Work is about done: the final touches to the index--yes, index--have been expedited, it's finished and makes the book searchable. I don't understand why more non-fiction texts omit this feature. Perhaps the authors don't want anyone being able to fact check them easily? Yes, it requires some very detailed and time consuming work, no question, but it should go without saying that not to have one undermines the credibility of the work, the research, and if there is any, the analysis within it.
On proofing, revision and suffering: this has been a learning experience in every aspect. The book is an account. It's not going to be perfect. Yet, enough effort has been expended to make it something approaching a very polished text and it will be an easy reading experience for the curious. This is a work on true crime, an historical event the author was a party to, and it contains the author's take and analysis. It makes no claims at being the last word on the DC Madam event which was a branch of the "Hookergate" scandal, of that I'm adamant about. I am hardly alone in this assertion.
The amount of effort involved can never be justified economically. Even were this book to make well over $100,000 USD, it would only begin to pay for the time, resources and actual labor involved. This has always been about servicing the historical record and setting things straight from the point of view of the author. The assertions are my own and it's my right to publish on them, primary materials inclusive. I've interacted and analyzed the data for five years now. I know it better than almost anyone else, and I have access to materials that individuals like Alex Jones never had, never will, not merely the public record. This has been a kind of a labor of love, my love of the truth, however painful it may be to express it.
No one will ever know the pain this project brought to my life, it has been an ordeal. I haven't experienced overt harassment, albeit there has been some online incidents that weren't accidental or my paranoia--that's now legal, what was once necessary to hide, the harassment of dissidents in the United States. None of it has been significant or impaired this text or its writing. In fact, it's only added to the richness of it and confirmed many of my own hunches, going so far as to prove them outright. Draft after draft has come, and in the interim, I have to assume that government contractors within the text have come around to cause problems. Occasionally, they've succeeded, but in the end all they did was expose themselves and their methodology.
There has never been and will never be a book like this one. I wish that was comforting, but it's not. Take the DC Madam narrative as a kind of a "canary in the coalmine," an indicator of where we're heading as a nation. From my conclusions, the future doesn't look bright at all. The only prognosis I can in fact see as hopeful is collapse of the current system. As my account makes plain, we're looking an awful lot like the former Soviet Union these days, and not in the sense that those on the far right are constantly contending. You can learn a lot from a microcosmic event like the DC Madam saga. The macrocosm, the bigger picture, becomes apparent in the details that form an overall mosaic.
As weak as their beginnings have been, I think the Occupy Wall Street crowd in NYC have shown us part of the way out. We have a new context without all the past effectiveness of red-baiting. Along with the Occupy movement we have an opening to renew the growth of labor unions. Americans seem to thrive best when their backs are up against the wall. Let the Dead Bury the Dead will speak to all of this, the dark political moment we're in right now, poised for disaster as the irrelevant 2012 elections come, then pass. The DC Madam narrative unfolded publicly right before the 2006 midterms. The GOP appointed prosecution team worked overtime to limit the damage to Republican incumbents when they moved on Deborah Jeane Palfrey. The charges were always political, let's be frank for a change. Expect nothing but brutal frankness in my account of a political travesty that played out before our eyes. The reality-bending machine known as the mainstream media worked overtime to make sure we couldn't see what was right in front of our faces: solid evidence of widespread influence peddling in Washington D.C. with all three branches of government involved in papering over it, defending it, preserving it.
On media inquiries: I expect this book to be ignored all across the media landscape, in nearly all mediums. Why? It's not digestible, it cannot be explained away and absorbed. It stands factually in defiance of the assertions of "conventional wisdom," the standard lines, the empty memes, the safe talk mistake for actual discourse in American life.
I will speak with independent media. You will not be allowed to service your own agendas. I will not expend resources or effort in this endeavor besides my time. The rest is up to you if you want a story or content emanating from me as a subject and a source. Rest assured that I know when someone's serious and when they're pulling my leg or out of their depth. You'll be dealt with accordingly and kicked to the curb. I will not communicate with right wing media without very definite conditions. All that written, I don't expect to be approached by almost anyone. I have in the past, perhaps there will be follow-up, but I am not concerned about this in the end other than getting the primary information within the text out to the public.As a student of history I always wanted to one day be a chronicler to a major event. Be careful what you wish for.
I will not do a speaking tour. Who am I? I'm not known to the public which ends that question before it's put out there. What I do expect is a certain level of interest, but of the level I cannot predict, it's impossible to. There is no literary agent. There is no big house publisher. There is me and CreateSpace and the book. One of my hopes is that it will be seen online by university library acquisitions across the United States and made a part of those collections for the historical record. I never thought that I'd finally write a book, but there it is, I have. I never in my wildest imagination thought it would be on this subject matter. Some of this was experienced reluctantly, but once you open a door...you know. Wish us all luck. We're going to need it in the intervening years before the big event.
Addendum: There has been talk coming from some quarters requesting signed copies of the text. This would be costly to the author. In that case, if there is enough demand, I'll attempt to make this possible. However, there will be an additional charge as this will require having copies printed, shipped to me, then the recipient, and so on, more cost involved. If the demand is there I'll make some signed copies available.
The book will be trade paper, no illustrations, no photographs. It clocks in at 505 pages at this point including blank pages, the title page, the preface and the index. At this point I don't expect the price to exceed $27.95 USD.The book is 99% finished. For those interested in the scandal it won't disappoint and could well be the first accessible, free-standing work on the subject. This isn't a book filled with legalese. It's present, but explained, and doesn't dominate the text. It tells a narrative, a story, from the perspective of a participant. It's not the last word, but it does reach some conclusions that the author feels will endure.
