some fleeting world moments of the week

"The landscape of life moves on. Changing every day. Moving through mornings of blazing heat, and settling into evenings of chill. Passing through creative attempts at Indian cooking. Rushing through little streets. The mass of people everywhere.
And the cycles again. Life pauses a while and little moments flit through, linger on in the mind. The person making popcorn in an ancient contraption and churning out the best butter and sweet popcorn I have ever tasted, waiving away the few pieces it costs. I say “Xiexie”: thank you. And the same smile flashes again."

this is a passage from the Worlds Apart book. which launched in the middle of this week. with a question, and a smile: there it is. and: when is a book officially launched?

now, friday evening, after the rush of the week, i want to take some time to revisit the little moments that still linger in the mind, in notes and quotes

*

Tuesday, or: are we officially launched yet?
on Monday evening, Jessi completed the e-book and moved to uploading it - and sent a note with the launch timing:

"Once the ebook is uploaded, I will get the book's page up on the website with a buy link for the EPUB version plus info on where the book is now available for sale. Oddly, the Amazon US page is still not showing the book available from Amazon. But the UK and DE sites are selling it. I have no idea why that would be, but will look into it when I upload the "see inside" file to the US site.
The book is for sale--at a discount even--from Barnes & Noble in the US. So I'm thinking that once the ebook finishes processing (24-48 hours from now), we'll start calling the book "launched".

and then, just some hours later, on Tuesday morning, the e-book already was showing in Amazon. so we were there, faster than expected: launched!

with that, the official book page went online: http://foldedbooks.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/worldsapart/

in a mail, i wrote: "so happy about this. it feels amazing that after all those steps, the book now finally is real. and the speed of it, especially the kindle-listings, with cover and preview and all. i remember the times when it took Amazon about 2-3 weeks to get a new listing online."

*
First Feedback (still Tuesday)
a bit later, i put a note up in my blog, and in facebook
"WOR(L)DS APART just launched!! happy birthday + happy travels, dear new book :) & big THANKS to Jessica Sudborough Graustein and Folded Word Press for all."

replies arrived via facebook and mail and comments... here some of them, collected in one place:

Rouch Swalwe: Time for a Bierche' to celebrate!

Dorothee: i wished we all could meet up around the corner and celebrate :)

Efrat: Congratulations Dorothee! This really feels like a birth, a creation coming to life and being sent out to the world. Enjoy and celebrate it. You made it happen! Looking forward to read :)

Dorothee: Thanks Efrat! I have one advance print copy here, and it is so beautiful to know that soon there will be more, each going on its own way.

Karyn: Congratulations, Dorothee! I think back in time, when you first told me about this project -- it had been dormant for some time. You said you wanted to bring it back to life because you felt so strongly about it. And now ... here it is, with a wonderful home. Your intuition and persistence brought it here. Such a wonderful time of celebration :-)

Dorothee: Yes, it's wondeful. And i remember - i think we talked about it in Vienna, right? The book, in some ways it itself is a celebration of travelling.

*

Wednesday, or: now, for the box to arrive

in counterpart to all the virtual steps, and also as a book celebration, i drove to Esslingen, to meet up with my parents, and show them the book and read a passage from it to them.

i also visited my yoga teacher. we sat outside in her garden, under an old tree. she didn’t know about the book so far, so i told her its story, and read the page of the book to her that was about her yoga lesson back then, the one about “Relax into the Tension”.

back home, a mail from Jessi waited: "My box of copies shipped late last night and the tracking says it should arrive here late Thursday. I will be visiting Mel on Friday, so I will take him a copy if it comes on time:-)"


(posting this now... with the image of the box, which arrived in time. now, off to see some of the olympic opening ceremony. more tomorrow.)