I have no idea how the book business works, so I can't explain why my book is being sold in these strange places

Does anyone here speak Danish??

As I've mentioned more than once (I apologize if it's getting annoying), I recently wrote a book. Like this blog it's called "5 Kids, 1 Wife," and it's a compilation of some of my favorite posts since 2011.

I published the book through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which means it is available for purchase through Amazon. Between that and any copies I sell directly to people I know, I figured that was the extent of my potential sales channels.

But then, within days of the book coming out, it mysteriously showed up on BarnesandNoble.com. I couldn't explain how that happened, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Then I found the book popping up online in a dozen or so other places, many of which I wasn't even aware existed.

That's when I remembered I had agreed to take part in KDP's Expanded Distribution program, which they promise will "make your book available to distributors so booksellers and libraries can find your book and order it."

Here's what a simple Google search turns up:

• My book is more expensive on "Thrift" Books ($18.06) than it is on Amazon ($16).
  
  
• On the other hand, it's significantly discounted ($12.88) at Alibris.com.
  
  
• While we're on the subject of pricing, please please PLEASE do not buy it from this eBay seller for $30.82. If you find yourself tempted to do this, call me and I will give you a copy in order to save you from yourself.
  
  
• On the fun side, while the book is only available in English, you can buy it on websites on which the primary language is Danish, Swedish and German.
  
  
• There's a classical guitarist named Scott Tennant of whom I've been aware for several years. Authorship of my book is credited to him in a few places, including this site.

A question worth asking – at least as far as I'm concerned – is whether and how I get paid if someone buys my book from any of these people. Other than the eBay merchant, I'm assuming the other sites have some sort of arrangement through which they buy the book from Amazon/KDP and I still get my standard royalty, which is an admittedly small but symbolically important $3.42 per book.

I have no way of tracking this or confirming it's truly how the whole thing works, but I'm going to trust Andy Jassy (the president and CEO of Amazon) and his team to treat us small-time authors fairly.

Of course, as I describe in the book, I also once trusted a local panhandler named Maurice to pay back $80 I gave him, so this could be another case in which my enduring faith in humanity proves to be foolish.

I have published a book and would appreciate if you would consider ordering a copy

For years I thought about writing a book, but I figured I didn't have the time, didn't know how, wasn't sure what I would write about, etc. There was always a good reason not to do it.

Then I figured out two things:

(1) I had been blogging for nearly 12 years and probably had some quality material ready to go.

(2) While there's undoubtedly time and effort involved, the people at Amazon (and more accurately Kindle Direct Publishing) have made the whole thing a lot easier than it used to be.

I chose 51 of my favorite blog posts, found a way to organize them into four sections, consulted with the wonderful Brian Sooy on how one goes about self-publishing, and voila (French for "I don't know how well this turned out, but here it is.")

This is a link to the Amazon page where you can purchase a copy of the book, which I have uncreatively titled "5 Kids, 1 Wife." You can also just go to Amazon and search for "5 Kids, 1 Wife." Searching for "Scott Tennant" is another possibility, though I should mention you're more likely to come across a series of classical guitar instruction books by a very talented musician with whom I share a name than you are to find my book.

However you get there, I appreciate your consideration.

The book costs $16. My original goal was a price of $10, but I opted for Amazon's Expanded Distribution program, which makes your book available to booksellers and libraries so they might purchase copies.

As a first-time author, I have no idea whether this program will be helpful for me. But then I remember something my son Jack recently said, which was, "Did you ever think you would write a book that someone could check out of a library?"

No, no, I didn't, but it sounds awfully cool.

Opting for Expanded Distribution raised the book's minimum price to $15.50. I rounded up to an even $16 and called it a day. The Kindle edition, should you be interested, is $8.

I make $3.42 on every paperback sold, so I am clearly not in this for the money. Heck, at the outset, I was trying to find a way to publish and distribute it for free to a select group of family and friends. Now I figure it won't hurt if I recoup at least some of the cash I sank into this project.

