Alright literary world.
The year (and the 2010s) is almost over, and because of travel I have not gotten any new editing done in a few days; that means it's time to wrap up the year and make a few happy announcements!
First: Paperback sales have continued to generally grow over the last couple of years and this gives a considerable incentive to continue editing pretty much on a permanent basis. Now that the idea of POD exists I can't see it ever disappearing even if Amazon were to go kaput tomorrow (unlikely.) This is great for the self published.
Second: The virtually inexhaustible amount of material available for editing is limited almost solely by copyright, not by actual mass of work. Over the coming decade, virtually all of the good latter day works of Theosophy and post-Victorian occultism will become public domain works; latter day Hall, Steiner, etc, along with a host of 1930s era works in the lead up to the apocalyptic, sometimes sci-fi themed, UFO-tainted works post Wing Anderson with the Second World War and rise of the Atomic era. I am extremely excited for the next twenty or so years- I figure I should have 500 or more works easily available over the course of the next decade alone and as many as a thousand in the subsequent one if things go well. That would be a massive library of works.
Third: I am (finally) going to get back to a bit of my own writing- I have a couple rough ideas already for short works but I want to re-edit my main longer works and release sequels to several of them.
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Monday, December 23, 2019
American Medicinal Flowers: Now Available!
This short bulletin is a handy little guide to North American species wild-gathered for medicinal purposes in its era. It has been illustrated by Rita Metzner because my own renditions would not be appropriate for a work meant to be roughly a short field guide. I've released a couple of these agricultural pieces before by the same author and have another lined up being edited as we speak.
The species are common; datura, elder, raspberries, and so forth; for each a basic description of usage is given- it should be noted that the apothecarian recipes derived from such herbal material are still in use in folk medicine, homeopathy, and in the third world.
29 pages.
Monday, December 16, 2019
The New Burning Times: Now Available!
As we say farewell (or good riddance) to the 2010s and prepare to enter the twenties- which I hope will be filled with flappers and art deco- it is time to release the final work of the decade. I literally got the idea a couple days ago when the news broke about the usual miscreants of the furthest "left" whining about extremist hand signals among army navy cadets- a tale told over and over by the modern day zealot authoritarians which peskily bother everyone else because of their own opportunism, fear, and boredom. The 2010s are significantly similar to the witch trials- the ignorance, false appeals to authority, self evidence of the claims, and culpability of the public that stands by and does nothing as their fellow humans are intellectually abused- it's not with joy but with sardonic observation that I crafted this little booklet.
These days more and more material is rendered proprietary and temporal by convoluted and obviously ill-omened contracts and hardware in computer systems. A computer ten years ago was mainly designed for local storage, able to connect to a broader network. Now, a computer is designed for exterior storage with a few internalized apps to communicate with it. This inefficient concept only exists because tech firms and their cronies wish to "own" all material and snuff it out at a Stalinesque whim.
As always I am 100% opposed to all censorship and all ignorance- todays "activist" haranguing about "extremism" on the internet is no less stupid and evil than some man in a long wool cloak with a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum centuries ago. It's the same superstitious nonsense, the same abuse as before.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Final Update of the 2010s!
For the tldr crowd just watch the video!
It's almost the end of the year and of the 2010s ("good riddance" many will say!) so it's time for the last general update!
When I first began my foray into literature it was the middle of the 2010s and I had little idea what I was doing. Spurred on partly by necessity and partly by mere interest, I decided to take advantage of publishing on-demand services and release a few basic works to the world. Now, as I look back, I see how wise it was even though I was discouraged from this move by part of my audience and even some people in my private life.
Since the first of January, 2018 (KDP doesn't allow me to go back further to see 2016 or 17 sales sadly) I have sold over 68,000 paperback copies of my work. I didn't bother to check KDP sales since ebook versions are not available for half of my works and the per-copy income is somewhat lower. It's still in the many thousands, but not nearly as high as paperback sales. I always like to be able to put a book on the shelf, literally speaking; I don't own a kindle reader or a tablet of any kind. Too much eye strain. The only digital books I work with are scans of original documents.
As of writing this the best seller is the Book of Forbidden Knowledge (which you can purchase here.) The best selling work of my own manufacture is Occult Memetics, available here.
Over the next decade I plan to more than double the books I have available while also writing some more; I have some ideas for a vaguely humorous, steampunk-adjacent sword and sorcery series and I want to release Morbid Stories II and the next edition or two of SIH. The work load is enormous. I constantly have a half dozen works half completed. I wouldn't be surprised to hit 600 editions by 2030 assuming that POD is still around and so is Amazon. Since Bezos is the only Silicon Valley billionaire not destroying his own empire by censoring everything I feel "reasonably confident" sticking with their services.
This massive expansion of work attends a redoubling of effort with regards to video; I got a (much) better webcam I'll be hooking up in mere days and I plan to begin streaming again, possibly as an audio podcast.
Onward to the twenties!
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Special teachings From the Arcane Science: Now Available!
"Special Teachings" is the first of three works in Farnsworths' series of occult compilations. The topics within are highly variable and presented from a Theosophical perspective. It notably includes content regarding Karma, Kali Yuga, the concept of time from an occult perspective, and various treatments on science and supernatural topics. It is, of the three works in the series, the best written and least rushed, and is comprised of about fifty sections.
144 pages.
Friday, December 6, 2019
The Heart of Things: Now Available!
The second volume of lore in Edward Farnsworths' three part series, "Heart of Things" is much like "The Deeper Mysteries." the content is a bit less variable and more focused on astrological, zodiacal, categorical materials. It speaks at some length on dreams, spirits, the meaning of life, the dimensions, and many other subjects, usually in three or four pages apiece.
197 pages.
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