Give an Adventure this Christmas

Posted on by johnpbaur

Give the gift of adventure this holiday season. If your list contains someone who lovea a good sea yarn it’s not too late to order my young-adult swashbuckling novel “Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter.” It’s the story of a young girl who disguises herself as a boy and runs away to sea to find and rescue her father, who has been captured by pirates.

You can order it through all the usual places, from Amazon to your local bookstore. Or if you want an autographed copy, go through my site at Big Cartel, and I’ll get one in the mail to you the next day.

Readers have said of “Chrissie” –

“If you like reading adventure tales, wry humor, or just books, chart a swift course for Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter. … John Baur’s first stab at young-adult fiction features top-notch characterization, breathtaking battle scenes, and as much plot as your favorite Rafael Sabatini and Hunger Games novels — combined.”

“Just finished Chrissie Warren! Wow what a journey! I laughed, I cried, and I can’t say I could enjoy anything more. This has to be among the top in my favorite pirate books. I’m so glad this amazing piece of literature found its was onto my bookshelf!”

“Fabulous. … I enjoyed it tremendously!”

For the autographed volumes go to the Big Cartel link here – http://tinyurl.com/nu5ajsz. And make sure when you check out that you use the “Notes to Seller” tab on the checkout page to tell me who you want the autograph made out to. Otherwise I’ll put a generic signature. The “Notes to Seller” tab is at the end of the payment section – not where I’d have put it, but they didn’t ask me.

And have a M-aaarrrrrr-y Christmas!

Notes from the Road

Posted on by johnpbaur

This has been a good first week on the road, for a lot of reasons, many of them obvious. But I’m going to give three for now.

This is the first time since I’ve known Tori that we have been together without kids for a whole week. We both had children before we met, and after we got married we had three more. (They know what causes that now.) So we have been able to get away for occasional weekends, but that was it.

Today is our seventh day on the road, a full week. And we’ve had a great time. Just driving, being silly, exploring new things together, laughing. It’s always been a “given” that she’s my best friend. How fun to see how true that really can be, when it’s just the two of us, how well it works.

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Ol’ Chumbucket with Constable Heartless, whose name believes the generous spirit of the man,

Speaking of friends, I left Hampton late Sunday afternoon with a slew of new ones, the many fine freebooters I met at the Blackbeard Festival, starting with the members of Blackbeard’s Crew, who were our hosts at throughout the gathering. It was an honor I feel deeply, and I’m proud to call them brothers. Constable Heartless – you’re not fooling anyone with that name. You’re a fine pirate, a fine captain and a fine man. And all the other pirates from the various crews – Hope, Rattanne, Just Gregg, Damon, Mr. Willis, Rummaker, all the crew of the Vigilant, The Moody Crew and the Loose Cannon Company and all the rest of ye – I’m proud to call you brothers – even the women.

This had been planned as a sales trip, and certainly that’s the point. We wouldn’t be doing this without the impetus of “Chrissie Warren” Pirate Hunter.” (Certainly as far as the IRS is concerned that’s all it’s about.) It wasn’t necessarily about selling books as getting it out there, meeting people, showing the flag. But it turns out, so far anyway, that we have been selling books, especially the first day of the festival when we sold quite a few. Not just “Chrissie,” although mostly that. But Tori had noticed early in our “retailing” career last year that the tables that seem to do the best have more than one title on them. So we brought with us some of our earlier efforts written with Cap’n Slappy – “A Li’l’ Pirates ABSeas,” “Well Blow Me Down,” and “Pirattitude,” and sold a few of each. In fact, I think it was the single best day of book selling I’ve had since Cap’n Slappy and I had a reading at a bookstore in our hometown and the audience was packed with our longtime friends. This has been total strangers. So we’re hopeful.

And, like I’ve always said, each book is sold one copy at a time, person to person, one to one. I actually had quite a bit of fun engaging people as they walked by, joking with them, talking about the books, and drawing them in until – Click! – they decide to buy one. You can actually feel it when they make the decision, sometimes they are as surprised as anyone. It’s fun.

We’ve got three readings/events coming up in the next five days, and we are just having fun.

With a Song in My Heart

Posted on by johnpbaur

We had this idea back in June to record “Pirate Feeling,” a parody or satire of the classic “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers, one of my favorite songs of all time. But what visuals would go over the audio? No one wants to look at me singing. They barely want to listen to me singing.

We settled on the classic slide show montage. And asked friends from all over the pirate community to toss a couple of slides my way. We ended up with about 120. We needed about 40.

