E-books, Kickstarter.com and 'The Fracking War' - Questions?

WATKINS GLEN, New York - After fielding a lot questions in emails, it seemed like a quick blog explaining what the $#^$#%*$%# is going on with The Fracking War, this Kickstarter.com thing and how to order a copy for a Kindle, iPad, Nook or other e-reader is in order.

Ordering an e-book:

If you want to buy an electronic copy of The Fracking War, go to the Kickstarter.com site and click on the appropriate 'pledge' on right-hand side of the page. At that point, you have only ordered it - and said you pledge the amount to the campaign. There are several options. You can order just the e-book, or you can order the e-book and a signed print copy. Several other options also include e-books and other spiffs.

The Kickstarter.com campaign:

The whole Kickstarter.com campaign is designed to get 'The Fracking War' into people's hands as quickly as possible (in e-book and print), promote the book by getting pre-publication sales on the books and help defray a portion of the costs of getting The Fracking War published: proofreaders, graphic artists, typographers, photography and probably some other things lurking out there, waiting, like a natural gas well ready to explode.

The pre-publication sales are important because it makes it easier to get book reviewers to take a peek before the book actually comes out.

By the way, this whole Kickstarter is called crowdsourcing. Another popular crowdsourcing outfit is called Indiegogo.

If the Kickstarter campaign doesn't hit its goal of $5,000 by Nov. 18, the whole thing evaporates. If you have pledged to buy a book or anything else and it is unsuccessful, you will not be charged. If that happens (Please, please don't let it!), I will scramble to see what I can do for the folks that have pre-ordered books or other stuff. The book will eventually be available through regular sales outlets.

If the campaign is successful - I mean WHEN the campaign is successful - the books, e-books, t-shirts posters and everything else will be delivered as they become available after Nov. 18.

The Fracking War itself:

The writing and editing of the book is done! The manuscript has been uploaded to the publisher and right now we are wrestling with cover design and what the inside pages will look like. On a daily basis, Adm. Fox is showing me headlines or links to stories about hydrofracking issues and incidents, almost always saying, "This is exactly what you wrote in the book!"

That's why we are hustling so fast to get it to readers' hands.

If you have any questions about The Fracking War, The Kickstarter Campaign, or how to order a print or electronic copy email me here: Email Michael.

I'll get right back to you,

Thanks.