William Amerman's Blog, page 4
June 9, 2014
Sky1 on sale for .99
I had to wait a month for Amazon's KDP program to kick in with the KDP Select promotion of .99, but it's now active and so far the results are great!
Now on to the real work of the day plus trying to get some time to rework Sky3, just back from the content editor last week. Happy Summer!
Now on to the real work of the day plus trying to get some time to rework Sky3, just back from the content editor last week. Happy Summer!
May 18, 2014
The flu when the book is due
Sick two weeks in a row. Something like the flu this time. 102 degree fever, chills, coughing. Perhaps my decision to save final edits to the last weekend before Sky3 goes to the editor was ill conceived?
I rewrite a chapter. Then take a nap. Rewrite a chapter. Then a nap. Ever since 5am this morning. It will be a long day.
I rewrite a chapter. Then take a nap. Rewrite a chapter. Then a nap. Ever since 5am this morning. It will be a long day.
May 12, 2014
Bookbub, you evil bastard
No, I'm not railing against Bookbub because they refused my request for the second time to list Sky1 with them. The 'problem' with Bookbub is that they vet the books they send out in their daily notice. They vet them for popularity and quality. This means that they only send me notice of two to four books per day. However, over the last couple of weeks, at least every other day I get a notice for a book with an intriguing premise. I go to Amazon, fire up the book sample, and then buy the book. Every book that I've done this for has ended up being a book that I enjoy.
Why am I railing against a process that provides me quality books on sale for $.99 or $1.99? Because I'm developing a backlog of books that is going to take me over a month to get through. This means that I definitely read more than I have in years. But if I keep reading so much, it leaves less time for the writing.
Oh, and Bookbub? Get with it and accept Sky1 for your program! It just surpassed 20 reviews on Amazon--15 five star, 4 four star and 1 two star reviews. We'll be sending it to you for reconsideration in two weeks. If anyone reading this has read it and wouldn't mind leaving a review, it would help my chances.
Why am I railing against a process that provides me quality books on sale for $.99 or $1.99? Because I'm developing a backlog of books that is going to take me over a month to get through. This means that I definitely read more than I have in years. But if I keep reading so much, it leaves less time for the writing.
Oh, and Bookbub? Get with it and accept Sky1 for your program! It just surpassed 20 reviews on Amazon--15 five star, 4 four star and 1 two star reviews. We'll be sending it to you for reconsideration in two weeks. If anyone reading this has read it and wouldn't mind leaving a review, it would help my chances.
May 11, 2014
The other part of Mother's Day
I guess I've tried to put this out of my mind for most of the day, wondering why I've been getting more and more hot-tempered as the day wore on. I don't like to think of how much I miss my mother. She passed away last year and days like today evoke feelings of helplessness. I don't like to feel helpless. So I block it out. Until my father sends me a photo of the beautiful roses he laid at her grave today. And all the annoyances and troubles of the world fade as if they were never there. Leaving a large sense of loss and grief, that lingering connection to the horrific jolt I got in the early morning in January of last year. I love you Mom and will always love you. Happy Mother's Day.
-Bill Jr.
-Bill Jr.
Sale on Sky1
Oh, and in preparation for entry into the KDP Select program, I've put Sky1 on sale for $3.99 for the foreseeable future.
Golfing on Mother's Day
A proposition fraught with pluses and minuses. On the plus side, at a 6:15am tee time the course was empty. After getting up around 4:30am, teeing off at 6:10am, we finished our round in a little over three hours.
On the minus side, the course was empty for a reason. Lots of men have come to the realization over the years that heading out to the course with the boys on Mother's Day can provoke a long time-out in the dog house.
However, knowing the mother of my boys, if I'm home by the time she gets up and we start the day then, no harm, no foul. Yay, team. Except I shot above 90 for the first time in maybe a year. Yes, perhaps luck/fate is a woman and she is not pleased at my golfing on this day?
