Author: Jove
Free Sale September! From September 1st to September 5th, Faith in Doubt Split Editions Are Available For Free
In the hopes of gaining more traction for my ebook, I’ve made this freely available from September 1st to September 5th, 2019 so if you’re interested and like a good deal, please think about obtaining my book for free:
Other Ebooks are also available for free. My fantasy story criticizing Neo-Nazism, the book I’m no longer proud of criticizing New Atheism in case anyone is interested in how my views have changed over the years, and my pamphlet opposing Christian conversions in India:
Have Prominent Ex-Muslims of the West been consistent with open dialogue and challenging their views?
Note: This is Part 2 of 2 of my critique of people who I use to have more respect for. While many are accepting of my identity of Hindu Atheist/Hindu Anti-theist, there are those in the Western Atheist community who are not and there’s even worse problems on following through with their supposed beliefs and aims.
Shortly before writing this piece, I’ve found myself thrown out from yet another atheist discord server for “Islamophobia” for sharing Yasmine Mohammad’s tweets criticizing Islam. This is getting absolutely ridiculous. Some of these people identified as Anti-Theist, but refused to criticize Islam on the basis of it being “Islamophobic” to do so. Throughout my time there, discussions on criticizing Islam always devolved into accusations of personal bias on my part. I think I understand Sam Harris’s frustrations a bit better now and what he’s dealt with since 2006.
Perhaps beginning this blog post with the aforementioned paragraph seems to be in poor choice because I might be criticizing potential allies, but I really believed in the claims of prominent Western Ex-Muslims and I’ve been disappointed in the gap between the claims and the results. Now, I want to be clear that this isn’t the majority of them, but rather my favorite ones who inspired me. I’ve been assessing their activities after barely getting any meaningful response from them. I want to make it clear that I still absolutely support their activism insofar as support for human rights of people suffering from religious persecution in our contemporary time. Ex-Muslims are by far among the most thoughtful and intelligent people that I’ve met and it really is a shame that more people don’t support them or recognize their human rights. That being said, after seven months of trying to communicate and what felt like talking to a wall, I’ve become skeptical and pessimistic about their approach in their activism. Admittedly, some of it is varied; Armin Navabi and Ali A. Rizvi seem to be about promoting atheism completely, the organization Ex-Muslims of North America seems to have the same goal at least secondary to helping Ex-Muslims who have left the religion, and people like Imtiaz Shams seem more focused on reform while his organization Faith to Faithless is about supporting people who de-converted from their respective religious backgrounds. Sarah Haider recently stated on Twitter a few months back that she exclusively will focus on Ex-Muslim issues herself while being open to hearing Ex-religious stories of other backgrounds; she and non-Muslim atheist activists who escaped cult-like religions are forming a NYC conference in October 2019 to better inform people about how certain religions have cult-like behavior, and to better understand their dangers. Nevertheless, I think the approaches online, specifically on their Twitter interactions, need a re-examination.
My chief criticism are about either the inaccuracy of certain beliefs which when I challenge them on in Twitter (even bringing citations from historians via screenshot images) they never respond to them or when I challenge them on laughing off or ignoring historic abuses of the West, they never respond. It often feels like talking to a brick wall, especially when trying to communicate with the Ex-MNA Twitter account, Ali A. Rizvi, and Armin Navabi in particular. By comparison, Harris Sultan, Fay – the most Gracious, Zara Kay, Muhammad Syed, and sometimes Sarah Haider occasionally respond. However, when challenged on certain political topics that go into the realm of religion, it seems to be less often from a few of them. I want to be clear though: I’m frustrated and chose to write this because there has been no dialogue over issues they keep misconstruing and ignore my criticisms of their portrayal thereof. Over certain topics related to history or human rights, they just ignore my criticisms completely.
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Have the IDW and prominent Atheist Personalities lived up to defending Free Speech and building open-minded online communities?
