RiggerLee

I missed your comment but that is a really cool program. It might pay for them to be a little selective. Looking at the glut on Amazon, a glut that I am now a part of, I can see why most books fail. Self publishing has changed the world but the old publishers did serve a real purpose in gate keeping. Wow. That got weird. So I was doing an update on RR and I decided to copy it over here... I got this. Not sure how to fix that. I guess it's technically readable. If you're really interested I guess you can suffer through it. Lesson learned. Write here first. So I've been trying some things and if nothing else I've learned some lessons. Biggest project has been trying to learn about how to use Google Ads. It's changed a lot sense I sold T-shirts on it. It's complex and I don't think I have all of it figured out yet but I have learned some lessons. You get set up, You can upload different versions of your ad in different aspect ratios. So you can have like 15 different images. You can also include different titles, taglines, text etc. As far as I can figure it mixes and matches all of these options depending on the location and space that it is placing it in. Pretty cool. You can ad all kinds of keywords and audience segments. And you can choose locations to market it in. Then you give it a daily budget and it goes out and starts spending your money. I only gave it like $20 which is all I can afford and more then I can reasonable justify. This is when it got interesting. It proceeded to blow all my money in Algeria. I guess it thinks there are lots of scifi fans that want to read about time travel and dinosaurs in Algeria. It also pissed away my money in Venezuela and Indonesia and India. Bot farms. It pissed away all my money to bot farms. So I got all those blocked. Then it spent all my money in south Korea and Japan, better and not what I'd call my core audience. So I blocked those. Then I wound up restricting it to just north America and Canada. Then it spent all my money in Quebec the one place where they don't speak the language that it is written in. So in the end I had to restrict it to just the US. And now it seem to at least be working fine in that regard. Key words. I put in all the standard ones for the book but I also included some less common ones just for fun. It's a book about hunting dinosaurs so I included things like Big Game Hunting, Hunting, Shooting. So now it decided to concentrate my entire budget on "Big Game Hunting" And I did get clicks from this but no book sales. I guess very few other people were bidding on Big Game Hunting. It was cheap. I cut those out. Now it finally resorted to advertising it in categories like Book Reviews, E-books, and Books. And I have gotten a couple of sales. Not enough to pay for it self but something. I haven't given up yet. BookBub is still clicking along. literally It is producing clicks. Not huge numbers but at least I think I can say that it was from book people. I can't see exactly where trafic is from on Amazon for my sales but I think I can attribute sales to my little BookBub ad. It's click through rate is dropping so It may be running it's course. I'm thinking about doing a sale on Amazon and advertising it through BookBub. They have a different ad system to get on to their books on sale list. I haven't looked into that but it's on my to do list and probable my next move. Thinking highly of BookBub. RR ad. Yep I payed my $55 to you. It has in fact generated traffic to the book here on RR. It has produced followers and it has produced Read Later. I can't directly attribute sales to it It was set up to drive traffic here on RR in hopes of spurring sales. That part has not materialized but I still think it was worth it. Russ Hall advised me to sign up with Draft2Digital. They distribute E-books all over to lots of small sites. I have to say that they are much easier to work with then Amazon and now my book is every where. Their E-book converter is much better smarter and easier to use then the one on Amazon. It produced a nicer e-book then Amazon did. The biggest one there is probable Apple Books. From D2D I can click on it and it takes me to the page on Apple Books. Looks good. The thing is I can not find it searching on Apple Books. The discover-ability is zero. At least on Amazon I can find the book. I haven't sorted through the others as closely to see what they are like. Two of them are very interesting because they sell to Libraries. Over Drive and Baker and Taylor. Libby system. Didn't know a lot about this. So I went over to the local Library to ask them about how they do E-books. It was very gratifying to see my book at the top of a display in the center of the library. Turns out they are a part of the Libby system. They are part of a 60 library coalition that pool together to buy books. So is one of them buys my book on the Libby system then anyone in all 60 libraries can check it out. With only one copy only one person can have it at a time. It's like a physical book. That person has to "return" it for some one else to check it out. For best sellers they have hundreds of copies. She is going to order a copy for the library next week. That means that when any one in all sixty libraries searches for Science Fiction in their libraries E-books It will show up, at least if they scroll down far enough. Even if some one else has checked it out they can still see it and get on a list for it. They say that it's a very active system. So that looks promising. I'm working on an Audio book through Elevenlabs but that is going slowly. So that's the latest news. I think Overdrive and Baker and Taylor are worth checking out for access to libraries through Libby and other services. Lee Hardsety

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Sounds like he just got to Nairobi. Be advised that all the people you are about to meet are real people. And all the guns are real guns. That was one of the funnest sections of the book to write. There is so much history there to weave the story into. The places are real right down to the inscription on the fireplace. Suggest you read West With the Night, and Man Eaters of Tsabo. Out of Africa became famous because of the movie but they changed Berrails name. I think she was still alive at the time and they didn't want to embarrass her. There are also a score of hunting books from there as it was one of the main ports at the time. Roosevelt went on safari there and stayed in the hotel. Lee

