Mangoes and independence

Free and independent — for a few days.

Cambodia achieved independence from France on Nov. 9, 1953, as the Fourth Republic's global empire slipped from its grasp.

It's been a rocky 60 years, to say the least.

It's not much, but in honor of Independence Day, "Falling in the Well of Love" is free. Grab a copy while you can. If you like it, I suggest you buy a copy of "At Home on the Mekong."

In other news, Mango Republic is now officially enshrined on Board Game Geek. The Kickstarter campaign is at 24 percent — check it out if you're interested in playing at being a dictator of a developing nation.

Labor Day sale!

Hit the beach for the last weekend of summer and read one of my books. "Falling in the Well of Love" is free on Amazon this holiday weekend.

Reintroducing Mango Republic

My next project is a bit of an old one. I'm updating and revising Mango Republic, a board game that I first developed in 2006 in Cambodia. As I only sold about five copies of the first edition, I don't think I've quite saturated the market. More information is here.

The game will eventually be available on The Game Crafter.

If you're interested in play testing and live within a reasonable distance of Salem, Oregon. Contact me on Twitter.

Now on Nook

"Falling in the Well of Love" is now available on Barnes and Noble's Nook.

A reading from "At Home on the Mekong"

Becoming accustomed to the prevailing norms of a different culture is a challenge, especially when you run into people who are overly friendly by any standard.

For more entertaining stories from Cambodia, buy "At Home on the Mekong" or "Falling in the Well of Love."

A positive comment!

Cambodian journalist, TEDx speaker and blogger Kounila Keo says:

I've been reading Will Koenig's new awesome book called "Falling in the well of Love" for the last couple of days. Been intrigued with it.

Thanks so much for the book! Really recommend it to Cambodians and those who are married to Cambodians. :-D

You can buy the book on Amazon.

The cover of my upcoming book

This the cover of my new collection of columns. It will soon be available on Amazon and — with a bit more work – on Apple's iBookstore.

Other titles I considered included:

• So I Married a Cambodian

• From the Mekong to the Willamette

• Trans-Pacific

• Mango Madness (well not really, but it's a great song)

Save a euro

PaidContent reports:

Amazon is expanding the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which allows Prime members who own a Kindle device to borrow one ebook a month for free, to the United Kingdom, Germany and France later this month.

Are you a European who loves stories about living in a tropical dystopian paradise but want to save a few euros? Borrow my book: At Home on the Mekong.

I promise I won't use the proceeds to bail out Greece.

What is a phuey sac?

Every culture has perfectly mundane phrases that take on bizarre new meanings when translated literally. In Khmer, a "phuey sac" (the first word rhymes with Roy, and the second with Mike) has some odd connotations when it makes the jump to English.

From an amazing book that just came out:

For Cambodians, your true love — the one who holds you tight on cold nights — is a "phuey sac." Literally a "flesh blanket." This sounds like an accessory from Hannibal Lecter's line of horrific home furnishings, something to curl up under and enjoy a nice Chianti, but it's considered a powerful term of endearment by Cambodians. Everyone wants to find a phuey sac to keep them warm at night.

Cambodia may be a poor country, but it's rich in odd phrases.

How much can you make self-publishing through Kindle?

As of the end of July, I've sold, "loaned," and given away 1,012 copies of "At Home on the Mekong" in just over nine months. By the metrics of real publishing houses, this is nothing — but I'm content. Back in October I was unsure I would sell enough to make $10.

U.S. sales data, October 2011 to July 2012

Month	Sold	KOLL	Free	Revenue
October	3	0	0	$1.05
November	9	0	0	$3.15
December	27	2	156	$12.90
January	39	2	72	$20.32
February	21	1	33	$36.30
March	8	0	0	$14.52
April	18	0	112	$33.47
May	14	0	116	$24.90
June	16	4	44	$32.25
July	9	0	1	$16.59
Total	164	9	534	$195.45

Initially the book cost $0.99. I raised it to $2.99 in February, and sales unsurprisingly declined.

What did surprise me is that more people didn't "borrow" the book after the price increased. I expected people to turn to the free option when they could save $3 rather than $1.

The aforementioned KOLL, or Kindle Owners Lending Library, lets Amazon Prime subscribers permanently "borrow" a book for free every month (and other benefits). Authors get a share of a monthly fund, which has been $600,000 lately, for every copy you "loan." It's been just over $2 a share for the past few months. That implies almost 300,000 active Prime subscribers.

That all means I make more when people borrow rather than buy my book. That seems weird, but that's life in the series of tubes.

But I digress — the price hike helped make up for the decline in sales, but on average my royalties were about the same. Also, many of my "U.S." sales are actually overseas, and I only get 35 percent of the cover price instead of 70 percent. But there's not that much data, and it could just be that my sales are in an irrevocable decline. But that's not an idea I want to dwell on.

Another takeaway is that I had to give away three copies to sell just one. That's something else I don't want to dwell on.

But don't forget the United Kingdom!

