Book Festivals, Royalties, and Other Author Things

Here at the end of September, I am gearing up for the Heartland Book Festival in Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday, October 11. With your help, we can recruit a legion of new bugwatchers, and change how we relate to other species, and each other. Allow me to let you in on upcoming events, and some secrets of the author profession that might surprise you.

Got my poster, courtesy of Poor Richard's here in Leavenworth, Kansas.

I cannot tell you how excited and honored I am to be participating as a vendor in the Heartland Book Festival. I will be one of only twenty-five authors selected from over two hundred applicants. This is perhaps the first time I have truly felt like a professional writer and author. I am hoping that this is only the beginning. Please recommend to me, in the comments, other book festivals that you have enjoyed, where nonfiction authors are celebrated alongside the novelists.

Speaking engagements are another way for authors to get traction in the marketplace. I will be presenting a talk on spiders for Topeka Audubon the evening of October 7, then another bugwatching presentation for Gardeners Connect on November 11 in Kansas City, Missouri.

There are already dates taken up on my 2026 calendar, too. On January 8, I will be presenting a webinar for Smithsonian Associates. I will announce when tickets go on sale. February 10, 2026, you will find me at the Plan it Native Landscapes Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, where I will present “Beyond Bees and Butterflies: Embracing and Conserving Local Insects.” After that program, I am open to invitations for any other events you may want to suggest.

There is a persistent myth that authors earn much of their living from royalties on sales of their books. This may be true for Stephen King, but certainly not for those of us in niche markets like natural history. What usually happens is that the publisher pays an author a cash advance to begin the book, maybe another once the manuscript is completed, and perhaps another once the book goes on the market. Ideally, brisk sales quickly make up for the advances and the book breaks even. Only after that point do royalties start producing positive numbers. None of my books, to this point, have produced royalties. That is not uncommon, but there is no reason we can’t buck that trend. How do we do that?

Much as I loathe Amazon, the retail giant, posting positive reader reviews there can boost sales considerably. The same can be said for Goodreads, and other such platforms. Book reviews in magazines, newspapers, blogs, podcasts, and social media are also helpful. Thank you for considering.

Invitations to do book signings, or present at conferences and meetings, are always welcome. Obviously, remote, virtual appearances are easiest at this time, when airline travel is undependable at best, Covid is making a resurgence, and clubs and organizations are facing financial hardship due to cuts in federal grants and other sources of funding. That said, if I can string together more than a couple of engagements in any given city, or small region, I will certainly entertain in-person events.

Thank you for all of your moral support, book purchases, in-kind donations, and other help to this point. I hope that I am doing right by you, and that I get the chance to express my appreciation in person at some point.

I Am Unable to Reply to Comments, and I'm Sorry

Visitors to this blog need to know that Blogger will no longer allow me to reply to your comments and questions on my posts, or even make my own comments. I understand your frustration, as it is mine, also. I can sometimes reply in a different browser than I normally use (Mozilla Firefox), but even that seems unreliable. Eventually, I want to have a dedicated author and writer website, where I can transfer this blog. Until then, I appreciate your understanding and patience. Let me address a few recurring themes, though.

I am forced to moderate comments because of a ridiculous amount of spam, mostly attempts at self-promotion by pest control companies, but many are other business interests that have no relation to the subject matter of this blog. I try and go through pending comments at least once per week. I will only delete comments if they contain profanity or defamatory content. If people have stories they want to share, good or bad, I am happy to entertain them. I appreciate what are mostly kind and appreciative comments. Thank you.

"Does it bite?" and "Will it hurt me/my pets/plants, etc?" are recurring queries. If I do not mention that the creature is threatening, then it is not, provided you do not handle it or try to kill it. There is always the possibility that you do not see the insect or arachnid and squash it accidentally, or it gets trapped in clothing...The more aware you are, the less likely you will have negative encounters with any animal.

"Can I post a picture...?" is also a query I receive routinely. I wish I was able to allow that, but the potential of hidden malware, even in links to images, prohibits this. What I can recommend instead is sharing your images on a website like iNaturalist or Bugguide. Both websites (and a complementary app in the case of iNaturalist) are free to join. The only danger is in getting addicted to everyone else's observations. Even Facebook interest groups, like "Insect ID," and Twitter (X), and Instagram are viable avenues for learning what your mystery creature is. The beauty of those other paths of inquiry is that you can receive multiple opinions, from professional entomologists and amateur naturalists alike.

I am using Google-generated advertising here for a meager revenue stream. I apologize for the intrusion of that advertising, but my former company sponsors no longer exist. I welcome alternatives to those ads.

