Summer TV

With the remodel that has been going on in my house, we've been living here sporadically over the last 6 months. Thankfully, that has ended as now all four of us are back under one roof! As it happens, this weekend the wife and the oldest child are out of town for a lacrosse tournament down in Richmond, VA. The youngest is here in town with me... but like all teenage girls... she has ditched her old man.

I thought about doing some writing, but then I get distracted by the horrible paint job and feel compelled to fix stuff. Or I get distracted by the urge to put all of the shelving units back together for all of my 'gear' in what remains of the unfinished space in the remodeled basement. My latest distraction was to see what happened to be on my DVR.

I've literally been home from work for 2 hours and this is what my brain is doing to me.

So, in keeping with my latest distraction, I checked the queue on the DVR and found that two of my favorite summer time shows have returned to the air! I was so happy to see that 'Mountain Men' and 'Life Below Zero' were being recorded while I was far to busy to sit and watch a TV show. This shows are quite entertaining, to me at least, and they keep me inspired.

Seriously, by the time we finished doing whatever we were doing to the house, it's 10:00 PM. At that point, all I wanted to do was take a shower and crawl into bed. I think the wife waits until I get home from work to give me the hard, nasty, or heavy stuff.

Anyway, I am very excited to sit and veg-out and binge watch my shows undisturbed.

Use the Contact page and tell me what your favorite shows are. Which shows inspire you to try something new or approach things differently?  

Water

Water is the lifeblood to our survival... just above food. Without water, you die.

You need to know how and where are the best locations to capture it on your land/home/property, then you need to know how to store so that it doesn't become tainted, and you also need to know how purify it for drinking/cooking/laundry (as your situation prescribes).

However, when it comes to waterproofing your newly finished basement... water is a colossal pain in the ass!

That's all I have to say about that.

Condolences

It is with deep regret that I announce the passing of several characters in the latest installment of the Foreign & Domestic series. As I near the conclusion on this part, it has become painfully obvious that this book has turned more thoughtful and introspective. On more than one occasion during the course of writing this book, a scene has quite literally made the author cry as he wrote it. I don't know if it's because of age and the realization that I have more funerals than weddings and child births in front of me, or if I'm turning into a softy, of if it was the sheer emotional toll that the scene conveys. Many of these scenes were more than difficult to write, but it needed to be done. 

Who Doesn't Like to Re-Read Favorites

Our home remodel has been progressing and I've recently uncovered my old Gen1 iPad. I basically use it as a reader as it can't have the iOS updated any further to be useful for much else. I have many, many ebooks on this device. Anyway, one such book is a book that helped inspire me to embrace certain aspects and elements in life, Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles. (And for the record I have no idea why he includes a comma in his name.)

In this book, he spends a great deal of time taking his "list of lists" (which is downloadable from his website by the way) and detailing the items out in either descriptive text or dialog. Yes, I know this can be off-putting which is why I've tried to avoid do this in my own writing. That being said, one of the more interesting pieces, to me at any rate, is where he goes into great detail to describe water catchment. This got me to thinking... I wonder if YouTube has a DIY of the subject of underground concrete cisterns? 

Well whatdoyaknow! Here are a couple links to just such a project. Enjoy!

Audiobooks

I think I'm about ready to pull the trigger on the generation of an audiobook for each of the first three parts of the series!

No surprise, but I've been doing a lot of research on this. Long story short, I figure that given the fact that I'm already hitched to Amazon, for better or for worse, on the Kindle and paperback distribution, I might as well go and sleep with the their subsidiary, Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX).

It's actually quite an interesting concept in that it is similar to that of the site I used for my cover art, 99Designs.com. Basically, you put your project out there, give a little sales-y spiel as to why it would be profitable via royalty sharing to do the work, and off you go. However, to be fair and to make sure we have a true blue level set, I have absolutely no idea how long it takes for a producer to bite and get started.

In a perfect world, I'd like the same producer and narrator to handle all three, and soon to be four, parts of the Foreign & Domestic series... I really do hate change. Sorry, I'm a creature of habit and I rather do enjoy consistency.

I'll keep everyone posted as to the progress on this front.

As if You Needed Further Proof...

Found this article over at Fox News this morning... like we needed further proof that a nuke fest would be bad. 

Cold War nuclear weapons warped Earth's magnetosphere - revealing what the true fallout could be if World War 3 broke out.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/05/22/cold-war-nuclear-weapons-warped-earths-magnetosphere-revealing-what-true-fallout-could-be-if-world-war-3-broke-out.html
 

Recent Facebook Posts

Sometimes it's easier to post random thoughts on my FB author page since I can do that fairly simply through my iPhone.. To be frank, there are several ***** ** **** employees that live to narc on a contractor for using the internet. Which is funny to me because the wife made me take down a post titled "Your tax dollars at work" and contained a half dozen candid photos of employees sleeping at the desk. C'est la vie.

Anyhoo, there might be folks that have this website bookmarked and don't use Facebook. So, I thought it only fair to post/paste the contents of my FB posts here so everything is equal.

April 16, 2017

People need to learn multiple growing mediums as a check on contaminated soils.

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/1384836634939790/

April 24, 2017

Saw this on my personal page and thought I'd share...

https://www.facebook.com/shtfdad/posts/1110233939082074

05/10/2017

Interesting tidbit.... I've been reading through the first 300 pages I've written for Part IV and felt like it needed more 'zip' or 'pop' or action.... something was just missing. I could feel it.

