because we found your appointment on his desk calendar.”

“What do you mean he’s missing?” A knot begins to form in my stomach and I feel weak. The familiar symptoms of an incipient anxiety attack. I quickly dig in my bag for a Valium and swallow it dry as Santos watches me. Since the accident, I’m not good with stress.

Santos continues. “He hasn’t been to his home or his job since Monday. The police are concerned because there have been a series of burglaries at INAH and we’re considering a connection.”

“What kind of burglaries? What was taken?”

The officers look uncomfortable, as if they’ve said too much already. “I’m going to call our captain,” says Ku. “I’m sure he’ll want to come out here and talk to you tonight.” He takes his radio phone from the dashboard and starts punching in numbers.

The day stops feeling sunny and optimistic. Despite the brightness, the countryside metamorphosizes. We are not driving down a winding roadway through a magical jungle full of intriguing wildlife, but rather a narrow, constricted passage to something unknown and deadly. The very air seems to change. The bucolic scene of a few minutes ago is now ominous and threatening.

We are almost to Mani and I jerk back into focus.
“What can I do to help?” I ask the officers. “You guys think Dr. Lopez is okay, don’t you?” No answer.

As we round a curve, Mani rises suddenly before us. The massive, stone monastery looms high, out of all proportion to the modest huts and other small buildings of the pueblo. I direct the officers to the back of the cathedral-monastery complex. This grand building is a historic relic of the violence of the sixteenth century.

As the Conquistadores pushed further into Yucatan, the last part of Mexico to fall to Spain, they systematically destroyed grand Maya cities and built massive Catholic churches out of the huge limestone squares they purloined from the magnificent temples they destroyed. The Maya of Yucatan had assembled their written history, their codices, written in colorful glyphs on bark paper, and hidden them deep in a cave in Mani.

The infamous Bishop Diego de Landa took advantage of a conflict between two Maya families, the Xiu and the Cocom, and convinced one of the Xius to turn the Cocoms in to the Spanish authorities and reveal the location of the codices. Poor Mr. Xiu was overwhelmed by pomp, power, and Catholicism and thought he was doing the right thing.

DeLanda triumphantly marched the books out of the deep cave, and with some ceremony destroyed them, eradicating the history of an elegant and artistic people in one devastating bonfire.

In this single act, he made things very difficult for contemporary archaeologists and anthropologists.

The few tourists who visit Mani want to see where history was destroyed. Most of them stop to admire the monastery and church and quickly continue on to Uxmal or one of the other major tourist stops.

At the entrance to the back gate of the cathedral, I climb out of the car and buy each cop a coke from a tienda across the street. The three of us walk across the lane and sit for a few thoughtful minutes in the cathedral garden.

“Are you planning to spend the night here?” asks Ku, gratefully sipping the cold drink.

“Yes, I guess I’ll stay tonight and if Ignacio doesn’t show up here, I’ll go back to Merida in the morning. Padre Luis lets me hang my hammock in one of the monk’s cells,” I answer, half of my mind elsewhere, running in twelve different directions, all of them frightening. The Valium hasn’t quite taken hold yet and I’m hoping it’s potentiated by the coke. My skin is clammy and my pulse is fast, and all I can do is wait for the drug to kick in.

They say that nothing hurts as much as losing a child. I learned in therapy that it’s good to acknowledge this, because it also means nothing else can ever hurt me that much again. A touch of PTSD, that’s what the shrink said I’d be living with, and the ominous feeling I’m getting from the officers is stirring me up.

I inhale and immerse myself in the images of the late afternoon light on the majestic archways, the worn stone staircase up to the second floor monks’ quarters, and the small garden, carefully planted with bougainvillea, hibiscus, and succulents. Some large, red, earthenware urns stand against the rough stone wall and a shaded bench under a jacaranda tree invites
meditation.

“What will you do about your car?” asks one of the policemen.
“Tomorrow I’ll get someone to take me down there and push it up here. There’s a mechanic I can leave it with.” Yes, focus on practical issues. That helps.

I wait outside while the two officers go into the monastery for a few minutes, I guess to check on whether Ignacio is here. They come back looking serious and businesslike.

“Please don’t leave Mani this evening. Captain Jose Luis Contreras just radioed me and he’s on his way out here to see you.”

