Greetings folks,

Its been a very busy time here at AxeonEverest HQ.  I wanted to share with you a quick round-up of the latest news.

Pre-order funding campaign target reached for my book ‘From Peak to Peak’

Yes that’s right! $5000 was the target for me to reach in the pre-order book sales campaign for ‘From Peak to Peak’.  For those of you who are wondering what pre-orders are, here is a brief explanation.

The world of book publishing has and is going through a major transition.  In the ‘old days’ to publish a book, one needed to write a manuscript then approach book publishers to try to ‘ink a publishing deal’.  The overworked and underpaid book publishers would plough through the hundreds of manuscripts, trying to select those few they thought were the most appealing and marketable (i.e. not necessarily the best book!).  Once selected they would sign a deal with the author to publish their book.  This deal would normally include editing, cover design, proof-reading, formatting, printing and finally distribution to major book stores.  In exchange for this, the lucky book author who managed to get his or her manuscript selected, would receive around 20% of the proceeds of the sales of each book. That’s right – a measly 20% (maybe a bit less or a bit more depending on the deal).  Definitely not a get rich quick scheme.  More importantly the author generally would lose COPYRIGHT to the book.  So the author no longer even owned his own work!

These days, with the introduction of e-books (electronic books), authors can write a book and publish it on websites like AMAZON completely for free. (Of course they need to design, edit and format it themselves which many people are happy to do).  Over 30% of all book sales in the United States recently are through e-books and the number is rapidly growing. Unfortunately this has seen traditional book stores in towns and cities closing down and going out of business. People these days do not need a hard copy of a book.  They do not need to visit a book store or purchase through the post and pay for expensive shipping costs.  They can order on-line and receive an e-copy instantly which they can read on their electronic devices like Kindle’s or iPAD.

I wanted the best of both world’s – hard copies of my book as well as e-book versions.  Many of my readers are not yet in the e-book era.  I also needed hard copies to sell during my keynote talk’s.  I did not have the patience or the desire to go down the traditional publishing route to ink a deal and hand over the copyright to receive a mere 20% on the sales.  So I opted to pay a publisher in Singapore to publish my book.  To off-set the costs of the publishing, I launched a pre-orders campaign through a website called PUBISHIZER.  This on-line platform allowed me to sell over the internet, copies of my book before it has even been printed.  The catch is when using the PUBLISHIZER platform, I had to enter a specific target amount, within a certain time frame to reach.  That was $5000 in 30 days.  If I did not reach that goal, then all purchases would be automatically refunded.  This proved a great way of giving me focus!

So the target is reached and I would like to thank each and every one of you who ordered the book.

For those of you HAVE NOT YET ORDERED! You still have 4 days left to order – after which time if you want to purchase you will need to visit a bookstore in Singapore to buy a copy.

To purchase please go to this weblink  https://publishizer.com/from-peak-to-peak/

It’s very simple – you can order an e-book or hard copy versions from here.  If you live outside Singapore I will even post them to you by airmail if you choose the shipping option. The pre-orders campaign ENDS on 13 November so sign up now!

‘From Peak to Peak’ will be delivered tomorrow

Tomorrow the 10 November is a very exciting day as ‘From Peak to Peak’ rolls off the press and is delivered to my house.  I am very excited to receive the first copies of the books and start distributing them to those lovely people who have ordered them.

‘From Peak to Peak’ – my book about our journey from Ruapehu to Aoraki/ Mt Cook

‘From Peak to Peak’ interview on The Pursuit Zone

I had an interesting interview about our ‘Peak to Peak’ expedition’s recently on an American website called ‘The Pursuit Zone‘.  This website interviews adventurers who ‘dream big, get out of their comfort zones, and accomplish ambitious pursuits.’

They record the interviews and publish them as PODCASTs.  A PODCAST is basically a sound recording which you can listen to over the internet.  My interview can be listened to from the comfort of your own computer by clicking this link here.  If you have some time go to the website and check it out – they have some really interesting interviews with people who have done all sorts of inspiring, adventurous and cool things.

Click the image to hear a PODCAST interview about our Peak to Peak adventure on THE PURSUIT ZONE.

People who inspire me

Starting shortly I am introducing a new section to my website titled ‘People who Inspire Me’.  Here I conduct short interviews with special people who are doing inspiring things.  Not inspiring in terms of making billions of dollars from raping the planet and the earth’s resources, or undertaking activities that burn copious amounts of fossil fuels.  But tales from people who get out and make positive impacts, who send positive messages through the way they live their lives.  We all have a part to play in the future of our planet.  I am very excited to share these stories with you and if at least one of them can touch and inspire you to make positive changes then I will be very happy 🙂

That’s all for now folks, enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Lots of Love,

Axe