Week 953
Day 6665 - 9/30 - Doing a thing
Today has been ok. My tummy is a touch upset by food, but I knew that was a risk. I did chicken because I just get so tired of the same 3 lunchmeats all the time. And chicken at the food store isn't great.
I did do work on my psychology theory. Just a little every day this week so far, but it won't take much. I've probably got 10 pages unformatted, at most, and I'm mostly done. I expect I'll easily finish and do some edits and post it by the end of next week unless there is some reason I can't. It's a bit tough to write because each section connects to the other, and you can't really 'get it' until you understand all the parts. So hopefully it makes sense to people how I've ordered things.
Again I sent an email to dad and it bounced. Today would have been his official birthday, but I still have yet to hear anything. I had a panic attack last night over my own end and nearly started crying and shaking, but managed to hold it together before that started happening.
Hopefully things will get better soon. I may run into bill trouble real soon if not.
Day 6666 - 10/1 - A long pamphlet
Today I basically finished my 'book' for my psychology theory. It is really more of a long pamphlet. Without formatting it's basically 20 pages. And those are small sideways half pages at that. I'd be surprised if it were much longer with formatting. I'll do the formatting tomorrow. Then over the next few days reread it a few more times to make sure it makes sense and ponder if anything else should be added and then put it online near the end of the week. I probably can't realistically recommend more than $1.50-2.00 for a suggested pay what you want price. I expect there are toms of self help books that are much longer and under $5. It would be nice if a ton of people help me out and pay something and it becomes a replacement for what has been lost from not getting help from dad. But honestly I expect, as seemingly is the case with everything I do, there will only be a few interested and it will mostly be ignored and forgotten.
Day 6667 - 10/2 - Looking old
Today I put my book into layout form. I decided to take a picture of myself for the author bio section. I hope it is just temporary, and probably due to my losing like 40 pounds in the past couple of years, but at least for the moment I look old. I have a lot of lose 'chicken neck' skin, and my cheeks are drooping, and I have pretty sunken and darkened eye areas. It made me feel very sad to see that. I know without surgery there probably isn't much that can be done about that. Hopefully if I can return to a normal life and diet that can go away at least a bit. But right now, today, it made me feel very old and sad.
I guess overall the day was ok. I felt a touch ignored and forgotten, but that isn't really anything new. When I can I will proceed forward and leave behind as much as I can that makes me feel that way. But sadly that can't be today, nor can recovery from looking old. So I continue to try my best to hang on.
Day 6668 - 10/3 - Exhausted
Today I am super exhausted. I was much too tired to think or do anything. I lost half my night's sleep, which is the worst.
I guess the day wasn't too terrible though. I had ok fun and watched some shows. Though I had a bagel with dinner and I guess that was a mistake. My tummy has gotten upset now. It shouldn't take too long to clear though, so hopefully I'll feel ok again soon. I have a really rough throat, am sneezy, and have some congestion, so I may have a cold.
Day 6669 - 10/4 - Ok so far
Today has been ok so far. It's only just after lunch. I played a bit, watched a bit while having lunch and that's really it so far. Tummy feels ok. There is a different food and I made careful choices. It's getting, I guess, even more sensitive to gluten and lactose. I may have to put a full ban on chocolate, or at least limit it to just a little once or twice a week at most. And I really need to do a full ban on orange cheese that isn't cooked. It's starting to upset my tummy more than it is worth. But I avoided these things today, so far I'm ok.
Day 6670 - 10/5 - More eye poking
Today is another eye poking. It's going to be earlier than usual, so I will get to the library, and have only a teeny bit of free time, then need to have lunch, then it will be time to go. I may get to some book checking while I'm waiting for the eye poking, but it might be difficult to make notes on what I want to change since I wouldn't have my laptop out. Hopefully the eye poking will go ok and things don't get worse. I think overall things have been a bit better lately, though I still really wonder if my eye blurriness has far more to do with my overall stress and wellbeing levels than it does the eye bump damage.
