Musings Of A Budo Bum by Peter Boylan

Attachment 11076
I'm happy to announce that my collection of budo essays, Musings Of A Budo Bum, has been published. It's a collection of essays about a variety of subjects related to budo, including kata and it's role in training, the essentials of budo, how to use budo titles and many other subjects.

It's available at Amazon globally
https://www.amazon.com/Musings-Budo-...6863573&sr=1-1

Barnes and Nobles
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mus...=9781483598697

and signed copies at:
http://www.budogu.com/ProductDetails...oductCode=i264

I look forward to hearing everyone's comments on it.

Hi Peter,
Congratulations on the publication of your new book! I hope that it will acquire many readers and, hopefully, discussions here on E-Budo.

For those who aren't familiar with Peter Boylan, he is a long time budoka who has been recording his insights on the nature, joys, foibles and challenges of being part of discipline and culture of budo, in a popular blog called "The Budo Bum."

http://budobum.blogspot.com/

After years of posting his musings, he has compiled the best of his essays into a book, "Musings of a Budo Bum." It's available as both an e-book and a paperback edition.

This sub-forum is the place to discuss the book with its author and with each other. We hope you will enjoy Peter's writings and conversations here on the many topics explored in his new book.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cady Goldfield

Hi Peter,
Congratulations on the publication of your new book! I hope that it will acquire many readers and, hopefully, discussions here on E-Budo.

This sub-forum is the place to discuss the book with its author and with each other. We hope you will enjoy Peter's writings and conversations here on the many topics explored in his new book.

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Hi Cady,
Thank you so much. I appreciate the discussions on E-Budo, and I hope my book will generate some new ones.

Rei!

Hello Peter,

We are happy to publicize your collection of budo essays. When I looked at the details of the book on Amazon, I saw that you had selected articles from your column. Was there any criterion of selection?

I look forward to reading the work with a 'cold and critical eye' and posting questions and comments here.


Best wishes,

Hello Peter,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by P Goldsbury

Hello Peter,
We are happy to publicize your collection of budo essays. When I looked at the details of the book on Amazon, I saw that you had selected articles from your column. Was there any criterion of selection?

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Thank you. The criteria for the essays that I choose were simple. First, I had to like it, which I don't always do with my own writing. The essays also had to either common question or misconception in the Western budo world that I don't find well answered somewhere else.

I look forward to your "cold and critical eye". You're questions are always stimulating and push me to think more deeply about the subject.

Best regards,

Hello Peter,

I checked all three ways of buying the book here in Japan and received differing answers, especially with respect to price and speed of delivery. Perhaps you are not expecting massive sales in Japan, but since it concerns 武道 and you have a Japanese title on the front cover, it will probably appeal to some internationally-minded Japanese budoka, or expatriates like myself.

The most straightforward is via Amazon, but for me it has to be Amazon.co.jp, since I closed my account with Amazon.co, due to their extremely poor service overseas orders. With Amazon.co.jp, shipping appears to be free, but shipping the book will take between one and three months. (I am not allowed to pay extra for expedited delivery.)
Then I looked at Barnes and Noble, but I was not able to look at the details, since you have to become a member of Barnes & Noble's 'club', which incurs an annual fee. I have found in the past that Barnes & Noble cannot compete with Amazon in Japan.
Finally, I looked at your own Budogu website. The price of the book is listed at $20, but when I input my address in Japan, this jumped to over $68. This is OK--and to be expected, but there is no indication of whether this is by air, or by sea and, most importantly, how long it will take to receive the book. And I cannot see from your website whether some form of expedited delivery is available. If it is, I will use it.

Of course, I could go through the book and look at the individual chapters here or on AikiWeb, but to me this is somewhat unethical. You have published the articles as a book and clearly expect it to sell, as a book.

From my past experience, I have found that Amazon.co.jp is hugely efficient and offers personal feedback if there are problems, but I cannot have accelerated delivery.

So I have not ordered the book yet, and as a result, it will take longer to examine it with a 'cold and critical eye' than I expected.

Best wishes,

Comments?