Thank you again for your loyalty, and for tolerating the imperfections of this blog. I do plan on retaining the archive of posts at this URL for the forseeable future.

Looking Ahead to 2022

The end of this year has brought a clearer focus for the new year ahead. I have projects to complete, and travel plans already. What else materializes will be dependent on my health, my initiative, what my wife has planned, and how the ongoing pandemic plays out.

My office

In November I received forty-five (45) boxes of pinned insect specimens from Colorado that I am under contract to identify to the best of my ability. They are currently stacked around my office in the spare bedroom of our house. I am grateful for the work, and always find it exciting and challenging. Nearly every insect order is represented in this particular project, save butterflies, moths, and aquatic insects.

Daunting, but thrilling, too

An assortment of flies in this box

I am beginning with the flies, which is one of the orders I struggle with. One of the first specimens I looked at was the male dance fly, family Empididae, shown below. I am working with a dichotomous key, the usual method for identifying specimens. Each couplet in the key describes contrasting conditions in one or more physical characters. You follow the option that matches to get to the next couplet and repeat the process until it dumps out a genus name in this case. It is easy to get this wrong, and sure enough I kind of bogged down at one of the couplets.

Mr. Empis dance fly

I did happen to notice that this specimen had a highly obvious character that was not in the key: an opposing pair of huge teeth on each side of the "knee" joint on the hind leg. You'd think the authors of the key could maybe lead with that? I went to an online resource to look at various images of relevant genera and quickly deduced that I had a male Empis, in the subgenus Enolempis no less. The female fly does not have those impressive leg modifications. There are over fifty species in this subgenus, so I am not taking these any farther, even if I could find a key.

Mrs. Empis

The insect identification project is going to take much time, but I have additional work. I am enrolled in a virtual course, Wildlife Conservation Photography 101, from the Conservation Visual Storytellers Academy. Our instructor is the acclaimed wildlife photographer, and academy founder, Jaymi Heimbuch. This has been surprisingly challenging because it requires me to think visually when my mind thinks in words first. I am behind, but Jaymi, her colleagues, and other students, are owverwhelmingly supportive and empathetic. It is a multigenerational cohort, and I love that. Brainstorming potential stories alone has led me to possibly another book idea.

Immediately after the new year I start attending a wasp identification course, also virtual, sponsored in part by Pennsylvania State University. This will at least dovetail perfectly with the Colorado specimen project I have to work on. If wasps interest you, too, consider entrolling.

Ringed Paper Wasp, Polistes annularis, from Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma, on our way back from Texas in November

A friend from social media land invited my wife and I to meet them in southeast Texas this spring, so hoping I can finally find certain insects, spiders, and reptiles that only occur along the gulf coast. We went to the annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in November, but Harlingen, Mission, and Brownsville are in an entirely different ecosystem. We did get some "lifer" birds on that trip, though, as did a third person in our party. Where else will we go in 2022? Who knows. We are unlikely to fly, due to both pandemic and carbon footprint considerations.

I am available for virtual group and individual consultations, conversations, or presentations, so please feel free to reach out to me via e-mail. I will post links to archived podcasts and meetings when I have permission from the individual or organization hosting the event.

Lastly, I do plan to continue posting here, and working harder to recruit diverse voices for guest blog posts or interviews. Have a non-profit initiative or organization you would like to advertise here? Please let me know. Keep up your own great work, and thank you as always for following this blog.

Snow Days, Slow Days

I feel the need to apologize for the relative lack of content here lately, but several circumstances are conspiring to reduce the frequency with which I have been posting. Some are beyond my control, others a function of having differing current priorities. For once, these are valid explanations, not merely excuses.

Weather

It literally snowed here yesterday, April 29, and the high temperature was 35° F. You can choose your own expletive for "F." Today is cool and very windy. This is not unexpected for this time of year, but is incredibly frustrating. It is simply useless to go out looking for insects or arachnids, or much of any wildlife, actually. Last year we had a snowstorm on Mother's Day weekend, so....(sigh).

Blowout Tiger Beetles, Cicindela lengi, have been among the few literal bright spots this spring

Those few insects I am finding have been posted more frequently on Facebook than here in this blog. Look me up on Facebook under "Bug Eric," and also the "Arthropods Colorado" group.

Writing Elsewhere

I continue to accrue more paying assignments at other websites and publications, so while this is a very good thing from an income standpoint, it means that I have less time to devote to this blog. Watch this space, though, for announcements of where else my work is appearing. Most of it is going to the After Bite Insectlopedia blog, under my name. I share billing with the anonymous "Professor Bugsbee."