Day 6671 - 10/6 - Probably book prep
Today I'll probably be doing reading and changes to my book I'm going to release. I hope it will help some people and doesn't go completely unnoticed. I doubt it would ever be recognized by the official psychology community since I don't have a doctorate nor have done any research on my thoughts. But learning that it helped some people in the form I could release it in would be nice.
It would be nice if it helped to get some income since my pen and paper writings haven't really gotten much attention. While it was a decent very small bump, it honestly wasn't a whole lot more than what I put into it, and certainly has come nowhere near the replacement for the help that dad was sending that I'd hoped it would be, which of course has become critical since his help has indeed stopped. I'm hoping to put it out by the end of the week, though I don't know how long it would be held for any kind of review. Hopefully it will be available by mid-month. Though that's really the point I'll probably start to really start freaking out about upcoming bills. Around mid-month I'll need to seriously consider putting some special collector's edition game stuff I have for sale to make up for the missing money dad would have sent as help. Unless other help comes, or the release of this new book has completely insane sales over what I expect, I'll be hurting pretty badly for bill money that will be coming due in December.
But I continue to try to hang on. I continue to hope help does come in time. And hopefully I can make it to better days.
Week 954
Day 6672 - 10/7 - Still super sick
Today I am still very sick form the weekend. I think I was starting to get sniffles and sneezes on Sunday. Monday I still just had some but my throat was also starting to feel scratchy. But Tuesday I was sneezing and coughing almost non-stop. And Tuesday night I had a bit of chills and for a few hours my nose was running basically non-stop. I had to have a paper towel there. Thankfully today I am feeling much better. My throat is almost not scratchy and I've just had about a dozen or so sneezes all day. Thankfully coughing has almost stopped too, which I think was what was mostly destroying my throat.
I guess today was pretty ok. I am totally out of it due to my cold, but I think I basically finished working on my theory book. I was going to submit it tomorrow but I may hold it back a few day sto do another read through when I'm feeling better and less confused overall. I may just jumble things up and do a terrible editing job with this current cold confusion.
Day 6673 - 10/8 - Re-format pause
Today was pretty good. It passed very quickly. I was a bit slow in the morning, so I think that tweaked my perception of things as well. After lunch I started a final edit of my theory. I finished that around when I would normally do an afternoon play session. But I decided to skip playing and instead see about submitting online.
I didn't expect what I bumped into. I had done the pre-editing work as just one big text file, then imported that into the layout program, then did some final edits. This process is very similar to the pen and paper hobby stuff I've done. What I bumped into is that format the layout program exports to isn't really compatible with the specific e-reader format. Those apps want just super basic text. So tomorrow I'll try a free program that makes the basic text a bit not as basic and re-format it, moving the layout form back into a basic text form with that program. Hopefully that won't take too much time and I can easily submit it tomorrow. I don't see why it would. Worst case scenario that should just be copy and paste like 30 times and checking for any formatting changes.
I am a little worried about the appeal of the price though. At the recommended 70% commission (at this first e-store) the least I could charge would be $2.99, which seems like a big ask for what it is. Without the formatting I'd guess it's only going to be about 18 to 20 small pages. But if I reduce the price to like $1.50 I think that would be more appealing, but that means I drop to 30% commission, which means I'd have to sell around 4.5x the number. Which honestly I don't expect to sell a whole lot. Granted at the higher price, with the higher commission, I'd only need to sell 100 copies within the following 2 months to clear the bills that I'm in danger of not being able to pay, which seems like a reasonably reachable figure. More would certainly help and could go to the car insurance I'm currently forced to pay month-to-month.
I did put some chat out on the social pages, though I doubt any will respond. But if I get a few responses from regular readers that $3 seems like a fair asking price then I'll feel better about it.
Day 6674 - 10/9 - Up to 72 hours
Today I finished the book. It took way longer than I thought, which is sad, but it's fine. I had the time. Now we have to wait for up to 72 hours for review. I think though if that is only business day time, and due to Monday being a holiday, that may not clear until closer to a week from now.
