Last week was mostly promotional for the second edition of Bang. It case you missed it:

Monday: I shared details of the new edition, especially the text messaging section
Wednesday: I discussed the gloomy future of game
Friday: I gave the most optimal method for studying any game resource

I received a lot of emails from guys who missed Wednesday’s newsletter that included a download link to the text messaging guide. I’m going to send it again one more time this Friday, so fill out the newsletter sign-up page by then (or the form at the bottom of this post) to receive it for free.

With this major project completed, it’s time to edit my life schedule…

July: Complete text messaging guide
September—December: Complete epilogue to A Dead Bat In Paraguay. Start day game book rough draft. Prepare for next trip.
January: New trip

As you can see I’ve simplified my plans from before. I’ve been getting the itch to go to Brazil for the winter and actually started planning for it, but as of right now I think it’s best to suffer through a DC winter to get the day game book off the ground. If I go to Brazil again I may get stuck there forever, yet I still want to visit other parts of the world. This decision is tearing me up inside, so I’ve stopped listening to Brazilian music because of the pain it causes.

On a sad note I’ve started charging for Bang Colombia (same price as A Dead Bat In Paraguay). I don’t have the audience size where a donation model would bring enough money to support projects like it. The donation rate was respectable (2.5% with an average donation of just under $6), so I may experiment with it again in the future.

On a positive note, in July, a month when I didn’t release anything new, I sold just over 300 copies of my books. Considering that in 2008 I sold on average 40 copies a month, this is an exciting development. It has given me the confidence and financial support to focus exclusively on writing. I haven’t worked for the man in three and a half years.

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From a business standpoint, writing Bang Colombia was a big risk. How many of my readers have thoughts of visiting Colombia in the next year or two? I’ll be surprised if it was more than 50. That means I spent many months writing a book for a few dozen people. Why didn’t I work on my day game book first, which is much more likely to be a financial success?

A couple years ago I realized that you have to write a book because of some duty that calls within you, whether you think the result will be successful or not. I simply had to write Bang Colombia before anything else. I wrote a game book, wrote a travel memoir, lived abroad, dated a lot of South American women—it’d be a waste of experience for me not to.

Anyone who has wrote a book knows it has to be more than about the money. There has to be a calling that drives you to grind it out in front of a screen for hundreds of hours when a million other professions would pay you more for much less frustration. In the end you have to be proud of what you do regardless of what your bank statement says. Otherwise you’re a sellout and a hack.

As for the future, my plans are finally falling into place after a rather aimless start back in the States. I’m horrendous at keeping schedules, but here’s what I want to do in the next year:

July: Complete text messaging guide
August-October: Complete day game book rough draft
November: Complete epilogue to A Dead Bat In Paraguay
December-January: Complete 2nd draft to day game book
February: Prepare for next trip
March: Eastern Europe? Ethiopia and the Middle East? Brazil?
April-June: Finalize day game book while abroad

I’ve already written the outline to the day game book, so it’s just a matter of hauling my ass to the coffee shop for dreaded marathon sessions that I haven’t had to do since A Dead Bat In Paraguay. To hold you over until I’m done with it, check out the day game tips in my newsletter and also in Bang Colombia.

In Brazil I wrote a very rough draft to an unnamed game book which I was thinking of releasing next, but based on its subject matter it’d be more logical to get the day game book out first. So you’ll see two more game books from me hopefully soon and then I think I’ll take a hiatus for a little while. I’ll go live in a quiet village for a couple months or something. Maybe I’ll pick up with some fiction or more travel writing after that.

I’m not lifting a finger until after the holiday. Then it’s going to be like I have a full time job. At least for a little while.

Four and a half years ago, after visiting Venezuela, I got the idea of doing a travel pickup guide. Hints of it were seen in my Real Man Travel Guides blog along with my book A Dead Bat In Paraguay, but I never commited myself to writing a complete guide for one country. In the past year I realized that my free time and background made me very qualified to work on such a project, and that it’d be fun to try. At the start of my fifth month in Colombia I buckled down and began work on Bang Colombia, finishing it about nine months later. Here’s the synopsis:

Bang Colombia is a strategy guide designed to help you sleep with Colombian women in Colombia without paying for it. It contains dozens of moves, lines, and tips learned after six months of research in Medellin, where I dedicated my existence to cracking the code of Colombian women, who are more challenging than their Western counterparts. In addition to teaching you the differences between Colombian and Western culture, it details the logistics of traveling through Colombia, tips on studying Spanish, a packing guide, and recommended nightlife for the country’s three largest cities. You’ll learn three effective methods of meeting Colombian women, how to combat their flakey nature, how to ask them out via email and phone, how to date them, how to seal the deal quickly using non-obvious shortcuts (even if you’re staying at a hostel), and much more. With lines shared in both English and Spanish, Bang Colombia aims to be a must-read for every Western man visiting the country.

You can get your copy at BangColombia.com. It’s available in paperback or Kindle editions from Amazon, and an eBook in PDF format. On the website I also share notes of the mindset it took to write the book and specific details of exactly what’s inside.

May every man who reads the guide get their Colombian flag.

It’s my shortest at only 54 pages, but it has information that is pretty hard to find anywhere else. Here’s the availability breakdown:

Paperback: $12.47
Kindle: $0.99
eBook: Free download

I’m experimenting with a “pay what what you want” model for the eBook. If you like the book then you’ll be able to donate. Full details tomorrow.