Cornell Hockey In My Debut Novel

Hello all,

This definitely falls in the realm of shameless self-promotion, but I wanted to let you know that my debut novel, Robert's Rules of Karaoke, will be published as an e-book by TheWriteDeal.org this Sunday, and while it's certainly not a sports book, there is a college hockey thread that runs through the story, and the book's ninth chapter details a visit to Lynah Rink (and a post-game trip to the Hot Truck). The game in the book is based over Cornell's win over Quinnipiac on November 3, 2007, and while I'm sure those of you were at that game are quite certain that there was no one wearing a BU jersey in Lynah that night, I hope you'll allow me a little artistic license.

Seriously, I know it's not exactly Love Story, but I hope some of you will check it out.

Robert's Rules of Karaoke: [www.thewritedeal.org]
RROK on Facebook: [www.facebook.com]
RROK on Twitter: [twitter.com]

Thanks so much for your support. I've enjoyed my own trips to Lynah, and I particularly appreciated the band's invitation to play with them during my last visit in 2007...which, oddly enough, was also for a Cornell-Quinnipiac game (and yes, the videos still exist): [slog.cstv.com]

Best regards,

Elliot Olshansky

I vividly remember watching that Quinnipiac game on streaming video from my apartment on the Upper East Side. There was some honor at stake after the upset sweep they'd handed us at home in the quarterfinals that March, and I didn't have a ton of confidence we'd get our revenge, after losing to RIT and Princeton in our first two games. Although we jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in this game, we incurred a boatload of penalties in the second period and let them tie it up. Thankfully, Evan Barlow delivered a back-breaker only seconds into the third period, and Mike Devin nailed the insurance goal ten minutes later.

Then I threw myself a nice birthday party.

I read the description on TheWriteDeal, Elliot, and it sounds like my kind of novel, so I look forward to it. It's not actually going to be $0, right?

Beeeej
I vividly remember watching that Quinnipiac game on streaming video from my apartment on the Upper East Side. There was some honor at stake after the upset sweep they'd handed us at home in the quarterfinals that March, and I didn't have a ton of confidence we'd get our revenge, after losing to RIT and Princeton in our first two games. Although we jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in this game, we incurred a boatload of penalties in the second period and let them tie it up. Thankfully, Evan Barlow delivered a back-breaker only seconds into the third period, and Mike Devin nailed the insurance goal ten minutes later.

Then I threw myself a nice birthday party.

I read the description on TheWriteDeal, Elliot, and it sounds like my kind of novel, so I look forward to it. It's not actually going to be $0, right?

Correct. It's going to go for $11.50, if I recall correctly. Hope you enjoy it!

By the way, Beeeej, thanks for reminding me about that game. I had originally written that the final was 4-1, and when I went back to fix it one more time, I caught a couple of other things that might have gotten me sued. Thankfully, e-books are easy to fix like that.

RinkRatInExile
By the way, Beeeej, thanks for reminding me about that game. I had originally written that the final was 4-1, and when I went back to fix it one more time, I caught a couple of other things that might have gotten me sued. Thankfully, e-books are easy to fix like that.

Yeah, it was definitely 5-3:

[db.elynah.com]

Not the sort of thing that would get you sued, but I'm glad you caught a couple of other things that might.

Beeeej

RinkRatInExile
By the way, Beeeej, thanks for reminding me about that game. I had originally written that the final was 4-1, and when I went back to fix it one more time, I caught a couple of other things that might have gotten me sued. Thankfully, e-books are easy to fix like that.

Yeah, it was definitely 5-3:

[db.elynah.com]

Not the sort of thing that would get you sued, but I'm glad you caught a couple of other things that might.

A little more research showed that the ref had never even MET sheep.

ugarte

Beeeej

RinkRatInExile
By the way, Beeeej, thanks for reminding me about that game. I had originally written that the final was 4-1, and when I went back to fix it one more time, I caught a couple of other things that might have gotten me sued. Thankfully, e-books are easy to fix like that.

Yeah, it was definitely 5-3:

[db.elynah.com]

Not the sort of thing that would get you sued, but I'm glad you caught a couple of other things that might.

A little more research showed that the ref had never even MET sheep.

Goats, however...

The book is officially on sale at TheWriteDeal.

[www.thewritedeal.org]

Thanks,

EO

Perhaps a silly question, and a mildly embarrassing one for an early adopter like me, but - previously, all my Kindle book purchases have been through Amazon.com, and downloading has been seamless. Once I've purchased your book on TheWriteDeal.org, what's the easiest way to make sure the file gets onto my Kindle?

I actually don't have a tablet or e-reader myself, but here's what I understand from having helped someone with a tablet earlier today.

When you buy from TheWriteDeal, you enter an e-mail and password to log in. After you buy the book, log in, go to "My Bookshelf." The book should be there for download.

If you have any more problems, let me know, and I'll double-check with the publisher.

Thanks,

EO

RinkRatInExile
When you buy from TheWriteDeal, you enter an e-mail and password to log in. After you buy the book, log in, go to "My Bookshelf." The book should be there for download.

