Category Archives: Books

Books

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

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Abraham Lincoln Vampire HunterYou know the whole vampire trend is out of hand when a book called Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is a bestseller. I recently picked it up. I mean, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter—it’s right there in the title. What more do you need?

For the record, I’m not a huge fan of vampire lit. OK, I’m a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that has little to do with vampires and everything to do with the awesomeness that is that show. And I read the Twilight series—meh. But this ridiculous mashup of history and fantasy was too good to pass up.

At least in theory.

The concept of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is awesome. It’s reminiscent of a b-movie from a while back that was likely a decade too early—Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. The idea of our 16th president secretly wielding an axe and taking down bloodsuckers is just too good. Unfortunately after 336 pages it starts to lose its luster.

How many times can you blame Lincoln’s dark history on vampires and have it not be completely predictable? [spoiler alert] His mother—killed by a vampire. His son—killed by a vampire. John Wilkes Booth—he’s a vampire. By the time that assassination comes along it’s all ho-hum. Perhaps 336 pages of Lincoln as vampire slayer is too much.

But it would have made an awesome comic book. Apparently Tim Burton is going to make the movie.

This is probably taking the book way too seriously, but it’s a little depressing that we have to blame some of the world’s greatest injustices—from slavery to the holocaust—on vampires. It’s understandable that we’d want to find a scapegoat like the undead rather than face the reality that regular people did these things. Escapism is a little easier than reality.

Taking it too seriously? Yeah. Though Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is deadly serious. (sorry, couldn’t resist that one)

Books

Pre-Order is Now Over

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The limited time pre-order for Addition by Adoption is now over. In one week we managed to sell 64 pre-order copies. That’s pretty cool for a self-published book with little support. Thank you.

I kept saying that more money from the pre-order copies would go to charity: water, and it has. This morning I donated $256 to our campaign to build a well in Ethiopia, which amounts to $4 per copy (double the normal donation amount). That’s a good start towards the $5,000 we’ll need to build a well. But we have a long way to go ($4,744 to go).

From now on $2 of each copy sold will go to charity: water, so we need to sell 2,372 copies. That sounds insane, doesn’t it? It does, but a year ago I would have told you that raising $2,605 was insane. It wasn’t.

You can help by spreading the word, buying a copy when it officially launches (May 11!) or making a donation directly to our campaign.

The book officially launches on May 11 and you’ll be able to get it on Amazon.com.

Thanks again to everyone who bought a copy and helped spread the word. I’m continually amazed and humbled at how people are responding to the book. Thanks.

Adoption, Books

Pre-Order Addition by Adoption

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Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 CharactersMy new book, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters is now available for pre-order:

Buy it now!

The pre-order will last for one week, until April 20, and then it’s done. After that you’ll have to wait for the book to officially launch on May 11. Pre-order sales are going through me—I’m basically taking orders for a week, buying a whole pile of my books and then shipping them out to you.

Why pre-order? That’s a good question.

  • It’s cheaper. You can save about $1 by pre-ordering. Because shipping is included in the pre-order price it’s ultimately cheaper than the official version will be with shipping ($12.99 pre-order vs. $9.99 + $3.99 shipping from Amazon).
  • More money to charity. Twice as much money will go to charity: water. Roughly $2 of each purchased copy will go to charity: water when the book launches on May 11. But for the pre-order about $4 of each purchase will go to charity: water,
  • It’s autographed. Each pre-order copy will be signed by Lexi, my 4-year-old daughter and star of much of the book.
  • Get it early. Pre-order copies should arrive before the official launch on May 11.

Basically the pre-order is a chance to take advantage of my low author price and save you some money, give more money to charity and start to spread the word about the book.

So pre-order now! Thanks.

Adoption, Books

The Book Arrives

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The Book ArrivesMy new book, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters, arrived in the mail today. It got here just in time for the one-week pre-order that starts tomorrow.

The book looks amazing. The front and back cover are slick and cool and much better than anything I can design. You can thank Brian White of TriLion Studios for that bit of awesome design.

The interior is sweet, too. You can see a chapter introduction, some straight tweets and meet the family. You can thank Ronald Cox for the killer interior layout design. Much better than my woeful attempts in Microsoft Word.

You can get your own snazzy copy, starting with tomorrow’s pre-order. It’s a limited, one-week pre-order, so if you don’t order it in the next week, you’ll have to wait for the official launch on May 11. Plus the pre-order is cheaper, more money goes to charity and Lexi will sign it.

I’m so geeking out about this. I hope you can stand it.

Finally, we uploaded some new banner graphics today. Check ’em out and add one to your site today:
125 x 125 Some Dork

Adoption, Books, Daily Grind

Crazy Week

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In the Rocking ChairThis has been a pretty crazy week.

  • On Monday I announced that we’re planning to adopt again. This is still new and we’re figuring it out as we go, but it’s pretty exciting.
  • On Tuesday I announced my new book, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters.
  • The marketing machine went to work to spread the word far and wide about the book. It’s exhausting. And thrilling. And kind of scary. I did my first interview about the book on Wednesday night. On Thursday the first review came out (wow, what a rave!). I spent Friday night doing an e-mail interview. I need to do another one today. All in preparation for the pre-order, which starts on Tuesday (meaning the craziness continues next week). Whew.
  • I also opted to redesign my entire web site this week in order to better accommodate the info about the book. I’m still working out the kinks.
  • Milo is being baptized on Sunday in what’s shaping up to be a multicultural Sunday. In addition to baptizing an Ethiopian, the archbishop of Rangoon, Burma is preaching the sermon at the 8:30 service, during the education hour a chaplain for Karen refugees in Thailand will be sharing as well as a missionary from Argentina, and later that afternoon there will be a baptism and confirmation of a number of Karen parishioners.
  • We’re hosting a little shindig for Milo which means we need to clean the house. Bigtime. Plus Milo’s God parents are coming in to town from the east coast and staying with us. We should maybe clear off the bed in the guest room for them.

