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Freeper Travis McGee's book, "Enemies Foreign and Domestic", goes to print!
www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com ^ | July 14, 2003 | Jeff Head

Posted on 07/14/2003 8:02:31 AM PDT by Jeff Head

Freeper Travis McGee, has finished his much anticipated novel, Enemies Foreign and Domestic, and it has been sent off to print. His web site indicates it will be shipping in 3-4 weeks.


Click the Cover to go to the EFAD Site

He has 20 chapters of the book available online as excerpts, so you can get a real good feel of the book right there on the web site before ever ordering it.

My own review of the book, which I have been privileged to read in its entirety, is as follows...

Enemies Foreign & Domestic is as compelling a fictional novel about liberty and the 2nd amendment as you will ever read. It is packed with real life issues right off today's headlines and the political camps on both sides of the issue. It is also just a good, old-fasioned barnstorming novel that you can't put down. In his first at bat, Matthew Bracken has hit one out of the park.
Let's all congratulate Freeper Travis McGee on a job very well done...and consider getting one of his books. We have another Freeper Author in our midst and I am sure his novel is going to be picked up and taken nationally by someone. It's simply too good a read for it to be any other way, and it sends all the right messages.


TOPICS: Activism/Chapters; Announcements; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Free Republic; Government; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; banglist; constitution; efad; enemies; foreignanddomestic; freeperauthors; liberty; mattbracken; rkba
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To: u-89; MississippiMan
Old thread "Are There Any Writers Here on FR?"
301 posted on 07/22/2003 6:05:36 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Travis McGee
Thanks for the idea, I will put it on my "to do" list

No problem, I drive a lot and you can mark the first audio book sold. Ping me.

302 posted on 07/22/2003 6:07:11 PM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: Travis McGee
Can I just hand you some cash in person for a pre-order book when we meet up?

Cash just seems so much more personal.LOL
303 posted on 07/22/2003 7:02:43 PM PDT by TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig (Soccer Mom's flee the Rats for Bush in his flight suit: I call this the Moisture Factor. MF high!)
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To: Jeff Head; Travis McGee
Great job Travis! John MacDonald would be proud of you. But you did leave out a color in the title. Put me down for one of the books.

Best regards

Temple Owl

304 posted on 07/22/2003 7:47:21 PM PDT by Temple Owl
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To: big ern
Well, I don't have the books quite yet. I should get the "blue line proofs" tomorrow FedEx, then they go back and it will be printed. Two more weeks I guess.
305 posted on 07/22/2003 10:51:15 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Temple Owl
You won't be disappointed. A real barnstormer of a read, and a critical message too.
306 posted on 07/22/2003 10:52:28 PM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: Travis McGee
Proof tomorrow? GREAT!

Can't wait to hear about it...I know you are going to be charged. You might consider putting a short indication of that on your web site...people are checking daily now.

307 posted on 07/22/2003 10:55:30 PM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: Jeff Head
Do you know that a kind reader just emailed me that I mispelled "nation's capital" as "nation's capitol" in the 2nd or 3rd sentence of the prologue?! After so many folks read it, it was just found and pointed out. The capitol is only that building with the dome. Anyway, better late than printed.
308 posted on 07/22/2003 11:16:36 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Travis McGee
That is one that a spell checker would never catch...but as you say, better now than after a bunch of books are printed!

That type of thing is a tough one to weed out.

309 posted on 07/23/2003 5:25:06 AM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: Travis McGee
That should have read, hand you cash TO pre-order a book.

must load trunk.
310 posted on 07/23/2003 5:50:20 AM PDT by TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig (Soccer Mom's flee the Rats for Bush in his flight suit: I call this the Moisture Factor. MF high!)
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To: Temple Owl
No color in the title, but in the acknowledgements, the bottom line is:

"And a late salute to John D. McDonald, without whom there never would have been a Travis McGee."

311 posted on 07/23/2003 7:34:29 AM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Jeff Head
Once it was pointed out to me, it stood out like a sore thumb. I wouldn't mind so much, but the first paragraph is not where you want a mistake like that!
312 posted on 07/23/2003 7:53:13 AM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: Travis McGee
Amen...not in the 1st paragraph.
313 posted on 07/23/2003 7:56:19 AM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: Travis McGee
Maybe you can point your agent toward my website just for grins.

Travis, I'd be glad to but for the fact that this is one of the major don't-do-this peeves of agents, asking them to look at a website. :-)

MM

314 posted on 07/23/2003 9:14:13 AM PDT by MississippiMan
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To: MississippiMan; Jeff Head
That demonstrates clearly the great divide between the legacy 20th century publishing industry and the emerging 21st century paradigm.

The old way is all about exclusion and gatekeepers and the perks of power, with new authors being mere grist in their mill.

The big publishing houses love you just as much as a mother sea turtle loves her eggs. She lays 300, and never looks at them again. If two or three make it back to the beach as adults (best sellers) that is all she cares about. The fact that 297 are eaten along the way bothers the mother sea turtle not one bit.

