That Ebook Bastard (Why I have embraced ebooks)

One of the joys of teaching the occult, or at least being one of the louder people in the room, is that you can install all types of silly ideas into those who accidentally come within the sound of your voice. Ideas that the rest of the occult community, or at least a significant portion, will insist are really bad ideas and that the person who convinced them that these were good ideas should be flogged with an angry cat. Typically, the flogging are reserved for ideas like “Getting sponsored by a legitimate occult group is highly over-rated and may not be worth the price of having to hate the same people as the head of the sponsoring group.” No, I do not make many friends, for I am that whack job. I have made a list of things I believe that I really should not, simply because I am one of the few that feels this way.

The other day I had to add something new to my list. Not really new—it is just that I hadn’t made a certain business decision yet that puts me firmly in the “Does not believe what the majority of the occult community believes and therefore, he is really, really wrong.” Now that I have made the decision, let the flogging begin.

But long before the business decision was actually made, I was already wrong. Let me give you a quick illustration.

One of my occult writer friends recently published a new occult book and was advertising it on Facebook. I hopped over to the Amazon page to take a look. I was mildly curious, and just maybe thought that I might buy a copy to help my friend out (because I know how Amazon sales ranking works). Yet upon learning that the book was not available in convenient and more economical ebook form, I choose to spend my money on a bundle pack about a cowboy who rides a unicorn instead. (Unicorn Western—if you are curious.) Bottom line, while I was mildly curious about my friend’s book, I was not that curious.

Yes, I have become the Ebook Bastard. That bastard who likes all his class handouts to be in convenient ebook form—preferably in Kindle format, thank you very much. And who plans on issuing all his future handouts on Amazon, for those people who do not live in reasonable distance of my charming voice. The bastard who believes that printed occult books, well printed books period, have become a shrinking niche market, and not worth the effort to format unless they are picture and chart books. I would totally consider buying a pop-up book; but if it is just words and a few pictures, ebooks are now my preferred format.

It is not just price, and not having to find space on a bookshelf for another book (“Look, I just brought nine novels and my Kindle is exactly the same weight as it was before I brought those books”), it is some of the stuff that I can as an author that really makes me a supporter of ebook technology.

For those who have not seen my work, I tend to write stuff that less than a hundred people in the entire world will be interested in. The likelihood of a traditional gatekeeper publisher deciding to put my work in print is about the same as me suddenly sprouting wings and becoming an angel. And that is totally ignoring the fact that I am open about some of my opinions; you try to get a traditional occult publisher to publish your stuff when you are openly stating in your book that you are pro-pot.

The bottom line is that my stuff is only suitable for self-publication. Nevertheless, even as a self-publisher (I prefer the term “indie”), I could go the print route, as my friend did with his latest occult book. So why didn’t I? Because I can do things with ebooks that I can’t do with printed books.

(A quick aside—all the editing and support that a traditional publisher provides, or should provide, can be done by an indie directly, or paid for by the indie. A self-published book can be as good as a book that was vetted by a traditional gatekeeper publisher.) For instance, I have a couple books (really short books—articles really) that I have planned on expanding for years (code-named Bootstrap and Walking the Wheel). To do this with a print versions, I have to not only buy a proof copy (or several if I don’t get it right the first time), everyone who currently has brought a copy would have to buy a new copy to read the new material added. Now, there are some that will argue that having customers buy new copies makes sound business sense. But in my mind, it doesn’t.

First, there are things that I originally thought about putting in the book that I didn’t…because I didn’t have time to. Getting the information out was more important than getting it perfect the first time. And let’s be honest, the core information in the book would still not be available today if I waited for perfection. It was better to issue the information for the interested parties, and plan on updating later.

Second, I learned and developed the core idea over the last eleven years since I first released the currently available version or Bootstrap (likewise for Walking the Wheel, which was released a couple of years ago). The readers that I would most like to read my developments are actually those who used the information in the first place. And with an ebook, I can be reasonably sure that those who brought the ebook though legitimate retailers will get the updated material. Such an immediate updating and ensuring that it gets to the people who brought the first version is easy with an ebook, and impossible with a printed book.

