the animal's journal

[theanimal]

@WRC- I thought I’d responded already but apparently not. Thank you very much for your post! I got a lot out of Paul’s resources and especially the presentation (which surprisingly seemed to have more useful stuff than the essay). That was very useful and has been a big help in guiding me in the non writing aspects. I also appreciate the podcast suggestions. I’ve started a list of podcasts to reach out to that seem like a good fit.

———-

If anyone is interested in beta reading a draft of the book, send a DM or email my way. I’m just about finished with a second draft and I’ll be sending it out to others this week. I'm interested in receiving any critical feedback at any scale you'd care to give. At the moment, it’s roughly 47k words.

[sodatrain]

Great update. Sucks that the workaway didn't pan out.

I hear you on the desire to be home more. Traveling has been (and is) great but mostly these days I find myself wanting to be at home more.

[theanimal]

I started Skillathon last month and my focus was video production and editing. I did two courses on LinkedIn Learning, but had planned to do more. Nonetheless, I found the courses worthwhile and a good base for going forward with video skills. I am not planning on filming every project, but I have the intention of making more video content later on this year. I will first be putting together some small videos from our PCT trip and then once we are back in Alaska, I am thinking about doing more lifestyle and trip stuff for YouTube. As of now, I plan on continuing to shoot everything with my iPhone. I’m tempted to add an additional lens on the phone but we’ll see.

I think the real focus for the first month and the thing that I improved upon was time management. Between traveling, working, my book, exercising, care of and time with the other animals, there didn’t initially seem to be much time for something like Skillathon. I think I’ve worked out the kinks though, moving things around and placing more of a priority on getting things done at certain times (ie easier to do Skillathon stuff so far at the beginning of the day when I’m hanging out with baby animal).

This month I am working on penmanship. I’m going through the Spencerian books (the ones mentioned here), doing 2-3 pages a day of exercises. I’m also answering 1-2 questions a day from this list, using that as prompts to journal and get me to write more by hand. So far, I’ve been writing by hand about 1.5-2 hrs each day. That’s probably what it’ll stay at for the rest of the month, I can’t imagine devoting any more time to that right now.



My skillathon schedule is up in the air going forward as our schedule seems to constantly be in flux. The latest update is that Mrs. Animal will be taking a massage therapy course. She’s wanted to do it for a while, and the timing worked out right for starting this month. It is in Texas and we’ll be staying with my dad for the duration. I’m unsure if I’ll stay the whole time or if baby animal and I will head back home earlier. It’ll last 2.5 months and then she’ll have to take a few hours in AK to get her license there as well (AK requires more hours). But once that’s done, she’ll be able to go into business for herself and charge quite a hefty sum out of the gate. She’s really looking forward to it and I’m happy she will be doing it.

Neither of us are really happy to be spending that much time in Dallas, but it is what it is. If you haven’t been, I wouldn’t recommend it. The city is sprawled out unlike any other that I’ve seen and the culture is very career and status focused, leading to very flashy lifestyles. It’ll be an interesting cultural experience if anything else. I plan on trying to do some dumpster diving while I’m there for food and I’ll have to see about non-food items as well as there is a lot of wealth in the area, like California. Otherwise, I do have a plan of attack to not only remain sane but thrive. With that, it should actually end up being a good experience.

Originally I was thinking of doing 2-3 week sprints for Skillathon, but I think it’ll work easier for me if I devote a longer time period to each one. So with that, here is the penciled in schedule for the foreseeable future:

February- Whittling (spoons and kitchen utensils)
March- Sharpening (focus on knives, saws and axes)
April- Mending and Zipper Repair
May- Split between Handgun and Cooking Without Gas
June-Fly fishing
July-Timber framing
August-
September- Preserving Meat without Electricity
October-Bike Repair (move from beginner to intermediate level)
November- Bushcraft?
December-Small engine repair (generator)

[sodatrain]

Really interesting update, thanks! Massage therapy seems like a great way to have some flexibility (not to mention portable) income! The thought had crossed my mind before but always felt like there was quite a few people before me with the same idea. But that was pre- post-consumer praxis! Now I'm seeing it again as an interesting idea knowing a little bit of income can go a long way. Well done!

1) how's the penmanship practice going? I would have never guessed that would be a skill in someone's skillathon. What was your motivation?

2) YT videos - what is your motivation there? Are you hoping it will generate some income?

Edit - super interested in knife sharpening. I have some of the tools but havr never used them. It's a goal for me for 2024. Will look forward to hearing about that! Also looking forward to your meat preservation!

This is making me reconsider adopting the skillathon. A goal for Jan is learning sausage making...

