Book On CD
My first book "Gems: A Lively Guide for the Casual Collector" taken to CD format. More color images that you can play with, and pages that you might want to print out. Take it to work with you for when you are bored. Price not yet determined, but it will be reasonable. I expect this project to be complete and ready to go out by September 1, 2006.
Individual List Of Gems
This also will be a CD-Rom, of a different sort. This product will list alphabetically a very long list of gems and minerals, each with some data (like hardness, specific gravity -- nothing too technical) and lots of folklore, plus my recommendations for cleaning & care. Each gem will get exactly one page devoted to it, and each will be separate on the disk. There will be a color photo of the gem rough at the top of the page as well. Here are just two good reasons for purchasing this product.
Let's say it's mom's birthday and you bought her a ruby ring as a present. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to give her a page of information, including how to care for it, when you present her with her ring on her big day? Wouldn't it be fun to show her the gem rough, and explain to her exactly what that means? OK, one more. Let's suppose you are heading out to a store shopping for jewelry for some specific occassion, and you know exactly what you are looking to buy. Let's say it's an amethyst ring. Wouldn't it be nice to print out the page, with a few tips, and take it with you when you leave the house? There you go: an ice-breaker, conversation piece, and must have. Price not yet determined. I hope to have this product out by the holidays.
Gem Wallpaper/Slides
This project grew out of a contact that I made over the internet with a very talented person with a lot of sophisticated equipment who lives in California. I had originally planned to use him just to convert my 35mm gem slides to jpegs so I could easily insert them in both the Book On CD and my second book as well. I learned and saw so much potential here that he and I collaborated on a number of very special effects that have to be seen to be appreciated. All of the rest of these photos were taken by me and I plan to either include software for a slide show, or a link to some on the internet. If you are into your computer wallpaper like I am, you'll have a ball with this one. Price not yet determined. I also hope to have this product out by the holidays.
Book Two
Believe it or not, I actually have some of my second book finished already, but work on it has been put on the back burner until my other two projects are finished. This is because the research that I need to do for all three of these products remains the same, but the first two I can get up and out rather quickly, while "Book Two" will take longer to produce. I know you all have been asking me about the second book now for what seems like (and probably is) years. I will be giving it my undivided attention in the coming months, but there is little chance it will be done before the holidays. If there is one thing I learned from authoring my first book, it was how much hard work it really is to write. Needless to say, price and release date to be determined.
