3.18.19 As a follow up to my blog entry of 3/11, I went through a rigamarole to cancel my T-Mobile account today by phone, since the chat I engaged in to cancel it apparently did not take no matter what I did. I waited about 15 minutes before I gave up on the support staff. Today I changed my phone number and found out my phone was not really activated, so I got that taken care of. Then I phoned T-Mobile to make sure my account was canceled. It turned out that nothing was done, so I enunciated clearly to make sure what my needs were. The staffer started spouting about new features on their account which I had no need for, so I was firm about canceling the account. I still had to pay about $60 for the month of March, when I stopped using their phone on the 8th. This is a warning to others: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. T-mobile kept advertising lower rates for new users, which is simply not fair to its existing customers. As a result of changing carriers and getting a new ohone I will be paying about 1/2 what I was, so the advantage is mine. Next I'll be looking into telling the TRMS show what happened, so they will have some kind of accounting about the impact of their news about T-Mobile. ♦
3.15.19 Please pardon the dust. I purchased an SSL certificate for all my sites so it will take some time to rearrange everything. ♦
3.11.19 As part of my efforts to reach my customers I added a snippet of code which has apparently been missing from my pages since I first started out. I don't know how many times I will be doing this, as the rules for posting on the internet keep changing every day. But at least I have caught up with what is absolutely necessary to make the pages visible.
Meanwhile, work on my newest book proceeds apace. I anticipate publishing it as soon as March 25, though I may be able to finish it sooner. ♦
3.05.19 Why I switched my cell phone provider: Today I learned from Rachel Maddow that T-Mobile executives, in an effort to influence the Trump administration to favor their merger with Sprint, had spent some $195 million in stays at the Trump International Hotel. This was a 135% increase in stays over the 2 in 2017. Forthwith, I bought a new phone and more inexpensive plan, and will be closing my T-Mobile account as soon as feasible. It has become apparent that as long as Trump is POTUS there will be companies who will curry favor by bribing Trump to approve mergers of this kind. Not only has T-Mobile been my carrier for over 5 years, it started charging higher monthly fees since day one. Since most of the calls I receive are either spam or requests to sell my house or take out yard work at my expense, I got tired of the smart phone. So I have gone back to a real flip phone with a camera. That's all I really need. Clearly I am not the only one. I am sure that there will be others who will vote with their feet on this one. T-Mobile will soon find itself losing customers like crazy. ♦
2.12.19 Today marks a new start. I have left both Etsy and Smashwords, and started to publish my own ebooks in several formats. Right now the books are available as PDFs and EPUBs. If anyone has any desire for another I can publish another but these are the most popular. I am looking into other viable marketplaces to showcase my work in all areas, but some will not sponsor digital downloads, so it will probably take some time to find more. In the meantime, please visit my two other sites and you will find some interesting things for sale.
Work proceeds apace with Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century: The 1950s and I expect to publish it sometime after the 16th or so. I am finding new films to add since they were not on the list of films which were considered science fiction. My criterion is to list films which have some science included in them. I am on the fence about some others, but I will have to determine if they meet the criterion before I do the final edit. ♦
1.31.19 I have been having a few issues with Smashwords, where I have published most of my ebooks. Their meatgrinder processor is not reading the files correctly. I have revised the files several times in an effort to comply with their rules but I can't really get past it. The fact is that when I look at the doc files in Word, they are fine. So I can only conclude they are ignoring the problem. I am debating whether I should just not bother to publish the books (especially the nonfiction books) in ebook formats. Is there any point in publishing them in ebook format at all? Meanwhile, I have taken the abridged books off publication and just relied on KDP, where they don't have any problem with the files I upload.
Meanwhile, I am on the fence about Etsy, which is where I keep a secondary shop to my own. I am finding that the fees to even post on Etsy are onerous enough that I am slowly migrating my things to Bonanza. When I sell something on Etsy, not only do they charge a final value fee, they add a fee to the shipping charge. This makes me charge free shipping in order to avoid the shipping fee. I sold something a couple of days ago and will be paid 1/2 the price thanks to the fees. How am I supposed to gain a profit if I am doing nothing but paying fees? This is not fair.
♦