Practice Swing — The New Swungover Book

Dear Swungover readers,

If you’ve noticed the blog has been a bit light on the posts during the last few years, it’s because I’ve been putting all my swing-dance-writing power into this: Practice Swing: The Swungover* Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Guide to Improving Your Dancing. It’s 450 pages long. More than a hundred chapters. And it’s available now.

I’m very proud of it and excited to share it with the community.

Follow the link below to buy the book.



PRACTICE SWING: THE SWUNGOVER* CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-ADVENTURE GUIDE TO IMPROVING YOUR DANCING



Also here’s a little FAQ for those wanting to know more.

What does “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” mean?

When it comes to vintage swing dances, there’s no one path to greatness. (Or even simply better-ness.) Every great Lindy Hop, Bal-Swing, Shag, and Solo Jazz dancer in the world has taken their own path to get there. And that’s why Practice Swing is a choose-your-own-adventure practice book.

With more than a hundred chapters of advice to choose from, the book covers productive practice mentality, skill-honing, self-coaching, improvisation and competition skills, and what makes great vintage swing dancers great. It also addresses how to practice alone, with a partner, at a social dance, or in a group. You can read the chapters in any order and focus on those that speak the most to you right now.

Why is this book $32?

For every person interested in a book on getting better at vintage swing dancing, there are hundreds, even thousands, even tens of thousands, who are interested in getting better at tennis, cooking, or making friends and influencing people. If that many people were interested in getting better at vintage swing dancing, the cost of producing each printed book would be lower.

If you’re still feeling hesitant about paying $32 for a book, perhaps consider the fact that it’s 450 pages long and has more than 100 chapters of information on getting better at swing dancing. Most international-level instructors charge around three times that much for a one-hour private lesson, and trust me, you couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of everything that is in the book in a one-hour private lesson.

Are you going to make Practice Swing available as an ebook?

Not in the near future. Originally, Practice Swing was only going to be available as an ebook, based on the idea that surely this would be cheaper than printing actual books. However, the world of ebook publishing is actually quite convoluted when it comes to royalties, and e-publishers like Amazon Kindle are not designed for niche books. Perhaps in a few years it may be a more viable option.

Also—just throwing this out there—having a print copy around makes the book easy to lend to friends, or to get for your practice groups to have on hand at practice for inspiration.

Will you have copies at events you are at?

Yes. But, as transporting books around the world can be tough on the lumbar spine, I can carry only a limited supply. If you will be at an event where I will be teaching and are interested in reserving a copy, message me a week in advance and I’ll be happy to set one aside to bring to you.

How are you able to sell books online in a timely fashion while you travel around the world teaching?

A publishing company sells my book online—they take the order, print the books, ship them, and handle all other aspects of the transaction. So no matter where I am, the book will get to you. Do note that, as it’s print-on-demand, the book you order will take a few days for the publisher to print before it is mailed out. Hence, it may take a couple weeks to get your book.

You can buy the book here: http://bit.ly/practiceswing

And, as I mentioned earlier, I will be able to carry a few copies with me to events. See the previous question for more details.

What’s with this “Robert White” nonsense? You’re “Bobby White.” I can tell—we’re friends on Facebook.

Writing is my other passion, and I’ve published things unrelated to swing, and plan to publish a lot more non-swing dancing writing in the future. Since I prefer my author name to be “Robert White,” it’s good to have that on everything I publish. This way, when I sell my bestselling bodice-ripper/swashbuckling romance-and-cooking novel, those readers will also go buy Practice Swing. Ultimately, every one of my readers will improve their swing dancing. Master plan.

You all can call me Bobby. ;)

Who published this book?

Why, Swungover did. It’s officially listed as the book’s publishing house. (Kinda cool/strange to think that, just by buying the book’s ISBN number, I started an independent publishing house.) Blurb is the company that prints the book and through which I formatted the book.