Why Crossing The Creek Is No Longer Free

    Yes, the complete version of Crossing The Creek was online at one time.  Occasionally I receive an email from someone asking why it is no longer available for free, and some of those emails are shockingly angry in tone. 

    The short version of the answer to that question is: I cannot afford to maintain a website and provide information to the general public for free.  A comprehensive answer is, as might be expected, considerably more involved.

    First of all, you have to appreciate a couple of basic facts about dying process.  The first being... there is no field of study devoted to dying process in the academic world. 

     I became fascinated with dying process while running a hospice and devoted a lot of time and energy to studying it on my own.  Therefore, my work is ground-breaking in nature.  A few individuals working in hospice have made similar impromptu studies and reached similar conclusions, but they are definitely in the minority.  Most do not focus on studying their client's life-long thinking patterns and then analyzing outcomes.  Quite frankly,  most hospice personnel are just too busy trying to keep up with the demands of their job and making ends meet. 

    There is no field of study devoted to dying process primarily because of the schism between science and religion.  Science holds that any presumption of life after death would amount to religious doctrine.  Yet many of us who have dealt directly with the dying realize that dying process makes no sense whatsoever unless one assumes there is life after death.  As a consequence, dying process is perfectly senseless from a scientific perspective... it is just some bad stuff that happens shortly before a person ceases to exist, nothing more.    

    And from a religious point of view there are about as many different interpretations of death and dying as there are religions.  Indeed, I have found that even within a particular religion there are about as many different views as there are members in the congregation... at least when it comes time to actually die.  Prior to that time it is easy to adhere to a doctrine, but while dying things get real personal real fast.   

    All of which is to say, very little of any practical value is known about dying process.  So after studying it on my own for a number of years and finally getting to a point where I felt like I understood what was going on the realization struck me that the understanding I had acquired was really quite rare.  When I also discovered that the knowledge I had gleaned could actually help the dying and their families understand and cope with what they were experiencing, I began to write about it.  And when I searched the literature and found there was nothing else out there (at least in Western literature) equivalent to what I was writing, I began to write more. 

    Then a personal crisis intervened... I began having problems with my vision and was diagnosed with wet macular degeneration.  I kept on with my hospice work for a few more years but eventually became legally blind and threw in the towel.  From that day, my focus began to shift from working as a nurse in traditional settings to writing about what I had learned in my personal study of dying process. 

    When I first put Crossing The Creek  online I stated that the public was welcome to the information in Crossing The Creek, but I also tried to market works that dug deeper into the subject.  I theorized that if I provided basic information that proved to be helpful it would pique people’s interest and they would naturally want to dig deeper.  My wife told me I was wrong.  She advised that the majority of individuals would only be interested in acquiring enough information to get them through their immediate crisis, but would have little interest beyond that. 

    After a couple of years (and no sales) I realized my wife was right.  Lots of people were reading Crossing The Creek online, but almost no one expressed an interest in digging any deeper than the basic information it contained.  I tried to interest publishers but to no avail... which is a whole different story unto itself.

    In 2001 I decided I could no longer afford to give away valuable information for free.  I was losing money maintaining a website, spending a lot of time responding to emails and generating no income.  So I decided to simply ask readers to make a contribution; i.e. to pay me what they felt it was worth.  After all, I was getting loads of complimentary emails and answering an awful lot of questions by desperate family members.  The result was; I continued to get loads of "Thank You and God Bless You" emails... but almost no money.

    Over time I ratcheted up efforts to encourage readers to pay at least a little something.  A few did, but precious few.  In 2003 my frustration reached the point where I basically demanded people pay something and suggested specific dollar amounts, but most just took the information and ran.  I was still getting a lot of "Thank You and God Bless You" emails though... which was nice.

    By May of 2004 I was still losing money and reached the conclusion that the honor system of payment was just simply not going to work.  My wife said, "You seem to think that being naive is some sort of attribute... well it's not, it's stupid!"  So  I removed Crossing The Creek from my website and announced that henceforth, payment would have to be up front.  I knew this would either make or break all the effort I had put into my website over the years, but I really had no choice.  I did not know what would happen but as it turned out there were three immediate responses: 1- sales began to go up, 2- the "Thank You and God Bless You" emails began to go down, and 3- I started to receive a smattering of hate mail from people who had grown accustomed to getting (or taking) my work for free.

    By training I am a nurse and I have always had an interest in writing as well.  My talent in writing is a facility for explaining complex issues... reducing them to basic concepts and cutting through the confusion.  I am, what some people call a "splainer."    I have never had an aptitude for nor an interest in marketing, but have had to learn on the job through trial & error.  My bumbling in that arena has made some folks angry, but perhaps that just goes with the territory.  

     My business is still very small... done entirely out of my home.  Publishers are not interested in my work because they do not understand it... until they are dying of course... but by that time they are usually feeling pretty sick.  So my wife & I formed our own publishing company; Damone-Rose Publishing, Inc.  She is the president while I am the maintenance crew, delivery boy, IT guy and secretary... and oh yes, the author.  Who knows, someday we may even show a profit.

Michael Holmes