I suppose writing, taking photographs, designing, and getting everything just right, even with a small book, is a decent endeavor. Truth be told, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I set out to create a small book. This was a trial and error experiment and an offer to people who backed my Kickstarter campaign last winter. I’ve never been efficient at getting entries on Wingtrip without making sure they’re relatively perfect (yes, errors still happen), despite knowing that blogging is more about posting and fixing later. Perfection seemed necessary for this book and now it’s finally done.

The books I owe people have “gone to press.” But I discovered that I have an opportunity to sell what I created in an ePub format. To be fair to patrons who helped support me at the level that received this book, I will not be offering a print copy (EDIT – I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get rid of the physical copy as an option, so it’s still on there, slightly marked up.  My patience and computer time is full tapped for the day). Equally so, small run, self published books are expensive and I think it’s almost outrageous that a copy is almost $40 for a paperback version. I’m not discrediting the work or the content, just saying I wouldn’t expect anyone to buy an 80 page book for that much. If someone feels very strongly about having a physical copy, we can talk about it elsewhere.

All in all I’m very pleased with this rendition of my travels in Southeast Asia. I’m excited that I have an opportunity to share something that I worked very hard on. Tempted by Ecology: A Naturalist’s Travels Through Southeast Asia is full of what I think is good travel and nature writing. The photos aren’t too bad either!

There are a couple ways to read/download this. I do not personally own an eReader or tablet but the format downloaded is a very universal ePub file. I’ve had luck reading it with photos visible with the Firefox add-on for reading ePublications. Adobe Digital Editions didn’t like my book however and MobiPocket Reader didn’t seem to want to display my images aside from the cover photos. My suspicion is that an iPad or iPod touch will work the best, but I have no way to test that at the moment.

Here is a link to buy a copy for yourself. At $4.99 plus tax this is not a bad deal if you ask me. (In the near future I might have a friend work with me to get this published in another venue, stay tuned).

Thanks for all your support and your readership. A big goal for the coming year is to have more on Wingtrip. I hope you all continue to coming back with a thirst to learn about and enjoy nature, birds, and nerdy hijinks.