Damon Alan's Blog, page 12
March 3, 2016
A or N is available.
Looks like we finally wrestled the Amazon monster to the ground. No, I’m not talking about Wonder Woman and Snoo Snoo.
All or Nothing is available on Amazon, and the page is working. An epic struggle, for sure, but one that we hope will pay off in fame and noteriety. 
If you’re into card games, give it a try. You can’t go wrong, it’s made of excellent quality materials, and I made it so I know very well it’s fun. 
February 23, 2016
Amazon is a nightmare
My wife and I have incorporated to sell our game. We’ve bought a UPC for our company. We’ve registered with the State of Colorado and we’ve got our product in local stores. We chose Amazon as our preferred vendor.
The biggest part of our plan, in fact, was to sell on Amazon.
Which, pardon my French, is a F***ing nightmare.
We have paid for a professional seller account. We shipped our product to Amazon, another expense. We added our product, we registered our brand name, we’ve done everything by the book.
Our product is still not listed. We’ve tried for three weeks now to get Amazon to fix it. We’ve talked to dozens of seller representatives. We’ve had several hang up on us just because they didn’t know what to do to fix anything. My wife is, in fact, talking to Amazon right this minute. The last person she talked to hung up on us. The one we’re talking to now, despite a dozen or so Amazon reps telling us “There is no problem here.” said, “There’s a problem here.” She’s transferring us to technical support. I expect we’ll be hung up on.
So we’re out dozens of hours of our lives we’ll never get back. We are out potential sales of this fantastic game. We’ve lost sleep, complained to friends until they’re tired of hearing it, and are basically doing exactly what Einstein says is the definition of insanity. We just keep calling Amazon in the hopes that one of them isn’t an idiot and can fix this. So far that’s not looking hopeful.
In the end I suppose we’ll demand that Amazon return all of our money, all of our shipping expenses, and all of our fees. They can’t give us our time back, or I’d extract that from them with forceps. But we’ve just lost that forever.
So what then? We’ll go to Ebay. I know Ebay works.
At this juncture, I’d have to recommend that is what you consider as well if you’re going to be an Amazon seller.
OH, and here is what our product would look like, if you were able to buy it. Because apparently it works in their internal system. Just not for the people who might actually want to buy it.
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February 3, 2016
A reminder and an addition
At 6pm today, The Anvil of Dust and Stars goes on sale for $.99. In the UK it will be on sale Friday the 5th for £.99
Both sales are for a week.
The Anvil of Dust and Stars – USA version
The Anvil of Dust and Stars – UK version
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January 30, 2016
Want to see the dwarf planet Ceres up close and personal?
This small world will likely be the gateway to the outer solar system someday, along with Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. They’ll provide at least some gravity for the inhabitants there, and the necessities of life as long as we have the technology to harness the resources properly. Water. Metals. Potentially even hydrocarbons.
My personal vote would be that we colonize the Moon first, and then skip Mars until we have Ceres domesticated.
Ceres, like you’ve never seen her.
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January 24, 2016
The Anvil of Dust and Stars on sale
February 3 through February 10th, The Anvil of Dust and Stars will be $.99 on Kindle.
Go check it out if you haven’t!
The New Cover
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January 22, 2016
Been working, and a new logo
I’ve been working hard lately, trying to get projects out the door. Mostly on card games.
ALL or NOTHING has now been finalized if the next prototype deck to show up is good. We have a bar code for it, and we’ve incorporated ourselves as ALL or NOTHING, Inc. Soon it will be available for selling in stores and we will be selling it directly on Amazon.
The next card game in the line has come a long way, including a name and a logo. It’s called Swap Out and the design is coming together nicely. Here is the logo.
I also have a short story ready to submit for this, called This Here Universe Ain’t Big Enough.
My oldest daughter just turned 17 on the 19th, and she started full time college this semester. She would normally be a junior in high school, but instead is a freshman in college. That makes a father proud, let me tell you.
So yeah, the pedal has been to the metal.
On top of that, my wife and I are low-carb dieting. I’ve lost 15 pounds.
2016 is starting well. I hope it’s going well for all of you.
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January 12, 2016
Better late than never. Happy New Year!
Hi everyone, I’ve been pretty busy since about mid-December.
The kids are just now back to doing their home school lessons. We took four weeks off since we go year around. When the kids aren’t occupied, turns out I am.
My card game is now in the polishing stage of development. The art is done, the master print file is now at the printer, and I’m just waiting to see the proofs before we make the first commercial order. That’s a busy thing in itself. Still a few things more to do, but it’s looking good.
I discovered a game called Empyrion – Galactic Survival on Steam. If you’re a PC gamer, check it out. It’s the survival/builder game I’ve wanted for some time. It’s in development, but it’s only getting more awesome with each patch.
I recently started doing the low-carb diet thing… and lost 12 pounds in very short order. I’m sure that was mostly water caused by inflammation from processed foods, but I’ll take what I can get. The diet has successfully suppressed the appetite, so I’m hoping to see some long term weight loss. We’ll see.
My wife and I are debating whether or not to buy the house we’re in. I can envision a huge 12 seat theater with stadium seating in the basement… it’s calling to me. We have a bar and a pool table down there, why not add a theater and a popcorn maker? It’s a good house.
