I wrote the following on Hacker News and thought it fit here.
Last week I self-published my first book.
My visit to North Korea last year amazed me at how much we base our impressions of North Korea on pre-conceived notions. I already blogged daily, but the experience affected me so much I started posting twice daily, one post on North Korea.
Then Kim Jong Il died and tons of articles came out on North Korea, many or most had the same pre-conceived notions or assigned credit to the leaders that I thought were properties of the system, making understanding or achieving change difficult.
Reading all those articles, I felt compelled to put my perspective out there. My posts on HN got high karma. I assembled a number of my posts, polished them (they needed more polish than I thought), and posted them on Amazon and Smashwords for download to electronic devices.
The first time was laborious and time-consuming. Now that I’ve done it, I know how to do it easier and I plan to do it many times.
I’m going to start marketing soon. The big news days when Kim Jong Il died motivated me so I missed them as days to sell books, but I hope the book changes some people’s views of North Korea and helps motivate people toward effective change.
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EDIT: Here’s the ebook, Understanding North Korea: Demystifying the World’s Most Misunderstood Country. I wrote it to help increase understanding, communication, and freedom.
