This is a very cool flashmob: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBaHPND2QJg

Oliver, the BHM webmaster, sent this to me. I’ve already posted it on the Backwoods Home Magazine Facebook page.

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FIVE KINDLE BOOKS YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FREE FROM BACKWOODS HOME MAGAZINE – You’ll want to SHARE this with your friends. We’ll give a FREE book each day of the week, Monday, Dec. 17, through Friday, Dec. 21. Two we’ve offered before, three are new.

Monday: Download FREE – “Ask Jackie: Canning basics”
Tuesday: Download FREE –“Ask Jackie: Water bath canning”
Wednesday: Download FREE  –“ Ask Jackie: Pressure canning”
Thursday: Download FREE — “Ask Jackie: Food storage”
Friday: Download FREE — “Ask Jackie: Homestead cooking”

Here’s my Santa Claus analysis of these free Kindle book giveaways: Our Kindle prices for these books range from $4.95 each (3 of them)  to $9.95 each (2 of them).  The average download of a free book, judging from our past experiences, is about 4,000 people. The math says that equals about $140,000 worth of free Kindle books we’re giving away.

But it really doesn’t cost us anything extra to give them away. In fact, some people who get a free Kindle book will often come back and buy a book from us, either Kindle version or paperback version, or they’ll subscribe to the magazine out of gratitude.

It’s a hopeful day for America and for the capitalist system that spawned Amazon and its Kindle book reader when you can give away $140,000 worth of merchandise, have it cost you nothing, and end up making a little money from thankful people. Everyone benefits!

Thank you, Amazon, for thinking up this great idea called Kindle!

And Merry Christmas to everyone! – Dave Duffy at Backwoods Home Magazine

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I don’t do interviews very often, but I liked how this one on our own radio show came out.

The main reason I don’t do radio interviews, or give public talks, is that they make me uncomfortable. I’m a naturally spontaneous person in person, but not in public. Call it insecurity or whatever, but a microphone makes me implode mentally, even though the interviews usually come off fine. I think I’m just a nervous person who is scared of a microphone and what I might say wrong.

Jeff Ferguson, my marketing guy, did an interview on a big AM radio station in Youngstown, Ohio, this morning. It went well, so now they want to interview me. Shit! To Jeff it’s no big deal, but to me it’s an “oh shit” type of deal.

My older brother, Hugh, could do these radio interviews easy. But he was a big time lawyer, a Staff Director and Chief Legal Counsel for a Congressional Committee for crying out loud, so he had the luxury of his position to calm him down. But it’s a different deal for me! I get interviewed as an unknown person, and every word that comes out of my mouth makes me look stupid or smart. That makes me very nervous, to the point I am relatively unproductive for the magazine in the several days leading up to the interview.

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We posted a photo of Lenie conducting the Gold Beach High School Band yesterday on our Facebook page. The concert went off great but was almost very embarrassing for one of the 15 members of the band, namely our son, Sam. While putting on his pants just prior to the concert, Sam broke the fly zipper and came running into my office yelling, “Dad, what am I going to do?”

Luckily I had just put a new sewing kit into the Preparedness Pack I carry in the trunk of my car. We got it and pinned up his fly with the safety pins in the kit. He’s so skinny that the pants easily slid over his bony hips.

So you see, being prepared comes in very handy in a variety of emergencies.

– Dave

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