What Does Gender Mean, Anyway?

Old Music for New People

I’m happy to say that my new novel Old Music for New People comes out early next week (click here to go to its main landing page). As anyone who loves teens knows, stories about young people coming of age are stories about all of us. Without doubt, my intention with this novel was to write about family, love, and the problem everyone has trying to figure out who they are in this nutso world. Old Music for New People takes place at a time well before the covid pandemic ever hit the world. Hopefully it will be a balm to readers in this time of great uncertainty. Below you will find text from a letter my publisher’s staff and I prepared to go out to editors and reviewers everywhere. I think it’s a great introduction as well for potential readers.


Dear Editors, Reviewers, (and Readers),

A few years ago, one of the younger generation in our admittedly hyper-progressive extended community declared that they were considering a gender transition. Sadly, no matter how well-meaning and supportive the rest of us wanted to be, we wound up responding somewhat incompetently in how we handled this new knowledge. It became painfully obvious to me in our collective ineptness that gender transition moments are actually huge tests of love and insight and family intelligence.

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Indies Unlimited Sneak Peak: July 8

Indies Unlimited is a great resource for independent authors and their readers. They post loads of information on quality books available at reasonable prices online. They also run a fabulous FaceBook page you should check out here:

http://www.facebook.com/IndiesUnlimited

At around 5:00 on Sunday evening, July 8, they will be posting one of their Sneak Peak specials on Beyond the Will of God. You can take a peak and then use their store to buy my novel through Kindle. Or, you can buy the book right now.


A little more news here as well. I’ve been hard at work setting up a paperback version of the book. If you’ve been following this blog at all over the past few weeks, you know that this is one of the basic rules for Indie Writers that I’ve discovered (Lesson #9). Kindle books are a great buy at under $9.99 (BWG is a steal right now at $2.99). But half the readers out there are still just not interested in making the investment in an e-reader — or they have issues with reading on a screen.

Cover for the paperback

So, I just finished up a second round of proofs and am waiting for the next set of gallies to be sent to me. I feel confident the corrections I spent all day making will merit a finished product by the end of next week. That means you will be able to buy a paperback version of Beyond the Will of God before the end of July.


That’s all good news, I hope. Now the medicinal news. Writers have to work with Amazon and Create Space on pricing. Ultimately, they give you your say on things, but they have to cover the cost of manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. They have a pretty hardcore equation for print-on-demand publishing and because they sell to a huge number of outlets, the equation has to take all costs into account. I looked at the best pricing given their equation. The price I have come up with is fairly competitive. And you need to remember you can still get the e-book for $2.99. The comparative paperback price will be $15.99 (plus shipping, of course). It’s comparable to pretty much anything you’d buy at Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. If you have strong opinions about this, please let me know. 


In the meantime, check out Indies Unlimited after 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Now’s the time to buy the book electronically. It’s really intended to be crazy summer reading. 


See you in the funny papers. 


David