As a result I added a new set of characters, but I wound up with a wonderful unintended consequence. In a nut shell, the band is being put back together to take on a very specific task. What I discovered with this new set of characters is that, during their individual/group journeys, the very distinct character sets go about travel in a dystopian world very differently.

One set uses their skills to carry favor with small enclaves and towns as a form of currency to barter. Another set employs violence, theft, and subterfuge. While another adopts the 'gray man' principles of anonymity and inconspicuousness. The last two sets employ avoidance of populated areas and rely heavily on hunter/gatherer skills.

It's a very interesting dichotomy that I happened to realize and stumble upon as I added this new set of characters to 'spice up' the storylines.

I sincerely hope people like this latest installment once it's finished and released.

05/17/2017

I'm actually having a ball adding the 'pop' and 'zing' storyline I mentioned in a previous post(s). I've been using this set of characters to give the reader a proper mindset of ruthlessness when a country is essentially lawless for nearly two decades. At last count they've planted six heinous buggers six feet deep.... in very creative fashion I might add.

"It's good to be the King"...

05/17/2017

Friend of mine tagged me in a post for this.... sounds incredibly intriguing.

https://truththeory.com/2017/03/07/ikeas-hydroponic-system-allows-grow-vegetables-year-round-without-garden/?utm_source=March+Against+Monsanto

Recipes Pages

I've been adding recipes so be sure to check out those three pages...

Oh, that reminds me. I added a Wild Game and Fowl page under the Recipes menu. There are books to review on Amazon as well as some DU recipes. There is also a website. Have a look then go shoot something and cook it!

Cold Weather End of Season Sales

In most places of the northern hemisphere, winters icy grip is starting to relent as spring is almost here. This is also true of many stores and internet retailers. As such, this is the right time to look at your cold weather gear and assess its performance.

• Did it get torn or wear out or break?
• Was it not exactly as wind/water proof as you thought?
• Was is not as warm as you thought or would have preferred?
• Does something need mending or another coat of waterproofing?

What ever the situation is with your gear, you should have a good idea as to what worked, what didn't, what broke, and what needs fixing or replacing. If any of these issues ring true with you after this winter, you should be shopping the end of season sales at your chosen outfitter or supplier. Things to keep in mind:

• If you're prepared to purchase (money in hand), go online and "Google" the store you're considering buying from and print an applicable coupon. This works for online retailers too.
• Don't knock grocery stores, not only do they tend to have 'points' cards, but they are also prolific coupon generators. Combine all of these perks with end of season sales for a wide variety of useful products.
• Check those camping, ski, and snowboard gear stores too as they are great places to find extreme weather gear.
• Don't be afraid to 'barter' and ask for a deeper discount than is listed. The worst thing they can say is 'No'. 

For example, I was in my local grocery store the other day and they were unloading several bins of these "HotHands Hand Warmers". With my points card, they ended up being about $0.50 apiece. Best price I could find online was at Amazon at about $0.60 per.  

I use these in my boots when I go duck and pheasant hunting... they fit right under my arch and do the trick every time. My daughters like to sneak 'em out of my pack when they go to sporting events with friends and the weather has already turned to fall or when spring hasn't quite arrived yet.

I figured why not, I had an extra $20 so I bought forty of them.

And this is whole point... keep your eyes open, ask for discounted prices, ask for deeper discounts when things are on sale. Use these methods to your advantage. By doing so, you'll be able to build your resources and gear pile and/or replace existing worn out items on the cheap.

Book Giveaway Statistics

As the author and (self)publisher of all four of my books, I can do whatever I want when it comes to sales, promotions, giveaways, etc. on Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). So, seeing how I hadn’t done much in the way of any of those three forms of promotion in some time, I decided to drop the prices for all four Kindle versions to $0.00 as part of a limited, four-day, ‘giveaway’ promotion.

Honestly, I thought I’d give away a couple hundred free downloads at most.

What I didn’t know, or realize, at the time of the giveaway was the sheer extent of Amazon’s reach. Somehow, some way, a company named eBook Daily found Part I of my fictional series and publicized my giveaway in their newsletter to over 23,000 recipients.

Unexpected… but I’ll roll with it.

In the end, I wound up giving away over 2,100 free downloads, total, for all four books!

Needless to say I was pretty pleased with myself… until I realized the breadth of what I had just done. By giving away all those free downloads, I was also giving away the royalties associated with each downloaded copy.

Here’s how the four-day giveaway shook out for a ‘sales’ perspective… let’s call this the short game:

As expected, Day 1 was pretty much the heaviest day for traffic with a steady decline until the end of Day 4.

What’s the adage… you gotta spend money to make money? Boy, I sure hope that’s true.

If you add up all of the sales (downloads) for each book and then multiply by the royalty generated for each download ($0.35 for each of the $0.99 books and $2.03 for each download of Part III)… man, that adds up fast… especially the royalties for Part III.

A giveaway where I thought I’d forego maybe $50-$100 in royalties ballooned to $1500 reeaall quick…

The good news, or saving grace, is that this is only one of the two ways royalties work with ebooks. I still get paid for each ‘page turned’ on the device used to read the books. This royalty stream pays considerably more than the download royalty. This is the long game…

What I’m hedging, hopefully, is that those 2100+ downloads turn into page views ($$$ royalty) and solid comments and reviews (4-5 Stars) on Amazon.

Or…. It could all blow up in my face… and I paid over $1500 for the experience.

Time will tell.