Last week I self-published my first book. My visit to North Korea last year amazed me at how much we base our impressions of North Korea on pre-conceived notio

Last week I self-published my first book. My visit to North Korea last year amazed me at how much we base our impressions of North Korea on pre-conceived notions. I already blogged daily (http://joshuaspodek.com http://joshuaspodek.com), but the experience affected me so much I started posting twice daily, one post on North Korea (http://joshuaspodek.com/category/northkorea http://joshuaspodek.com/category/northkorea). Then Kim Jong Il died and tons of articles came out on North Korea, many or most had the same pre-conceived notions or assigned credit to the leaders that I thought were properties of the system, making understanding or achieving change difficult. Reading all those articles, I felt compelled to put my perspective out there. My posts on HN got high karma. I assembled a number of my posts, polished them (they needed more polish than I thought), and posted them on Amazon and Smashwords for download to electronic devices (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006PMDXTM?ie=UTF8&tag=joshspod-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B006PMDXTM http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006PMDXTM?ie=UTF8&tag=...). The first time was laborious and time-consuming. Now that I've done it, I know how to do it easier and I plan to do it many times. I'm going to start marketing soon. The big news days when Kim Jong Il died motivated me so I missed them as days to sell books, but I hope the book changes some people's views of North Korea and helps motivate people toward effective change.