And that is IF you are lucky enough to be one of the "annointed" who actually get a contract the traditional way! Zero promotion by the publisher, a miserly advance (against sales), 8% royalties, and a 60-90 day sit on the shelves of the chain bookstores. And like the baby turtles, if you are not one of the tiny percentage to make it, you are "killed" in the industry as a "failed author."

No thanks. If and when I talk to those guys, it will be on my terms, with several of them negotiating with me. Until then, I will command my destiny.

And why not, since promotion is left to the new author anyway? Why not make 50-80% on your books, instead of 8%, if you are going to be the one to promote it anyway? For what exactly are they earning their 92%, when most of your books will be sold on Amazon anyway? For the chance to have your books sit on a back bottom shelf for 90 days?

To me, 5th avenue is a sucker game, and not worth the candle.

315 posted on 07/23/2003 9:36:11 AM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: u-89
You're most welcome, U. I've gotten a lot of help myself over the years and I always try to pay it forward whenever possible. Here are a few sites:


316 posted on 07/23/2003 11:02:56 AM PDT by MississippiMan
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To: Travis McGee
The difficulties you list with the traditional publishing route are real, Travis, but if the goal is to be a fulltime writer and make a good living at it, traditional publishing is still the only realistic game in town. As bad as the odds are there, they're infinitely worse in self-publishing.

Not trying to be discouraging in the least to you or Jeff or anyone else, but that's just the unvarnished truth. Self-published books command virtually zero respect in the industry because there is no verifiable quality control. The percentage of self-published books that ever get picked up by a traditional publisher is staggeringly tiny. Almost no review venue that matters will touch them. And with many agents and publishers, just having self-published is the death knell. I genuinely hope that you and Jeff and others prove to be among those rare exceptions, but that is the reality of the path you've chosen and it's not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

And BTW, while Amazon certainly sells a lot of books, their numbers are still DWARFED by brick-and-mortar sales. It's not even remotely close.

MM

317 posted on 07/23/2003 11:22:27 AM PDT by MississippiMan
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To: Travis McGee
Congrats Travis! I'll be in the order pipeline soon.
318 posted on 07/23/2003 2:12:26 PM PDT by CJ Wolf (Great news!!!!!!)
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To: MississippiMan
MM,

Yet again I find myself expressing sincere thanks. You have given me quite a bit to explore.

Would you suggest getting any and all work copyrighted before showing it to anyone? I don't necessarily mean posting something on the web I mean even before I let anyone read a hard copy.

To answer your inquiry of what my work is like; so far my writing consists of short stories. They vary in exact topic and setting but the unifying theme is to illustrate mans' continuous struggle against nature, his own that is and Murphy's Law. The tales may be somewhat cynical, jaundiced even yet they are not without redeeming value or comic elements. In fact some have quite a bit of humor. Currently I am working on a detective story that is a morph between W.C. Fields and Film Noir. It also has a twisted ending that is unique as far as I know to mystery writing.

The shorts are an extension of something that has been on ice for 20 years. In my teens I wanted to get into film making. Later on in art school I started painting which I took to like a duck to water (as they say). By mid sophomore year I switched majors. Over the years I still had the interest in film though and made notes of offbeat characters and odd circumstances I encountered. Didn't know towards what end but I made notes just the same. Last winter I got the idea to start writing. The creative process is something I like very much and it just doesn't matter if I get published or not though I sure wouldn't mind if I did.

On another note I am currently working on a slightly different approach to a diet and exercise book which stems from pure commercial motives.

What kind of thrillers did you say you wrote? Crime, man against nature, supernatural, etc? Just curious.

best reagrds,

u89

319 posted on 07/23/2003 3:48:45 PM PDT by u-89
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To: MississippiMan
The brick and morter book stores are a terrific place for estabished authors to sell their books to an audience which is familiar with their names. For the first time author with a basic newbie no-promotion contract, you are talking about baby sea turtle odds.

Eventually my books will be sold there as well as by other venues. But I am not willing to beg ang plead and be put on the 2005 schedule for publishing, all for 8%. My subjects are too timely to risk being overtaken by events while waiting in line on the dinosaurs no-hurry publishing schedule.

I agree with you that self-publishing is a dead end if you don't have a careful plan, most critically including a product tailored to an unserved and subject-hungry niche target audience. Sometimes, the NYC houses miss these markets, for a variety of reasons, ideology among them. If a novel is tailored to meet the desires of that unserved audience, great success can, and has, followed. In the internet era, it is very possible for the author and the audience to find one another without merely hoping that a reader stumbles across his unrecognized name on the back bottom shelf at the local book store.

I hope that you do beat the baby sea turtle odds, and you are that one in twenty first time author who sells book number one off the shelves in your 90 day shot at success or failure. I simply don't want to wait until 2005 to find out if I am one of the 19 unpromoted book store flops, or the one who is successful. I don't want baby sea turtle odds, I want to control my destiny.

I hope you get lucky on 5th Avenue, but I prefer to make my luck. When I talk to 5th Avenue, it will be with an established track record, on my terms, including promotion gurantees in the contract etc.

We'll just have to see which publishing paradigm does better for each of us. I wish us both success.

320 posted on 07/23/2003 5:29:22 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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