How to…

Posted on by June 29, 2023

At least win a skirmish with KDP on getting data out of the system…

Okay… if you’re a indie publishing through Amazon, I finally figured out how to get a report for an individual book out of the new ‘dashboard’ for various periods. Maybe everybody else knew this, but I sure as hell didn’t…
Open your reports- Select Royalty Estimator and you get the 1st photo-
In the upper left corner, select Choose a date and you get a pull down menu. Select the interval you want. (NOTE: Do THIS step BEFORE you select a book otherwise you get this month’s data.)
Next select books- DESELECT all books, then pick the book you want data for, and click apply 3rd photo.
Your screen ‘should’ change and you get something like this. It gives you a decent quick look, and if you want a more detailed in depth day by day look, go to the upper right corner and download the ‘report’.
It will download an Excel spreadsheet with a file name something like this- KDP_Royalties_Estimator-+ a long string of numbers. 
This is the bottom of the Excel spreadsheet with all of the different sheets produced for each item. This is really nice if you’re doing an anthology and want to share the data with other authors in the anthology!
There are also a number of other ways to use this, going all the way to the entire history of the book, or you can build your own custom periodicity.
Hope this clarifies at least a little bit of utilization of the ‘new’ dashboard, and I’m gonna use the hell out of this!

Another one…

Posted on by June 29, 2023

Bites the dust… Now they’re after Ernest Hemingway!

Readers have now been warned. Anyone in our enlightened age who is crazy and daring enough to read Ernest Hemingway, an author who is not a person of color, not trans, and not a victim of white patriarchal oppression, will now be waved off by Hemingway’s own publisher.

The UK’s Telegraph revealed Saturday that Penguin Random House, which publishes Hemingway’s novels and stories, has slapped them with “a trigger warning” due to “concerns about his ‘language’ and ‘attitudes.’” Hapless new Hemingway readers are also “alerted to the novelist’s ‘cultural representations.”

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

This is getting old…

And it seems Randy Penguin is involved in a bunch of these. One wonders why and who is in charge over there…

Just one more reason I’m glad I’m a Z-list indie author!

TBT…

Posted on by June 28, 2023

Sigh… The end of an era… Now folks like me truly are dinosaurs.

Sixty years ago VP-30 got their first P-3As. And on 23 June, the last ASW variant P-3C UIII left NAS JAX for Davis Monthan and the boneyard.

Sadly, I had other things going on and couldn’t make the trek to see it off, but a number of friends did. I did a tour in 30 as an instructor from 78-82, primarily teaching UI and UII versions.

A total of a little over 7000 hours in them over 19 years, and I’m now paying for the ‘fun’ we had back then, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. The things we got to do, the places we got to go, and thankfully no idjits with cell phones recording it all!!! LOL

The P-3 is continuing in service in ‘other’ configurations, with NASA, Customs, and various other nations, so the birds will contribute parts to keep them flying!!!

A little humor…

Posted on by June 27, 2023

OLD AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE

Don’t be worried about your smartphone or TV spying on you.  Your vacuum cleaner has been collecting dirt on you for years.

If you can’t think of a word, simply say, “I forgot the English word for it.”  That way people will think you’re bilingual instead of an idiot.

I’m at a place in my life where errands are starting to count as going out.

I don’t always go the extra mile, but when I do, it’s because I missed my exit.

My goal for 2023 was to lose 10 pounds.  Only have 14 to go.

Ate salad for dinner.  Mostly croutons and tomatoes.  Really just one big round crouton covered with tomato sauce and cheese.  FINE, it was a pizza . . . OK, I ate a pizza!  Are you happy now?

I just did a week’s worth of cardio after walking into a spider web.

I don’t mean to brag, but I finished my 14-day diet food supply in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

A recent study has found women who carry a little extra weight live longer than men who mention it.

Senility has been a smooth transition for me.

Remember back when we were kids and every time it was below freezing outside they closed school?  Yeah, me neither.

I may not be that funny, or athletic, or good looking, or smart, or talented.  Uh – – where was I going with that thought?

I love being 86. I learn something new every day and forget 5 other things.

I think I’ll just put an “Out of Order” sticker on my forehead and call it a day.

Just remember, once you’re over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.

Having plans sounds like a good idea until you have to put on clothes and leave the house.

It’s weird being the same age as old people.