Does google ads advertise them in Algeria for you because that's where they were determined to blow my budget. I finally restricted it to the US and Canada because I just could not control their ad spend. Lee

Hmmm. Thought I replied to the above. Not sure I would have grounds. They would just claim that I failed to comply with their terms of serves. bottom line is I'm screwed on that one but I also learned all I need to know about them early so minimal loss of investment. Now we are on to google ads. Wow they have changed since I sold t-shirts through them. Way more complicated now. I think I finally got my campaign set up right??? It seems to be running anyway. There was this thing where the ads were being restricted based on "Click Bait"? There is an "Appeal" button but no way to submit any further information. Which is bull shit. Oddly enough, it worked. That restriction seems to have been lifted for those two ads. I have a bunch of ones that are paused because I thought I needed to configure them in all different ways? I think it might do that for me, like cycle through all the different images? I haven't actually seen one in the wild, which is a problem. So I got it running finally and I instantly started to get thousands of impressions and hundreds of clicks... All of which were bullshit. I do not believe that there are thousands of people in Algeria that are dieing to read my time travel novel. Apparently I have thousands of fans in Venezuela. Would you like to guess how many impressions Google served up to the US my home country to people who speak the language that the book was written in? Zero. Nodda. Apparently they don't think that anyone here might be interested. So I blocked all those countries. It got a little better. They actually resorted to presenting 78 impressions in the US. That's interesting is that those 78 showing of the ad produced three clicks. So it seems like people in the US like the ad and might even be interested in the book. But no, they decide to shift the entire campaign to Korea and Japan. I let that go for a while cause people there do read but they completely stopped the views in the US and has not run the ad again since. So I just blocked those countries. We'll see what happens now. I don't know what to make out of this. Google ads at least seems to work but they go off the rails trying to waist your money. You have to watch them like a hawk. I haven't made a judgement on this yet but that's where we are at. I was talking to Tom about this and he takes it as evidence of "Dead Internet Theory" I'm not sure we are quite there yet but with AI controlled bots I think we are getting close. We used to sell t-shirts and it worked. I don't know how any one sells anything on the internet now? Lee

More lessens. Signed up for X. Payed for Premium Plus in advance for a year. Set up my X Advertising account. Put in the ad... And imeadently there is a orange exclamation point. I find a message That the account has been locked because someone on the account had violated the terms of service? I had literally just signed up. Tried to find out what the problem was. Spent hours on line with a bot. It finally transferred me to a human, still by chat, they don't own a phone. Or it was supposed to. The chat just died. Nothing. Crickets. Tried to contact them by other means. Nothing. I payed for Premium Plus there is a line that they are actually supposed to answer. Nodda. Finally I get so sick of this that I cancel my whole account. They do not give refunds. $276.50 down the drain. Fuck my life. I swore that I would tell every one I met about this to the end of my days. I called my friend last night. Told him. Texted another. Told him. Meeting of the writer group coming up. You can bet that I'm going to tell all of them in the middle of the meeting. X is the Worst place to advertise of all of them. Never use X! You want to know what does work? BookBub! Signed up the same night as X. Totally different experience. Smooth. No problems. It's generating lots of views. And it's generating lots of clicks. More views, more clicks, less money, then I was spending on Amazon Sponsored Ads and they love my cover rather then kicking me off for it. BookBub rocks. And #@%$ X. Lee

Aw haa. It is you. You are the one unaccounted for 11th book outside my imeadent family that I guilted into buying copies. The mystery is solved. Lee

Oh, cool the cover actually loaded. Win. Lee

First, no I'm not dead. Life has been kind of crazy here over the last few years. The phrase is overcome by events. But while I've been setting around on my ass I was board, like really board. So board that... wait for it... I wrote a book. Setting here patently waiting for the laughter to die down... Still waiting... Try not to hurt your self... A paper bag will help with that... Can you control your self now? Good. So it's a very typical run of the mill scifi novel. I can confidently say that it is as poor as any first novel ever written. So the question on the floor is how do you con, sorry I meant persuade, people into giving you money for a book? You know I'm not a salesman. I hate fucking salesmen. I don't have that gene. Has anyone ever written and tried to sell a book? How do you do it? Where it's at right now: Hired an artist, cover is done. Hired an editor, feel sorry for this poor bastard, he had no idea what he was walking into. Editing is done. Managed to format it. I think it looks pretty good on the inside. Published it on Amazon through Kindle direct publishing. It's up right now in paperback, hardback, and e-book. Rather then go with Kindle Select/Kindle unlimited I started serializing it on RoyalRoad and on Wattpad. I thought I might get some traction there and it has been getting some views but they have not translated into sales. Tried to sign up with Amazon Sponsored Product Advertising. Got booted because there is a gun firing on the cover. Signed up with GoodReads. Tryed to do a giveaway through them but my ad was rejected for being insensitive. It's a note you can send to those not selected in the drawing. It was funny as shit but they didn't like it. So no giveaway on GoodReads. Might have dodged a bullet there. If my response to the losers that were not accepted in the drawing offended them then I shudder to think what they would have made of the book. Rather then a hundred glowing reviews I could have gotten a hundred pieces of hate mail. Not sure what to try next. As you can tell this is not my lane. Oh, I guess I should post the book here. I so suck at this. Trapped in Time This story is being serialized here as a promotion. This book is available on Amazon in print. It is also available on Amazon in e-book. Feel free to continue reading on those platform I copied that from RR. Wow that looks funky. And the cover looks funky. It's way bigger then that. What's up with that? Can you see it? Lee