Third, I consider those who have used the material from the first edition of the books to be a community. I like my little community—occasionally, people thank me for releasing the information which gives a small thrill every time it happens. These are my tribe, and I don’t see how annoying them by making them buy a whole new copy at a higher price tag would be productive. (Yes, if I add a hundred pages of material, the price is so going to be increased.) I released the information that is the backbone of Bootstrap because it was my solution to a reoccurring problem, a solution that I still believe in. Updating the existing ebook, rather than creating a whole new edition, is more supportive of the idea and the community that uses the idea than being a writer scrabbling after nickels and dimes.

(Another aside—yes, I know that there are those who believe that if I was really supportive of the occult community that I would just release the information for free and not charge a dime for it. To these critics, I would like to point out that I am a professional writer and what I am charging is far less than what the some legitimate occult leaders charge for their support. On the day that the world abolishes money and everyone gets a guaranteed livelihood, I will quit charging; but until then, I have bills to pay.)

Fourth and most importantly, by updating the ebook and not creating a new listing, I get to keep all the existing links to the books. And the work I have done over the years to promote the books (blog posts and linking to the sales pages) carries over to the new expanded versions. I don’t lose my current sales numbers, and get to add to them instead. Try doing that with a new print edition that is a hundred pages longer and is essentially a brand new book.

And that is the crux of the matter, I can do things with ebooks that I simply could never do as a writer with printed books. It does not matter that “Real books are made with paper” and that “One should not never use a Kindle while performing ritual”; what matters is that ebooks allow me to give my customers a better experience.

Because of that, I am truly that Ebook Bastard.

(And no, I am not telling which two books I am updating. If you can't guess from the code names, then you are obviously not part of the existing tribe that I am updating them for.)

Maybe if it was a touch bigger. 

Ritual Magic Manual ebook edition is coming (David Griffin masterpiece)

At the end of his webinar today, Demons and the magic of Golden Dawn (or whatever, the title of the webinar was), David Griffin announced that The Ritual Magic Manual is soon going to be released in an ebook format.

For those who are unaware of The Ritual Magic Manual, it is a 666 page book (a solar/venusian talisman, according to the author) that basically gives all the variations (both invoking and banishing) of the Greater Ritual of the Elemental Pentagram, Greater Ritual of the Planetary Hexagram, Greater Ritual of the Zodiacal Pentagram, Greater Ritual of the Sephirothic Hexagram rituals.

[Please note that these are his labels; others use slightly different names for these rituals.]

Published in 1999 (the only book ever published by Golden Dawn Publishing), The Ritual Magic Manual, typically is either rated one star or five stars (outside of my own review, I can't remember any middle ground reviews of the book). And when it went out of print, in typical out-of-print occult book fashion, some sellers started to ask a thousand dollars for a copy.

To the best of my knowledge, no seller has ever unloaded one at that price; the highest price I have seen admitted from a buyer was $350. Even so, given the original fifty dollar price tag, it is an inflated price for the book. (That's a book seller/collector opinion, not an opinion on the merits of the book itself. Interestingly, the most I have ever been offered is what I originally paid for my copy...so I tend to think that the actual value of the book was much less than a thousand.)

The importance of the book is that this is David Griffin's version of Golden Dawn self-initiation, and what he considers to the the most important aspect of the Golden Dawn system (basically, the rituals grow your body of light [LVX] and allows you to stop having to dwell in a meat-suit).

Now, a pdf of the book has been circulating in the pirate community for years, a slightly flawed copy, a copy that even Griffin shared in a giveaway. And I have argued for years that Griffin should get with the times and re-issue it though the ebook and POD (print-on-demand) markets...because if there really that much demand for it, why shouldn't he make a few dollars from it? (While I loathe the man, especially his insistance that anyone who disagrees with him is guilty of being part of a vast conspiracy to destroy his Order, I think that writers deserve to be paid---and the secondary book market does not give the writer a single penny---hence my argument that a re-issue was in order.)

And over the last couple of years, I have watched him edge up to this, but never step across the line until now. Good for him, good for the people who actually want an ebook copy of this book.

What are the responsibilities of a leader?

[The following was written for the Hearthstone Community Church's September 2012 newsletter.]

One of the questions that I occasionally kick around is: What are the responsibilities of a leader? In particular, what are the responsibilities of a leader in the rarified atmosphere of modern paganism and the occult? In addition, if a person does not fulfill these responsibilities, are they still a leader?

The reason I typically kick around this set of questions is someone accusing me of being a leader. Normally, the label leader being attached to me is accompanied by the person accusing me of doing behavior that is unbecoming of being a leader. In another words, I am never called a good leader—just the type of leader that someone does not want the rest of the world exposed to.