[theanimal]

Yes, massage therapy seems like a good example of a microbusiness, especially if you live in a tourist destination. The ROI is kind of crazy. The course is $4100 and presuming she is able to pass the certifying exam to get her license, she will be able to charge the market rate of ~$100/hr right away.

1) how's the penmanship practice going? I would have never guessed that would be a skill in someone's skillathon. What was your motivation?

Repetitive! It doesn’t seem to me that there’s any better way to improve than rote learning, so that’s what I’m doing. Right now, the book is having me practice with individual letters. Some are harder than others. Like “X” for example. Writing X’s this morning too me like 45 minutes to fill the page.

My handwriting has always been mediocre at best. I’d like to improve to have the ability to write legibly and with style for my own purposes in maintaining journals etc and also if I am to resume writing letters to others. I find that I think differently when writing by pen versus typing, so it’d be nice to have the ability to do so and be happy with the style.

2) YT videos - what is your motivation there? Are you hoping it will generate some income?

I see video as another means of creative expression. I’ve enjoyed making and putting together the videos I’ve done in the past. Mrs. Animal and I have been repeatedly told by a number of people that we should start a channel because of the way we live. Seeing others that have channels and do similar things that we do, it seems within the realm of possibility that we could gain a large following and develop an income from it. Neither of us is interested in living for the camera though, so I’d have to think about the best means of approaching it.

Get on board the skillathon train! You can design it however best fits your circumstances.

[mooretrees]

I’m currently focusing on mending so whenever you shift to it, I might have some assistance to offer. I’m not focused on zippers, but can see how that would be very useful. I’m working primarily on holes in pants and wool clothes, so patching and specific styles of stitching that are really cool. The visible mending trend is very much in alignment with my ERE web of goal and tiny house reality; giving old clothes more life, very low cost to enter, the tools are minimal and and perfection is absolutely NOT the goal.

Also, I’d be very much interested in any videos, but to be honest, I want to see Mrs Animal showing off her chainsaw skills!

[theanimal]

I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The book process is coming to a close. I ended up having 7 beta readers who all provided feedback after their reading of an early draft. It was incredibly helpful and I was able to incorporate a lot of their suggestions and changes with the end product being much stronger than before. After getting it to the point where I didn’t feel like I could make any significant changes, I sent it off to an editor. This was one of the more difficult parts of the process, mainly because of the uncertainty and needing to vet people on my own. One of the few positives of going with traditional publishing is that you don’t have to choose an editor and worry about this aspect of your book. The downside is that you could get a shitty editor who you don’t really agree with. Not knowing where to look, I searched through Upwork and Fiverr before stumbling upon Reedsy near the last minute. Reedsy is an online marketplace full of designers, editors, typesetters etc. largely catering to independent and self-published authors. The company vets the people who offer their services and so there ends up being much higher quality talent than elsewhere. I ended up going with an editor who worked as the Editor in Chief for a large publication and regularly works with some of the smaller publishing companies that publish books similar to my own. I was generally pleased with the results and thanks to those efforts, the text came out stronger.

Since finishing up the edits, I have been proofreading the text with Mrs. Animal and formatting the book via a software called Atticus. Everything has been just about buttoned up and I have sent off some advance digital copies to friends and family. I made a post on social media announcing the book and the reception has been incredible so far. The book is set to launch April 9th.

One downside of going with Print On Demand services is that when it comes to printing, it’s either black & white or color, no mixing. I have 22 photos in the book from our trip that I am including but unfortunately, it is beyond cost prohibitive to include them as color images. @Bsog had the brilliant idea of hosting the color photos on my website and putting a QR code in the book, so I am doing that for the physical copies. That got me thinking, if I can put the photos up on my site, why not the book as well? So I established a storefront and will be selling the eBook, audiobook and hardcover versions there as well. I don’t need to sell very many to cover the costs of having the store there. I’ll also be able to offer those at a lower price than elsewhere while at the same time putting more money in my pocket.

Now on to the last phase of the process: promotion. I enjoyed the first two (writing and editing/formatting) so we’ll see how I find this last step. I’m planning on pursuing as high yield opportunities as possible, primarily focusing on podcasts and social media. We’ll see how it turns out. My listing is up on Amazon and the ebook is available for preorder as of a couple days ago. I already have some copies sold. Many more to go… If anyone is interested, they can find more information, listings etc. on my site. I don’t want to be spammy, so this will be the only time I’ll link to it.

Not much going on otherwise. I've had my hands full chasing baby animal around and working about 10 hours a week part time.

[Ego]

Nice! Congratulations!

[calamityjane]

Woohoo! Excited to read it.

