I am so famous.
If you could possibly read the text on that 6 KB image, you would see MY NAME! On MY BOOK. Or dissertation. Whatever. Let’s not confuse ourselves with semantics.
Huzzah, betches!
A year and a half ago (I remember because the follow-up email was sitting in my inbox forever, and I remember thinking, “I should probably respond to that” every time I’d notice the date, October 2007), I was approached by a representative of VDM Verlag about publishing my dissertation.
(I’m a right fart smeller, I am, writin’ up purdy words ’bout the onlines.)
I finally followed up after being contacted by a second rep a year or so later, and decided to do it. All I really had to do was provide the PDF, a photo, bio, and abstract, and choose a cover image from a set of stock photos. I guess I could have revised the original if I’d wanted, but honestly, I’d lost the Word .doc, so it was really too much trouble to do anything more than convert the PDF back to Word and remove the signature and copyright pages. Anything more would have fucked up the pagination. So I took the easy way out and left it exactly as it was, including the five-year-old dedication (I was pregnant with Anneke at the time, so it was dedicated to Brad and my *only child*, Kieran).
In return, I get an infinitessimally small percentage of the royalties on an annual basis, a free copy of the book, (came in the mail today! score!), and additional copies wholesale.
Except I won’t be purchasing any additional copies, even wholesale, because it’s listed at 79 Euro, which I just found out is $111.99 USD!!
ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN DOLLARS!!!! Seriously?! WHO in their right mind is gonna pay that?!?!
You can say you knew me when.
The *best* part is the photo on the back. I’d forgotten what I submitted until I turned over my copy when it came in the mail today.
In the publisher’s system, in order to even get to the point at which you submit the PDF, you have to submit a photo. I’d been telling Brad I wanted him to take a picture of me just for this purpose, but whenever one of us would think about it, I’d either be braless or dirty (duh), so it never happened. I only had a two-week window to submit everything, so I decided about six hours before the deadline that I should probably find a picture of myself.
Well. Photos of me are rare for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I tend to be the photographer. Plus, I delete them all.
So, to find a photo of myself, and without a child hanging from my person, I had to go back a ways. I ended up submitting a full-body picture in which, no shit, I’m sitting on our couch in front of a brick wall (we lived in a depressing-ass university apartment when I was in grad school), looking down at the pint of Ben & Jerry’s I’m digging into.
I’m all, “Oh hai. Nom nom nom. You want read my book? Nom nom.”
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Ich gratuliere!
(I had to Google “German congratulations”).
I won’t be purchasing a copy of the book because 1) $111 and 2) I could barely keep up with the synopsis with all those big words.
But yay!