Bangkok – Page 10

Kilimanjaro eBook Free This Friday Only!

Just in time for Thanksgiving and Black Friday! As a way to say thanks, I am offering free copies of my ebook Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill on Friday, November 23.

Click here to download my ebook for free! (Friday only)

Each week, the World Literary Café gives away two free ebooks to members who request them as part of its Free eBook Friday promotion. Ebooks are distributed via Smashwords coupons. Books will be made available by 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (exact placement time varies) on Fridays and remain available until 9 p.m. EST. Register for free with the World Literary Café and log into its website where you can request a coupon to download the ebook for free from Smashwords.

The first book in the World Adventurers Series, Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill chronicles my attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. At forty years old and on the verge of a midlife crisis, I tried to change my life by climbing a mountain. This is my true story of facing Kilimanjaro and other challenges at middle age.

This book is for anyone who feels over the hill and needs encouragement to make a life change in the face of difficult odds. It’s also for the casual climber or hiker who is interested in climbing one of the world’s tallest mountains. Filled with insights and advice for those who are contemplating their own Kilimanjaro climb, this book will put you on the mountain and inspire you to go over it.

Kilimanjaro features more than 60 photos from my trek and earned an honorable mention from the 2012 Global Ebook Awards.

Get your free copy of Kilimanjaro this Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you very much, dear readers!

If you missed your chance to download Kilimanjaro for free, you can still enjoy the Free eBook Friday promotion with new ebooks each week.

Click here to learn more about Free eBook Friday

Grab your ereader and get two free e-books every Friday courtesy of the WLC!

About the World Literary Café

The World Literary Café is an online community that bridges the gap between readers and authors, with the mission of paying-it-forward in the literary field, promoting great literature, and bringing together the literary community. The WLC offers helpful promotions to authors, reviewers, bloggers, and editors by creating avenues to bring them together under one umbrella in an easily navigable venue.

M.G. Edwards is a writer of books and stories in the mystery, thriller and science fiction-fantasy genres. He also writes travel adventures. He is author of Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill, a non-fiction account of his attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, a collection of short stories called Real Dreams: Thirty Years of Short Stories and Alexander the Salamander, a children’s story set in the Amazon. His books are available to purchase as an e-book and in print from Amazon.com and other booksellers. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand with his wife Jing and son Alex.

For more books or stories by M.G. Edwards, visit his web site at www.mgedwards.com or his blog, World Adventurers. Contact him at me@mgedwards.com, on Facebook, on Google+, or @m_g_edwards on Twitter.

Use Your Wikipedia Donation to Support Indie Authors

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia has begun its annual pitch for donations to continue operating as an independent, non-profit information resource. Founder Jimmy Wales will once again ask those who visit the website to donate “to protect and sustain Wikipedia.” This year, I encourage you to put this donation to a better use. Please use the money to buy books published by independent (indie) authors.

Wikipedia is biased against indie authors it considers “non-notable” unless their works are cited by “credible” sources. In general, it prefers traditional media and does not recognize citations from social media sites, blogs, writers’ networks, self-publishing websites, or indie awards. Unless you are noted by select information resources, you’re out of luck receiving recognition from Wikipedia.

Wikipedia also strongly discourages autobiographies. It prefers second- and third-hand sources, which it considers more accurate and objective than first-hand accounts, even though such sources may be biased. Whether the biographer has an ulterior motive or a conflict of interest is irrelevant. Wikipedia assumes that its system to evaluate biases in its articles is sufficient, although its view on autobiographies suggests that it is not robust enough to root out misstatements, factual errors, or embellishments regardless of source.

If you are an author with a publicist who writes an article about you linked to a source Wikipedia that considers credible, then welcome to the club. If you’re a successful self-published indie author with an independent network, you’re out of luck. You and your books are not eligible to be included in Wikipedia. Don’t ask your friend to post your biography for you. Anonymous monitors who evaluate articles according to the site’s self-determined criteria will delete you.

Most self-published authors do not qualify for Wikipedia profiles. This does a disservice to the many hard-working, established writers who have chosen to self-publish. The rapidly expanding self-publishing industry operates differently than traditional publishing, and indie authors are more apt to promote each other through social media, writers’ circles, and independent networks than to wait for recognition from traditional media. Wikipedia’s rules are better suited to the pre-Internet and pre-social media eras. Rather than adapting to changes in the publishing industry, it simply chooses to exclude most indie authors.