Then we let it sit for a while. Good ideas, like good wine, need to age. Who said that? Anybody? Probably not, because we realized that was a terrible idea. Strike while the iron is hot would have been more to the point. Talk Like a Pirate Day is almost here (it’s Saturday, for those not in the know) and we had to get to work or give the idea up. We didn’t want to do that.

So that was our weekend. We figured on, maybe two takes. Maybe three. We’d knock it out Saturday morning. Turned out it took almost all of two days, about 40 takes, at one point we had to run out and buy a microphone (the Blue Yetti, I highly recommend it. A great mike for not that much money.) We had to learn some interesting things about the audio software. Latency – what a stupid idea!

And then when we finally had a take we could live with (we’d given up looking for perect around take 18) Tori took the audio and the e-pile of photos and her new computer and got to work weaving it all together. Only instead of weaving, it was more like pounding pegs into random holes when none of them quite fit.

Thank God I’d bought her a new comptuer a week earlier. If we’d been counting on this serviceable, dependable, but four-year-old Macbook we’d still be working on it. When it was knew it was the greatest. Now the new Macbook Air blows its doors off like it was standing still, which a lot of times it is. The newer versions of the photo and video editing software cause it to crash with some regularity.

But she got it done, and we’re happy with it. Got it posted on youtube, linked to Facebook and now linked here.

Look, I know I’m no Bill Medley, or even Bill Murray. I’m a passable singer whose falsetto doesn’t go nearly high enough. But it was fun.

And the rule of using social media is 9 to 1 – for every “buy my book” thing you post, try to post nine of you just being you. “Social media” is, after social.You’ll do nothing but annoy people if you try to turn it into your personal sales megaphone.

Now I’ve got the trip to Los Angeles coming up (in support of the book,) a pirate party at Studio City Tattoo where I will try to sell as many copies of the book as I can. Then back to NOLA, where I have a reading slated next week at the library. And more stuff in the works.

Because social media is good, but getting out there and meeting people face to face still can’t be beat. And if you sing ’em a little song? All the better.

(And yes, my throat has been pretty sore today.)

“Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter” is now on sale at these sites

Posted on by johnpbaur

And here it is. Days of anxious waiting are over and now “Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter” is available for sale. Now months of anxious waiting are on the horizon as I try to keep from obsessing on sales numbers – if any.

Here are the links:

csFINALfrontFor the trade paperback edition ($12.95, 268 pages)

This link takes you to the CreateSpace estore, where the paperback is loaded.

This link takes you to the site where you can advance order a special, signed and numbered hardcover edition: ($45, 272 pages)

This is a one-time-only limited edition hardcover of “Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter,” signed and numbered by the author. This volume also contains three interior illustrations by cover artist/designer Katherine J. Bishop, not contained in the paperback.

Orders will remain open through Nov. 1. When orders close, that’s how many copies will be printed. They will be shipped to me where I sign them and mail them to those who bought them. They will arrive in plenty of time for Christmas. This is the only opportunity to purchase a signed copy of the book online.

When you order, make sure you use the “Notes to Seller” tab at the bottom of the checkout page to tell me who you want the book signed to – your name, or the name of someone you intend to send it to as a gift. Otherwise i’ll just sign my name.

And of course, the Kindle version has been available all week. If you’re a Kindle reader, you can purchase it here:

And the first person to purchase the Kindle version has already posted an Amazon review, which I’ll share here, because, well, damn.

“This is a very compelling story, moving at a great pace. I hope there is a sequel in the works, because the story leaves you wanting more, in a good way. While I am technically not a young adult, I think they will enjoy this, too.” D. Van Middlesworth

I know that eventually someone is going to write a pan, tell me it’s a terrible book and I’m a terrible writer, because that’s the nature of the beast. I’m practicing being philosophical. I’m also laying in a supply of rum.

Chrissie Warren: Cover Girl

Posted on by johnpbaur

And now, the moment I have been waiting for (maybe you all have been too, but I know for a fact I have, anxiously) the cover of Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter. Drum roll please!

csFINALfront

It was designed by Katherine J. Bishop. She was a high school friend of our daughter, Millie, back on St. Croix. Katherine recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, and that girl learned some stuff! You can see her portfolio online here.

They say that your cover is the one of the most important elements in generating book sales. It’s not that people “judge” the book by its cover, but they sure are more likely to pick it up if a bright, attractive cover catches their eyes. And a shoddy cover is more likely to make them feel the book is shoddy. So in the long run it pays to invest in a good cover. And I got a good one! Thanks Katherine!