So this day has gone like most of the past ones. Greeting the mother of the house with cards and a "to do" list that the boys and I will perform throughout the day. Things like doing all the laundry, folding, putting it up. Vacuuming her car. Taking her to the Indian buffet for brunch. The boys doing a tag-team neck massage for her. These things seem to go over better than the stuffed bears and knick-knacks we used to proffer in the past. All in all, for a day that can be quite emotional and taxing for male side of the species, it went pretty well.
On the minus side, the course was empty for a reason. Lots of men have come to the realization over the years that heading out to the course with the boys on Mother's Day can provoke a long time-out in the dog house.
However, knowing the mother of my boys, if I'm home by the time she gets up and we start the day then, no harm, no foul. Yay, team. Except I shot above 90 for the first time in maybe a year. Yes, perhaps luck/fate is a woman and she is not pleased at my golfing on this day?
So this day has gone like most of the past ones. Greeting the mother of the house with cards and a "to do" list that the boys and I will perform throughout the day. Things like doing all the laundry, folding, putting it up. Vacuuming her car. Taking her to the Indian buffet for brunch. The boys doing a tag-team neck massage for her. These things seem to go over better than the stuffed bears and knick-knacks we used to proffer in the past. All in all, for a day that can be quite emotional and taxing for male side of the species, it went pretty well.
May 9, 2014
The joys of stomach flu
I am hungry again, but I dare not eat. The only joy of such serious Gastrointestinal Distress is perhaps a few pounds of weight loss. Okay, as I review all the possible directions this blog post could go, I realize I wish to pursue none of them. So why don't we just end this update here, on a somewhat high level?
May 3, 2014
4 man scramble win
Yesterday was fortunate enough to shoot 16 under par (yes, that's a 56) for win by one stroke at the IT annual golf tournament put on by my company. Hmm, does this qualify as a blog post? Or should it be a tweet? Or just something I don't brag about. Hard to tell. . . .
Off for a day of coaching and watching soccer, then hours of writing to meet the editorial deadline of May 19th. Thank goodness for deadlines.
Oh, and was reading an interesting post on the Amazon kindle author forums last night. The lady said she was god-fearing, Christian, mother of small children and had decided to publish the dirtiest, raunchiest erotica she could think of. She slapped up 20,000 words and immediately started making more royalties than all her other books combined. Sigh. How's that supposed to motivate any serious writing?
Off for a day of coaching and watching soccer, then hours of writing to meet the editorial deadline of May 19th. Thank goodness for deadlines.
Oh, and was reading an interesting post on the Amazon kindle author forums last night. The lady said she was god-fearing, Christian, mother of small children and had decided to publish the dirtiest, raunchiest erotica she could think of. She slapped up 20,000 words and immediately started making more royalties than all her other books combined. Sigh. How's that supposed to motivate any serious writing?
April 29, 2014
Attempted burglary, keys and an envelope of hundreds
My house is in a different town than my work office. So every Monday night, I drive 120 miles from near Sacramento to San Jose, spending the night in my condo on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I've been doing this for over ten years, now, and it's worked out just fine.
When I pulled in to my spot last night around 10pm, one of my sort of stoner-looking neighbors who seem nice but with whom I've never spoken called to me from his balcony. He said that Saturday night, about 2am, his girlfriend had come home and seen a guy trying to break in to my condo. We talked for a bit more and he described him as average looking, kind of short hispanic man. I thanked him and went up to see if my door had been broken.
Instead, on my door mat, I found a crumpled white envelope and keys. I let myself in to the condo, grabbed my shotgun from the place I keep it, pumped a shell into the chamber (a sound that is unmistakable if you've ever heard it even once) and start to do a sweep of the rooms in my condo, thinking, 'man, I've got to get a pistol because it's pretty awkward trying to enter a room with a shotgun in any way that would prevent an intruder from simply knocking the barrel to the side and attacking.
No one there. So I un-chambered the shell, made sure the safety was back on and went out to check the keys. I picked up the envelope and saw in large pink marker, the words "Humberto $510. Abril/26/14"
Through the plastic window of the envelope I saw money. I opened the envelope to see five one hundred dollar bills. Heart pounding, I put the money back in the envelope, wondering what the hell to do, wondering what the hell was going on. I tried the keys. None fit in my lock.
