UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Blog Roll
>
Ranting about nothing very interesting.
I enjoyed your rant too... And even went off on one in the comments! :-)
Out of touch with popular culture and political ranting.I think that may be two signs of old age.
You know what comes next, don't you?
Incontinence.
That'll be a right pisser.
Ah don't. That's where all the cash McOther made will go. I'll go mad and incontinent and like my parents and theirs before them all the inheritance will be spent on care. Especially when the tories get in and introduce the dementia tax they say they're not going to introduce but will because that's how they work.
This week I finally got round to telling everyone about eyebombing.https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/06/17/ey...
Enjoy.
I guess I'm not as out of touch as I'd feared :)One Love Manchester
I recognise Ariana Grande
And also Liam Gallagher. Between
Them a procession of faces unseen
Unheard unknown to me before today
Strut, prance, sing, parade performing skills they
Have honed around the world since the last teen
Culture left home. Ossified tastes careen
Novelty leaving a streamlined assay
Of prog and punk. Methinks I've missed out.
Music doesn't stop because I don't
Listen, any more than the world ended
When we passed the millennium. No doubt
The killers disagree. Their masters won't
Permit girls joy or bodies unrended.
Nice one. Good words. ;-)This week I am mostly ranting about marketing!
http://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/06/25/thi...
But it doesn't go live until lunch time UK - about 5 hours from now. Just posting this now because I won't be here then.
Cheers
MTM
Just read your new blog and just wanted to send you a large virtual hug, a drink and some chocolate. It's so hard dealing with dementia, at least my nan didn't get angry with it.
Yes, I'm sharing your blog because there are a lot of people out there who are facing the same issues
Bless you both, thanks. I think many, many of us are. The saddest thing was while there was still more of my Dad, a few weeks ago, he woke up one morning in tears saying he'd had a horrific nightmare that he was nothing more than a dream and when morning came he faded away and was lost forever. And of course, that is exactly what is happening to him. Except that if only I can keep him calm and feeling OK, he can still be himself, in the moment.Cheers
MTM
M.T. wrote: "Bless you both, thanks. I think many, many of us are. The saddest thing was while there was still more of my Dad, a few weeks ago, he woke up one morning in tears saying he'd had a horrific nightma..."Aww, that is so sad
Desley (Cat fosterer) wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Bless you both, thanks. I think many, many of us are. The saddest thing was while there was still more of my Dad...Aww, that is so sad"
Yeh. It is isn't it? And I guess stuff like that is why I am. Sad I mean.
I have ranted some more, except this one's just a heads up about my bookbub what I have scored for Escape:https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/07/21/wh...
Cheers
MTM
congrats on getting a book accepted by bookbub! That's an achievement in itself.It's a cracking book, I loved it and I've mentioned the promo on facebook because everybody else should read it :-)
Jim wrote: "congrats on getting a book accepted by bookbub! That's an achievement in itself.It's a cracking book, I loved it and I've mentioned the promo on facebook because everybody else should read it :-)"
Bless your heart! Thanks. :-)
That reminds me of my brother as a child!
Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "That reminds me of my brother as a child!"It reminds me of me a fair bit! ;-) He's a total nutter which is why he's so lovely of course.
He is the only type of child that you could have had.
Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "He is the only type of child that you could have had."Fully agree
Mwah haahahrgh! What you mean a highly eccentric one?
M.T. wrote: "Mwah haahahrgh! What you mean a highly eccentric one?"Yes. A normal one and you'd be bored and disappointed.
Enjoy the time you have - high-energy and high-intelligence and quirky-minded children have very full lives as adults.My three are scattered over this huge country, almost as far as they can get.
We have to go on vacation together - just to reconnect. It's been fun.
I could see us doing the same thing. No matter how much you want to stay where you grew up, you end up going where the work is. ;-) such is life.
Enjoy while you have McMini home, plan for what you're going to do when he's NOT close to home any more, and implement the plan sooner rather than later.Ours is to go to a resort with the brood and significant others, where the food and the ambiance are taken care of (and those who wish to stay up late and go dancing can do so), preferably once a year. The first one - to the Grand Palladium at the Riviera Maya - was a great success, but one of the kids couldn't come.
And I plan to do it NOT around the holidays (when resorts are jammed), so they can go to the inlaws if they wish. Or stay home and avoid the crowds. The holidays are a travel disaster in the States any more.
This one's about some cheap sci-fi and fantasy books. 100 of them to be precise, going for a song! ;-) Although it won't be live until midday.http://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/08/05/sma...
M.T. wrote: "This one's about some cheap sci-fi and fantasy books. 100 of them to be precise, going for a song! ;-) Although it won't be live until midday.http://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/08/05/sma..."