Now, I will admit that this particular type of behavior both amuses me and annoys me—for the exact same reason. I am not a leader; I am a lunatic with a soapbox; there is a difference. In other words, I do not consider myself a leader. I am merely someone with very loud opinions.

Sure, I am a public representative of a group. In all fairness, to myself that is, I would like to point out that no one else in the group wants to be the public representative. The group also believes that if someone doesn’t like me, then they will not be a good fit for the group. In other words, I am not a leader because I am the public voice of a group—I am a speed bump because of my visibility.

And being an officer of a group does not make me a leader. In the case of said group, I am an elected officer. This means simply that there are jobs to do that no one else wants to do, and that I am not clever enough to recruit someone who wants to do them. I suspect that a trained monkey could do my job as an officer—hmmm, I wonder if I could find a trained monkey who is willing to work for free.

The biggest expectation that I encounter of leaders is that they are supposed to work for free. Only in paganism and occultism are leaders expected to work for free. In other areas, leaders are expected to be paid—not necessarily well, but still paid. In Wiccan circles, I have seen people believe that the leader of a coven should not only give their time freely, but should also foot the entire operating cost of the group. As a lunatic with a soapbox, I disagree. While I am open to the possibility that the leader of a coven or lodge should not charge for their time, I believe that all members of an esoteric community should chip in on the operating costs. Furthermore, I believe that authors and teachers of occultism and paganism should get a token wage for their efforts.

 

The second expectation that I encounter is the idea that a leader in the esoteric community should be open to all ideas—as in they should never tell anyone that they are wrong. I am not sure where this idea comes from, but it completely does not fit into the universe I live in. This idea is often combined with the idea that a leader needs to be a more evolved spiritual being. I am sorry; the two ideas do not support one another. If everyone was right, then we would all be equally evolved. Therefore, in my little universe, a leader occasionally has to tell someone that they are wrong.

So what are the responsibilities of a leader in my universe?

One, they have chosen to put the interests of a group ahead of their own personal interests. A leader serves the needs of a group. It is an unpleasant job. Occasionally, this involves “herding cats” and moving the group in a direction that the individual members do not want to go. A true leader knows that one sometimes has to make unpopular decisions. One cannot please everyone when they are a leader. A leader also has to place the interests of their group ahead of other groups—if all opinions and interests were the same, we would not need leaders in the first place.

A leader leads by example and/or suggestion. They do not need to be officially in a position of power. Their ability to lead does not spring from the position that they hold in a group, rather it springs from their innermost being. Sometimes, a true leader seems more like a force of nature than a human being.

And most importantly, a leader needs to know the following two sentences: “I do not know,” and “I made a mistake.” A leader has to be able to admit when they do not know something, and they have to be willing to admit to occasionally (or often) making mistakes. A leader does not need to be right all the time, but they do have to be willing to admit mistakes and ignorance, and be willing to change directions when necessary.

Leaders are not leaders because they are popular or agree with everyone. They are leaders because they are willing to make unpleasant decisions, and are willing to put the best interests of others ahead of their own personal interests. A true leader will not change their behavior just because someone says that they are wrong. Being a leader is unpleasant on most days—which is why I am glad that I am just a lunatic with a soapbox.

[The 2012 Hearthstone Community Church's newsletter articles written by Morgan Drake Eckstein will be collected in an ebook sometime in 2013. The 2010 articles can be found in the collection Pizza Boxes on the Floor. The 2011 articles are currently being formatted into an ebook. Three of the best articles can be found in the free ebook--Four Cornerstones.]

Two repeated advertisements

Apologies to all who have already seen these two advertisements; but due to a hiccup with Facebook and Networked Blogs, those who follow this blog through Facebook did not see these two important advertisements.

One, my wife is now selling wheel thrown pottery in her Esty shop: Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery.

Royal Blue Mortar and Pestle.

She currently has one urn, four mortar and pestles, two herb jars, and a pair of candlestick holders available.

Two, I am giving away for free an ebook on Smashwords, Four Cornerstones, collecting the three best articles I wrote for the Hearthstone Community Church's Newsletter, as well as a reprint of the very first article that I wrote for the pagan/Wiccan/esoteric community. Did I mention that it is free? All I ask is that people give me some feedback on how horrible the meatgrinder conversion tool is treating the text.

Four Cornerstones available for free on Smashwords.