There is a detailed Acknowledgments page in the book, and I want to mention a few of those individuals here. In addition to thanking Terry, the kids, my extended family and the aforementioned Mr. Sooy, I also acknowledge:

• Callie Bumba, who was marvelous in designing the book's front and back covers
• Catherine Williams, a UK-based professional who expertly designed the book's interior
• Ron Kotar, a talented photographer who gave me permission to use a photo he took of Jack in the epilogue
• Everyone who has read this blog over the years and stuck with me through multiple stops and starts

If you decide to part with 16 bucks (or 8 bucks for the Kindle format) and purchase a copy for yourself, I thank you, too. Truly, thank you. You didn't have to do that, and my gratitude is immense.

I'm writing a book and cannot stand to read my own words anymore

I don't know what prompted it, but a couple of months ago I decided I was going to publish a compilation of my best blog posts. If all goes well, it will be released sometime this fall.

Actually, the 50 posts in the book may not necessarily be my "best." They're more like my "favorites." As I combed through the 840 posts I've written over the past 12 years, I picked out the ones that either made me laugh the hardest or the ones of which I was most proud, for whatever reason.

The book won't be intended for mass-market distribution. It's more of a pet project for friends and family, though I will gladly accept sales to random people who happen to stumble across it on Amazon.

Creatively enough, it will be titled "5 Kids, 1 Wife." At first I wasn't sure what to call it, but my longtime professional acquaintance Brian Sooy (a published author and marketing guru) suggested appropriating the name of this blog as the title. It's concise and compelling, he told me, and it gives readers a quick taste of what they'll find should they choose to buy the book.

He was right, as usual.

There will be a section on parenting, a section on family and relationships, a catch-all section labeled "Other Things on My Mind," and yes, a small section on my short-lived game show career.

The good folks at Kindle Direct Publishing make it relatively simple to create your own book. As Amazon's publishing platform, they allow you to distribute your work widely and easily in both electronic and hard-copy format. Thus, my book will be available as a paperback or as an e-book, depending on your preference.

Still, self-publishing is not something you accomplish in an afternoon.

First there's the writing. In my case you would think this part was easy, since I was choosing from among hundreds of pre-written, already-published blog posts.

I thought that, too. Then I started working through them and found my initial list had something like 120 posts I might potentially include in the book. It took a good while to whittle the list down to the 50 posts I liked best, and that I thought told some semblance of a collective story.

Then I started re-reading them and realized I needed to do some heavy-duty editing. It's not that they were poorly written. It's just that my writing style has become more economical over time, and the early posts especially needed some trimming in terms of word selection and sentence construction.

I have done five complete edits of these posts, pruning them from a bloated 41,000 words to the sleeker current total of just over 38,000.

At first it was fun to read my old stuff. By the third edit, however, it was torture. None of it seemed remotely entertaining anymore. By the fourth time through, I was thoroughly sick of reading my own material.

Let's not even talk about the fifth and final edit, which I can only characterize as a slog.

Once I got through that, there was the matter of finding photos to go with some of the posts. These had to be photos of sufficient resolution for inclusion in a printed book and to which I owned the rights or had permission to use.

Given those narrow parameters, there may be 20 images in the book once it gets to final form. Maybe.

Then I remembered I'm not a graphic designer and that even the most text-heavy books need some design to make them attractive. Enter another professional from my past, the talented Jamie Feldman, who is going to create the front and back covers.

I've also engaged an interior book designer from the UK named Catherine to work with me on typeface selection, page layout, and creating an engaging look and feel on each page.

I really should have hired someone to copy edit the book for me, as well, but I've already spent enough money on what is supposed to be an informal personal project, so I did that part myself.

I know people like Stephen King have staffers who handle most of this process for them, but now I wonder how many times he read through, say, "The Shining" before vowing never to open one of his own books again.

Believe me, brother, I can empathize.