When I was a kid I wanted to be older.  This is not what I expected.

Life is like a helicopter.  I don’t know how to operate a helicopter either.

It’s probably my age that tricks people into thinking I’m an adult.

Marriage Counselor: “Your wife says you never buy her flowers. Is that true?

Me: “To be honest, I never knew she sold flowers.”

Never sing in the shower!  Singing leads to dancing, dancing leads to slipping, and slipping leads to paramedics seeing you naked.  So remember, don’t sing!

Here’s a math word-problem: If you’re going down a river at 2 MPH and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to re-shingle your roof?

I see people about my age mountain climbing; I feel good getting my leg through my underwear without losing my balance.

So if a cow doesn’t produce milk, is it a milk dud or an udder failure?

Coronacoaster: noun; the ups and downs of a pandemic.  One day you’re loving your bubble, doing work outs, baking banana bread, and going for long walks and the next you’re crying, drinking gin for breakfast and missing people you don’t even like.

I’m at that age where my mind still thinks I’m 29, my humor suggests I’m 12, while my body mostly keeps asking if I’m sure I’m not dead yet.

You don’t realize how old you are until you sit on the floor and then try to get back up.

We all get heavier as we get older, because there’s a lot more information in our heads. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

LibertyCon 2023 AAR

Posted on by June 26, 2023

I’m just going to start by saying I’m not tagging folks because I KNOW I will forget a bunch of folks that deserve mention… sigh… Old man, suffering from CRS over here!

Brandy, Rich, Tish, and the rest of the crew did the usual outstanding job of putting on a great program! Many thanks to those who work behind the scenes every year to make all this happen!

Flew out Thursday since I had an ‘early’ panel on Friday and I don’t like connecting flights, especially through ATL or CLT…

Lots of folks were already there/showing up by Thursday evening, and most were saying they were leaving Monday, turning a 2 1/2 day con into 4 1/2 days… LOL

Thursday night was basically catch up with folks and catch as catch can for food, etc. City Cafe was closing on Monday morning, so many folks made the pilgrimage to get a meal there! I’m still not sure if they’re renovating or what, as we had the grumpy waiter who wasn’t talking a lot since they were packed as usual.

Friday morning was the memorial shoot, and I had to miss it due to my panel… sigh

This is, as far as I know, the only picture of me on a panel (thankfully an early one), thanks to Kelly for the pic!

Luckily, my panels were spread out over the 2 1/2 days, so I had some breaks. And I did a reading with Kal Spriggs that was fun. Sold a few books, thanks to help from the NTT contingent (Becky) for doing the sales while I tried to talk to folks and sign books!!!

I ended up moderating a couple of panels, (always a challenge), but I don’t think I screwed them up too bad. And I’d like to thank those who expressed appreciation for our attempts to inform/educate/give ideas to those in the audiences!!!

And as usual, panels ‘I’ wanted to see were almost always against the ones I was on…sigh

Just a word of warning for those who go to cons where we are, if we know you’re knowledgeable in a subject that we’re talking about, we WILL jerk you up on the panel (Thanks JY, Greg, and the others)! We’d rather get you the correct info that try to BS our way through it or give you bad gouge.

The parties got started in earnest on Friday night, and the 5 (more or less),3,1 rule went into effect. It seems that 5 hours of sleep was the most some folks got…LOL

It was BUSY, the additional 250 people seemed to make less time to talk to individuals, with more waves and nods as we passed in the various hallways. The Gaming room got a lot of use, and there were a number of younger kids there (always a pleasure to see). A lot of money was raised for charity, from what I heard, and Larry’s Gritty Cop Show raised a good bit for his game!

The only real negative, at least from my prospective, was the flat network at the hotel and 1100+ nerds, it was D…O…G…slow, so I never bothered after trying to connect Thursday night. The weather that moved in Sunday afternoon/evening wasn’t a lot of fun either, the rain that had held off showed up in spades along with a lot of wind, screwing up a bunch of supper plans!!!

Hopefully, everyone made it home okay, and has good memories of the time we shared!

Home!!!

Posted on by June 26, 2023

Survived the weekend and the trip, back home and now comes the ‘fun’ part… laundry…

If you’re REALLY bored, JR Handley put up Episode 262 of Blasters and Blades last week and Joelle Presby, Josh, JR, and I talked about writing a believable space navy for science fiction!