That is good. Personally my life hit a bit of a pothole a few years ago but I'm to put a bit of it back together. Looking to check in how the world has progressed with out me. Lee

Is any one still on here? Lee

I'm trying to understand your question and your thought process. If you look at the stress in parachute fabric it's a product of the radius of curvature of the fabric and the pressure differential. If you neglect the curvature along the gore and just focus on across the gore then it comes down to the "fullness" of the gore at that point in that condition of the canopy. Round canopies have a stable steady state "shape" that they want to be when inflated. They tend to fail during dynamic over inflation/breathing of the canopy. The actual failure occurs when the canopy, as it breaths, runs out of "fullness" This causes the local radius of the fabric to become too large and the fabric can not support the load under that condition and splits. Or it fails at the seam. I've been super board lately and I've been spending a lot of time talking to Grok AI. For fun I started a conversation with it about how to build parachutes where I was trying to walk it through this though process. It's kind of long winded but it walks it through some of these questions. Grok did pretty good. It's not a bad student. If you can access this take a look. https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_5bf950e5-3c02-4fd3-92fe-f5a0ca787bc6 Lee

I'm not dead. The last five years almost killed me, but I survived. I don't want to go into it but I became the care taker for my mother for the last few years until she finally decided to stop breathing. But the important thing is I am still alive. Which is more then I can say for dropzone. It seems to not be where I left it. What happened to this place? On a more relevant issue, I don't know how many people will appreciate the joke I don't know how many people here will still remember my post, but I wrote a book. Yes the most illiterate person on the internet is now a published author. Que the laughter from the gallery. I know you wont believe me so check it out for your self. https://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Time-only-hope-future-ebook/dp/B0FHJHG4Q2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0 And yes the world has finally come to an end. Just look at the flooding here in Texas. Today I saw a dog and a cat walking down the street with each other. I'm expecting fire from the sky at any minute. But all jokes aside, Check out the book you might even consider buying one like relic. Phisical proof of a divine marical. The artist guy did a great job on the cover although it came out a little darker then intended, but he wasn't cheep. And the editor, the poor editor. That man deserves a meddle. He needs to be paid off too. So buy a book because they deserve it even if I don't. In the mean time, what have I missed here? Lee

Came across this article. I don't know which dams it refers to or where they are located. Is the section in twin falls dam controlled? It seems placid and consistent enough in water level that I always assumed it was. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/court-filings-reveal-secret-agreement-between-biden-admin-eco-groups-seeking-tear-down-key-power-source Lee

The video I saw was on a guns channel on YouTube. It appears to be a big thing with higher end air soft events. I'm not talking kids in the back yard I'm talking grown was men that fly across the world to play glorified paintball at international events with a thousand attendees. They apparently go through 10 of thousands of these grenades in one event. Apparently this is a big thing. Did not know that. So you are a very small part of the market. As always we are riding on some one else's coattails. It sure is nice to have smoke so the audience can see the demo teams. But if this market collapses, we are not enough to keep it afloat, you might have to say good by to affordable smoke. Depending on how this goes you won't be able to buy it any more. The FAA might not allow you to use what you have on demos any more. Every one in possession of it right now is by deffinition breaking the law. I don't think any one is going to come hunt you down but if you got into trouble for something else in theory they could add it as a charge. Let's say there was a fire at your house and they found "explosives" in your garage. Now your looking at federal charges. I checked paragear. They were still selling... Something? Didn't look like what I think of as a smoke grenade. Maybe a "pyrotechnic"? Say your budy gets a demo and needs to buy a couple of grenades off you. Selling transfering transporting storing conspiracy... It sounds silly but every thing with the ATF is silly. Say your friend shows up at the airport to jump into his local school and is talking to the FAA and he asks something like... What have you got there.. I had not seen this mentioned but people should be aware of it. Lee

Had trouble posting. At first I thought it wouldn't let me use the word grenade turns out it wouldn't accept a simple YouTube link. WTF? I was going to post a link to a discussion about this rule change. But I guess you'll have to go search for it your self. Lee