U.K. sales data, October 2011 to July 2012

Month	Sold	Free	Revenue
October	0	0	£0
November	4	0	£1.04
December	19	33	£4.94
January	31	30	£11.24
February	16	25	£21.12
March	6	0	£7.92
April	5	46	£6.60
May	6	27	£7.92
June	6	26	£7.92
July	4	1	£5.28
Total	97	188	£73.98

In Great Britain I only had to give away two books to sell a single copy. Yay?

Also, every sale in the U.K. store is a solid pound and thirty-two pence for me. (How awesome is it to get paid in pound sterling?) Every royalty is 70 percent.

But what about advertising? I spent a little over $100 on Facebook ads (most of that offset by a coupon) between mid-March and mid-May. That was spread out over multiple campaigns targeting different countries. It looks like it might have helped — I got 400 clicks through to the Amazon page for my book — but a lot of that money targeted the United Kingdom, which was remarkably steady for sales regardless of ad spend.

Then there's the rest of Europe.

Other sales data, October 2011 to July 2012

France		Germany		Italy
Sold	Free	Sold	Free	Sold	Free
0	4	4	10	2	0

This just reaffirms that the French are cheapskates, and that Italians and Germans are awesome. Or at least six of them are. Also, Italians don't seem interested in getting things for free — perhaps that explains their current economic crisis.

I haven't actually gotten any money for those sales. You have to rack up $10 in sales in a nation's store before Amazon cuts you a payment. But one more sale in the German store and I'll be able to say I earned a fistful of euros.

So in answer to the headline of this post, I've made a little over $300. It may be peanuts, but it's a lot of peanuts: 70 pounds retail or half a ton wholesale.

As Amazon announced a flurry of new Kindles yesterday, I hope the market grows and more people buy my book — or borrow it!

Buying India ink by the digital barrel

Angkor Wat in the early morning in June 2005. Family photo

Cambodia and India have a long history (that's half the reason the French called it Indochina), but not always the most friendly relations. Things soured a few months ago when a nongovernmental organization in India announced it intended to build a larger-than-life replica of Angkor Wat, the pride and joy of Khmer culture.

According to the BBC:

"It will be the world's largest Hindu temple… bigger in size, shape and height than the Angkor Wat of Cambodia," the [Mahavir Mandir Trust's] secretary, Acharya Kishore Kunal, told the BBC.

"It will be known as Virat Angkor Wat Ram temple but will also house other Hindu deities like Radha-Krishna, Shiv-Parvati, Ganesh, Surya and 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu", he said.

"We'll make this temple the pride of the Hindu temples in the world and I've started it on the occasion of the 100th year of Bihar state's foundation."

This was not well received in Cambodia, which is predominately Buddhist and dependent on its famous temple to lure in millions of tourists. It doesn't help that Angkor Wat is one of the few symbols that unite the nation and Cambodians are notoriously suspicious of foreign claims.

But it all turned out to be a tempest in a masala chai pot.

According to The Phnom Penh Post:

Under pressure from the Indian government, however, the group has altered its building plans. Now, “it is not an exact replica of Angkor Wat temple, but has taken salient features of Angkor Wat and other temples also”, Kunal said via email.

“To respect the sentiments of Cambodian people, we change the name from Virat Angkor Wat Ram Temple to Virat Ramayan Mandir,” he added.

In honor of this newfound peace and brotherhood, Indians can buy my book on Amazon's storefront in South Asia. (Also, another primary factor is Amazon created a Kindle store for India.)

So if you're in India and have fifty or so rupees to spare, buy a copy while you can.

Phir milenge!

Hello Mr. Dragon!

It's Khmer New Year — that means handfuls of corn starch, buckets of water and a free book! My book is free for the next few days. Grab it while you can and don't get maimed by an angkungh seed!

Published at last — sort of

If you read about Cambodia in the American press, you'll likely read about genocide, amputees, child trafficking or another depressing catastrophe illustrated by someone looking mournful in front of a decaying temple.

Now these are all serious problems and need to be addressed. But Cambodia is more than that. There's a vibrant culture — both unchanged for centuries and at the cutting edge of modernity — and endless adventures.

When I was 22, I was bored with university and work and decided to seek adventure. My initial 10 months as a volunteer teacher transformed into three years. I taught English, worked for a development agency, met my wife, contracted malaria three times, got knocked unconscious in a motorcycle crash and was bitten by a gibbon.

I cannot say I loved every minute of it — being eaten alive by a tiny ape doesn't spark feelings of love — but I think these stories are worth sharing. Not to show that Cambodia is paradise, but to show it is a rich and complicated place with room for anyone seeking adventure.

Right now my ebook — At Home on the Mekong: Columns from living in Cambodia — is available through Amazon's Kindle service. If you don't own a Kindle, you can download free apps for Windows, Mac, iPods, and Android devices. You can even read it in your Web browser.

So if you've ever been curious about quitting your job and heading to the Far East, this is for you.