I've bitten the bullet

I've made my farewell post in 5 of my blogs - ones that had only 1 subscriber each.

I hated to do it. If someone subscribes to my blog I feel they deserve to be rewarded.

But I had to be realistic.

It takes about 15 minutes to write a blog post. That 15 minutes actually equals 30 minutes, because it's 15 minutes that I could be using writing some other blog post, and instead I have to find another 15 minutes to do that.

So any blog I had that has 2 subscribers or less, I shall officially remove from the Kindle on Jan 2.

I'm pretty damn annoyed with the Amazon/Kindle folks, actually. They are really hyping the new Kindle Fire... but guess what - you can't subscribe to blogs on the Kindle fire! How stupid is that?

I'm currently working on a new book - more on that later.

Payday today...for at least one account

I know I'm always harping on what used to be... I used to get paid for my blogs and my books on the same day, with the UK blog payments coming a couple of days later.

Now...well, I got my book payment (and a sorry payment it was, I must say) - still waiting on the blog payment which is my major money earner. Two months ago they were extremely late with that payment - presumably because they were busy revamping their system, they never bothered to say - but ever since then any delay makes me nervous that they're screwing with me.

Time Goes By Fast

I just put on a Scrabble tournament yesterday here in Cheyenne - not as successful as I'd hoped. There are 8 people in my club - they showed up, and that was it. Despite the fact that we'd gotten a nice write up in our Wednesday paper - it generated no new people and no new spectators. Very disappointing.

But preparing for the tournament had taken up all my time, and that's why I've been lax here.

Regular posting starts tomorrow.

Has Amazon Finally Gotten Smart With Kindle Blog Prices?

I have a blog, The Kindle Blog Report, in which I review blogs available on the Kindle, as well as occassionally, just on the web.

Typically when you put a blog up for sale on the Kindle, it is priced at $1.99. Then, over a period of time the price is dropped down to .99 cents.

The rhyme or reason behind this stupid pricing policy has always escaped us bloggers (indeed, I still get angry each time I think how Amazon screwed me with my Rush Limbaugh blog. I had over 200 subscribers, at $1.99 per, and was getting new subscribers each day. But one day, about 6-8 months into it, I found that that blog had been decreased in price to 99 cents. I immediately emailed AMazon support and demanded the price on the blog be put back to where it belonged - no dice. "Amazon decides what to charge based on what we think is value to customers."

I didn't bother to pursue the matter - I am 99.9% sure that Amazon has outsourced its tech support to some country where the people are not native English speakers, so its hard to hold a dialog with them, but every time I get my monthly payment, cut in half from what it should be, I just burn.

But back to the point of this post. I reviewed a woman's blog - which was not on the Kindle. I suggested she put it on the Kindle and she did so. Not only had it gone live within about 12 hours or so, but it was already priced at 99 cents!


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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'm back...

Back from vacation, catching up on all my blogs, will post here with decent content shortly!

On travel til Wednesday

I'm visiting elderly relatives in Box Elder, SD who do not have internet.

Will try to sneak out now and again to an internet cafe to post, but more than likely will not be posting until Wedneday.

Blogs, Books or Both?

For the last couple of years, I have had both books and blogs available for the Kindle.

My original fiction hasn't sold - at all. It's not that nobody knows about it - a percentage of folks do. I have a book called The Lady and the Tiger...Moth about a girl pilot. I announced that at various aviation forums. No one cared.

I've got two original science fiction books - one a full-length book, the other an introductory novella that I had hoped to offer for free on the Kindle as a way to get people to want to buy the other book. No dice. If you're an established publisher you have the option to offer a book for free - if you are an indy publisher, you do not have that option. So damn infuriating.

In any event, I'd announced the book on various science fiction message boards - no interest.

The only book of mine that is selling is my annotation of Dorothy Sayers Whose Body. But that's because people do a search on Dorothy Sayers, and find my book. The Dorothy Sayers name is what does it.

What's the solution? Well...have your website, and I'll go into that more in future entries. Try to get book reviews. (My sci fi novels are in the queue to be read by the popular Red Adept blog... unfortunately she's swamped for several more months!!)

Try Create Space - Amazon's printing arm that allows you to have your books printed on demand. There's no cost to you up front - Amazon takes their cut from the cost of the book. But at least you can get some books printed, and introduce them into your local bookstores - offering to do readings - and point your audience toward the Kindle as well as Create Space editions.

For me...blogs are where I make my money. I've got a blog about the controversial talk show host Rush Limbaugh - and people love to read about him. My other successful blog is a BLog Review Blog. The rest of my blogs - and I have several - have a handful of subscribers, so it all ads up over time.