So. What's going on? It's the next day and I'm up here in the condo, writing away on the third book, having a Hoegaarden. I fully expect to hear the outside stairs pound with footsteps and someone to come back, looking for this envelope of money. Wait a second. There's a knock on my door now.
When I pulled in to my spot last night around 10pm, one of my sort of stoner-looking neighbors who seem nice but with whom I've never spoken called to me from his balcony. He said that Saturday night, about 2am, his girlfriend had come home and seen a guy trying to break in to my condo. We talked for a bit more and he described him as average looking, kind of short hispanic man. I thanked him and went up to see if my door had been broken.
Instead, on my door mat, I found a crumpled white envelope and keys. I let myself in to the condo, grabbed my shotgun from the place I keep it, pumped a shell into the chamber (a sound that is unmistakable if you've ever heard it even once) and start to do a sweep of the rooms in my condo, thinking, 'man, I've got to get a pistol because it's pretty awkward trying to enter a room with a shotgun in any way that would prevent an intruder from simply knocking the barrel to the side and attacking.
No one there. So I un-chambered the shell, made sure the safety was back on and went out to check the keys. I picked up the envelope and saw in large pink marker, the words "Humberto $510. Abril/26/14"
Through the plastic window of the envelope I saw money. I opened the envelope to see five one hundred dollar bills. Heart pounding, I put the money back in the envelope, wondering what the hell to do, wondering what the hell was going on. I tried the keys. None fit in my lock.
So. What's going on? It's the next day and I'm up here in the condo, writing away on the third book, having a Hoegaarden. I fully expect to hear the outside stairs pound with footsteps and someone to come back, looking for this envelope of money. Wait a second. There's a knock on my door now.
April 27, 2014
Brisket, my big white whale
The facts: one Angus USDA certified brisket. A Weber smoker reading 226 degrees for the air temp and 131 degrees for the meat temp. Drizzly gray weather outside that's going to do fine keeping the temperature from getting away from us for the next ten or so hours.
Wireless thermometers absolutely rock. Sitting on the shelf in my study, it provides a steady feed of data that I can refer to while writing on the third book (Anna and Nick are still at the police station, but not for long).
This will be my fourth brisket in six months. As the checker at Raley's noted yesterday, "that's a pretty expensive piece of meat to screw up." Indeed. And screw up I have, the past three times. Great flavor. Poor tenderness. Edible. But requiring bbq sauce to enjoy.
I set the alarm for 7am this morning, rose and immediately got the fire going. Then I trimmed the brisket, paying extra attention to removing the silver membrane on the non-fat side. This is an exercise that, historically, requires more patience than I possess. In an effort to change the results, though, I stuck with it and after twenty minutes had scraped and cut most of it off.
So now we wait and tend the fire so that the temp remains between 225 and 250. Thank you for reading my golfing, meat smoking and writing blog. I think I'll see if can diversify topics in the future.
Wireless thermometers absolutely rock. Sitting on the shelf in my study, it provides a steady feed of data that I can refer to while writing on the third book (Anna and Nick are still at the police station, but not for long).
This will be my fourth brisket in six months. As the checker at Raley's noted yesterday, "that's a pretty expensive piece of meat to screw up." Indeed. And screw up I have, the past three times. Great flavor. Poor tenderness. Edible. But requiring bbq sauce to enjoy.
I set the alarm for 7am this morning, rose and immediately got the fire going. Then I trimmed the brisket, paying extra attention to removing the silver membrane on the non-fat side. This is an exercise that, historically, requires more patience than I possess. In an effort to change the results, though, I stuck with it and after twenty minutes had scraped and cut most of it off.
So now we wait and tend the fire so that the temp remains between 225 and 250. Thank you for reading my golfing, meat smoking and writing blog. I think I'll see if can diversify topics in the future.
