So I get an email from Amazon the other day, saying someone bought a copy of my biography of Cabeza de Vaca and I was to ship it to them forthwith. Cool, right? Honestly, I hadn't sold one in so long, I had forgotten I even had them listed for sale.
When the book was published, I purchased extra copies, intending to include them as incentives on school visits. Having some left over, I listed them on Amazon and moved on to other projects. The book is OOP now (Out of Print), so I guess I have cornered the market. It was originally listed at $9.95 from the publisher. Mine are a great value at $4.99 plus shipping.
Imagine my surprise to discover a few other random Amazon book sellers are offering my book, the very same book, for $70 and higher! Each! I guess because it is now OOP, they feel justified in charging a king's ransom for this little paperback. Really curious if they actually have any in inventory as listed, but I don't want to pay $70 to find out. Doubly curious if they have sold any!
If you're like me and spent your entire K-12 public education never hearing of this guy, let me take a minute and fill you in. When I finally learned of him (thank you, UTA Special Collections!), it blew my mind that someone so cool was so, well, undiscovered. That's what inspired me to write about him.
Some fun facts about Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (actually, he may not have considered them 'fun'):
- He was one of only four survivors of the Narvaez expedition, which set out from Spain headed for Florida in 1527 with more than 300 (mostly) men.
- He was the first European to cross the North American continent, from Florida in the east to Mexico in the west.
- Most of those nearly 3000 miles he traveled on foot, naked and starving.
- He earned a reputation as a healer among the natives by improvising some techniques patched together from his Catholic upbringing. He freely confessed he thought it was nonsense, but the natives insisted.
- We can add 'writer' to his long list of achievements. One of the first things he did when he returned to Spain is write a journal detailing his experience. He is considered one of the first ethnologists of the New World, thanks to the meticulous documentation of some of the natives he encountered.
- My favorite 'fun' fact about Alvar is that after eight years of wandering the desert southwest, surviving many near-death experiences from cannibals, starvation, slavery, hurricanes, and pirates, and finally making it back home to Spain, he didn't curl up next to a fire with a decent plate of tapas and live out the rest of his days. Oh, no. He demanded reassignment for another expedition to the New World. He wanted to go back! And he did!
So far I've been able to resist the urge to double, triple, or even quadruple my sales price, so spread the word, folks - you can get a great deal on my book, directly from the author, and save a whopping 88%! Hurry, before I succumb and can no longer resist those greedy impulses.
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