Hello Peter,

I have ordered the book from your E-Budogu website.

I have one suggestion to make. For overseas customers, it would make better sense to indicate the method and speed of delivery when the country and postal code and address information are entered, rather than when the order is actually placed. This will lessen the frustration of those like myself who want to know the method and speed of delivery before deciding to pay the extra charges and place the order.


Best wishes,

Hello Peter,

Thank you for your diligence in searching for a an accessible copy of my book. I hadn't realized that Amazon Japan had a 8-12 waiting period on it. I saw that they had the paperback as well as the Kindle edition. That's quite a wait.

I agree with your analysis of the Budogu site shipping. We are in the process of searching for a new shopsite provider that will give a more customer friendly experience. We also hope that it will have a more flexible shipping charge system. Masami will be able to reduce the shipping charge considerably when she does the actual processing because she will ship it in the most efficient way, rather than the simply and expense method that the computer automatically defaults to.

As always, Thank you.

Hello Peter,

I occasionally order books from Amazon and discover that the publishers operate a publish-on-demand system. Presumably this means that they print the book book when the order comes in. This always takes longer than usual.

Anyway, the book is ordered (I prefer printed copies to Kindle edition: I use a 27-inch i-Mac at home and have become so used to the size that a Kindle reader seems minuscule in comparison).

E-Budo has a blog facility for book reviewers, but the only person who has used it so far is Ken-Hawaii, who is one of our forum owners.


Best wishes,

Hello Peter,

The shift to on-demand publishing is an interesting one. It allows for much smaller runs of books, which means more people can be published (only a good thing if we're producing quality material) but it is slower for some things. Amazon tends not to stock books that are published on-demand but orders them as needed from the publisher. This is somewhat frustrating. From what I can tell, they have twice run out of copies of my book already, and it's only been out for a couple of weeks.

I noticed your book is listed on The Book Depository, but as currently unavailable. I only checked within the last couple of days, so I don't know when they did (or if they did) have your book in stock. I have had good luck with them having books delivered to Japan.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Musin.../9781483598680

You may wish to contact them as they seem keen to have as many titles as possible available for purchase.

https://www.bookdepository.com/help/...us#helpContent

Hi Todd,

Thank you for the tip. I had not heard of Book Depository before this. I will definitely have to follow-up with them and see what we can do.

Hello Peter,

Well, the book arrived this afternoon and I look forward to reading it with a 'cold and critical eye.'

Actually, the first questions could have been asked without waiting for the book, for they concern the book cover and the translation of the title, which appears in your opening post. Having seen the book and seen that the photo is extended to the back cover, I can safely assume that the photograph is of the grounds of a shrine or similar Japanese religious institution. Who or what are you looking at? Is the look on your face supposed to be simply thoughtful, or do you intend to convey emotions, probably negative, suggesting you are a person best not crossed, or messed with -- not the sort of person you would approach and ask the way to MacDonald's.

Then there is the title. Bu no koujutsu (武の口述) seems a long way from Musings of a Budo Bum and I am curious why you decided on the translation. Of course, I can understand the problems a Japanese might have with budo bum, assuming that she/he is clear on the difference between budo bums and other varieties. Japanese-English dictionaries are not much help here, but someone using them might come up with Nuncupations of War, as a more literal rendering.


Best wishes,

Peter G.

Hello Peter,

I'm glad to hear that your copy of the book has arrived.

Regarding the cover photo, the photographer and cover designer is also one of my students. We did a long photo shoot, but I believe for that set of shots, he asked me to focus as if I were doing one of the kata that goes with that kamae. I wasn't attempting to project anything more than the focused awareness and concentration that we strive for in practice.

As for the Japanese title, one of my teachers, an old friend and calligrapher, recommended that I go with "Bu No Koujutsu" as it was more dignified than any translation of "bum" that she could imagine. Tadokoro Sensei also did the calligraphy for the cover. I was inclined to follow her advice regarding the Japanese title. I'm hoping that the Japanese title will offset any embarrassment that might accrue to English title when my other teachers in Japan see it.

Best regards,