This year, please support independent authors. The money saved from not donating to Wikipedia will buy some great books and recognize outstanding authors.

Here are three independent author communities with thousands of books to choose from:

Independent Author Network

Independent Author Index

World Literary Café

Thank you for your support.

The opinions expressed in this article represents solely the views of the author. Encyclopedia image courtesy of Microsoft; the indigo ribbon is public domain.

M.G. Edwards is a writer of books and stories in the mystery, thriller and science fiction-fantasy genres. He also writes travel adventures. He is author of Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill, a non-fiction account of his attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, a collection of short stories called Real Dreams: Thirty Years of Short Stories and Alexander the Salamander, a children’s story set in the Amazon. His books are available to purchase as an e-book and in print from Amazon.com and other booksellers. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand with his wife Jing and son Alex.

For more books or stories by M.G. Edwards, visit his web site at www.mgedwards.com or his blog, World Adventurers. Contact him at me@mgedwards.com, on Facebook, on Google+, or @m_g_edwards on Twitter.

Real Dreams Featured in the Foreign Service Journal

The Foreign Service Journal has featured my book Real Dreams: Thirty Years of Short Stories in its annual “In Their Own Write” compilation of books published by Foreign Service-affiliated authors in 2012. The Foreign Service Journal writes of Real Dreams (p. 49):

Mike Edwards wrote these 15 short stories over a period of 30 years, beginning in his youth. He covers a wide variety of themes and topics inspired by dreams and experiences over those years.

These stories encompass a boy’s fantasies and an adult man’s maturation. A young boy finds himself the protector of genetically modified army ants that have escaped from the military. An old woman considered to be mentally ill may have reason for her outbursts, while a prisoner of war writes letters of hope from his Nazi concentration camp during World War II. And a gloomy maintenance man turns out to have a terrifying history.

Real Dreams is a collection of stories I wrote between 1981 and 2011. Each reflects changes in my writing style and interests over time. I wrote the earliest story, “How Little Big Chief Calmed the Mountain,” as a young student, and the latest, “Evil | Live,” three decades later. The book is a story sampler rather than a cohesive anthology. The stories are grouped by genre. You will find some common themes, including hope, dreams, light, darkness, perseverance, and spirituality, wrapped up in some novel ideas. In some stories, the reader is left to ponder their deeper meaning. I hope you enjoy these diverse and timeless works three decades in the making.

Thank you, Foreign Service Journal, for including Real Dreams on your 2012 list. I am grateful that my book joined other superb works written by Foreign Service colleagues and alumni. I encourage readers to browse the books featured in “In Their Own Write” and read the Journal to learn more about the Foreign Service.

Real Dreams is available to purchase as an e-book or in print from these booksellers:

U.S. Booksellers

Available to purchase as an e-book for US$2.99:

Amazon.com for Kindle

Apple iTunes for iPad/iPhone

Baker & Taylor for Blio e-reader

Barnes & Noble for Nook

Diesel Ebooks for iPad and other e-readers

Google Play for Android

Kobo Books for Kobo e-reader

Smashwords for iPad and other e-readers

Sony ReaderStore for Sony e-reader

Available in print for US$8.99:

Amazon.com

Createspace–

International Booksellers

Available as an e-book or in print (prices vary by format and local currency):

Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom)

Amazon.fr (France)

Amazon.de (Austria and Germany)

Amazon.it (Italy)

Amazon.co.jp (Japan)

Amazon.es for Kindle (Spain)

Available as an e-book:

Barnes & Noble for Nook (United Kingdom)

Visit my websitefor a complete list of booksellers.

About the Foreign Service Journal

The Foreign Service Journal covers foreign affairs from an insider’s perspective, providing thoughtful articles on international issues, the practice of diplomacy and the U.S. Foreign Service. The Journal is published monthly (July/August issues combined) by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA). The November issue features its annual “In Their Own Write” compilation, the largest edition yet, with some 90 new books by Foreign Service-affiliated authors. The list spans almost every conceivable literary genre: from history and foreign policy to memoirs and biographies, and from novels and short stories to mysteries and how-to books.

About the American Foreign Service Association

Established in 1924, AFSA is the professional association of the United States Foreign Service. With close to 16,000 dues-paying members, AFSA represents over 28,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees of the Department of State, Agency for International Development (AID), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Foreign Commercial Service (FCS), and International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).

Click here to read the original post on my blog, World Adventurers.

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