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Short Story – The Archaeologist

Books and Stories

Kortan wished, once again, that he could rub his nares. They itched. But the unyielding face of the cleansuit thwarted all attempts at scratching. He refocused on his task. The ancient data storage system had been a valuable find, the find of the decirotation, perhaps. Though his arms and legs ached from crouching, the device fascinated him beyond measure. Above him were grayish walls of debris, carefully sloped and held back by force curtains to prevent them from falling on the site.

At this particular dig, their archaeological group had found a complex of chambers. Many of the artifacts were exceptionally well preserved, having been buried under layers of volcanic ash. Already many discoveries had been made about the Ancients’ materials technology, daily life, work habits, and much more. Some of the artifacts were obvious as to their function, others were completely puzzling. To what purpose, for example, did a cubical object serve that merely sat on the work surface and had no moving parts? Though the material it had been made from had long since disintegrated into powder, the imprint it had left was plain.

The Ancients had left a wealth of writing implements, traces of wood pulp fibers that indicated the presence of paper products. Many artifacts were made from simple petroleum based plastics, using molds. Molds! Kortan smiled as he gently brushed the ash off the case of the data storage unit. Sure enough, there were fine mold lines on this too. This was made of plastic and some kind of coated sheet metal, no doubt made with a stamping process. The sheer impact of being surrounded by this much history made Kortan’s cardiac organ flutter. As he saw the next prize, his excitement only grew.

Click here for the rest of the story – also on Mindflight.com.

Watching your medication costs might save your job!

Healthy Living

Who know?  This shocked me when I heard it.

I recently took a call from a human resources worker at a company. One of their new hires had a medication that he took daily and the HR lady needed to know how much it was going to cost. Why? Because the cost of insuring that patient was going to affect whether they could afford to renew the insurance for their company. The story had a happy ending because I was able to tell the HR lady that the medicine would be $1,500 a month to cover, not the $45,000 a month they had feared, but what if it had been that much? A talented, skilled employee might have been let go or might have had to go to an insurance exchange because the company couldn’t afford to keep him insured.

Sometimes medications are expensive for a good reason – because the medications are highly effective, expensive to make, or for many other reasons. However, sometimes doctors will choose newer, more expensive medications because a drug rep said so, or because they aren’t thinking about the cost. It’s definitely worth a chat next time you see your doctor, and another chat with your insurance company. There very well may be a good medication that has been out longer, has had more time for the price to drop, and will work just fine for you! Keep in mind that most doctors aren’t aware of the cost of medications, or what your drug coverage is.

Most of the time, the best place to start is by calling your prescription insurance company and talking with one of their pharmacists. Working with the customer service representative, they can tell you what lower cost alternatives are, price them out, so you can then ask the doctor if a change would be appropriate. I’ve seen this save people many thousands of dollars without sacrificing any quality.

Personally, when I take medication, I try to ask for older, tried and true medications that are well understood and well studied. I let someone else be the high-paying guinea pig.

How to Self-Publish: eBooks and Kindle

Tips for Self Publishing, Tips for Writers

Most of my discussion so far has been regarding paperback books. However, it’s pretty simple to also offer eBooks, and a great way to increase your readership, as well as give more value to your customer.

Converting files to eBook

It’s not hard to use a converter like Calibre and convert your existing PDF to ePub, and offer it as a file on your own site.  Calibre is free and simple to use.  It’s just a few mouse clicks to do most conversions.

However, Lulu.com and Kindle Direct Publishing also offer ways of doing that, as do many of the other self publishing sites.

CreateSpace makes it especially easy to offer an eBook of your work. At the end of your publishing process, they will ask if you want them to convert your existing work to Kindle. Then they send you over to Kindle Direct Publishing, where you can set your prices and territories. You have to wait about a day for review on those as well but it’s not a big deal. There is no fee for that either.

You can even offer a package where someone can get an ebook version of your book, either cheaply or for free, when they buy a print copy.

Kindle Select

When you tell them to bring your book over to Kindle, I highly recommend taking a copy of your book and converting it to .doc. That makes a much better looking product and the Kindle software has an easier time converting. LibreOffice does that easily, it’s just a matter of hitting “save as” and selecting “.doc” in the file dropdown.

You will also be offered to join Kindle Select. I usually do this as it offers some great benefits. It lets you run promotions for your book at no cost to you, lets you take a bigger cut of the profits, and gives you more sales options. The only tradeoff is you are agreeing to only sell your eBook on Kindle while you are a member of Kindle Select, but it’s a limited term in case you change your mind later. I’ve never regretted it.