Note: This is Part 1 of 2 of my critique of people who I use to feel membership into the community of. While many are accepting of my identity of Hindu Atheist/Hindu Anti-theist, there are those in the Western Atheist community who are not and there’s even worse problems on following through with their supposed beliefs and aims.
This question has bothered me for some time after my initial experience and I suspect that the answer is no.
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Expanding Faith in Doubt’s Kindle Edition Due To Friendly Feedback
Now that my book has been out for a few weeks, I’ve decided to listen to the initial complaints and created two separate Ebook versions for Parts I and II due to popular demand from potential readers who want the ebook to be more “accessible” to them. The accessibility seems to be a psychological issue more than anything else since people seem to find the huge length to be daunting despite it being a fairly good deal for any avid readers interested in topics pertaining to religion. I try to point out that readers should think of it as 6-7 books in one and for the low price of $9.99 for the ebook edition, but unfortunately this seems to have failed to convince most people. The huge length was the primary complaint from most people on the fence about purchasing the ebook version. It seems the 2554 pages was just too much for most people who are interested, so I’ve listened to the criticism that I received and provided an ebook version that is broken up into two books. I can only really blame myself for not doing this in the first place as it seems like a sensible option in hindsight. The physical edition will not be effected with any changes by this decision and I’ll leave the first ebook edition which has 2554 pages for those who prefer and enjoy a larger book to read. Unfortunately, the prices will have to be $8.99 each and while that may seem ridiculous with the full ebook being $9.99, I really do need to look out for my own bottom-line as all the effort I put into the ebook did have its own cost-benefits for my dwindling finances. I’m really sorry if that sounds like a copout, but it is the truth. If it is any consolation, the price of $8.99 is still far lower than ebooks ranging from $12-18 dollars on average from traditional publishing. Also, I’ll be putting both on Kindle Unlimited and I’ll probably be making Part I as Freely available. I intend to make the separated Parts I and II more accessible to the people of India too as I hoped for an expanded reach into that emerging market and to further my points about reforming certain aspects of Sanatana Dharma.
I’ve sent the new editions to Amazon and one is already in the status of Publishing so expect at least one of them soon.
Update: Well, this was quite fast. The exclusive Part I and Part II are out now.
Physical Edition of Faith in Doubt is finally up and available; time to discuss differences between the Physical and Kindle editions
Note: I’ve added Faith in Doubt to MatchBook Pricing, so if you buy the physical copy then you should be able to purchase the Kindle edition at the discounted price of $2.99.
Update: After getting the proof copy in the mail, I decided that the gray cover design was an idiotic decision on my part (likely due to the desperation I had underwent hoping to finally release the book after so many years of working on it) and I’ve changed it to be a complete dark color instead out of my own sense of fun.
With the physical edition finally being made available after jumping through a few hurdles, I’d like to take the time to explain the major differences. The books are 99% identical, but there’s a reason for the pricing differences, spacing differences, and the shorter Preface in the physical edition.
The second-half of the Preface was fully intended to be an extra to explain for those curious why my intentions with the book and my arguments were revised over the course of four years as I did more research. Much of the contents in the Preface is essentially re-stated in both the concluding portions on the section of Islam and the conclusion of the book itself so you aren’t missing much of anything. I had actually made the second-half of the Preface on a whim.
The spacing differences are due to my foolishness at not having checked how much spacing was required for a book and my fears of having to split the physical edition into two books. Fortunately, that never happened as I re-checked Amazon’s guidelines and found I could fit all the necessary contents that I needed into one neat package. I got rid of the Section Breaks for each chapter in the physical edition as they weren’t necessary and took up too much space; they were exclusively intended for the Kindle edition regardless. Furthermore, I cut some of the “For Reference” in the Bibliography that was fully quoted in the actual book as it seemed like an extra that didn’t need to be there. As such, the Physical edition has fewer words and less branched out pages within.
Now for the most perplexing aspect; why is the physical edition priced $43.55 while the Kindle edition is only $9.99? Well, it’s honestly due to adjusting for the difference in pricing policies between the Kindle and Physical editions on Amazon’s Self-Publish policy.
