Last month, I got the shock of my life (well, relatively speaking) when I downloaded my December blog report and saw that my income had been cut in half - not because of them arbitrarily cutting the price of my blogs in half, they'd done that several months ago - but half of my blog subscriptions were missing.
Just downloaded the January report, and all of my blogs are back to previous levels, so I'll be getting a $300 payment next month (as opposed to $100 this month).
I'd really like to know how I could get 400 subscriptions to my Rush Limbaugh report in one month? Obviously they're something fishy going on here, considering that the "daily" report has shown my Limbaugh blog going up and up steadily...and no way in hell that I dropped 200-400 subscriptions in any month.
On the other hand, I don't want to complain too much. Of all my income streams, Kindle blogs are giving me the best return.
I had spoken about my Science Fiction quiz book a couple of weeks ago - that's been a bust. 2 purchases. For a book that only cost $1.99!
I'm working on another book, which I should have published tomorrow. When it goes live I'll talk more about it...I, again, have high hopes for it, and again, my hopes are temporized by the fact that I know they'll probably be dashed....
But that doens't matter. You've got to keep keepin' on, until you can't keep on any more.
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Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure HuntersRush Limbaugh Report
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Someone has bought "The College of Sci Fi Knowledge Quiz Book!"
Just one person so far, so while it has made me happy...I'd be happier if more people bought it.
The book has been available for about 3 days, the description info just showed up today. I find that so annoying. The same thing happens with blogs, and it just makes no sense. Once it's avaiable for sale, why isn't the description there automatically. What is it about the submission system that makes half of the info show up 2 days later than the first half of the info?
Anyway, more on its publication.
This is actually the second version of The College of Sci Fi Knowledge that I had published. When I uploaded the first version, I went entirely by what the book looked like on my computer screen, and it was fine. When I uploaded it and checked the preview, it was all hosed up. But I didn't believe my eyes. I thought that the preview version was hosed up. So I published it.
Then, a couple of days later, when it became avaiable for sale, I bought it and looked at it and the problems were there. There were blank pages, and questions showed up after photos, when I'd put page breaks between photos and questions just so that wouldn't happen.
So I went back to the master in word. It looked fine. So I figured, well, maybe if I convert it using MobiPocket, that will take care of the problem.
So I spent a couple of hours working with MobiPocket, with no luck. MobiPocket converts your document into HTML, and you're supposed to be able to have photos in there as well, but for the life of me I could not get those photos to show up.
So I went back to my master in Word and started pressing the "delete" key before and after various photos and questions where, in the book, it showed blank pages or no page breaks. And sure enough, the delete key got rid of the extra spaces (I could tell this because even though I hit delete, the page text didnt' go up to the previous page. So after I putzed around, I got out all the extra spaces that weren't visible but were there!, and then re-uploaded the text.
MobiPocket is therefore no good for using photos - as far as I can see, but when it comes to text, it does make the text look better. So when I do books that are strictly text, I'll be using it.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
The book has been available for about 3 days, the description info just showed up today. I find that so annoying. The same thing happens with blogs, and it just makes no sense. Once it's avaiable for sale, why isn't the description there automatically. What is it about the submission system that makes half of the info show up 2 days later than the first half of the info?
Anyway, more on its publication.
This is actually the second version of The College of Sci Fi Knowledge that I had published. When I uploaded the first version, I went entirely by what the book looked like on my computer screen, and it was fine. When I uploaded it and checked the preview, it was all hosed up. But I didn't believe my eyes. I thought that the preview version was hosed up. So I published it.
Then, a couple of days later, when it became avaiable for sale, I bought it and looked at it and the problems were there. There were blank pages, and questions showed up after photos, when I'd put page breaks between photos and questions just so that wouldn't happen.
So I went back to the master in word. It looked fine. So I figured, well, maybe if I convert it using MobiPocket, that will take care of the problem.
So I spent a couple of hours working with MobiPocket, with no luck. MobiPocket converts your document into HTML, and you're supposed to be able to have photos in there as well, but for the life of me I could not get those photos to show up.
So I went back to my master in Word and started pressing the "delete" key before and after various photos and questions where, in the book, it showed blank pages or no page breaks. And sure enough, the delete key got rid of the extra spaces (I could tell this because even though I hit delete, the page text didnt' go up to the previous page. So after I putzed around, I got out all the extra spaces that weren't visible but were there!, and then re-uploaded the text.
MobiPocket is therefore no good for using photos - as far as I can see, but when it comes to text, it does make the text look better. So when I do books that are strictly text, I'll be using it.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Pause Before You Publish
Up until about 5 days ago, I'd spent the last two weeks working on a Quiz Book - the College of Sci Fi Knowledge Quiz Book.
I finished it...as in finished writing it... and was so pleased at having done so that I immedately published it.
The book is full of illustrations, so when the book had uploaded I "previewed" it and immediately saw that it was not formatting properly.
But I didn't believe the evidence of my own eyes. I'd been so careful with the formatting - I'd thought. And the Preview wasn't really wiziwig...the published book would have much smaller text.
So I ignored the evidence of the Preview and published the book.
As soon as it became available for sale I purchased a copy. (You don't get royalties for this, by the way. They know!)
And to my horror the whole book was formatted wrong.
So I went into my word file and did some work on it - which I'll detail in my next post because it was such a pain - and in the pocess of fixing the formatting also noticed quite a few mistakes in the text and fixed those - and reuploaded it.
All this extra work would have been unneccessary if I'd just controlled my exciitement and enthusiasm and given the book a cooling off period of a couple days, then looked at it with fresh eyes to catch the typos.
I still might have made the mistake of uploading it even though the preview showwed the wrong formatting, though, but I've learned my lesson there and will deail that, as I say, in my next post.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
I finished it...as in finished writing it... and was so pleased at having done so that I immedately published it.
The book is full of illustrations, so when the book had uploaded I "previewed" it and immediately saw that it was not formatting properly.
But I didn't believe the evidence of my own eyes. I'd been so careful with the formatting - I'd thought. And the Preview wasn't really wiziwig...the published book would have much smaller text.
So I ignored the evidence of the Preview and published the book.
As soon as it became available for sale I purchased a copy. (You don't get royalties for this, by the way. They know!)
And to my horror the whole book was formatted wrong.
So I went into my word file and did some work on it - which I'll detail in my next post because it was such a pain - and in the pocess of fixing the formatting also noticed quite a few mistakes in the text and fixed those - and reuploaded it.
All this extra work would have been unneccessary if I'd just controlled my exciitement and enthusiasm and given the book a cooling off period of a couple days, then looked at it with fresh eyes to catch the typos.
I still might have made the mistake of uploading it even though the preview showwed the wrong formatting, though, but I've learned my lesson there and will deail that, as I say, in my next post.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
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