Off to New England

This year is off to a running start for us. On a personal note, my employment as an Assistant Public Information Officer for Bexar County, Texas, ended on January 12. My wife and I are getting ready to pack up and move to Massachusetts. For those of you who have read the book already, you know that for us, it means coming full circle. That said, please expect a little break in the blog posts to provide time for set up in our new home. The 6th edition of “The Book Beat” will be created in Massachusetts.

Book sales continue at a slow but steady pace, and the main task for the foreseeable future is marketing and public relations. Spreading the word about “Deputy While Immigrant” in a saturated book market is a monumental job. Any help from this community to inform people about the book is greatly appreciated.

Here are some other developments:

Award Submissions

“Deputy While Immigrant” has been submitted for several book awards, which will take anywhere from a few weeks all the way to September of this year to see how I fared.

So far, the book has been entered for the following awards (category):

·      Feathered Quill Book Awards (Debut Author)

·      Firebird Book Awards (Memoir & Career)

·      Indies Today Book Award (Memoir/Biography)

·      Literary Titan Book Award (Memoir)

·      Great Southwest Book Festival (Memoir)

Fingers crossed!

What’s next?

Once we have arrived in Massachusetts, I hope to finally do a few book signings/readings in my new home area. Later this year, I would love to add a promotional trip to Tucson, AZ, and reconnect with folks there, money permitting.

Concerning the book itself, I am evaluating two options: One is the production of an audiobook, which I would love to do as I personally enjoy good audiobooks. While commuting to work every morning, they have become a favorite of mine. That said, producing an audiobook (recording, editing, final mix) is costly. At this particular point in time, I have already invested a significant amount of money into this adventure. Therefore, this remains to be decided.

Second is the translation of “Deputy While Immigrant” into German. Now, this would be even costlier than an audiobook. At the same time, questions come from Germany if and when a German version will be available. The added challenge is that the self-publication market there is even more challenging than here in the US, and the success of such an investment is far from certain. The cost for a (classic) translation would exceed the cost of the publication of the original. 

Currently, I am considering whether it is worth looking into assistance from AI. The AI could take a first stab at the translation, which I could then edit to represent the German version of the original truly. AI does come with a significant caveat: Once you turn data over to the AI, it will be used to train the model, and hence, I would basically give up the copyright of my writing to their benefit. So again, this is still to be decided. 

If you ever wondered who came up with the idea for my book cover, it is this man. Jon Villarreal (AKA LaRosk) has an exceptionally creative mind, and besides being a very talented musician, he is also an excellent graphic designer. Jon is a former coworker of mine while I worked for Bexar County.