Kindle Select also makes your book free to people who have Amazon Prime. You’re still paid when they read it – you are paid a proportion of the profits, which usually works out to be about a half a cent per page. It’s great to be able to say to your buyers “check out my book for free if you already have the Kindle subscription.”

If you end up using CreateSpace, your paperback and Kindle versions will show up on the same Amazon listing and that makes it really easy for customers to pick what they want.  It also means that if a person reviews your paperback version, that review will be visible on the Kindle version, and vice versa.

eBook covers

The only other note about eBooks as opposed to print books, is the cover is a little different. You only need the front half of the cover. I generally go into Gimp, use rectangle select to isolate the part I want, hit “crop to image,” save that new file, then boom. Done.

Some people do the Kindle or eBook version first, then set up a paperback later, some do the other way around.  Either way is fine.  Kindle Direct Publishing is starting a feature where they convert your Kindle boosk to paperback without you having to use CreateSpace, but that option is currently very new and I haven’t used it yet.

Undreamed of possibilities

Personal Growth

In this post, I wrote about things I thought were true when I was five. I was reflecting today on just how different my life is from what I expected. My formative years were spent mostly before the internet was common, and though I grew up around my dad’s clunky yet trusty 286, I never dreamed computers would be such an essential part of my life. I’m sure everyone reading this can resonate on some level, so please feel free to provide your own examples in the comments.

When I was a kid, I never dreamed I’d…

…work with computers constantly, both at work and at home, have a monitor that’s about an inch thick, and consider my internet to be essential while cable TV is not.

…be able to pay somebody to shoot me or my loved ones in the face with a laser, for any medical purpose.

…actually have a published novel in any form, since self publishing in my youth meant you had access to a good copy machine and made ‘zines.

…have a blog, once again, see the lack of internet and lateral communication.

…become good enough at pen and ink drawing to do decent illustrations. Pen and ink was a loved but unheard of dream at the time.

…carry a tiny portable telephone that connects me to anyone anywhere in the country without long distance fees. I grew up in the bad old days of corded phones, peak calling times and long distance.

…learn to blue and parkerize metal, learn to use a mill or a lathe or a grinder, become comfortable with power tools, and learn the pure love of a good pressurized air system. I grew up being nervous even around hand tools.

When I look at the things I can do, that I never dreamed I would be able to, and would have thoroughly envied anyone I knew who could, the future doesn’t seem too dim. What possibilities are still in store for all of us that we never imagined would be possible?

I’m hopeful in spite of everything…

Thoughts About Life

This year some bad things have happened, quite a few of them, really.  We’ve lost beloved performers, we’ve heard some truly odious lies told by politicians, and the national media has done its usual job to try and twist our perceptions outside the realm of reality.

Some good things have happened as well.  For me, I have had some personal successes, and kept chipping away at a couple personal challenges that have galled me for years.  We as internet users continue to reap the benefits of parallel communication so we can get an idea of what’s really going on, no matter what the media might say.  I have improved my art and this blog and I’ve published two books and two short stories this year.  I’ve also dipped my toes back into traditional media and had one of my drawings published in a magazine, so that’s a great thing to remember for me.

It’s been a mixed bag but there’s hope.  Some friends of mine have revealed to me that they are terrified of what’s going to happen because Hillary didn’t win – to me there’s a glimmer of hope because she didn’t. I didn’t like her opponent that much, but when you get past the media lies he’s not quite the ogre everyone seems to think he is.  So I have a little room for hope in politics.  At least our current Anointed One won’t have the chance to catapult the US into World War 3 and make energy so expensive no one can afford it.

I take my hope in small doses.  For another example, right now I make $2.79 above minimum wage.  Come the new year, I’ll be making $0.79 above the minimum wage, and I’ll have to deal with higher prices and such as businesses find ways to pay their employees up to that rate.  I work at the lowest paid call center in the city.  But, there’s hope!  Because I moved to a place that’s cheaper to live in, has lower utility bills, and has the most awesome landlord I’ve ever even heard of.  I feel bad for all the families who will have to tighten their belts even more, but at least I, personally, will have hope, even as I watch my dollar grow weaker.

My books are starting to make a little money, so there’s a glimmer of hope there too.  I’ll keep on writing, and drawing, taking pictures and doing what I do, and who knows?  Maybe my audience will find me.  Hope springs eternal.  The important thing is, if you want to have hope, never give up, no matter what you do.  If you stop, you can always start again.

