This is truly disgraceful.Somebody has been onto Amazon’s webpage for Xangans after browsing on Amazon…. elsewhere, or has looked at the paperback expression of Xanga’s pride and joy, and then wandered off on Amazon to see what they offer in the way of…. fripperies.

And Amazon, seeking always to beckon other customers to what customers seek, has reported on it! Yes, they have a ”Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed” feature, and it has blown your cover, and shocked me beyond measure.

There was I, clicking onto the Xangans page to check on our ranking, and my eyes were assaulted by exhortations to “pick your perfect pair,” where I defy anyone to not think it is an advert for a thong, wherein some of Xanga’s less reputable people seek to cram their genitalia, until I looked further to define it as….

Who has done this? Who is so possessed by vanity, lust or a “shop to drop” obsession that they have disgraced the name of Xanga? Come on, confess.

My God, I hope it was not Dan!

Xangans on the market now =)

 The final cover above is linked to the product details cover on amazon.com. We’ve kept the price low at $9.95 for 220 pages, 30 Xangan authors.

Amazon is the most influential of all book retailers nowadays, and if we all go and buy a copy without hanging about, we may make a splash by pushing Xangans into a high position on the Amazon ranking system.

This is the first time that bloggers on any system have acted together to go into print. Get one yourself, and ask everyone you know to do the same.

Whoot whoot =)

Edit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit- at 5.20 p.m our ranking on Amazon has gone to 26,385 out of the five million titles they handle. This puts us in the top 1% of all the books they sell!!!!

Edit-derdit-derdit-derdit-derdit derdit – at 6.20 p.m., ranked 8,135 on amazon.com out of 5 million titles. Now in the top one-sixth of a percent!

Update on Amazon.com sales ranking at 7 p.m. – improved to 7,568.

At 8 p.m., Amazon sales ranking is higher at 7,074

At 9 p.m. a spurt! We’re at 6,609.

At 10 p.m. we are at an Amazon.com ranking of 3,685.

We are currently outselling 99.92% of all other books on Amazon.com.

We fell back to 4,298 at the 11 p.m. Amazon update….

But regained ground and more, to 3,461 at 12 midnight.

At 1 a.m. in the morning – amazon.com ranking 3,587. We are still outselling 99.92% of the five million titles sold on amazon.com. 

GOOD MORNING. = )

At 11 a.m. this Thursday we are still selling and holding strong in the top three-tenths of a percent of Amazon’s best seller list. 99.7% of the five million books currently on offer on Amazon.com are selling less than us. Our rank is 4,157 out of 5,000,000.

12 noon. Several people have in the last hour seized their plastic, because our rank has improved to 3,941.

For those who are baffled by Amazon’s ranking system, as most people are: your rank is determined by giving credit for the sales that have taken place in the last 1-hour period, plus a percentage of what sold in the one hour period before that, plus a lesser percentage of what sold in the 1-hour period before that one, and on and on and on.

So old sale credits decay, and to break that 1,000 ranking we need not just for the sales to happen, but for them to happen in most compressed time possible, as the improvements in our ranking are being eroded by time. The purchase that you are going to make to make, the message that you are ggoing to send to somebody - it would be helpful if you could do it RIGHT NOW.

Link to list of Xangan authors in Xangans.

Ssssssooooooooooooonnnnnnnn!!!!!!

Very, very soon.

  My First                                                                                 My second

The file problems are fixed, and the proof copy is now chugging through the mail on its way to me. If the print quality is okay – oh, the anxiety! – I can approve it, and then…

Xangans will be available in print, on real paper!

All this stuff below will then be ancient history. But for those who are still worried about the pig, know now that I finally soothed it by singing to it.

“Pig, O Pig, O Beautiful Pig, what a wonderful Pig you are….” etc.

Patience

Have patience

I had all the 220 pages of Xangans  in order in one file a week ago, and the file keeps loosing format. I’ve been struggling ever since to get it to remain in format, so that it can be made into a pdf from which the interior can be printed.

I don’t know if it’s me that’s dumb, or the Word program.

This technical problem is delaying the publication of Xangans in much the same way that the presence of a large, lazy pig might delay your progress up a narrow alley.

I don’t know whether to shoot this pig, or sodomise it, or talk to it gently, or kick its ass.

