I got an interesting email today. I have no idea how I get on some of these lists. I guess when you have a broad range of interests and find yourself constantly chasing down something new, your email address pops up to a lot of marketers. Actually, I got two weird emails today. One had to do with a business school. Somehow I got on the mailing list of BioPharm. Why, I have no idea. My occupation and interests don’t really cross many lines with biology or pharmacology, but somehow BioPharm sends me magazines and sells my contact information to all of their “partners.” I unsubscribed from that marketing list immediately.

The second email was slightly more interesting and could actually be useful to me at some point, God willing. I’ve always for some twisted reason wanted to write a book. A book about what, I have no idea. At one point, I wanted to be a right wing political writer, until I realized I could fart out the window and be slightly more coherent and productive in the public discourse. It’s a long story, and no I haven’t switched to the other “wing.” That’s why you see little political content on my blog. I do occasionally put up something I feel like commenting on, but I try my hardest to either stick to the facts or find some way to make it humorous. Anyway, I’ve thought about other areas I could write a book in, until I realized that I have absolutely no knowledge of how to write a book, or what to write about, so I pretty much stick to posting on my blog as I work on my writing skill.

I read the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, Michael Hyatt's blog. I subscribe to his RSS feeds. He posts some interesting content. I could care less about his half marathons, but he write a lot of interesting posts about leadership and Christian publishing. One thing I have gathered from him is that if I ever did assemble a manuscript, I probably wouldn't have good odds of getting it through Thomas Nelson. I figure if I did write anything, I'd probably just post it online and ask for $5 from anyone who was blessed or informed or even mildly amused by my book, or just read it and enjoy it. I've come across a lot of good books that way, and it wouldn't bother me to do the same, especially for a first book, which probably won't be that great. I have no editor or professional assistance. I'm normally the guy people I know go to for help with writing, so where could I go for help?

The email I got was from Inspired Publishing, a Christian publisher that seems to specialize in print on demand, self-publishing. It sounded interesting. If you have a manuscript that you've considering publishing, give them a look. It will probably be a long time before a book from me is anything more than a dream.

Brad Isaac wrote a blog post the other day about ebooks. His intent was to ask if the Amazon Kindle is worth it. He reads ebooks on his Pocket PC, something I've always wanted to do but I have discussed my other blog. I haven't reached the point of trusting ebooks enough to spend money on them. I'm starting to open up to Mobipocket, which at least offers a free reader and a free converter, but other than converting free books I've already downloaded to this format, I'm not yet ready to purchase content. I just discovered something interesting on the description of Mobipocket Reader:

Personal eDoc Publishing : Beyond eBooks
Tired of scrolling through this 250 page technical manual in PDF? We've got the answer. Drag and drop it into the Reader Desktop and read it on any mobile device. It also works for Microsoft Office files, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and RTF TXT files as well. You can compile your favorite lyrics into an ebook or your best cooking recipes.

I will have to try that when I get a chance. Up to this point, my attempt to read ebooks and other content on my Pocket PC has been to convert to Repligo format. Repligo is designed to mobilize office documents, but I've found it efficient for publishing public domain books into a mobile, mark-upable format. However, Repligo is abandoneware, as the company has abandoned all but the Blackberry platform. I can't even get the print client to run on Windows Vista, so I have to keep an XP machine or XP virtual machine around in order to maintain it as a platform. I invested in Repligo while I was working on my degree at the University of Phoenix so I could take my textbooks with me on the go while my wife dragged me around (or while I took my beautiful bride about the town on errands.)

I think I will experiment with dragging and dropping pdf documents into MobiPocket Reader to see how well and how quickly I can convert my content for syncing on my Pocket PC.