Saturday, June 17, 2006

book update

More information as it becomes available, but right now I can give you the physical dimensions of Water from a Skull: 6.625" wide by 10.25" high (can't give you a thickness until I know the number of pages). This makes the book about an inch wider and almost two inches higher than Scary Spasms in Hairy Chasms. Such dimensions are described on the CafePress site as "comic book" dimensions, and in fact, my copy of the graphic novel V for Vendetta matches those dimensions perfectly.

Aesthetically, such dimensions skew from the Divine Proportion,* but I hope you'll still take the book seriously.

My brother advised me in an IM conversation that "You'd better start marketing" the book. This is true, but I'll need your help. If you're interested in questions of religious diversity, interreligious dialogue, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and so on-- i.e., if you're part of the roughly 40-50% of my readership who hit this blog not so much for the shit humor as for the more, uh, cerebral essays, then you're the person I'm addressing.

The favor I ask is this: spread the word. If you're part of a ListServe or a BBS community, if you're a church leader who'd like to get college-aged or adult Christians involved in some heavier-than-normal religious discussion, if you're a non-Christian interested in the field of religious studies, then please begin dropping hints in your community/-ties that Water from a Skull will be out around the end of June. Help me get this book off the ground! I'd love to sell a few hundred copies before year's end. If I end up selling a few thousand copies (a man can dream), well, tant mieux. Believe me, with my massive education debt, I won't be getting rich anytime soon, so please don't think I'm "in this for the money." This book is about a subject that's near and dear to me; it's probably the closest thing to a "from the heart" public gesture you're ever likely to see from me.

To help you out, I might start up a separate "promo" blog (I had one before, but it was largely ignored) that will host a PDF containing a wide range of samples from the book's many essays. I don't know when I'll have the PDF available, but I'll be sure to announce it when I do. The site might also include a FAQ section.

Whoa... look what day it is! We're coming down to the wire now.

Oh, yeah: scanner update! My cash went through faster than expected. I've bought the full suite for my scanner (pretty expensive, too), and successfully scanned the cover illustration. Perhaps tonight or tomorrow, you'll have a look at the new front cover of my book. Don't expect anything stellar, but if I'm pleased with the result, then I'm pretty sure you will be, too. Comments-- constructive ones-- will be welcome.





*Dr. Hodges has written on that subject here and here and here, where he refers to it by one of its other names, the Golden Ratio-- something of a misnomer, since it's actually an irrational number-- i.e., a number incapable of being expressed as a ratio.

Come to think of it, "Divine Proportion" may be a misnomer for the same reason!


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1 comment:

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Kevin, when they said "[s]uch dimensions are described on the CafePress site as 'comic book' dimensions," I'm sure that they really meant "cosmic book" dimensions.

Your book has cosmic dimensions despite your claim that its "dimensions skew from the Divine Proportion."

It's just that the divine proportions of your book are the "Golden Irratio."

Yours in numerical design,

Jeffery Hodges

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