Someone did respond to my comments about the price. They asked if my motivation was to make big sales or put it out there. And they are right. Really I want to be sure my theory gets out there to the world, even if I never see the result of that during what's left of my lifetime. So I decided to go for super availability and make it $0.99. I hope that if people love it and want to help me out they will look at the end where I mention my patreon and they can send some help there.
On the one hand that is sad I'll need to sell like 6x as much as the higher commission and higher priced $2.99 price, but on the other that means possibly way more people will see it. I think, even though $3 isn't a lot of money, it's possible way more will give it a chance at $0.99 since that's so little of an ask. And realistically with how few I expect will get it, even long term, I would likely never see any real income from it, so better that it be affordable to far more.
I guess we'll see how it does in time. I won't worry about the hold, as I expect I'll get an email when it's cleared. And I expect it won't help save me from the upcoming bill shortage in mid December and I'll need to take a serious look at selling my special collector game stuff late this month or sooner.
But overall the day was pretty good. I did the thing. I suppose this is another step in being an author that is bigger than it feels. My cold is getting better, though today I still have a pretty congested throat, chest, and yucky cough. But I am a bit better than before.
Day 6675 - 10/10 - Two more
Today I decided to check if there were any other big online sites to sell my eBook at. There are two I found that seem worth trying. Though attempting to do so ran into issues at both sites.
The first one I tried hung during the sign up process, so I waited a few minutes then refreshed the page. Then it initially seemed ok, but I can't find anywhere to actually submit the eBook. I wonder if something glitched. I sent a help request, but due to the weekend and holiday it may be until the middle of next week before I get a response.
When trying the second site there was ridiculous lag. The page just showed a loading swirl forever, so I eventually gave up and tried again a few hours later. At that time it got to a tax info section and now says it could be 15 days to verify my info, which seems insane. I did submit my eBook there, which has a similar 72 hour wait time for approval. But if it's held for the tax stuff first, then that could be weeks before the submission is cleared and available.
I guess short term this is a huge stumbling block. That two month window before I could be in big bill trouble will rapidly approach. But long term I guess it's irrelevant, since once my stuff is up at the three sites, then it should be up there for everyone to grab forever. And any future stuff I do should just be the 72 hour review period.
I suppose I had a pretty good day other than those stumbling blocks. I took a decent amount of the day off and tried to relax. Next week I've decided to put together my short stories and poems into a collected work and post that on the sites as well when I can. Hopefully that would be likely to sell 100x as much as my theory will. But maybe between the two I can get that bump I was hoping for from selling my pen and paper stuff. It's going to be a rough time priced at $0.99 compared to the pen and paper submissions at $10. But who knows, maybe the pen and paper stuff has so much smaller of an appeal than my other stuff that it will generate far more. I guess we'll see in time. Though the most likely scenario is, like seemingly everything I do, only a few will ever really care for and appreciate it.
Day 6676 - 10/11 - No change yet
Today, I suppose not surprisingly, there is no change on my eBook submissions. So far the day is ok. Things were a bit slower in the morning, so I'm 'behind' a bit in terms of timing, but Sundays that doesn't really matter.
I am still recovering from my cold. There's still probably the most congestion in my chest and throat (mostly felt around my heart) than maybe ever before. I still have an occasional cough that has yuck, but it's only a few times an hour now, and sneezing has stopped. Hopefully in a few days I'll be fine again. I suppose after typing and posting this I'll probably just try to relax, play stuff, and maybe watch some stuff.
Day 6677 - 10/12 - Lost day
Today likely will be a lost day. The library is closed, so I'll have to spend half the day at the shower place and then it will be forced outside time. I suppose weather should be 'fair', so it shouldn't be too hot or too cold, so that is good.
Day 6678 - 10/13 - Maybe movement
Today there will maybe be some movement on my theory submissions. I don't really expect approval and such until later in the week, longer for the sites which say they are doing tax verification.
But as usual things are outside of my control, so I continue to take one day at a time and try to hold on as best as I can.