[Scott 2]

Let us know when and where the print on demand drops. I'll buy a copy and pass it along to a friend after reading.

[Smashter]

Very cool! I'm impressed by your diligence in getting this done so quickly and in such a professional manner, but why would I expect anything less from theanimal.

I spy @mountainFrugal listed as the illustrator, it's a true ERE production. Wishing you many 5 star reviews

I do not think it would be spammy at all to let everyone know when the print edition drops or to link to the book in other ways over the course of the launch.

[jacob]

So I established a storefront and will be selling the eBook, audiobook and hardcover versions there as well. I don’t need to sell very many to cover the costs of having the store there. I’ll also be able to offer those at a lower price than elsewhere while at the same time putting more money in my pocket.

Maybe amazon has changed the deal, but it used to be that amazon wanted an exclusive deal in order to pay 70% royalties on ebooks on KDP. Otherwise it was 35%. Depending on the ratio between amazon and your storefront (where presumably, it's closer to 100%), it might not be worthwhile to keep the option on the storefront. (Personally, I did not see all that much action on "direct from the publisher". Mostly "I hate amazon"-types. Your audience might be different though.)

Many more to go… If anyone is interested, they can find more information, listings etc. on my site. I don’t want to be spammy, so this will be the only time I’ll link to it.

My tolerance for self-promotion on the forum is proportional to how many posts someone has. I'd say you're alright I'm sure people wouldn't mind seeing some updates/how it goes with it. This would also remind people that you have a book out in case they didn't see this particular post. I think people often forget that not everybody reads every single post on the forum. If someone doesn't log in for a week, they'll likely miss stuff that was only mentioned once.

[theanimal]

Thanks, all!

Maybe amazon has changed the deal, but it used to be that amazon wanted an exclusive deal in order to pay 70% royalties on ebooks on KDP. Otherwise it was 35%. Depending on the ratio between amazon and your storefront (where presumably, it's closer to 100%), it might not be worthwhile to keep the option on the storefront. (Personally, I did not see all that much action on "direct from the publisher". Mostly "I hate amazon"-types. Your audience might be different though.)

That is true. However, for the 70% option, they charge $0.15 per mb delivery cost. Since my book has illustrations and photos, it is a relatively large file and ends up being near $6 in delivery costs. So if I charge $9.99, I'm only ending up with 70% of $3.99. The 35% option does not charge for delivery costs, so counterintuitively, I will make more money with the lower, non-exclusive royalty rate. Then on my site, I only pay 2% commission plus CC fees. So, I'm able to charge less and make more. I obviously don't have the same distribution as Amazon though. But I figure it's worth experimenting.


Thanks for the clarification on the self-promotion/spam. In that case, I'll make a post when it's available and let everyone know where to find it.

[Slevin]

That is true. However, for the 70% option, they charge $0.15 per mb delivery cost.

This is wild, considering AWS data egress costs are $.09 / GB at the nominal tier. Storage is also $.02 / gb. Assuming they have 30% margins (which they do right now), real cost to them is roughly $.07 / GB (actually lower because this is the nominal cost, not the deal larger players get), looks like Amazon is roughly charging you 2100% profit margins here on book delivery costs.

[delay]

Recently ordered a book from https://www.lulu.com, which seems to be a kind of self-publishing as well.

[Seppia]

I am, as usual, overwhelmed by the awesomeness of your updates.
I don’t have as much time to spend on the forum as I would like so I regularly fall behind (plus, I’d love to follow at least 5x the journals I actually follow), so please follow Jacob’s advice and be vocal about projects.

I will certainly buy the book when it’s out and look forward to reading it.
Going to your Blog I also realized you did an interview with AxelHeyst? Downloading that asap!

Also curious to hear about knife sharpening. Having worked in kitchens for a long time I “learned” how to do it but not sure I’ve learned to do it right.
Rather, I’m sure of the opposite: many years ago I got a Fallkniven large full size stone with the two sides (one for coarse, one for fine). So I know the tool is not the problem. I get ok results, but far from professionals, maybe thanks to you I improve my form a bit.

[theanimal]

@Slevin- Thanks for sharing that. I thought it was pretty crazy, now I think it's really crazy. Authors get gouged in a few ways on Amazon these days. That's one of them, through audiobooks is another. That being said, however they are calculating it ends up being different than what they stated(or what I swear I saw earlier), as I looked at it again and they are charging me only $0.55 per delivery for a 39 mb file. So I decided to go with the 70% royalty option after all. I can still distribute through other channels as well. Exclusivity only comes into play with Amazon nowadays when you enroll in KDP Select.

