Well, I’ve gone and done it again: I’ve written another book.
Yesterday, I quietly added a new entry on our Store Page, a new ebook, Sacred Coffee: A “Homesteader’s” Paradigm.
Sacred Coffee is a collection of essays, mostly from this blog, but some as yet unpublished, that focus on our paradigm—the philosophies, attitudes, and practices that led us to pursue our current lifestyle.
It is our first effort to answer our most commonly-asked question: “How can I live like you do?” As always, we attempt to answer that question less by telling those who ask what to do, as to show what we have done.
I’m supposed to be writing a book about our life, but I keep getting distracted. And, as our blog approaches its 1,000th entry (I’m holding my breath to see if I notice that when it happens) the material for that book increases. Rather than try to cram everything into the yet-to-be-realized tome, I decided to get started with something smaller, friendlier, and inevitably more focused.
What “drove” us to live like this seemed like the best place to start. So I sifted through the blog and my backlog of drafts, and pulled out the best examples of what makes us tick. I roughly categorized them under the following topics: attitude, simple living, attuning to nature, frugality, family life, and resource use.
For our more faithful readers, this may seem kind of same-old/same-old. But, of course I took the opportunity to edit the posts, clarifying, simplifying, and shortening in most cases.
And now it’s for sale. However, I see this effort as different from my other book, Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska. Wheras I’ve tried, in various ham-fisted ways to promote that book as broadly as possible, Sacred Coffee seems more like a niche market, highly targeted publication. It is, I suppose, primarily meant for you, the reader of this blog. I doubt you’ll ever find it on the shelf of your local independent bookstore. If it were to go to print, I don’t think I’d ask local shops to sell it. It seems like its usefulness depends on one’s familiarity with our Website and blog.
We’ll see how long that lasts. I’d originally planned to publish it exclusively in its current ebook form, but I found that, as soon as I’d finished it, I’ve already begun taking the steps to turn it into a hard copy book. That process is just too fun to resist.
I’ll try not to actually do that unless there’s enough interest. In other words, let us know if you want to see it in print, and I’ll get going on that in earnest. In the meantime, you can order the ebook on our store page, or at Smashwords.com if you’d like a wider choice of electronic formats.
[NOTE: August 5, 2013: The trailer below is the new version that covers other editions of the book.]
The trailer was very nice – beautiful country – sure the book will be great – Over the years I have got to know several Alaska folk – They all marched to a little different drum – One young guy who was from a homestead family had bought a $500 Toyota pickup – ferried it down to Seattle -drove to Arkansas to do some blacksmithing (knifemaking) – loaded it up with anvils and forges he picked up on the way -drove back to Seattle and ferried it back up to Alaska – when he got home his job was to babysit a gazillion baby salmon fingerlings – when they got old enough he was to drop a net and let them go out to the ocean – unfortunately the whales knew they were coming and took care of a big part of the crop. A couple years ago I learned how to make old style wooden wagonwheels with a big ponytailed guy from Alaska – that in it self is not your mainstream thing to do – Good luck with the book
“Out of the mainstream” almost beat out “North to the Future” as our state motto….