'The Fracking War' book tour begins - with a radio show

ITHACA, New York - The beginning of a book tour to promote The Fracking War started Tuesday in the studios of WRFI-FM here, with a friendly host named Bob Fitzsimmons, who coincidentally, is a friend, too.

I had been on Bob's Tuesday afternoon news-discussion program earlier this year with local winery owner Lou Damiani. This time I was on there solo to talk about hydrofracking, a lot of specifics about why I wrote the book and what's really inside the covers of The Fracking War.

On the air with Bob Fitzsimmons at WRFI

The Fracking War is being set up by the publishers as I write this, with - I hope - a e-book edition out in one month. The printed book should roll off the presses in 8 to 12 weeks.

The radio interview was excellent practice for what Adm. Sylvia Fox promises will be a very busy spring when the print edition is available. She is already eyeballing places where hydrofracking for natural gas is particularly contentious and looking into setting up stops with local media and at local bookstores.

You can pretty much stick a pin in any map of any state doing hydrofracking and find controversy and contention.

The Kickstarter.com campaign is rolling along with the pledge of one $250 donor missing. Her pledge doesn't appear yet on the tally because she has to get an Amazon.com account to preorder books as well as sign up for dinner with the author.

If you are interested in preordering a book, click here for Kickstarter. The book will be available for purchase after the Kickstarter campaign is over through bookstores and online. But anyone who has preordered with Kickstarter will get their e-books and printed copies much earlier than people who chose to go through a book retailer.

Will Sweeney

Tuesday was also a big day for The Fracking War because we hired Will Sweeney, a noted New York artist whose work is being featured heavily in efforts of the NY anti-fracking movement. Will is going to do the entire cover design for us, including a piece of original artwork. That artwork will also be used on t-shirts, posters and other Fracking-War-related items.

After our a 45-minute chat, we felt confident Will is going to produce some great sketches, one of which (or a combination thereof) will eventually make powerful cover.

It will be great to have the book out soon and printed copies shortly thereafter.

But my notebook full of plot and character ideas for the sequel to The Fracking War is already overflowing.

And the name of that book? It's too fracking early to say.