@delay-They are. I am using one of their competitors, Bookbaby, to distribute the book to more platforms (Kobo, Googleplay, Barnes & Noble, Hoopla, etc.) Lulu charges a commission on each book sale whereas Bookbaby charges just a flat fee when you set up the book. As a result it ends up being a lot more profitable to go with Bookbaby.

@Seppia- Thank you. I am, as usual, flattered by your kind words. They are very much appreciated! Thanks for your support. I'll let you know if I come to any revelations with regards to sharpening. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

[Western Red Cedar]

Congratulations! You've achieved yet another impressive milestone. I suspect publishing a book is on many of the respective ERE bucket lists. I look forward to reading it and will spread the word among my family and friends to help you sell some books.

[theanimal]

After nearly 9 months of traveling, we are finally home! We are both overjoyed to be home and have swore off leaving the state for a long time. We’ll see if we’re singing the same tune at the end of next winter.

Mrs. Animal finished up her massage therapy coursework and has just a few more hours to log before she can become licensed and start working in Alaska (AK requires more hours). We spent last weekend digging a winter’s worth of snow out of our driveway and organizing our house. Everything is more or less squared away inside. Our porch is a different story, with stacks of food boxes of unopened food boxes from the PCT from the sections we didn’t end up doing. So much dehydrated food! Wind, squirrels, birds and/or some mysterious beings flung some of our jackets and clothing far and wide into our yard, otherwise all is well with the house and there is no damage or anything out of place.

Audiobook
I spent much of the previous month working on the audiobook. I thought it'd be quick and easy, just read through and on to the next thing. Not so much. I struggled a lot with tone and pacing and ending up putting a lot more time in to it than expected. I think in the end I recorded at least each chapter twice and half the chapters at least three times. The highest was five . The editing and mastering process was much smoother than expected and all the files passed Amazon/itunes/Spotify technical review on the first submission. I'm still a little bit uncertain about the pacing but Mrs. Animal tells me it's fine, so it's probably good enough for this go around.

Pitching and Promotion
Outside of the audiobook, I spent the rest of my time figuring out how to promote the book and get more publicity. As mentioned (I think?) I tried to focus my results on high yield opportunities with most of my focus placed on the niche audience of the outdoor world and then the highly rated/ranked channels within that. My biggest venues are Facebook groups. There's a few PCT groups I'm a member of and collectively they have ~65k members. I made posts in all of them this morning. A woman from one of the notorious trail families and I have been talking and sharing stories about our experiences. She told me about a backpacking with kids and babies group that has another ~30k members and offered to make a post there today! There are similar groups with more members for the PNW, but as of now I probably won't post the book in those as I don't have any history and think it would be spammy.

Another focus has been podcasts. @AH was gracious enough to have me on his podcast again and then I went on two other hiking specific podcasts. I was closing tabs on my computer one evening before going to bed when I saw a fresh email from Christopher Ryan. Yes, that Chris Ryan, the bestselling author who wrote Sex at Dawn. He asked me to send him a copy of my book and I went to bed. I awoke to him saying he finished it and he wanted to get me on his podcast. We ended up recording together (I think the episode is supposed to come out today or tomorrow) and he said he thought the book was awesome! That was a huge morale boost.

I have a few pitches outstanding to larger podcasts that I'm hopeful about but otherwise not much on the idea front. The PCT Association and NOLS are going to have articles in their summer magazines, but otherwise there's nothing really out there. We'll see how it goes.

It's Alive!
Finally, today’s the big day! The book launched in all major online retailers. You can pick up a copy in any format on Amazon or go through your preferred outlet. I’m discounting the ebook on Amazon to $2.99 for a limited time. Physical copies and audiobook are available there as well.

The book is available on my website as well at a discounted rate to Amazon. I end up getting more royalty wise this way, even at a lower sales price. I also have some package options, combining things like the ebook, audiobook and paperback. For the physical copies, I’ll be doing the shipping via media mail, so it will be slower than Amazon. Unfortunately, paperback copies are currently on backorder due to some logistical issues, though they are expected to arrive this week. There’s not too much of a difference either way in terms of benefit to me, so if you’re interested in buying a copy and Amazon or something else is easier for you, feel free to go with that. If you do buy a copy and are willing to leave a review, it’d be a huge help!

Thanks for all your support and encouragement! I’m pleased to be able to share our story with a larger audience. And excited to finally do something else.

[AxelHeyst]

"I'm friends with a guy who was on Tangentially Speaking" is how I'm going to introduce myself at cocktail parties in LA now. Great work getting the book out, Jack, it's been amazing watching the whole story from when you started walking till now. I wish you as much well-deserved relaxation as you want now that you're back home.