Patience. If I’m not answering you, don’t worry, just join the lineup. I will eventually get past this, Inshalla.

<<<Published>>>  Soooooooon>>>>>

Cover by methodElevated

If you haven’t already returned the “agreement to publish,” please do that asap. I need them before I ask the printer for a proof copy.

How I don’t know, but I’ve made an error on the back page blurb, which fortunately I can soon correct. Probably I was concentrating so much on the spacing that I got the figure wrong, but there are actually thirty-one Xangan authors in Xangans, with a total of sixty-two stories etc.

My first published                                                         My second published

DMV is leaving us.

It is a Xangan tragedy, of which he has told us little, but I and I alone know the sad story.

He can no longer see the screen; blindness caused by too much jerking off.

I accompanied him on his last visit to the doctor, where he was given the ultimatum. “Leave the pork sword alone. It’s nearly dropping off.!”

I remember with a tear in my eye the courage of his defiant answer.

“They can prise it from my cold, dead hand.”

Farewell DMV.

My first published.                                                           My latest published

The Update’s here, at the top.

Send back the Xangans Publishing Agreements asap guys. Don’t worry about the signing in blood; electrons will do just fine.

As you can see, The Xangans has become Xangans, which is a bit more snappy, and causes less clutter on the cover.

The whole business was beginning to grind me down a bit, so I took a few days off, which means we’re running a bit behind schedule, but none the less we should be in print before month end.

Below is a list of the contributors. Take a look, and give me some feedback

alyxandri    AndyOhara    breaking_expectations    carolinavenger   

The_Church_of_Fat    disillusionisreal    darkoozeripple    elizabethzelvin

    imTHEmeowMIXcat    jaynebug    Jonny_Quest    joyouswind

Lost-in-Reverie    methodElevated    mizz_chan    

OhItWontBeForever    PervyPenguin    puella-sapiens216   

raquelhiggins005    ReeserTheShadow    Roadlesstaken    saintvi

schristian    SerenaDante    Shards_of_Beauty    SheepShot

Simbathe2nd     The44thHour    Theacematt2   thetheologianscafe 

verified-but-still-denied    Vignettery

Each piece will have a header, consisting of the title and…. which do you prefer to head your piece, or pieces? Your screen name or your real name? This is separate from the bio page.

Btw, I shall include a contact email address for myself as publisher, and forward any emails that arrive enquiring about any contributor.

  Xangans was finally published on 9 June 2010 

My first published                                           My second published

Today I got an email from a very enterprising old friend back in Huddersfield, the northern English town where I grew up. His company, Time Trappers, are in the business of making unusual videos, and here they’ve made an unusual video of an even more unusual art exhibition.

Utube

Strange, strange stuff we do in England when we get in the mood.

My first published                                                         My second published

I know of course that a lot of my Xangan friends are in Canada or the UK, and I’d like to set up a list, which would help me with the second edition of The Xangans. Yes, it’s already planned.

That would mean yet more fiddling with the friend’s list thingy, which isn’t exactly fast.

Better - comment me if you’re from Canada, or the UK. In fact, if you live anywhere other than the USA, where most Xangans live. Let’s see if we can’t go a bit more international.

An afterthought – If this post makes any citizen of the US of A feel lonely and unwanted, with a dark wish to find a quiet corner in which to hide, head bowed, murmuring “unloved..again,” there’s nothing to stop you piping up “I’m from Cairo, Georgia,” or wherever.

My first published                                            My second published

This is the Last Call for Xangans who have send contributions for The Xangans, but have not sent all of the details for their biography page.

I need a pic of you, or whatever icon you want to represent yourself. A clear statement of what you want to use for your “real name” in addition to your username, as in “Jack Smith,” or “Jack,” or “Smithee,” or “Pink Bunny,” or “I don’t want a ‘real name.’”

Finally, 80 to 100 words of whatever you want to say about yourself, as in “I am a graduate of…. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, and I want to….” Or “I am a tentacled green monster who lives in a swamp. I want to retire to an igloo in Alaska.” Or, “I don’t want any bio text.”

Last call. It’s only me putting together the nearly 100 items of this collection, and the work is endless, I can’t wait forever.

No bio details, no bio page.

(Collapses.)

Later note: Xangans was published in June, 2010

 My first published                                            My second published