I didn’t plan any of this to happen at the same time. I just is. And it’s kind of cool that it’s working out that way.

Books, Business & Marketing

Self-Publishing Ain’t Easy

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Yesterday I announced my new book, Addition by Adoption, and started the promotional juggernaut to get the word out about it. I’m self-publishing it, so I’m on my own. And I’ve learned you can’t just sit back and wait for your book to sell. I need all the help I can get.

So I have all these plans and ideas to spread the word. It all went into motion yesterday (well, actually Monday with my e-mail newsletter). Today I individually e-mailed more than 130 people trying to line up reviews, interviews, blog posts, Twitter/Facebook mentions—basically anything people are willing to do (if you didn’t get an e-mail and think you should, hit me up—I could always use more promo help). I’ll be contacting a lot more people in the days and weeks ahead (that’s fair warning to anyone who has ever known me). I also sent out nearly 20 digital review copies of the book today. Last week I stayed up until midnight trying to plan all this out.

It’s all a bit overwhelming. And kind of scary.

I’ve been planning this book for almost a year now. Now as I’m sending out copies and getting ready to make this happen we’ll see if it’s any good. We’ll find out if I’ve been wasting my time or if I actually have something interesting on my hands.

Because books aren’t easy. If I can sell a mere 100 copies I’ll be in the top 21% of books sold.

So here we go.

On the plus side, it’s amazing hearing back from people who are ready and willing to help. I’m so grateful for that. Some folks have just said ‘tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’ One person said not to send them a copy, they’d buy their own plus a few more to give away to their friends. Wow.

That kind of response makes it a little less scary.

Adoption, Books

Addition by Adoption: My New Book

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Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters by Kevin D. HendricksI’m happy to announce my new book, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters. Allow me to quote myself from the backcover:

A work-at-home dad turns to Twitter to share updates about kids, causes and life. It’s a curated selection of bizarre quotes, funny stories and temper tantrums. Woven between potty-training woes and breakfast time songs is a family growing through adoption and learning how to change the world, one status update at a time.

You’ll find humor, parental commiseration and life-changing wonder mixed into a quick and compelling read.

Sounds awesome, right? I know. I’ve been kind of book happy this year, but this Twitter book has been in the works for a while. It’s full of the funny things Lexi and Milo do, the insanity of parenthood and the roller coaster of our adoption journey. The tweets are broken into chapters with their own introduction, making for a concise little 82-page book.

One of the best parts about the book is that a portion of the proceeds are going to go to charity: water. I’m hoping we can raise $5,000 and build a well in Ethiopia (not just raise the cost for a well in Ethiopia—actually fund a specific well in Ethiopia).

So when is it available? We’re going to do a limited pre-order starting next week—the pre-order will mean you can get the book cheaper and twice as much money goes to charity: water. Pre-order copies will also be signed by Lexi! The pre-order will last just one week though—April 13-20—so don’t forget to get in on that action. Then the book will officially launch on May 11.

We’ll have more details coming soon, but I wanted to get the initial information out there. My favorite part of this whole roll out is that it’s coinciding with the beginning of our next adoption. How cool is that? Not planned at all, but we’ll take it. [This roll out also coincides with this fancy new blog design, which is sort of planned and sort of not, as you can tell by stuff that isn’t quite right yet.]

Books, Society

The InvisiblePeople.tv Book

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Mark Horvath Ready for ActionI’ve been tweeting and blogging about the SXSW Pepsi Challenge all weekend (and will be until midnight tonight) trying to win a $50,000-grant for homeless advocate Mark Horvath and his InvisiblePeople.tv project. A few tweets could earn Mark the support he desperately needs. The guy has been on the verge of homelessness since 2008 when he started this project to help the homeless. That’s dedication.

I’ve been tweeting like mad because I believe in what Mark is doing. Unfortunately he’s losing to an idea supported by the tech site Mashable, a site with more than a million views a day. (An idea, by the way, that no one has yet invested in or proven—Mark has been doing his thing since 2008; OK, sorry. Shouldn’t rag on the competition, I’m just a little bitter about that.) I’m so passionate about this because a few tweets could give Mark some major support. It kills me that he doesn’t have the support he needs.

So I tweet like mad. But if all our frantic tweeting doesn’t get Mark the $50,000 he deserves, it’s not a total loss. At least we’ll have helped spread the word about what he’s doing.

But the reality is that I’ve been doing a lot more than tweeting.

I’ve got a secret: I’ve been working on a book about homelessness to support Mark’s work. In my wildest dreams I thought I could have had the book ready by this past weekend—conveniently in time for Mark’s appearance at SXSW.

Continue reading The InvisiblePeople.tv Book →

Books, Writing

Least of These Video Chat

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You may remember that I recently published a book. It’s a little sci-fi post-apocalyptic novel called Least of These with a killer cover (you can download a free copy or buy the paperback for $9.99).

Yesterday I sat down and did a little video chat about the book with one of my readers, Jonathan Blundell (my one reader?). Jonathan has been very supportive of my work (and I’m supportive of his work) and it was fun to talk over some of the ideas in the book and how the book came together.

So if you’re looking for the inside scoop on Least of These—how inspiration came from U2 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, how my wife refuses to read it, my take on standard post-apocalyptic plot lines, why it has such an awesome cover—check out the video chat. I even do a little impromptu reading.

For a special bonus, count how many times I say ‘um.’

Get your copy of Least of These now.