Thanks MT. Bought Patty Jansen's - I'd already bought yours.
I note that you had symbols under yours for Kobo, nook, Apple, Google Play store and Smashwords. Did you do all those directly yourself or did you use a distributor? (Trying to work out all this stuff as I'm currently re-reading through my book for the last time before loading it to KDP and figuring out how to do that with the Kobo store.)
Pam wrote: "M.T. wrote: "This one's about some cheap sci-fi and fantasy books. 100 of them to be precise, going for a song! ;-) Although it won't be live until midday.http://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/08/05/smashi..."
Cheers. Re the distributors, Some and some. I go to Amazon, Google and kobo direct. If I could afford to spend the price of a car to go to apple direct I would but you have to have an I something to upload to them direct and the £500 I spent on my iPad mini isn't considered enough. You can pay people to do this for $20 or so a pop but it gets to be a real ball ache if you have to change the list of books in the back each time you have a new release etc.
I use Draft2digital for most of it. There's also Smashwords but while they distribute to libraries etc they only distribute to the us in a lot of cases whereas d2d seem to distribute world wide to the places they distribute to. I use both: Smashwords for more small or obscure outlets, d2d for the biggies. D2d lets you change individual currency prices etc. Very handy if you get a Bookbub that stipulates the actual price in rupees etc.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
MTM
One for the authors this week, about using Instafreebie to increase your mailing list.
Good blog post again MT
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Link?"Doh! Here it is for anyone who hasn't found it yet. https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/08/26/in...
Cheers
MTM
I can't put this one on my blog, but I had a slight altercation with friend yesterday, really offended her without the slightest clue what I was doing. If I talk about it on my blog she might feel victimised, but here is quieter and I can delete this more easily. I have no wish to upset her more but I wanted to mention it because, to me, it raises an interesting question.So my friend has been doing sterling work raising money for a local charity. One of the things she did was organise a behind the scenes tour at a local tourist attraction. This was a real winner of an idea and she's raised nearly £2,000. Now she'd emailed everyone she knew about this but as McOther is the main point of contact her email had gone to him and he'd not mentioned it to me. The first I knew was when she tagged me in a facebook post saying that she was going to organise another tour and was I interested.
Unaware, as I was, that McOther had already said no, I thought it would be a brilliant birthday present for him.
However, as I'd have to buy three tickets and there was no mention, anywhere of price I thought I'd better find out how much it was before I committed. It being August/September my entire yearly costs fall in one month, car tax, car insurance, MOT, yearly service. In short, I save up for September all year and when it comes round I shell out about one and a half grand. The less of it I have to put on the credit card, the better. So clearly, while I like the idea of taking McOther on this tour, I'm aware that it's for charity, that it's in Cambridge where a two bedroom flat can cost a million quid and so I might not be able to afford for us all to go. Naturally, I don't want to suggest it to McOther until I know whether I can afford to send him. So ... well, our conversation went like this.
Me: 'How much does it cost? ... Just wondering about a birthday present.
Me (secondary comment): I completely missed this too b.t.w. blummin' facebook.
Friend: '£15 per person Mary, all for charity'
Me: 'It's good value ;-) I'll ask the intended recipient and get back to you.'
Meanwhile I go ask McOther who says he wouldn't like to go and when I get back to my computer a facebook message pops up.
'You're missing the point Mary. This is not a "sale". It's a reason to donate to charity and help vulnerable local people.'
And I'm like ... uh? And having thought I might see if I can go on my own, now I'm thinking that it would be an extremely bad idea.
Bear in mind this is a woman who knows what it's like to be skint. She had to move house after her and her husband separated because she couldn't afford the mortgage and was trying to bring up three very lively kids on her own.
She also used to have quite relaxed views about taking cash from people. Some years ago now, she came round to our house once and her daughter who is our goddaughter and who was about 11 at the time, had brought along a present for McMini, a rug, 'I thought he'd like this rug for his room,' the daughter said. 'So I said, oh I'm sure he would, thank you, that's very kind of you,' and the daughter said, 'That'll be £5 please.' I was so shocked I paid her and when I asked her Mum was told, 'yes, I'm trying to teach the kids about the value of money.'
So, anyway, against that background, which has probably coloured my view of the poor woman in a negative manner for all time, it didn't really occur to me that she was serious so I sent a somewhat frivolous retort.
'Why? Do you commit to things when you don't know the how much they are going to cost or whether you can afford to pay? Would have been looking at three tickets but was not met with an enthusiastic response from the boys. Sorry.'
Looking at that, I probably shouldn't have put the can't go bit in at this point. It comes out sounding really churlish. She came back with:
'Was talking about your "good value" comment. I found that a disturbing view of my fundraising efforts.