You see, Amazon gives authors 70% of the royalties for any Kindle book priced between $2.99 and $9.99, everything below and above that is a return of 30% royalties. So, if I priced the Kindle edition far above $9.99 then I would make far less money in return.
For the physical edition, its partly my own fault because Amazon subtracts the money that you make from royalties per page count used. So, I lose over $10 from the physical edition and since I obviously want both Kindle and Physical editions to help make a living for me, then I have to increase the price to $43.55 with the intended return from the 60% earned from royalties.
I’d like to remind people that this is actually a really good deal because I’d still be making more of a return from my hard work of 4 years than with Traditional publishing where authors make only around 50 cents per book sale at best.
Finally, if you’re daunted by the page lengths, please don’t be! Think of it as a really good deal on 6-7 books all in one neat package since each section is a typical book length, so you’re definitely getting more bang for your buck. What matters is the value that you get from the purchase and I’m confident in saying that the vast majority will definitely get a massive return in value from buying my book, Faith in Doubt.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1733901701
BBC Officially Supports Al Qaeda on the issue of Kashmir
This past week, BBC released a pro-Al Qaeda video in support of the terrorist group including protests with flags from other terrorist groups like ISIS. Click “cc” on the Sham Sharma video for a translation to find out more. The video was in support of a pro-Al Qaeda protest advocating for violence. BBC has officially made their Pro-Al Qaeda position known to all now.
Faith in Doubt is now #1 on new releases for Agnosticism on Amazon
I’m not quite sure how it happened, but after just 1 book sale according to the statistics, Amazon has placed Faith in Doubt as the #1 seller for New Releases on Agnosticism for the moment. This might be due to how Amazon’s sales rankings sometimes take 48 hours to update old information, but I saw a sale approximately 2-3 hours after a friend informed me that they purchased a copy, so I’m confused. I would have thought most number one sales were selling more than 50 or so copies, but my book is now number 1 for new releases in Agnosticism, which is one of its audiences.
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The Kindle Version of my book, Faith in Doubt, Is Live!
For some reason, the physical version is still “in review” and it could take 3 days for Amazon to make a decision. But, since the Kindle version is now live, I don’t think I have to worry about the contents being an issue. If anyone has a Kindle, it’s now available!
If you feel skeptical about it, it is available on KDP Select for people who are subscribed to that.
Progress Note: Finite Incantatem
Note: ALL FINISHED! I’ve sent it to Amazon for review.
I’ve finally finished my book, Faith In Doubt: Do You Question Your Faith?
I completed the penultimate chapter earlier today and with that I’ve completed everything I needed to write down. I had spend almost an hour with Amazon’s Physical self-publishing preview checker, I had pre-prepared and made sure to change any Georgia font, but for some reason some portions with Helvetica font kept showing up, even though I had thought I changed it. Evidently, Microsoft Word 2008 changes the font when loading up documents slowly. The preview system kept showing one issue that needed fixing each time instead of all of them. Eventually, I could click approve and made sure to check over everything before doing so. I’m still in a state of disbelief that this journey may finally be over.
There’s been an issue with pricing that came-up that I hadn’t expected at all. But I’ll wait to go into details if Amazon approves both the Kindle and Physical edition that I’ve sent. I’m worried that the Political Correctness climate and the ridiculous difference in pricing between the Kindle and Physical copy could cause them to reject them, but Amazon is open enough towards Free Speech to allow Nazi books so I’m hopeful. I really have to commend them for sticking to Free Speech as much as possible unlike other companies. Their only sticking point is not having any hateful content in the description and obviously not advocating for violence, which is reasonable since they are a private company that sells merchandise and can’t have that representing them.
I’m hoping there’s no issues. I’m pretty sure that, should I see both versions available, it’ll just be pure giddiness at finally having one of my personal dreams turned into a reality thanks to my dedication over the years. I’m cautiously excited, but if its self-published then I can start leaping for joy.
Overall, this has been quite the journey. Below is the finalized version of the Table of Contents: