Are the Words It’s about time appropriate….. On May 8 the book was finally placed on several sites. (AMAZON, BARNES and NOBLE, BOOKS A MILLION, ARCHWAY (My publisher) and even Waterston’s (A British book dealer) and SAXO (Danish)

It comes in hardcover and paperback and will soon have an E-Book (Kindle) edition.  (More on that later)

My advice should you want to land a copy is to go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble.   (You can click on either name and get right to the site) This book is a print on demand book - and that is the simplest way to get it.  When I ordered my first copy it took about a day to get it to me from Amazon.  As I test I ordered from Archway and the book has yet to arrive.

The E-book issue is a bit odd.  They say it takes a couple of weeks to get the file formatted to an E-book or Kindle or iPad version.  Who’d a thunk it.

If you indeed to order it, I would appreciate a review on the site - that helps build traffic - I would love to rise above current rankings.

AMAZON Best Sellers Rank: #845,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

• #2,498 in Job Hunting & Career Guides
• #22,621 in Philosophy (Books)
• #32,235 in Parenting & Relationships (Books)

How in the hell I got included in Parenting and Relationships or in Job Hunting, I have no idea.  

One final comment - a good friend in Costa Rica is in the process of translating the book into Spanish.  I have worked with him over the last couple of weeks on this process.   Let me offer one example of the intricacies of translating a book.   My namesake, Jonathan Archer, came to California in 1849 by sailing “around the horn” (alrededor del cuerno) but as we talked about it and I asked some friends in Mexico - the term is not common.  One Mexican friend commented that Mexicans, when wanting to go from East to West, don’t think about sailing to the tip of South America.  So we added a description of the term (Navegando del Atlántico al Pacífico).   I am not sure when the Spanish version is coming and I am pretty sure I am not getting it translated into Danish

 At Last the Story Can Be Told - Today, I got the third set of blue lines from my publisher to review.   A blue line is a complete copy of a manuscript which the author (ME) gets to mark up.   I mention that this is the third one because even though I have probably read this manuscript a couple of hundred times,  these last three required me to nit-pick and to read what has already become very familiar with a great deal of care.  I had the constant notion in the back of my head of two images.   First, in one of the big pieces of legislation that I worked on - the actual enrolled version included the following lines in statute "Senator Moynihan, please call XXX-XXX-XXXX" (When that bill went to the printer some stray paper got scooped up and became momentarily part of the Internal Revenue Code.   But then I had a second image of two tombstones I found in an old cemetery which had typos.  I hope my images were merely author's caution and not forecasts.

There are fourth additional announcements and one clarification.   First, if the publisher keeps to the schedule all three versions (Hard Bound, Paperback and E-Book) will be on every possible book outlet (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo) - in about a month.  I will send an email when I have been notified of the publication date.

Second, if you would like a copy of the last Blue line sent to you please send me an email and I will send you one.   I hope that if you accept this version that a) you will offer comments - either directly to me or to a site when the book comes up - and b) that you will consider buying one of the editions.  Unfortunately I do not have any control over the price.

Third, I am considering having a friend translate the book into Spanish.   There are some complications in doing that but I have had a good friend offer to do the translation.   And I know his Spanish is great because he is my tutor.

Fourth, I am moving this blog and my main website from the current one to a new one titled FIVECENTTHINKING (which is in the process of being built in Mexico).  That transition may happen by summer.  I may keep the old domain or simply supplant it.

A Clarification - one of the key issues for this book has been whether I should include pictures.   I had one good friend who is a successful author argue persuasively that I should cut the pictures to speed the process.  While I understood the advice, I chose to ignore it and include 70+ pictures and illustrations (all in B/W because color photos are a pain to print).  The picture above is one which did not make the cut.  It is from 1964 - the gent with the Ode Banjo(Left) and shades you may recognize is me - the gent in the middle is the Reverend Gary Davis - it was taken for the Sat. Evening Post but never used.  Davis was a superb blind guitar player and as a group of us were jamming on a plaza at UCLA's folk festival he came up and asked "Do you boys mind if I join in?"  You'll notice that my arms are folded over my banjo -while we had done a couple of tunes together at that time we were all listening in awe as he riffed off the chimes on campus and then improvised.

Before the book gets in final print I want to thank each of you who read this blog and chapters over the last couple of years - I have been amazed by both the comments and the patience from each of you.

Godot has arrived....In late September I did the last post for this blog.  You may have thought I had abandoned the book.   Not so.  A friend who worked in publishing suggested to me that once the manuscript is accepted there is a lag time if you are using a large publishing house.  The warning was correct.   I've spent the last few months using my skills and my patience in working through the path that my publisher (Archway - an imprint of Simon and Schuster) has established.

But this morning my concierge sent me what in the legislative business were called mark up copies. So it looks like we are near the end of getting this in print.   I will need to take some time to mark up the copy and submit my edits.   I think I am going to print the manuscript out because in this case I think I can work with it more efficiently than on a screen.   After those edits are completed I will send them in, Archway will then do their "magic" and Of Course It's True, Except for a Couple of Lies will be in print on all major platforms. (Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, etc.).  It will come in three flavors Hardbound, Soft Cover and Ebook.  But here are five things I can tell you now.

#1 Pricing of the Hardcover is beyond my control - the publisher sets the price based on page count and a couple of other factors.  Assuming that the book comes out close to the size it is now (375 pages) - the price will be $39.95.

#2 - The Soft Cover Edition - the softcover version will be $22.95.

#3 - The Ebook Edition - This is where I get to set the price.   The default price is $3.99 but it can go from $2.99 to $9.99.  I am inclined to set the price in the $5.99 range.  

#4 - Spanish Language Edition - In December I gave a speech in Mexico City at a conference on Integral Formation in the Digital World - I was able to reconnect with a college from a University where I taught and he expressed interest in me going there some time in the fall and presenting the book to a convocation.  My Spanish tutor has volunteered to translate the manuscript.    That will be published under another imprint (not sure which one) but because of my work in Mexico "Of Course It's True Except for a Couple of Lies will become Por Supuesto es Verdad, Excepto por un par de Mentiras."  I think that will be primarily released as an Ebook or Soft Cover.

#5 - Release Date and publicity - Based on my schedule and some other factors I think the book will be available on all platforms by sometime in June.  I have spoken with a couple of knowledgable people about how to increase visibility of the book which will include some unique things like the convocations at Universities where I have taught or worked.  I have also thought about some very specific events with groups where I have been involved which would offer the proceeds from all sales to that group.

The Sequel - I am mulling doing a sequel to the book which would be a historical novel, tentatively called "In Pursuit of Happiness" which would be a story about one of the inspirations of the book (my namesake Jonathan Archer - who came to California in 1849 but died soon after arriving) and his younger brother Oliver Hazard Perry Archer who stayed in New York and became a very successful entrepreneur who among other things was a part of the group which dumped Jay Gould from the Erie Railroad board in 1872.   As I was researching this book I found a lot of evidence that Jonathan and OHP were good buddies and wondered what might have happened had Jonathan lived and thrived in California.  It would be based on that set of assumptions and would be considerably shorter that OCITEFACOL.   I am convinced that despite family lore about Jonathan's motives for coming to Sacramento during the Gold Rush - his real motive was Brannonesque (Sam Brannon was a merchant who quipped the way to make money in the gold was was not to pan for gold but to sell supplies to the miners.

Thanks for your patience on this project and for (those of you who still are!) your continued interest.