Villi Asgeirsson

Drafting ideas...

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Under the Black Sand on Amazon

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Under the Black Sand kindleWe are lift-off.

The wait is over.

Under the Black sand has been published in the Amazon Kindle store.

My debut novel has finally been made available to the world. But there is a slight issue. I had hoped to post one worldwide link, but that’s not how it works. I am currently in the Netherlands. To order it on the US site, I’d pay a premium. I can’t order it at all from the UK store. My best option is the German store. Any potential reader is forced to visit a store close by. Kind of defeats the purpose of electronic distribution, but who am I to argue with a massively huge international corporation?

So here are links to the three stores listed above. Please use the one closest to you or shop around for the lowest price.

Under the Black Sand on Amazon US
Under the Black Sand on Amazon UK
Under the Black Sand on Amazon DE

Thanks to any and all that follow the links, do the purchase and read the novel. Your interest is much appreciated.

Added 6 January 2016, a global link to the novel on 

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Berlin Video Soundtrack?

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As you won’t know, I will be visiting Berlin at the end of the month. The reason for this fantastic voyage is to shoot footage for a Bowie cover band that will be touring next winter.

Schiphol AirportWhen I come back, I will create a backdrop for the band but I also want to edit it into a little film for myself. A tribute to the man and the city. But there is a dilemma. Do I use Warszawa from the Low album or the Sense of Doubt / Moss Garden / Neuköln sequence from Heroes?

I have a slight preference, but do tell me what you think. If you have any idea at all what I’m talking a out.

Butterflies

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I have been thinking about a new novel, now that Under the Black Sand is complete and online. All kinds of ideas fly in and around my head. But the moment I sit down at the computer, they vanish. Like the screen was radiating some erazor beams from space.

So I need to find a way to capture the butterclies before they get shot down.

Out of Sync

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We live in an ever changing world. We can never stay in one place, because standing still is losing out to others that keep moving. We are losing if we are not winning.

This mentality is destroying the future. Our one planet is being exploited on a scale never before seen. We are genetically modifying plants, risking whole ecosystems. We are peeling layers of the earth, whole forests, to get to whatever resources lie underneath. Tar sands that help us fuel our cars that could have run on different energy if we’d been interested in researching alternatives. Bauxite to make aluminium to build weapons and cola cans, because we can’t be bothered to recycle.

AmsterdamBut it’s not just the future we’re destroying. We are so focused on progress and profit that we won’t hesitate to destroy the past if a few bucks can be earned. Inner cities are neglected, left to degrade and are then sold to developers that bulldoze the whole thing and build luxury apartments for the few that can afford them. History and identity makes way for profit.

I just finished editing a video I shot on Saturday with the great singer-songwriter Rik van den Bosch. His message is so relevant, so strong, that I have decided to share the video here and now. It hasn’t been made public and I hope he will forgive me, but with Istanbul in the grips of massive riots because the government is out of sync with their people, I feel that this needs to be heard. They started out protesting against a public park being destroyed to build a shopping mall. Rik sings about his old neighbourhood being erased and the people having to relocate. We were standing in his old streets, looking at the boarded windows and graffiti. Him telling me about how his grandparents had met on that spot and about the old lady that used to… you get the idea. A street full of memories, waiting for the bulldozers.

Here is the first verse, and the video:
“I’m living on the ghost side of town
They’re turning everything upside down
They tear it down to the ground, when I’m not around
and the people they keep moving out, to the outskirts of town”

Published – happy headaches

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Finally! After seven years in the making. Under the Black Sand has been published. It is now available on Amazon for their Kindle devices. Publishing was easy and complicated at the same time.

Under the Black Sand kindleAmazon encourages the author to price eBooks at $2.99 or higher, so I initially set that price. To my astonishment, it was listed for $6.04, twice as much as I bargained for. Let the investigations begin!

No pricing information was available on the UK site. Turns out that I can’t buy eBooks from the UK because I’m not in the UK. The US site adds all kinds of costs for non-US customers. I can buy it from Amazon Germany and France for the price I set. Somewhere around two and a half euros. Panicking, I set the price at 99 cent. I see it on Amazon DE and FR for 89 eurocent, but $3.62 in the USA.

Seems that one must buy from a store close by, something I find strange as this is an electronically distributed eBook. But hey, if those are the rules, I’ll have to live with it and create some kind of a links page here on my own blog.

Another annoyance I encountered was when I tried to have a physical book made. I wanted to use CreateSpace because that would put the book on sale on Amazon. Turns out, I need a US tax number. I am not a US citizen and don’t intend to become one. Seems like I’ll have to look into this as well. Registering with the IRS is a huge step for someone that expects to sell no more than a handful of books.

So, the book is out. It is available and that is great. But the road to global availability is not as straightforward as I’d hoped.

Come back soon, as I will post my findings as I dive deeper into this self-publishing world.