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Five Years at the Trading Card Database and an Announcement... Five years ago I joined the Trading Card Database, I remember that night and why I joined. It was a sleepless one for me, not uncommon, but in a bored state I wanted to look at Ozzie Smith cards, he was my favorite player through my childhood and I had collected his cards then until he retired which is when I pretty much stopped collecting cards. Looking for Ozzie cards was harder than you imagine. Beckett's site I didn't like that much, the user interface isn't very user friendly. Looking on eBay was alright, but I was quickly turned away from that because I was wanting to buy everything and as other collectors know, that is a slippery slope. Next was Google and image searching, which directed me to the Trading Card Database. After getting my fill of the Wizard in card form and enjoying what the site had to offer, namely a better UI than Beckett and not having the temptation of wanting to buy everything, I quickly joined. It was a rough beginning for me though, from the long amount of time it took to add my collection, going through and scanning what was missing on the site to all the other small things that I can't remember now. It's called "The Mind's Eye" and is available on the Kindle store via Amazon. Here's the kicker, it's free to read for those that have Kindle Unlimited (the first two months are free for new subscribers). Those that don't have Kindle Unlimited and are interested in reading it, thank you - firstly, but given the time we are all living in, I can't ask anybody to go spend money on something trivial as a self-published and self-edited book. In a perfect world, I would want everyone to read it, the past few weeks show that this world is far from perfect though. A little about the book, I started writing it in August of last year, finished it around the middle of January then I spent the next month and a half editing it. The editing part was by far the most stressing part, because I am not a professional. The cover was done by my brother, he is a very talented artist as the cover speaks for it's self. Words can't express my gratitude towards him for letting me use it, I just hope the words that follow his art are about one-fifth as good as it is. What is "The Mind's Eye?" It's about a woman named Eve Marquette who is fresh out of a relationship. She begins seeing a psychologist for experimental therapy sessions, throughout the book she looks back on her life while trying to make herself a better person in the hopes of getting back with the man she thinks she belongs with. The story is much more deeper than that, if you're interested, the first 3 1/2 chapters are completely free to read on Amazon, just click the cover and it's right there for your reading pleasure. It's not a romance book, or erotica even, it's just a story that I think is compelling. It's not for young readers though, if it was a movie, it would be R-rated with some very bad language in it. I must reiterate though, it is self published and self edited, parts may come off as clunky as I am not a professional and real editors are expensive, more expensive than my free time, which I was in abundance of over the winter. I am also now on Twitter @ThatCJF is the name, give a follow if you'd like, I just joined, so my numbers are not impressive, but Twitter is sort of a necessity when promoting a book. While I'm slowly rolling all this out I will probably make some comments there. I live in Illinois and under "stay-at-home" orders, so I have nothing but free time at the moment. For those at the Trading Card Database who do know my real name, yes that is a pen name, for the obvious reasons. Thanks to everyone at the Trading Card Database, it is the best community within the hobby and rivals the best on the entire internet. It's been a great five years with the hope of many more to come. Please, remember to leave your username in the comments below, cards from your wish list off my for/sale trade list will be sent out in due course, more than likely late next week. Don't worry, I will use self sealing envelopes and I constantly washed my hands before all this, so hopefully I'm good, fingers crossed anyways. Stay safe everyone. Twitter FeedTweets by @ThatCJF |