I’m so thrilled to type these words: blinks of awe, my first poetry book, has just been published in 32 countries!
Blinks of awe is an interactive book of poetry, or as I prefer to call it, a poetry experience. It’s only available on the iPad but when you first open it, you’ll see why. There’s no boring, black, left-aligned, serif text on a tidy white page here. Traditional poetry isn’t boring; it just doesn’t leverage what’s possible today. I’ve pushed the technology further than I’ve ever seen in a poetry book so that the medium truly complements the content. In the future, I plan to write more about iBooks Author, the main tool that made this book (and the textbook I designed earlier this year) possible. But in the mean time, I need your help!
This project began as a “wouldn’t-that-be-neat” idea on a late January weekend. What I thought I’d throw together in two days and nights ended up taking two months. In the process, I learned a lot about self-publishing ebooks, from formats to ISBNs to imprints to copyrights to pricing to working with Apple. I learned the joy and exquisite pain of trying to record your own voice, from replicating the way it sounds in your head to how it sounds on various kinds of speakers. I pushed my vocal limits and made voice recording part of my editing process. I went through numerous design iterations of every single poem. I leveraged my best personal photos, my pencil and digital artwork, and royalty free photography to put together designs that I’m damn proud of. To keep myself motivated, I started a Seinfeld calendar with six friends and worked on blinks of awe every single day for 55 straight days. And now seeing it published just made it all worth it.
I have little experience in marketing. But I know that if I don’t try everything I can to share this book, all this hard work and wonderful, late-night inspiration will be for naught. So take a chance on something new. I think you’ll be surprised.
Arsenal of Words 
Congratulations! I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
you should post a link to a youtube video of your ebook…
Great idea! I’ll be sure to update this post if I make a video.
Did you check out the screenshots in the iBookstore? If you have an iPad, there’s also a free sample. Right now, those are the best way to get a feel for the book.
Congratulations Arthur! That’s an awesome accomplishment, I wish you well.
Congrats! I would love to know how you go about the copyrights…
Copyright is yours automatically at the time of creation so I just put a copyright notice at the end of the book. You can optionally register it with the U.S. Copyright Office for about $50 if you want better defensibility in court.
Thank you. I was doing some research online about it as well. I was curious if you could just place a copyright notice in the book and call it good… you answered my question. :) Thanks again.
Sure thing! Hope you enjoy my book and good luck with yours!