I can’t imagine going anywhere without a shower and some food. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“We don’t know very much,” explained Santos kindly. “Just that there have been thefts from INAH where your friend works, and now he is missing. Someone has taken artifacts retrieved from the dig you mentioned – Yaxum.”

“And you think Ignacio is responsible?”

“We think there is a connection, and so, unfortunately, do his superiors,” says Santos as the two of them climb back into their car. They leave, and I pick up my stuff and enter the monastery building to find the Padre. In the heat, I can feel my dull heartbeat.

2012: Deadly Awakening is available in print at Amate Books and Casa Catherwood.

Or, you can order it from Amazon.com in print or in electronic form you can download to your computer or reading device.

You can also dowload the book in electronic form from Amazon, Smashwords, Apple eBooks, Barnes & Noble, etc.

2012: Deadly Awakening is a mystery novel set in Merida in December 2012. Believers point out that prophecies of the Maya, other native American groups and Nostradamus are said to predict the end of the world 12/21/2012.

Conversely, other groups are predicting a spiritual revival and a new sense of brotherhood and honor of the earth. They know that something extraordinary will happen on the big day, but they aren’t sure what.

Of course there are many belief systems in between. If you go on Google today and enter “2012,” you will see that there are 772 MILLION entries.

In the novel, there is animosity among the spiritual groups, great animosity. And there are murders. Horrendous, shocking murders that make news around the world.

It’s up to Miriam Glass, a detective from New York, and Jose Luis Contreras, chief of the Yucatan state police to figure out what happened. (With the help of the FBI and other agencies).

The novel has a lot of local color about Merida, both people and places. Locations that play parts in the book include the Hotel Caribe on Calle 60, Pop’s Cafeteria, the Hach bar at the Fiesta Americana, a mythical Maya Village near Chichen Itza, and Chichen Itza itself, where tens of thousands of spiritual seekers assemble on 12/21/2012.

In the midst of the tension, will Miriam consummate her long-smoldering friendship with the police chief? Will the aggresive group, the Pyrolites of Fate victimize the gentle Children of Kukulcan? Will Raul and Fernando succeed in scoring with American girls on the eve of the end of the world? And what happens to Janie, the four-year-old child who gets separated from her parents during the madness at Chichen Itza? And of course, the big question is – will the earth be destroyed? Find out! Buy the book!

Growing groups with well-defined ideas about this have emerged over the past few years. (For instance, the European group I wrote about on this site in Xul, Yucatan).

As one would expect, rivalries have formed among the philosophical groups and they are fighting for members. The novel is about what can happen when the rivalries peak in a little less than two years from now. There are clever murders and even more clever investigators, all racing to beat the deadline.

My novel is now available at a number of places. Both hardcopy and electronic versions are updated with more photos and a bit more information.

The print version is available at Amazon. It is a handsomely designed book with a great cover. Click here to read more about it on Amazon.

The electronic version (downloads to your computer or electronic reading device) is available on: Smashwords (my personal favorite), Apple eBookstore, Sony eBooks, Kobo, and Amazon eBooks.

For some reason, the downloadable eBook is doing especially well on the Apple eBook store.

The Amazon electronic reader (it’s great – I have one) is on sale for only $139. Click here to check it out.

There are fancier versions of the Kindle available at higher prices.

And by the way, my next book, Madrugada, will be available in several months.

I’m cautiously triumphant. I just came back from a minor marathon at Immigration and I’m all filed for my FM-3. For those of you who don’t live in Mexico, an FM-3 is an extended visitor’s visa which needs renewal only once a year.

You know how everyone says, “Oh you just do it online now.” Yeah, right. How, you may ask? Well, I’m here to tell you that I stumbled through it, and I’m not that smart nor am I fluent in Spanish. If I can do it, you can do it. Consider it an adventure. You really do not need a lawyer or professional help with this.

The first thing that stumped me, was – Where Online? I mean, online is a big place, even if you narrow your search down to Mexico Immigration Requirements or put in keywords like FM3.

A friend had recently done her filing, and told me the URL. And I was off and running.

Here is (I hope) a simple explanation of how to renew your FM-3. This is not for any other document, like an FM-2 which may be quite different, and it is only for people who are renewing rather getting a new FM-3.

