New Day Job
Well, it looks like I'm going to be heading to Japan in the near future. I've applied for a job through Interac which provides Assistant Language Teachers to the Japanese public schools among other things. The job pays around 230,000 yen (close to $3k) a month out of which I'll have to pay rent, utilities, insurance and a couple of other things. I might be required to get a car (for which I'll be reimbursed).
What I'll basically be doing is traveling to different schools in an assigned schedule. One day at one school with one set of classes and another day at another school. I'm legally required not to work more than 29.5 hours in a week, but that's just scheduled time. Anybody who has taught knows that teaching as a lot of off the clock work associated with it.
I'll be leaving either in the middle of March or the middle of summer and I might be out of internet contact for a month or so afterwards while my apartment is getting set up. But all the dates I've seen so far indicate I'm leaving in March on either the 18th or the 26th.
I've been looking at getting a job in Japan for a long time and I've finally succeeded. Hopefully while there I'll be able to open up some opportunities with the Japanese film festivals similar to what I do for the Korean film festivals: watching their English-speaking movies and typing up an annotated script for the translators to make use of. And finally get to experience a little bit of the Japanese culture.
I was in Korea for 3 years at a Hakwon and I hope to have about as much time in Japan, possibly more.
It is a very exciting and nerve-racking event. Not the least because I'm going to have to pay for my own airline ticket to Japan as well as the set-up costs for my new apartment. This combined with the fact that I won't get paid until the end of the second month. Which is why they ask you to be bring around 500k yen (about $6.5k) with you.
If I had gotten this job last year, this wouldn't have been much of a problem, I'd have used my Texas Public Schools retirement to fund the trip. If this was happening in mid-summer, I'd have tax season (tax preparation), test season (Pearson testing projects) and the start of the Korean film festival seasons (transcription) that could be used to gather the necessary money.
Since it's looking like they'll be sending me in March regardless of when the job starts due to paperwork issues (my Certificate of Eligibility and my Visa both have to be good when I enter the country and the CoE, which I think they're applying for now, is only good for three months), I'm worried that I'm going to be in a bit of a bind.
I've got roughly $3.2k in expenses coming in the next 3 months, if I really reduce myself to bare essentials like food, rent, gas and various bills. And maybe $4k in income...assuming substitute teaching and tax prep run well. I hope to see some of my November/December transcription pay out as well, but it's hard to tell when that stuff will finally reach my accounts. I also plan to sell my car, and that might be another $2k to $3k, but the 3 month time limit is really short, especially with the really weird way substitute teaching pays its employees. (I'm told that the way my substitute pay schedule works would be illegal if it wasn't run by the Texas government).
As such, I'd really like to ask for everybody's help here.
And I don't mean by giving me donations. I mean by spreading the word about my books.
:thumb174325098:
:thumb271201123:
:thumb67362163:
:thumb168381983:
The electronic copies of all three are currently $1 and will be through January.
And this is the point I sound like one of those charity commercials and say "this doesn't sound like much, but..."
Okay, ready for it?
Not going to say it. Except I already did. Moving on.
I'm not going to give the stats on how many watchers, friends and followers I have on various social media.
I'm also well aware that some of you have already purchased my books and a lot of you have helped me out with spreading the word on my books and that's basically what I'm asking now.
Please, again, pass the word along.
I'm fairly certain most of you like the same sort of things I do and most of you have your own large list of friends, watchers and followers each of whom have their own lists. There's no way that I can expect everybody to purchase a book or even to pass the word along. And I know that I ask for help in this way fairly regularly and some of you are probably tired of it, but I still need to ask.
I am tired of being embarrassed about self-promoting my own books. I know my books are good. Bystander and Divine Blood aren't what I'd call thought turning classics or great works of introspective art for art's sake. But they're fun and they're entertaining and at some point they'd both make really good TV shows, animations or movies. Greenwater and Zodiacs are the same. Some think Bystander's my best, some think Greenwater's the best and I already have one person asking me advice on writing a Divine Blood fanfic set in the US that seems to involve Sumerian Demons.
They're fun for fun's sake, one-liners, over-the-top fight scenes and a few hints of a deeper world for when I progress the series. I have no shame in saying they're the kind of stories that I like to read, so yeah, lots of author appeal in the form of lady badasses, cute non-human girls, ridiculous coincidences and non-traditional relationships. They're aimed at a light-hearted easy read looking for adventure and a few laughs.
Also, no, I'm not depending on this. Even if I sell close to the 125 books I sold this December, that still be just a drop in the bucket and most of my books sales go back into advertising. However, if I'm lucky, if I'm really lucky, word of mouth might cause an explosion and I might sell tons upon tons of books. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how good my books are if no one knows about them, but I suppose I have more chance of that than...say...winning the lottery.
So here we go.
****************
Stuff that costs you nothing save a little time.
Post links to my books on facebook, twitter, deviantart and here.
Favorite the public chapters and art for my books here.
Tell friends about the really cool independent author you've heard of/read. Luke Green.
***************
Stuff that does cost money.
Buy my books. They're a $1 right now. I'm going to be honest and say right now that DrivethruRPG currently pays me better than Amazon so I really prefer people to go to DrivethruRPG (which also has better publisher tools than Amazon). At Amazon I get 35% royalties and at DrivethruRPG I get 65% royalties.
If you want print copies, lulu is still selling them, though you might want to wait until the drivethru print run starts, it'll be both cheaper for you and more profitable for me.
**************
If you've already bought my books and, more importantly, read them, please leave reviews.
Amazon
your journal
leave critiques on the public chapters at http://thrythlind.deviantart.com
Goodreads
Facebook
whatever sci-fi/fantasy forums you can think of
Trope up my stories on tvtropes.org
Divine Blood: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php... (not started yet)
Bystander: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Greenwater: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Zodiacs: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Do anything else you can to tell people what you think and show people that my stories are good.