As Winston Churchill said,

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”

 

 

via Daily Prompt: Hopeful

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/hopeful/

Resilient Flowers

Photography

If you want to see resiliency, visit the Sonora desert.  Even the flowers, that look so delicate and beautiful, are tough survivors.

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They live through blistering heat, monsoon rains, cold temperatures and animal nibbling only to exuberantly bloom again.

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Usually, no matter how pretty the flower, you must mind the thorns –

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They are there, whether you see them or not!

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via Photo Challenge: Resilient

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/resilient/

Discovering new foods

Food and Cooking

At this point, I haven’t had much chance to travel.  But I’m still a person who’s curious about the rest of the world, so much so that I love roaming around on Wikimapia, and using Google Street view to see places I’ve never been!  How to feed this desire to experience new things?

I travel to different international stores!

Not only do they have really interesting packaging in other languages, but I get a taste of different cultures, I see different ways of doing things.  The sounds, sights and smells are different.  I love that!

I’ll travel to Asia, by going to the international supermarket in the rich part of town – their prices are amazing, the staff is friendly, their meat and fish are well prepared, and I love exploring all the odd snack foods.  What exactly does that fruit taste like?  Let’s try!  Why does dried squid make a good snack?  What exactly is that cut of meat used for?  Is refrigerated udon better than the dry stuff?  How do you open a bottle of ramune, anyway?  And what in the world is that huge purple flower bud that’s a foot long, and how do you cook it?  So many questions, so many delicious answers.

Then there’s the utensils!  Why are there five or six different types of mortar and pestle?  What is that knife used for, specifically?  How about that pot?  The wonders don’t stop.

Other times I’ll head south, to the Carniceria, and get my favorite marinated meats, either to have them grilled (right there outside the store) or to take them home to bake.   I’ll get some taijin powder to put on my apples, maybe a chunk of candied sweet potato, or maybe I’ll get some pumpkin empenadas.  I’ll certainly pick up some thin, lovely, handmade tortillas and some real Coke with real sugar in a glass bottle.

By the time I get home, I feel like I’ve traveled!

via Daily Prompt: Discover

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/discover/

Self Publishing – Selling Your Work

Tips for Self Publishing, Tips for Writers

Now that you have a book, you want to sell it, right?

CreateSpace does some limited marketing even if you don’t pay for the marketing package. I remember how happy I was when I had just bought some Joel Rosenberg books and got an email saying “If you liked Joel Rosenberg, you might like The Dice Of Fate by Rohvannyn Shaw!” That was truly awesome.  Recently I randomly found an ad for my new comedy book on a Hubpages post about customer service!  Not sure who put the ad there, Amazon or the writer, but so far it’s found me about ten customers.  If you put your work out there, it’s entirely possible that others might find it and decide to promote it.  There’s a lot you can do to improve those chances.

 

Basic Marketing Steps:

Announce on your social media.  That one’s pretty easy to guess.

Create a website or put a new page on your website for your book/s.

Fill out your author page on Amazon, or your profile on Lulu.

Join Goodreads, get an author page, fill it out.

Blog about it if you have a blog.

If you join Goodreads, check out the author communities. Often you will find people willing to host author interviews or feature new books on their blogs.

Do a promotion – CreateSpace lets you make coupons and do giveaways.

Don’t stress over reviews too much, but if you can get them, great.

You can do a Goodreads Giveaway too, they are pretty helpful. They only cost the price of whatever book you are giving away, plus postage.

Make little placards and leave them up places where readers gather. Bulletin boards at coffee shops, libraries, bookstores, etc. I make mine when I see those promotions for penny prints at Snapfish, Shutterfly, or similar photo sites.

Buy a few books and sell them on Ebay or Etsy. You might be surprised at who wants one, and it helps put them in front of more people.

Go to craft fairs or holiday bazaars with some copies. There aren’t many authors at craft fairs, so you will have less competition.

 

Note about blogging:  If you have a big following, it can be perfectly fine to say “hey, I have a new book, come check it out!”  But if you’re still trying to attract new readers or you’re starting out, try to think of some really interesting angle to write about.  Offer a chapter of your book, write an article about something you learned while writing it, something like that.  Give people a reason to click into your blog and then let them know the book is available within that posting.  Let them see why they should put down money to read more of your work.  It really helps!
There are a thousand other ideas out there, some of them quite creative, but I think you get the idea. Notice that most of these ideas are cheap or free!

Check out my page “self publishing” for the other parts to this series, and more.