Hi everyone! Here you have my Book Trailer #2. I hope you like it.
Tag: Democracy
Today is a very special day, as my book’s first review has been published. You can read the whole article in the below link (in Spanish):
A special thanks to professor Xavier Diez, a historian, author and professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, for his invaluable support.
HR
Last month I started to send ARCs to authors, academics and journalists who are interested in reviewing my book, prior its release date.
If you know anyone who may be interested in reviewing my book, please feel free to contact me at noticias@es.hectoraliruiz.com
(This applies for the Spanish version, as the English version is currently being edited).
Thank you!
As an independent author -and also self-publishing-, I have bee walking what I refer to as “The long journey to make it…” Definitely it’s not anything new, as hundreds of thousands of writers before me have transited it before.
Sometimes I think on how hard the competition is out there. How many thousands of authors like me are trying to fit in and have their works heard and read. But then I think about how lucky we are for living in the present time, where we have plenty of resources to make our journey worth it. It brings perspective to the meaning of the phrase “enjoy the journey, more than the goal”.
HR
Today is a very special day, as I am releasing the first Book Trailer of my book as you will see below.
Note: This is the book trailer for the Spanish edition, as the English edition of the book is still in the works, but for those English speakers who are also fluent in Spanish, I hope you enjoy it.
I have spent the last days organizing files from my old backups. Really old backups.
Not surprisingly I ran into all of my other books and drafts I have written in my life. I didn’t count how many I had in total because I was fast-clicking and sorting them very quickly, but I estimate there are probably fifteen of them. I opened a few of them, read a few pages and two things struck me: 1) I have drafts that dated over twenty five years ago, and still you can tell by their writing, that they came from me. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but my writing style has definitely been consistent in time. 2) Despite having great and interesting ideas in most of them, I left them unfinished because I ran into a writer’s block (is that’s what it’s called?), and I never came back to them again.
Maybe I should quit being a baby and start working on them again. Maybe I can finish all of them. But I have to publish this one first!
HR
I haven’t posted anything about my book in the past months… mostly due to me having to adapt to working from home, my workload that thankfully I must
say has been huge and I’m happy that’s the way it is, and of course the new set of priorities that come with this new way of life. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on my baby.
As I stated in my previous update about my book, I’m taking this time to go over the finished manuscript, revise it once again, making sure I’m happy with
everything, and also conducting research on all the topics I covered, as well as the analytical approach I discuss throughout all its chapters. Part of this research includes having finished reading a book called “Once Upon a Revolution” about the series of protests that took place in Egypt to remove Hosni Mubarak as president, and the subsequent transition that led to Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s election as current president. I bought this book because I thought it would be similar to mine, but found out it lacked the social analysis that I focus on in Venezuela’s case. The initial stage of the events that took place in Egypt are quite similar to those that happened in Venezuela, however about a third into the book, the parallelisms began to diverge from each other.
It was an interesting read altogether, but sadly I must say that I couldn’t draw too much of it to use into my book. Still, my congratulations to the author. Hopefully one day he’ll be able to get his hands on my book and tell me what he thinks about it.
HR
I came across this wonderful series on a recent flight I took and since the seat’s TV screen is not quite the most comfortable way to watch audiovisual material, I decided to re-watch it at home to have a better appreciation of the series.
Without jumping in the political discussion of left vs. right, democrats vs. republicans, Team Jen vs. Team Angelina, this is a series that everyone should see in order to understand how poor leadership and how unqualified people in high positions can cause major disasters in society. This is something that has happened throughout the entire history of the human race and sadly I must say, that most likely it will keep happening for quite some time. I hope that one day, someone will finally realize the tremendous negative consequences that having a bad leader, a bad CEO, a bad General Manager, a bad Governor or a bad President, has to a company or a country. I really hope that playing politics as a professional skill one day finally ends, and connections and butt-kissing will finally come to an end, and that mediocre leaders managing capable smart employees realize they should step down and let somebody else who actually is qualified, run the business or the country.
I have been lucky that during my professional career I haven’t really ran into these type of corporate profiles. It has only happened twice when I was working in Venezuela. Fortunately, it has never happened to me in the US, Spain, Mexico, Czech Republic or Colombia, though I’m quite sure there
may be a lot of people who have had this issue. Anyway, what I always wondered when I saw those people was the fact that they really, truly believed they were good managers. I remember thinking: “Geez, this guy really thinks he’s good at what he does. How disconnected is he from reality?” Something similar must have gone through the minds of the workers at Chernobyl during the failed safety procedure test they were running that led to the explosion, and through the mind of Professor Legasov, when he met the Soviet Cabinet in Moscow. The series also shows the deep corruption of the communist system
in the USSR, as well as the unbelievable brainwash that took place in the soviet society.
There is a bit of fiction in the series as it’s pretty much the norm in most productions, but they don’t take anything away from the reality of the situation, the management of the crisis, and the factors that took place during the accident and in the days that followed.
Highly recommended.
HR
Seeing that I still don’t have a book cover yet, I’ve decided to look at the silver lining within this whole delayed book publishing situation, and I’ve decided to give the manuscript another proofread. Maybe I missed something, maybe there’s a better way to bring up a point… I think this is a golden opportunity to once again revise my material and make sure that I’m happy with the final product that soon you will be able to have in your hands.
The way I’ll go is that I’m going to conduct research on some of the topics I analyze throughout the book, in order to make sure the perspective of the author (that’s me) is as objective as possible. I want my book to be a very well-thought analysis where critical thinking is the main driver throughout each chapter. This means I have to look at each problem from different perspectives and develop it so that whoever reads it, may understand the point that is brought upon.
I will also update my research on countries that underwent revolutions similar to those that happened in Venezuela, in order to understand the before-and-after of their situations. After all, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution to the
question of fighting injustice… or is there?
Stay tuned!
HR