1. Access www.inm.gob.mx.

2. Select Solicitudes de Tramite from the menu at the upper right.

3. Select Estancia.

4. Now you fill out a long form called Forma Migratorio Para Tramites de Estancia. Here’s how it goes.

From the first drop-down menu, select the first item, Extender la estancia.
From the second drop down, select Prorroga de No Inmigrante.
Now fill in your apellido (family name), and your nombre (first name). If you have a middle name that appears on your passport, put it right after the first name, e.g., Marianne Jane.
Fecha de Naciemento is your DOB.
If you have a CURP number, fill it in. If not, no problem.
On the drop-down for your civil status, select your marital status.
Then your e-mail address (correo electronico)
The pais – country- where you were born. Select from long drop-down. Remember that the US is Estados Unidos – so don’t look under U.
And the state.
And your current nationality.
As my ID document, I selected Pasaporte and on the next line filled in my passport number.
Now they want the country, issue date and expiration date of your (passport). This is all in your passport.
Now the address. After Calle, enter the street AND the cross-streets, e.g. “53 x 54 y 56.”
Your house number is next.
Numero Interior is a puzzlement. I left it blank.
Fill in your colonia.
Now there’s a section where you can fill in data on a person you designate who can receive info from Immigration in your stead. I was too overwhelmed to fill this out.
Hit Guardar to save.

There are a few steps here that I had some help with in the Immigration office. When you are done with the form, you get a printout of another form with the data you just entered.

If you have any problems with the form, or have made mistakes, they have a computer set up there for you to use to correct the errors and they will help you do it.

5. Now you give the nice lady your Formato Migratorio, your old FM-3, which she keeps, and your passport, for her to check.

6. Also give her that letter to the Immigration director. The name of the current person is Lic. Rosel Isaac Benito Fernando. We all have various versions of this document. Just change the date and use the same one.

7. Give the clerk one copy of the face page only of your passport.

8. She will now give you a form to take to the bank (Ban Norte is a few blocks away, but you can use any bank). You pay the cashier at the bank 1294 pesos and she gives you a receipt which you bring back to the immigration office.

9. Now you get filed away. They will give you yet another form with two phone numbers on it. Call in a week for a cita (appointment). The appointments usually take place within four days, I’m told.

10. Bring your little “infantil” photos to the appointment, and they will then give you your new FM-3 which is now a card rather than a booklet.

Note: I haven’t yet done steps 9 and 10, so anything could happen.

UPDATE: Neither of the phone numbers mentioned in step 9 worked, so I went to the office to get an appointment time. They were not ready to give me an appointment for several weeks. When I finally went to the appointment, it went smoothly and I walked out with my new FM-3, a neat little card.

The people at Immigration are really helpful. Yes, there’s been a transformation. My only other suggestion is to bring a book. There are waits between some of the steps.

An irrelevant aside: Today seemed to be the day for night club performers (or something) to renew their documents. There were about ten people who arrived separately but knew each other. Young women in shorts and spangly shoes with long hair and big sunglasses. Stylishly but casually dressed hunks of manhood. Most came alone, but some had handlers.

It’s quite frustrating because unlike some of my friends in other areas of Merida, our mail delivery is so bad that Amazon won’t ship to me down here any more. Two shipments went astray. Other people get books in the mail, but not us. The Kindle is a solution.

Barnes & Noble has an eBook reader called the Nook. I looked up the eBooks on B&N and they do offer Cemetery Dance, but not Story Like the Wind. I don’t think you can download B&N books to Amazon’s Kindle reader nor can you download Amazon’s eBooks to the Nook. I knew that when I purchased the reader, and thought Amazon would have the best selection of eBooks. I didn’t check thoroughly or I might have bought the Nook.

The eBook library available for the new Apple iPad is embarrassingly bad. It’s called iBooks and it’s a mess. I know it’s a new product and a new area for them, but perhaps they should hook up with B&N or some other retailer. The iPad is not really for book readers, or at least it isn’t right now.

I love getting the New York Times on my Kindle, although it takes some getting used to in the small format. It is a neat little machine, the text is wonderfully readable, and I have to say I prefer it to a paper book, because it’s easier to manage. It’s tiny and light, and I put it in my bag. The battery lasts ten hours. I have about 20 books on it right now (it holds 1,000, supposedly) so I can read whatever I’m in the mood for. It holds your place from the previous reading session.