Yes, but it's there for download to my computer. I need to know how to download it to my e-reader.

Anybody is welcome to chime in here - I know it's a stupid question and I'll feel even stupider when the right answer comes, but please help.

Beeeej

RinkRatInExile
When you buy from TheWriteDeal, you enter an e-mail and password to log in. After you buy the book, log in, go to "My Bookshelf." The book should be there for download.

Yes, but it's there for download to my computer. I need to know how to download it to my e-reader.

Anybody is welcome to chime in here - I know it's a stupid question and I'll feel even stupider when the right answer comes, but please help.

Easy. All you do is take the cable that came w/ your kindle and plug it into your computer. It'll show up just like a USB thumb drive (or any other mass storage device, like a HD). There's a folder hierarchy there, I think the one you want is called "Documents." It'll be full of all your amazon purchases. Just drag the .mobi file there (it has to be .mobi, Kindles can't read ePub (the other unencrypted standard ebook format)) and then unplug the kindle. It'll be there in your list of books.

pfibiger

Beeeej

RinkRatInExile
When you buy from TheWriteDeal, you enter an e-mail and password to log in. After you buy the book, log in, go to "My Bookshelf." The book should be there for download.

Yes, but it's there for download to my computer. I need to know how to download it to my e-reader.

Anybody is welcome to chime in here - I know it's a stupid question and I'll feel even stupider when the right answer comes, but please help.

Easy. All you do is take the cable that came w/ your kindle and plug it into your computer. It'll show up just like a USB thumb drive (or any other mass storage device, like a HD). There's a folder hierarchy there, I think the one you want is called "Documents." It'll be full of all your amazon purchases. Just drag the .mobi file there (it has to be .mobi, Kindles can't read ePub (the other unencrypted standard ebook format)) and then unplug the kindle. It'll be there in your list of books.

If you need to convert formats, check out calibre. It'll also handle copying the ebook to the right folder, fwiw. More neato is that it lets you download web content to mobi!

pfibiger

Beeeej

RinkRatInExile
When you buy from TheWriteDeal, you enter an e-mail and password to log in. After you buy the book, log in, go to "My Bookshelf." The book should be there for download.

Yes, but it's there for download to my computer. I need to know how to download it to my e-reader.

Anybody is welcome to chime in here - I know it's a stupid question and I'll feel even stupider when the right answer comes, but please help.

Easy. All you do is take the cable that came w/ your kindle and plug it into your computer. It'll show up just like a USB thumb drive (or any other mass storage device, like a HD). There's a folder hierarchy there, I think the one you want is called "Documents." It'll be full of all your amazon purchases. Just drag the .mobi file there (it has to be .mobi, Kindles can't read ePub (the other unencrypted standard ebook format)) and then unplug the kindle. It'll be there in your list of books.

Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

jtwcornell91
Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that.

Beeeej

jtwcornell91
Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that.

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

KeithK

Beeeej

jtwcornell91
Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that.

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

Ah ha, but there's always a first time. I could never understand why computers, software actually, make you go through all those steps. For example, why can't there be an onboard battery, which if a power outage, or you mistakenly shut off the computer, then it would automatically save everything and shut down. It couln't take that much power to do that, would it? Why is it if you mistakenly eject your disc physically, without first closing it, it takes offense?

Jim Hyla

KeithK

Beeeej

jtwcornell91
Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that.

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

Ah ha, but there's always a first time. I could never understand why computers, software actually, make you go through all those steps. For example, why can't there be an onboard battery, which if a power outage, or you mistakenly shut off the computer, then it would automatically save everything and shut down. It couln't take that much power to do that, would it? Why is it if you mistakenly eject your disc physically, without first closing it, it takes offense?

Power is not the issue. The issue is that writes to a USB-connected storage device don't always occur immediately when you hit "save": they may be cached in the computer's memory so a bunch of writes can be flushed at once, reducing overhead and (at least on platter-based devices) increasing throughput. If the data hasn't been written to the device, no battery on the device will save you. For flash-based devices, the right semantics are probably to flush the writes immediately, and it's possible that Windows and MacOS both do this, but there is still the possibility of corrupting the file system on the device if the computer is in the process of modifying it when you pull the plug so you have to somehow signal to the system that you are disconnecting the device so it can make sure the state has been fully synced. (FWIW, there are also solutions to this problem, but almost every storage device these days uses a legacy transfer protocol and file system that together make corruption not only possible, but likely.)

Kyle Rose

Jim Hyla

KeithK

Beeeej

jtwcornell91
Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that.

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

Ah ha, but there's always a first time. I could never understand why computers, software actually, make you go through all those steps. For example, why can't there be an onboard battery, which if a power outage, or you mistakenly shut off the computer, then it would automatically save everything and shut down. It couln't take that much power to do that, would it? Why is it if you mistakenly eject your disc physically, without first closing it, it takes offense?