We own a VW diesel, on of the ones that the EPA is all tweaked about. VW sent us $500 to apologize, and another $500 to use anyway we want at the dealership. We spent the first $500 on a Xbox One gaming system. Thanks VW! Personally, I love your cars, and you didn’t have to send me a penny and I’d not have had a bit of animosity toward you. But you sent me $500 and now I like you even better. $1,000 really, considering the second $500 will pay for scheduled maintenance visits.
That’s all that’s going on. Life is good, I need to get on my 3rd book, and I have another that will follow that is a thriller. So much to do. So little time. Mainly because I’m a gamer.
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December 17, 2015
Games
I play video games. I think it’s a sign of an active mind to want to interact with your entertainment, not just be fed your entertainment. Not that TV isn’t good sometimes, once in a while we all want to veg out. But the experience of Skyrim or Mass Effect is better, from my point of view, than any TV show will ever be.
Here is my latest hope for future entertainment.
Star Citizen.
I’ve dumped a few dollars into this game myself, and am looking forward to working with other players, fighting other players, and conquering Chris Robert’s vision of what a massive online game looks like.
I hope in my lifetime that Virtual Reality matures. I’d like to be able to strap on a helmet and immerse myself in another world, either sci-fi or fantasy. Can you imagine Skyrim if you actually walked the land? Delved into the caverns? Drew back your arm to put an arrow in that guard’s knee? Or all the guards’ knees?
Games are an escape from a life both sometimes mundane and sometimes demanding.
Let me know your favorite games.
My list, not in any particular order:
Skyrim
Civ IV: Caveman to Cosmos
Civ V
Empire: Total War
Mass Effect
Elite: Dangerous
Banished
Fallout 4
Savage Lands
Thea: The Awakening
I expect Star Citizen will be on that list once it’s released. I sure hope so. I’ve sunk enough money into supporting Chris Robert’s vision for it.
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December 14, 2015
Science Fiction fans: It’s new trailer day.
The new Star Trek: Beyond trailer is out. I love the reboot, I think Zachary Quinto may be an even better Spock than Nimoy. Yes, I said it. Hit me about the head with a warp plasma conduit. Star Trek is definitely space opera, and it’s becoming more and more popular, as is all of science fiction.
But that’s not all! For a limited time, and only on DamonAlan.com, you get two trailers for the price of one! Which is free, but hey, it’s two trailers.
This next one isn’t space opera, but it is science fiction. I loved the original despite several leaps of faith that had to be made to swallow it.
I hope this one is just as awesome. It does have Jeff Goldblum, so that’s a thing. I love that man. He’s like the Jewish badass brain ninja that I always wanted as a friend.
Enjoy. I think this may well be the second golden age of science fiction. So much is going on right now. The new Star Wars movie. These two movies. My books being contracted for a SyFy made for TV movie.
LOL! Just kidding. Wouldn’t that be sweet though.
What’s important to me is that science fiction is the genre of future hope. It’s a statement that we believe we’re going to make it. It’s a statement that we believe we have what it takes. I believe this too. We humans have our stumbles, even today. As groups like Daesh try to drag us back into the stone age of ignorance and hate, Western Culture ™ is painting a vision of hope, of victory, and of success as a species.
My books will paint that same picture, because it is the vision of every sci-fi writer, or at least I so believe. Nobody wants to read a story where the aliens wipe us out for good. Nobody wants to read a story where Earth is reduced to Gray Goo (tm again).
Sci-fi, and space opera in particular is about our ascendance.
Never forget it, and never lose faith in it.
BTW, if you’re interested in joining my Facebook group for my books, science, tech, space opera and sci-fi in general, click here.
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December 11, 2015
Aging
So I recently had back injections. I’ve had chronic pain issues for about 10 years, and the issue has impacted my life deeply.
How?
When you have pain, you don’t do things you’d do when you are reasonably pain free.
1. You don’t socialize, because you’re a crabby bastard.
2. You’re a crabby bastard.
3. You’re unable to focus.
4. You’re unable to appreciate the world around you as it deserves.
5. You vote for the grouchiest candidate you can find.
Since the injections there has been a remarkable improvement in the problem. Unbelievably so, in fact. The pain was in my feet and legs due to nerves in my lower back, apparently. The injections have improved that pain by 80% or more. It is a remarkable change. There were days that I’d walk about the house like a 75 year old man, and now, for the first time in a long time I bounded up the stairs.
The changes are something else.
1. I look at people with something other than a desire to punch them.
2. I smiled at the cat.
3. I’m so focused I solved the Unified Field Theory in my head last night laying in bed… but like so many plot ideas I can’t remember it this morning.
4. The world is waiting… beware world.
5. I will be voting Libertarian, because I’m FREE! FREE I SAY!
But seriously. That shit worked. I expect a lot more pleasant decade ahead than the one behind. I also want to kick all the doctors who kept trying to blame non-existent diabetes for the problem. But I won’t, because I’m a new man.
The only bad thing about the week is the temporary crown I have until the 28th of December is held in place with something that is flavored cinnamon. I fucking hate cinnamon. And it is leaking that flavor into my mouth around the clock.
I expect after the permanent crown is in place and my mouth doesn’t taste like vomited tree bark, I’ll be even happier. Expect spontaneous dancing and maybe singing.
I just hope I don’t joy-hump everything around me.
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