Republishing Beyond Motivation: The Story

This is story behind my republishing of BEYOND MOTIVATION by James T. McCay. James T. McCay was the visionary management consultant and author of the classic guide to increased productivity THE MANAGEMENT OF TIME.

The Management of Time

In 1991 when I researching and co-writing the new Introduction and Appreciation to THE MANAGEMENT OF TIME for Prentice-Hall, New Jersey I had a few conversations with Jeffrey Norton who was Jim’s publisher in 1972 for BEYOND MOTIVATION.

Jeffery Norton

Jeffery was a wonderful, thoughtful man who was the original publisher of BEYOND MOTIVATION. And he was excited about the idea of THE MANAGEMENT OF TIME being republished so many years after Jim’s death even though he hadn’t published it.

During our conversation the idea of me republishing BEYOND MOTIVATION was discussed and Jeffery provided me with the rights to do so. Jeffery Norton was a very generous and thoughtful man.

Time Marched On

However, republishing BEYOND MOTIVATION languished in the background as we finished travelling between Toronto and Montreal to interview people who knew and worked with McCay, researching and writing the new Introduction and Appreciation.

Laurie had just moved to Toronto from Minneapolis, we were setting up Celeste Crystal Systems Inc. and opening the Reiki Store in Toronto. Life was very, very hectic – to put it mildly.

Time marched on.

TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury

In March 2000 I was stopped at a red light. It was a beautiful spring day. My daughter was home from school and we were having a great day together. Suddenly a truck rammed into the rear of my car. This accident left me with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Apart from physical damage, my mind was toast. I couldn’t remember people that I had known for more than 10 years, cognitive distortions, chaos and confusion.

Nothing was done with republishing Beyond Motivation.

Heart Attack

In 2004 I had a heart attack and was rushed Sunnybrook Hospital. I was taken to the CATHLab and had an angioplasty – a little tube is put in the artery. I survived. After a few weeks I began rehab, and Reiki treatments and shamanic healing. However, this was a major setback.

I was just getting my life back on track after having struggled through more than three years in TBI rehab and in a couple of training programs for the disabled. I had successfully launched an online job board.

Nothing was done with the book.

Life Continues

Life moved along.

When you come very, very close to dying many people reflect on their life. They often make goals. I did that. I made a list of things that I was going to do. One of my goals after the heart attack and surgery was to go to China. I had long had an interest in China and the I Ching and I had almost made it to China in 1977.

China

In 1976 I was planning a 1977 trip to China, that had been approved by the Government of China, to shoot a few films about the Chinese family with my friend Paul. But this project was cancelled due to the chaotic situation in China in late 1976 due to the death of Chairman Mao and the arrest of the Gang of Four.

So in 2009, five years after the heart attack and more than 30 years since my trip to China was cancelled I made my first trip to China visiting Beijing, Wuhan and Kunming.

Then, in 2011 and 2012 I made a number of trips to China, staying in Beijing. I rented an apartment near the Canadian Embassy and Sanlitun. I visited Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Urumuqi and Yantai during those years.

Publish Jim’s Book I Was Told

Sitting in my apartment in Beijing, China one morning in 2012, meditating, the following words flashed through my mind “PUBLISH JIM’S BOOK”.

The words were not whispered.

I thought about the experience later in the day but did nothing.

The same thing happened every morning for the next five days with the words flashing through my mind “PUBLISH JIM’S BOOK” as I sat meditating.

OK. OK. I got the message.

The Long & Winding Road

I began what turned out to be a long, winding, up and down process full of challenges for me. I suffer from the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from the accident in 2000 and numerous other head injuries over the previous decades so things can easily go off the rails. My mind wanders like a little kid.

While in Beijing I arranged to have the images in the book scanned. Learning to format the images and text so that I could load the book up to Amazon KDP was a major event in my life.

And I started creating files for each of the chapters by rekeying the text.

But there was lots more to learn, and do.

I also made a decision to create two editions with each edition in Kindle and ePub formats.

Two Editions

The idea of the Basic Edition preserved Jim’s unique layout and content and an Expanded Edition that that extended the Basic Edition by adding reference material so that readers could use hyperlinks to hop around the book from the various references to authors and books that Jim had made.

Wow. The idea of an Expanded Edition seemed like a simple idea but it was an idea that resulted in many, many hours and many months of research and writing for the 43 authors and 42 books referenced. And then creating all the hyperlinks, creating an index and on and on.

I needed to hand code everything in HTML to ensure that the original format and layout was preserved and then to create the hyperlinks before the manuscripts were compiled into ePub and Kindle formats. Months flew by but then everything was finally ready to be uploaded.

BEYOND MOTIVATION Basic Edition and Expanded Edition by James T. McCay were published on Smashwords and their network including Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble and others as well as amazon.com in August 2015.

Publishing BEYOND MOTIVATION by James T. McCay was the first book for my publishing company Tydbyte Media. In fact, it was really the inspiration to get going with Tydbyte Media. More books are in the works with living authors.

Thanks for the message Jim.

Only One Edition Now

Having two editions was too confusing so now there is only the Expanded Edition.

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading about my adventure republishing BEYOND MOTIVATION by James T. McCay.

Richard Edward Ward

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