Luke Green
What I'll basically be doing is traveling to different schools in an assigned schedule. One day at one school with one set of classes and another day at another school. I'm legally required not to work more than 29.5 hours in a week, but that's just scheduled time. Anybody who has taught knows that teaching as a lot of off the clock work associated with it.
I'll be leaving either in the middle of March or the middle of summer and I might be out of internet contact for a month or so afterwards while my apartment is getting set up. But all the dates I've seen so far indicate I'm leaving in March on either the 18th or the 26th.
I've been looking at getting a job in Japan for a long time and I've finally succeeded. Hopefully while there I'll be able to open up some opportunities with the Japanese film festivals similar to what I do for the Korean film festivals: watching their English-speaking movies and typing up an annotated script for the translators to make use of. And finally get to experience a little bit of the Japanese culture.
I was in Korea for 3 years at a Hakwon and I hope to have about as much time in Japan, possibly more.
It is a very exciting and nerve-racking event. Not the least because I'm going to have to pay for my own airline ticket to Japan as well as the set-up costs for my new apartment. This combined with the fact that I won't get paid until the end of the second month. Which is why they ask you to be bring around 500k yen (about $6.5k) with you.
If I had gotten this job last year, this wouldn't have been much of a problem, I'd have used my Texas Public Schools retirement to fund the trip. If this was happening in mid-summer, I'd have tax season (tax preparation), test season (Pearson testing projects) and the start of the Korean film festival seasons (transcription) that could be used to gather the necessary money.
Since it's looking like they'll be sending me in March regardless of when the job starts due to paperwork issues (my Certificate of Eligibility and my Visa both have to be good when I enter the country and the CoE, which I think they're applying for now, is only good for three months), I'm worried that I'm going to be in a bit of a bind.
I've got roughly $3.2k in expenses coming in the next 3 months, if I really reduce myself to bare essentials like food, rent, gas and various bills. And maybe $4k in income...assuming substitute teaching and tax prep run well. I hope to see some of my November/December transcription pay out as well, but it's hard to tell when that stuff will finally reach my accounts. I also plan to sell my car, and that might be another $2k to $3k, but the 3 month time limit is really short, especially with the really weird way substitute teaching pays its employees. (I'm told that the way my substitute pay schedule works would be illegal if it wasn't run by the Texas government).
As such, I'd really like to ask for everybody's help here.
And I don't mean by giving me donations. I mean by spreading the word about my books.
:thumb174325098:
:thumb271201123:
:thumb67362163:
:thumb168381983:
The electronic copies of all three are currently $1 and will be through January.
And this is the point I sound like one of those charity commercials and say "this doesn't sound like much, but..."
Okay, ready for it?
Not going to say it. Except I already did. Moving on.
I'm not going to give the stats on how many watchers, friends and followers I have on various social media.
I'm also well aware that some of you have already purchased my books and a lot of you have helped me out with spreading the word on my books and that's basically what I'm asking now.
Please, again, pass the word along.
I'm fairly certain most of you like the same sort of things I do and most of you have your own large list of friends, watchers and followers each of whom have their own lists. There's no way that I can expect everybody to purchase a book or even to pass the word along. And I know that I ask for help in this way fairly regularly and some of you are probably tired of it, but I still need to ask.
I am tired of being embarrassed about self-promoting my own books. I know my books are good. Bystander and Divine Blood aren't what I'd call thought turning classics or great works of introspective art for art's sake. But they're fun and they're entertaining and at some point they'd both make really good TV shows, animations or movies. Greenwater and Zodiacs are the same. Some think Bystander's my best, some think Greenwater's the best and I already have one person asking me advice on writing a Divine Blood fanfic set in the US that seems to involve Sumerian Demons.
They're fun for fun's sake, one-liners, over-the-top fight scenes and a few hints of a deeper world for when I progress the series. I have no shame in saying they're the kind of stories that I like to read, so yeah, lots of author appeal in the form of lady badasses, cute non-human girls, ridiculous coincidences and non-traditional relationships. They're aimed at a light-hearted easy read looking for adventure and a few laughs.
Also, no, I'm not depending on this. Even if I sell close to the 125 books I sold this December, that still be just a drop in the bucket and most of my books sales go back into advertising. However, if I'm lucky, if I'm really lucky, word of mouth might cause an explosion and I might sell tons upon tons of books. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how good my books are if no one knows about them, but I suppose I have more chance of that than...say...winning the lottery.
So here we go.
****************
Stuff that costs you nothing save a little time.
Post links to my books on facebook, twitter, deviantart and here.
Favorite the public chapters and art for my books here.
Tell friends about the really cool independent author you've heard of/read. Luke Green.
***************
Stuff that does cost money.
Buy my books. They're a $1 right now. I'm going to be honest and say right now that DrivethruRPG currently pays me better than Amazon so I really prefer people to go to DrivethruRPG (which also has better publisher tools than Amazon). At Amazon I get 35% royalties and at DrivethruRPG I get 65% royalties.
If you want print copies, lulu is still selling them, though you might want to wait until the drivethru print run starts, it'll be both cheaper for you and more profitable for me.
**************
If you've already bought my books and, more importantly, read them, please leave reviews.
Amazon
your journal
leave critiques on the public chapters at http://thrythlind.deviantart.com
Goodreads
whatever sci-fi/fantasy forums you can think of
Trope up my stories on tvtropes.org
Divine Blood: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php... (not started yet)
Bystander: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Greenwater: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Zodiacs: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Do anything else you can to tell people what you think and show people that my stories are good.
Luke Green
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