When you find a section of text that you like, you can highlight it and save it in a special file elsewhere.

There are no page numbers, but it tells you the percent of the book you have read.

I love reading on it my Kindle.

Order one here. Now down to $139.00

I tried to upload my manuscript, but it got stuck and I’ve emailed them for help.

Formatting for print is different than formatting for eBooks. For an eBook, you strip out page breaks, tabs, headers, and page numbers, because the concept of a page is different on a reader than it is on a printed page. Depending on the size of your type, the device the eBook is being viewed on, or the resolution of your computer screen, the text comes out differently. You can’t control how much material is on a page.

Because Wordclay gives you a file of how your book will actually look page by page, you can make adjustments as you want. Starting with my eBook file, for instance, I added page breaks, a few more fonts (the rule with eBook formatting is Keep It Simple), and other niceties.

So to submit to Wordclay, I took my eBooks manuscript and put back all the formatting I’d been dying to have all along.

With print, the text adjusts itself to the size format you have selected. Wordclay provides a selection of three different page sizes. You can do page breaks at the end of chapters to make sure your chapter starts on a new page. Then, Wordclay will show you how your book will actually look in type. It’s kind of thrilling.

Wordclay’s web interface is not as intuitive as Smashwords. And the costs affiliated with the processes are not immediately obvious on the site. It turns out that what they do is produce a book-ready file for you for free, but then they charge quite a bit for getting an ISBN number, acting as your publisher, and if you want other services like marketing, etc. it is more. And I cannot figure out, after reviewing the site carefully, how much it would cost to actually produce a book. This is critical because it determines how much I would have to charge for the book.

I already have an ISBN number and have established a publisher identity for this and future books. Wordclay claims that the ISBN I got only applies to the manuscript, but that is something I’ll want to check out. Meanwhile, their fee for procuring one is $99. It only cost me $25 doing it myself. Of course I went through a lot of crap with the company that dispenses the numbers, but it was a learning experience. (See my previous article about Bowker.)

I have looked into some other self publishers and my best guess is that each book, with a two-color cover, would cost upwards of $12.00 unless I bought hundreds of them, which I can’t afford. If I have to pay $12 per book, I would have to charge at least $25 to make any money, by the time I am finished with the cut to Amazon or whatever. And very few people are going to pay $25 for a trade book by an unknown author.

An on-demand printer that I just love is Third Place Books in Seattle. (Lake Forest Park store). A surly genius named Vladmir runs a tight ship there. He has a miraculous machine, that once you feed it your files, churns out a finished, covered, bound book in a few minutes. The staff calls the machine Ginger.

Ginger also  prints out copies of public domain books on demand. You can order them from a catalog or inquire as to whether they can print a book for you.  See thirdplacepress.com

However, to print an author’s book, Ginger charges six cents per page per book, as I understand it. For my approximately 280-page book, printing  would cost $16.80, and that’s before we factor in the cover.

Of course there are dozens, if not hundreds of companies that call themselves publishers and help you get your book online as an eBook or printed as a book. The author pays for everything. They also provide editing and design services, and claim to market and promote your book.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen any self-published books in retail stores so far, so I don’t understand where their marketing leads. Perhaps they get books reviewed in odd online locations of their own creation.

Of course, the wonderful thing about being selected by an establishing print publishing company is that they pay all the expenses for whipping your book into shape, creating books, and using established lines of distribution to get the books into stores.

But it could be that eventually, the line between traditional publishers and the new kind of publishers, that charge the author, will dim, and some mid-ground will be available. Maybe someone will be smart enough to start a self-publishing firm that actually reviews and evaluates the manuscripts and selects some that they will publish at reduced cost to the author and more royalty for them. Kind of a joint cost sharing. This would still leave the author door open wide enough to admit the screaming mobs who are sure they’ve written The Ultimate Book, and also allow the better writers accessibility to print services at prices they can afford.

If this happens, it will mean that the self-publish companies will take a look at quality, perhaps absorb some of the editors laid off by the old school publishers, and start a new era of publishing, one that encourages writers instead of making them feel like rejected idiots.