It’s a little tricky picking which excerpts to show you because I didn’t want to pick a part that was especially good or gave away important plot details. In other words I didn’t want to put the best jokes of the movie in the trailer.

I settled on three excerpts that I think represents the book pretty well.

The first details a tour I took in Potosi, Bolivia of a mine that the city depends on for its existence. I describe how the miners basically stuck to colonial techniques for extracting minerals in godawful conditions, shortening their life spans in the process. It gave me a different perspective on how reasonable my thoughts were when I quit my job a few months prior.

The second excerpt takes place in Salta, Argentina, a place that I made a big push to get with an Argentine girl. I describe a bit of my strategy on getting with a local woman and how it wasn’t quite working. I was becoming increasingly frustrated, and it showed.

The third excerpt takes place in Asunción, Paraguay and highlights my deteriorating mental state. I had recurring fantasies of getting maimed and becoming seriously ill. I couldn’t wait to leave for Brazil, but then something bad happened.

You can read all three excerpts here. Also if you go to the Amazon listing of the book, you can read the first few pages where I start the book off in the United States while working as a cubicle slave. Or you can click “Surprise Me!” and get a random page from the book.

Twenty-seven months after I published Bang, I present to you A Dead Bat In Paraguay, a 262-page memoir of my six-month adventure through South America. Here’s the book’s website:

http://www.adeadbatinparaguay.com

It has two sections. The first is a brief synopsis with an overview video, and the second offers full details of the book, including its contents and my motivations for taking the trip. I’ll paste the first section here…

Two-Minute Video Overview

Synopsis

                                   
Click here if you’re ready to order your copy, or visit the A Dead Bat In Paraguay website for more details about the book. If after reading the the book’s website you’re not sure if it’s for you, hang tight this week for excerpts and reviews.

Here’s the cover. It goes on sale tomorrow morning.

You’ll notice that I settled on a pen name that won’t require a domain change. It’s derived from the name of a flaky Turkish pastry that my mom makes. Originally it was an inside joke with my sister but it stuck, and a lot of people in Colombia know me as Roosh Vörek. It’s just easier this way.

When addressing me in writing please don’t forget the dots over the “o” (keyboard code ALT + 0246).

My second book will be released next week. I’m going to introduce you to the book and share excerpts, a couple reviews, and also some behind-the-scenes information on what it was like to write it. The fun starts on Monday.

As people on my newsletter already know, my second book, the one I started in March of 2008, is 100% complete and will be ready for you in seven weeks. It will be simultaneously available in paperback, Kindle, and eBook PDF.

I have a few review copies available. If you have an active blog and would like one, email roosh@rooshv.com.

It feels great to be a free man, but I know it’s just a matter of time until the mental sickness I have takes over and pushes me to start work on the next book.

I know I was lazy with the blog this week. I have a feeling I’ll be lazy next week too. But the good news is the manuscript for Not Yet Titled will be done today, and by manuscript I mean something that’s pretty close to the final product barring major edits by my editors. This book is sucking my lifeblood but I see the light at the end of the tunnel—I’m close to finishing because I’ve started fantasizing about what I’m going to do next.

Tonight will be the happy hour at Bourbon with my co-hosts Arjewtino and Lemmonex. Check the first floor first. Upstairs doesn’t get going until after 10 or so.

I found an excellent description about what it’s like to write a book from a comment on Jack’s blog.

Fact #4: Writing a book isn’t fun.

If it doesn’t make a lot of sense to write a book for money, how about doing it for satisfaction? Many people imagine that they’d “fulfill themselves” (whatever that means) if they wrote a book; or that they’d get a deep pleasure out of the craft elements of the job. In fact, writing a book is a lot of work, and often work of a very tedious kind. It’s heavy labor, more akin to building a house than puttering in your basement. (And no one builds a house purely for the pleasure of it.) It’s certainly possible to write for pleasure and satisfaction, but seldom at that scale. Poetry, short stories, blogging — all of these can deliver fun, satisfaction, and the pleasures of craft. But writing a book isn’t something that can be done in a week or a month. It weighs on you; it’s a bear to wrestle into submission, and it’s followed by the (generally) no-fun publishing process. And then you’ve got to endure the almost inevitable commercial disappointment. Imagine going to all the trouble of building your dream house (by hand, naturally) — and then people ignore it.

So why do people do write books? I come up with these possible explanations:

• Some hope to hit the jackpot despite the odds.
• Some have a dream about being an author, or taking part in “literature.”
• Some are obsessed lunatics — ie., they feel they just gotta. < -- that's me
• Some don’t know better (these usually never write a second book)
• Some have other ambitions, and writing a book is a step along the way.
• A handful are determined to be trade-book authors as a career, and know what the game consists of, and have (or think they have) the tenacity, toughness, talent, luck and energy to succeed.

The book is chugging along nicely. It should be done Q1 2009. And it’s true, I get zero satisfaction from working on it. But I gotta finish.

True I’m a slacker, but sometimes I get work done. I just finished the rough draft of book number two, which I’ve been working on since around March. Editing takes a while so I’m thinking it’ll be done early 2009. Then I take a look at the world map on my wall and pick a place.

Bang is closing in on its 500th copy sold. It will probably happen sometime next month (it’s already been a year). I’ve been considering going the published route with this second book, but the process to get published seems so long, drawn-out, and discouraging. Literary agents and publishing houses take 2-6 months to get in touch with your query letter and after that it’s no shorter than a year by the time you see it on bookshelves. Plus most authors don’t earn anything beyond their advance, which I speculate is $5,000 – $15,000 for a never-published author.

My bet is I’ll stick with the indie route. It’s serving me well so far.