You're the only one who has ever responded in that way, by the way...'
So obviously, I apologised, profusely, for any offence I'd caused, explained that money was always tight this time of year and she deleted my comments asking the cost from the thread.
Now I dunno, maybe there was something in the email she sent my husband and not to me that I didn't see but I'm genuinely perplexed by this.
What intrigued me about this was that as a person who has worked in non-profit marketing, I have always treated charity events like any other product. Basically I'm selling an commodity that comes with the added bonus of a warm feeling and because it's for charity it makes it a slightly easier sell, usually. Donations are one thing, but selling tickets to a charity ball, or red nose deely boppers, or a product basically, in aid of a charity? Well in my view it has to be comparable quality with any other similar item, regardless of where the profits go. Furthermore, as a charity, relying on the generosity of others, I would see it as my moral duty to ensure stuff like the quality or value for money smashed everything else out of the park. So I was probably assuming, charity event, will be top quality and priced accordingly. So I was thinking quality event still, but at that price, a bargain.
Clearly, she sees a charity event as something different. Or has somehow tied it up in herself rendering my comment tawdry and cheap in her view.
There's no right or wrong here. Both views are perfectly valid and all in between, but I am sharing this because psychologically, I was really intrigued by how vastly our views of the same thing differed. How differently two people who think they are broadly similar in outlook can see the same thing. I'm seeing it as an opportunity to do something interesting and donate to charity at the same time. She sees it as giving to charity and the fact there's an even attached seems almost secondary. An altogether more idealistic and moral view that has failed to even get close to appearing on my radar.
I'm with you Mary, I can't see that commenting on the value of something is an issue, whether for charity or not. Surely it's better for her you check before you commit, than order tickets to have to let her down. Unfortunately charities do attract people who do things for their ego rather than a true desire to help
I confess that I've got very wary of charitiesIf I go into a charity shop, it's a shop. I buy or I don't buy following all the same criteria that I follow in any other shop. The charity has stepped into the commercial world, I treat it as a commercial entity
If somebody is rattling collection tins in the street, if I have a decent opinion of the cause, I'll put money in
I will not give a charity my name or address. If I want to be associated with a charity, I approach them, and in some cases work with them. I'm not going on their mailing list
Jim wrote: "I confess that I've got very wary of charitiesIf I go into a charity shop, it's a shop. I buy or I don't buy following all the same criteria that I follow in any other shop. The charity has stepp..."
Actually, most charities haven't got a shop to enter the commercial world, it's an income stream. My bugbear is the people who come knocking on your door, and won't accept 'I already give to 4 charities so can't afford to do anymore' and try to persuade me by saying how little it is
I always tell the people who knock on my door that I have dyscalculia and can do nothing by direct debit. What is so sad is that when I say that and suggest that I give them a tenner they aren't able to take the cash from me. Presumably that's policy to Guilt me into signing up. I have done courses on charity marketing and fundraising, and the reason I didn't do it professionally for long was because I am simply not unscrupulous or free of morals enough to do something like that full time. Some of the stuff about obtaining more money from people who already give by guilting them into extra donations is horrific. Especially as many of them are elderly or vulnerable and have a little more to give - like the woman in the temple with the two bronze coins. And a lot of the charities know this.
Blimey MT, I've just had to google that! I couldn't do it professionally, I'm not good at asking for money when taking people's cats.
Desley (Cat fosterer) wrote: "Blimey MT, I've just had to google that! I couldn't do it professionally, I'm not good at asking for money when taking people's cats."I hear you. I cringe when I have to ask people to pay for books.
Cheers
MTM
M.T. wrote: "Desley (Cat fosterer) wrote: "Blimey MT, I've just had to google that! I couldn't do it professionally, I'm not good at asking for money when taking people's cats."I hear you. I cringe when I have to ask people to pay for books...."
Oh that I can do, with verve and alacrity :-)
M.T. wrote: "I can't put this one on my blog, but I had a slight altercation with friend yesterday, really offended her without the slightest clue what I was doing. If I talk about it on my blog she might feel ..."It's emotional blackmail, MT, and you are well within your rights not to fall for it! Like most of the others, I'm with you all the way on this one.
BTW, I finally got rid of a long-term friend once I finally realised that her sarky comments had turned into sneers and downright undermining my confidence attacks. So what if I'd known her 40 years. I should have got rid of her at least 20 years earlier.
Your friend sounds like she's made of the same stuff.
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
Ulysses (other topics)Ulysses (other topics)
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr (other topics)
Steady Past Your Granny's (other topics)
Steady Past Your Granny's (other topics)
More...
Speedy Delsey! Thanks! Just popped in to share. Here it is. More frothy mouthed ranting from me.
https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/06/04/da...