Link is HERE for the podcast. Warning, it’s an hour and half long. 🙂

I’ll have a post up tomorrow with a rough AAR on LibertyCon 2023. Suffice to say, it was fun, tiring, and a whirlwind of folks, panels, and parties!

LibertyCon 2023!!!

Posted on by June 21, 2023

I’m joining a lot of other folks in Chattanooga, TN for LibertyCon this weekend. If you’re there, here’s my schedule-

Feel free to catch up with me or sit in on the panels.

Regular blogging will recommence next Tuesday, so go read the folks on the sidebar!!!

TBT…

Posted on by June 21, 2023

Another throwback picture from an airshow at NAS Moffett Field… I ‘think’ this was 88…

The top of the Hangar 1 is 198 feet, and the average hot air balloon is about 70 feet.

IF I remember correctly, they were ‘flying’ them about 50-70 feet up giving the kids rides.

The white 2 story ‘building’ on the right was where FASO held training classes.

Here’s a ‘windshield tour of Moffett in 2022 by somebody. Good pics of the current status of the hangar now, and a bit of the museum. That drive in was SO familiar!!! Six years at Moffett off an on…

Book promo…

Posted on by June 20, 2023

Raconteur Press just released a new anthology, Pinup Noir

The blurb-

Everybody loves the femme fatale; the tough-as-nails dame with the smoky voice and the legs that go on forever – almost as much as they love the cynical gumshoe with the strict moral code and the tiniest soft spot in his heart.

Hard-boiled detective fiction – America’s gift to literature – was introduced to the world in the middle of the Roaring Twenties, allegedly reached its height in the 1950s; and if you listen to the pundits, died out with the pulp magazines.

Hogwash. Hardboiled detective fiction lives on in its offspring: the roman noir, film noir, neo-
noir, Mediterranean noir, and last – but certainly not least – cyberpunk.

Join these 8 authors as they explore the world of the hard-boiled detective and the dames they love.

And Kelly Grayson has another short up for pre-order! Scattered, Smothered and Spellbound: They Call Me Tully

The blurb-

They call me Tully, and I was the first Waffle Haus Sheriff. I’ve been policing monsters, mixing pancake batter and scrambling eggs since the whole thing began. Nowadays my job is senior recruiter for WHISSC, the Waffle Haus Internal Supernatural Security Corps.

It’s challenging work. The labor pool of folks capable of holding their own against rowdy Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Werewolves and the odd Ghoul or Wendigo ain’t exactly deep, but I’ve got an eye for talent. A WHISSC operative has to be a formidable fighter and above all, have good diplomacy and conflict-resolution skills.

This is Waffle Haus, after all. Everybody’s welcome here.

Not good…

Posted on by June 19, 2023

Truly not good at all…

A tourist submersible has gone missing while on a diving trip to the wreck of the Titanic, sparking a massive search and rescue operation in the North Atlantic.

Driving the news: U.S. Coast Guard officials said five people were on board the submersible when it lost contact with the vessel one hour and 45 minutes into the dive on Sunday afternoon and it was reported overdue some 900 miles off Massachusetts’ Cape Cod.

Full article, HERE from Axios.

The weather is rough out there right now, with a significant seastate working up. The north Atlantic is never really smooth, and this will hamper search efforts.

The Titanic is 12,500 feet down, meaning only deep submersibles have a capability to reach it. These are NOT submarines. They are specially constructed units with a small pressure sphere surrounded by equipment and batteries than can stand that depth.

They also don’t have a lot of power, mainly thrusters to move them slowly at depth. IF, big if, they hooked a floating net or something else, it is possible the submersible got hung up and cannot surface.

There aren’t any rescue vessels that are capable of rescues at that depth, they are limited to 5,000 feet maximum. There are only a few deep submersibles in the world, and they all require a mothership to launch them. The mother ships aren’t fast, probably a maximum of 15-20 kts, so if one is available in the northeast US or Canada, they are 40+ hours minimum away.

Yes, the Coast Guard, the US Navy, Canadian Navy, and CP-140s and P-8s are out searching with buoys and visual/other sensors. But, they are also limited by the seastate, especially on visual searches, and sonobuoys barely get below the thermocline out there,  and as far as I’ve heard, no one has had any indication of an EPIRB, float, pinger or anything else that would indicate the submersible is down.

I guess what I’m saying is say a prayer for them…