Meanwhile, a brand new website on spiders will be making its debut shortly, and I will be contributing content in the form of articles. Our goal is to produce at least one new article each week, and by the time summer gets here I suspect that site will be getting most of my attention.

Lastly, I am hoping to do more editing and "style consulting" for other writers and their work, especially pertaining to natural history. Please contact me if you or someone you know is looking for helpful criticism and/or help in getting published. I had the good fortune of going over a couple of e-books, one on notable insects and other arthropods of Zion National Park, and another on the same subject for Cedar Breaks National Monument. I very much enjoy the process of book production and helping others.

Lack of Travel

I have already told my wife that I want us to book a vacation in Florida or somewhere else down south next April! I am not going to go six or seven months between out-of-state destinations. Thankfully, we will soon be going away to what we hope are literally greener pastures to the east. That should provide a little more blog fodder, I hope. Meanwhile, I am available for nature festivals, insect identification workshops, speaking engagements, and other events. After expenses are paid for, I am negotiable for honorariums.

Suggestions Always Welcome

Do you have a species of insect or arachnid you would like to see featured here? Maybe there is a topic that you would very much like to learn more about. Perhaps you have images or video of insect behavior that would make a great story? I am open to any and all of these things. While I rarely allow guest bloggers, I always give them due consideration, especially if there is no commercial component or agenda.

Take care friends, enjoy your own explorations and observations!

Coming Soon

Apologies for the brief hiatus, but this kind of thing happens between May and….about October or so, when I am spending more time in the field than behind my keyboard. Last week I was also briefly ill (much better now, thank you).

You can look forward to some pretty diverse topics in the coming weeks and months: Early summer buprestids, termite swarms, eyed click beetles, delusory parasitosis, a review of Art Evans’ new book on beetles of the eastern United States, mating season, stink bugs, spring field crickets, etc. There might even be more videos.

Thank you for your patience and continued interest and support. I assure you I enjoy delivering quality content, with no plans to stop anytime soon.

Update.

Once again I find myself apologizing for the relatively sporadic nature of my posts here lately. No excuses, really, though I have been working rather random hours at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, and consequently eating randomly, sleeping randomly, and writing randomly. Maybe I need to take a class on time management.

I also just concluded a project in which I reviewed chapters for a forthcoming self-published book on the natural history of Virginia Beach, Virginia, by Scott Bastian. He has been a delight to work with, and he will be turning out a pretty unique book that has a wealth of information stretching far beyond the locality of Virginia Beach. You'll hear more about this once it is off the presses.

A relative lack of rain this year in Arizona (except for the area immediately adjacent to the Mexican border) has meant that many insects have been lacking, or at least less numerous, than usual. Perhaps because the Tucson Botanical Gardens is heavily watered, I have found a surprising diversity of things there, and expect the trend to continue through October.

Best wishes to my readers for a fruitful fall of exploring, image-taking, and enjoyment of autumn colors.

Apologies, Excuses, Suggestions

The loyal followers of this blog deserve to be dazzled and amazed much more frequently than the writer has been able to do lately. I sincerely apologize for the time lag and anticipate that things will improve soon. Today I will do a little explaining.

I am delighted to report that part of the reason I have been “missing in action” is because I have acquired some assignments that, believe it or not, are actually paying me for online content I am creating. As a co-moderator with Mandy Howe, I’m monitoring submissions to SpiderIdentification.org for a modest monthly wage. I want to express my sincerest thanks to webmaster Kyle Williams for this opportunity.

Kyle had also purchased the domain name “DustMites.org,” but soon sold it to another individual. That person, Tim McGuiness, is out of the same amazing mold as Kyle in that he, too, has offered to pay me for creating content. I am in the midst of doing that right this instant, and am facing a pretty tight deadline. The research alone has had my head swimming. Obviously, I am also grateful to Tim for his generosity. Both the spider and dust mite websites will eventually include advertising that may generate more income still for all involved, but first things first.

Since it is springtime, I have also found myself out in the field quite a bit, though my allergies to pollens have sometimes made for miserable outings. It has also been extremely windy here in southeast Arizona, making it difficult to get respectable images of flowers, insects, birds, and other organisms to illustrate this blog with. I am very appreciative of my friends Margarethe Brummermann, Ned Harris, Fred Heath and his wife Mary Klinkel, John Rhodes, and others for including me in their own field trips.

I am hoping that all of you are also getting out and about, but if not, may I suggest investigating some of the blogs that I follow? Margarethe just started her own, all about Arizona beetles, bugs, birds, and more. My entomological colleague David Almquist also has a new blog. Both are listed, along with perennial favorites like “Beetles in the Bush” by Ted MacRae, on the sidebar of this blog.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding. May you enjoy the season.