Power is not the issue. The issue is that writes to a USB-connected storage device don't always occur immediately when you hit "save": they may be cached in the computer's memory so a bunch of writes can be flushed at once, reducing overhead and (at least on platter-based devices) increasing throughput. If the data hasn't been written to the device, no battery on the device will save you. For flash-based devices, the right semantics are probably to flush the writes immediately, and it's possible that Windows and MacOS both do this, but there is still the possibility of corrupting the file system on the device if the computer is in the process of modifying it when you pull the plug so you have to somehow signal to the system that you are disconnecting the device so it can make sure the state has been fully synced. (FWIW, there are also solutions to this problem, but almost every storage device these days uses a legacy transfer protocol and file system that together make corruption not only possible, but likely.)

My scanner at work has no mechanism for ejecting the thumb drive, and I even though I wait until it seems everything is quiescent before disconnecting it, routinely find that drives to which I've scanned have developed corrupted filesystems and need to be reformatted.

Guess I've just been lucky. But then, I've had Vista installed on my home PC for 3+ years and can only remember two BSoD events. (Am I due for a Law of Averages event? :-p)

pfibiger
Easy. All you do is take the cable that came w/ your kindle and plug it into your computer. It'll show up just like a USB thumb drive (or any other mass storage device, like a HD). There's a folder hierarchy there, I think the one you want is called "Documents." It'll be full of all your amazon purchases. Just drag the .mobi file there (it has to be .mobi, Kindles can't read ePub (the other unencrypted standard ebook format)) and then unplug the kindle. It'll be there in your list of books.

So, I finally got around to doing this - and the file is now safely in the "documents" folder on my Kindle, along with all the other books I've downloaded to it in the past. But when I ejected the Kindle, the book didn't show up on my Home screen in the list of books. I plugged the Kindle back in, and the file was still there, so the copy went as it should have. But I noticed that while this is a .mobi file, all the other books on the Kindle are in .mbp format. I also notice that .mbp is not a format supported by Calibre, which someone else here recommended in case I needed to convert.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do now in order to see this book in my list of books on the Home screen?

Thanks again for assistance.

So my kindle is full of .mobi files, it shouldn't be an issue. AZW is the amazon DRM-enabled mobipocket format, MBP is the metadata for the book (highlights, bookmarks, etc).

Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

pfibiger
Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu. Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there.

Other suggestions?

Beeeej

pfibiger
Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu. Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there.

Other suggestions?

So "Archive" is only for books that are purchased on Amazon but aren't on your Kindle. No surprise it isn't there.

Here's a pile of free-of-copyright .mobi files:

[freekindlebooks.org]

Grab a couple and try adding them to your kindle. Do they show up? If so, then perhaps it's something weird with this particular one (try deleting it, empty trash, disconnect, reconnect, add again). If that doesn't work, contact the publisher and see if they have any idea what's up with that particular file (or try it on another kindle).If none of those public domain books show up, then I'm stumped.

pfibiger
Here's a pile of free-of-copyright .mobi files:

[freekindlebooks.org]

Grab a couple and try adding them to your kindle. Do they show up? If so, then perhaps it's something weird with this particular one (try deleting it, empty trash, disconnect, reconnect, add again). If that doesn't work, contact the publisher and see if they have any idea what's up with that particular file (or try it on another kindle).If none of those public domain books show up, then I'm stumped.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. The public domain book I copied onto the Kindle shows up in the menu, and is readable as a book, with no problems. I'm definitely going to try again, and if it still doesn't work, contact the publisher about this. Thanks for the assistance thus far!

Beeeej

pfibiger
Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu. Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there. And my Kindle is flashing "12:00".

Other suggestions?

FYP

RinkRatInExile

Beeeej
I read the description on TheWriteDeal, Elliot, and it sounds like my kind of novel, so I look forward to it. It's not actually going to be $0, right?

Correct. It's going to go for $11.50, if I recall correctly. Hope you enjoy it!

Aw, man... now it's $9.25. So much for the advantages of early adoption!

ugarte

Beeeej

pfibiger
Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu. Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there. And my Kindle is flashing "12:00".

Other suggestions?

FYP

I contacted the support people at the website. First they completely misunderstood my question, so then I had to explain it in small words. Then they suggested I try some things that I had already, in my original email to them, explained that I had tried. Once they exhausted that impressive arsenal, they gave up and offered me a refund. I don't want a refund, I want to read the damn book.

Anybody here have any other suggestions? Has anybody here bought the book and successfully downloaded it and transferred it to a Kindle?

Beeej,

Yves forwarded me your e-mail. If nothing else, I can send you my PDF copy of the book. Obviously, it won't read on your Kindle, but you will have the book in some form.

I'm sorry you've been having trouble with it.

Thanks,

EO

RinkRatInExile
Beeej,

Yves forwarded me your e-mail. If nothing else, I can send you my PDF copy of the book. Obviously, it won't read on your Kindle, but you will have the book in some form.

I'm sorry you've been having trouble with it.

Thanks,

EO

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure you can read PDFs on Kindle, you just can't necessarily change font sizes and such. Thank you very much for your kind offer! I'm at beeeejesq@gmail.com.