Trying To Get Charged Up

Hmmm. This morning I read a post by a fellow blogger that paralleled what I was thinking as I was acting on the thought of motivating myself to tap into my creative impulse. I left the following comment on the Google+ community post:

When the show I had last night was finished, I had this feeling that I had overcome another obstacle. Which meant that sleeping was not an option as I stayed up practically all morning, thinking about what I was going to do to make some income. So I started sharing the link to my self-published eBook in social media. Because right now it's the ONLY thing that's going to bring me immediate income throughout the week. 

That's basically similar to what you've talked about in this post. I was feeling it too. And rather than sit around trying to get motivated, I try to act as quickly as possible so as to make sure the anxiety doesn't reach that action fast enough to be the reason I do it. I try to head it off at "the pass." 

So, since last night, I'm still at it, hoping that this interaction will keep me ahead of the curve, all very aware that I'm sleep deprived and "ghost" like.

For instance, I re-enabled my Fiverr account to get some orders for stories. Problem with that however, is that It's going to take fourteen days from the confirmation of the placed order before I can withdraw that money. I have no choice but to stick with the eBook I already have published.
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I'm also thinking that I'm going to have to force myself to write even more stories to sell asap and hit the internet as well as doors in my neighborhood to make some sales. It's going to be super hard and I can't let up.

Also, who knows what other ideas I'll come up with on the way? Maybe pawn something? Ugh! Suddenly. All of this seems so boring!

Getting Around The Publisher

Last year I wanted to publish my eBook of fiction. I put it off because I didn't know enough about the process of what I was getting into. I mean everything, more specifically, about the formatting.

Because when I first went to Amazon's CreateSpace, I was somewhat confused with how to create the contents and the chapters. So last week, I finally decided it was time to get to it and over an exhaustive two-day period I finally got it. From the formatting to converting into a EPUB file.

As of this writing, this is what my stats look like:

Since this blog is about uphill battles, let me tell you a little bit about this one... in a later post. Right now however, I want to give you the details on what I did past the formatting and creating of the file.

Not only did I get around the formatting tools but the publisher too. Because I wanted to find the best way to set up a cart through my blog without coming across as fraudulent or risky, which plays a big part in why people don't buy (my) eBooks.

PayHip

Yeah, these guys are not getting as much attention as they deserve. Look. I didn't already know that they were trustworthy because I take risks that I don't expect others to take. That's kind of the reason why these things are an uphill battle for me, but most of them haven't failed me so much as I failed them. 

But I looked up PayHip because they do real-time payments to your PayPal account while taking 5% from each sale. This is separate from what PayPal takes, which I had to ask about to know what I'd make back. And you know what? It fucking works! 

Basically they provide the platform to track the downloads with a PayPal cart set up on check out. You upload your eBooks with cover image and they provide the button, stuff like that. 

Your Own Marketing

Now, this is the catch but by design it all makes sense. They don't have a library to browse through the selections. But they do have:

• Affiliate Features
• Social Network Features
• Author Invites

Affiliate Features

These are set up to where you can put the email address of a person who will share out your book for you and a percentage of the sales is set by the author to give to that person. 

Social Network Features

Not only through email but obviously the social network thing is set up. You'll be promoting all the time. 

Author Invites

You can also invite an author to the network as it grabs the contact list from all popular email accounts plus through Facebook. 

I've been checking around other social networks and they don't seem to have too much on them. Like a Google+ page is one follower, they have use of one #PayHip tag in the same network. They've only been around for two years but this thing definitely works.

Also Buy My eBook and enjoy some very interesting, illustrated and highly entertaining stories, 99% independent at a low cost. And if you've got some eBooks you'd like to sell, consider these guys! 

The Harsh Reality Of Selling Online

I just started marketing my ebook this week and it's an exhausting process to follow up with people who say one thing and yet do something else entirely. What people won't tell you is that they don't trust something like a service that they have to willingly give a payment to. I could pitch it as much as possible but you practically have to walk them through the process or again, follow up with them and then walk them through the process. Then, you have to assure them that everything went well. It's a frustrating process because it puts the seller in a situation of sharing the anxieties (sometimes deep seeded) of others. It's certainly disheartening, couldn't all of this be easily resolved by just submitting and taking a chance? (Don't You Trust PayPal?)

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I'm Going After The Vindale Survey Company

Wow. Just... fucking... WOW! These guys are about as shitty as a lot of people say they are!

I had an account with them for almost two years now and had been completing surveys but every time it got around to redeeming, the checks would never come or they said that I didn't have any of the correct information on file. All of this crap that came from their side, conflicting information and just everything you could imagine when it comes to trying to get something from them.

So, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau:

I've been using their service for over a year and every time I've ever received payment from them, there have been issues with delays, the processing of my identification and other problems that caused even more delays. The last thing I did was to redeem the amount owed to me, and on the 31st of October I received a message that my check was on its way but nothing arrived. I was surprised to find that the new email -- I changed on my profile for notification purposes -- I use to log in, would no longer let me, giving me the following error: The membership system returned an invalid response. That error makes me think that I've been purged from the system for some "violation," which might have been the new email change. Which I want to clear up as well as get what is owed to me. On top of this, I did have my facebook account linked to it which I hardly used and I was able to log in with that. That's when I saw that the ticket I had previously opened about the payment problem had been closed with no response, so I added an new entry that reopened the ticket. Then, I went to the chat feature and got a response from a support representative. This support rep said they were going to look into my issue but there was no response. I refreshed my browser and saw the same error message, which meant my facebook had been purged from the system.

It's time to start looking things like this in a different way that's outside of money. Sure, the compensation from them would help, but to simply blow people off and make them go through unnecessary hurdles is something more than just a flub on their part. It's intentional and I'm going to do as much as I possibly can to put a stop to it. Even if it takes getting an attorney to go after them.

My Fight With Uncertainty Continues

I don't remember that anyone ever told me to fight for what I wanted. Because, I don't think I ever knew or made it clear to anyone around me. For me it was enough to just live, be or whatever.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that other than that it's left me unprepared and constantly frustrated from day-to-day. But let me put this together for you.

I don't have time to put together a plan. My daily writing habits usually put me in two modes, 1. at a high cerebral level, trying to come up with something to write about or 2. burnout, where I can't even string two words together to save my life.

This doesn't leave me very much opportunity to write anywhere else. So for the meantime, I'm only writing for one revenue-sharing service where I earn the majority of my income.

This also leaves me with very little choice but to plan out other things that that income can support, assuming there aren't drastic changes. These drastic changes I've written about through the same service, since it seems to immediately benefit those within that specific community.

But it looks like I might have expressed my enjoyment a bit too soon because in another post, I found that my saint-like patience would be tested.

Right now, I'm waiting for some of these redemption payments which are already behind by several days. That's generally not a big deal for me. What is a big deal is not knowing if I'm still going to get the other pending payments before the rules changed when I need them?

I think I might need to explain this a bit more.

These are the dates I redeemed:

[09.21.2014],
[09.25.2014],
[10.03.2014],
[10.09.2014]

The rules are that one month after the redemption date, these payments are processed. So, regarding the first date, I expected to get a deposit notice via email on 10.21.2014.

I understand how things work! If not on that date than maybe two to three days after that. No big deal.

Maybe you're expecting that I'm financially well enough to be so said laid-back, but that's not true at all. I just understand how these things work. I made a commitment to deal with it when I first started; to just be patient.

But here's another very important detail about these redemption payments. The last three dates are at double the payments before them. So, the sums are larger which concerns me a bit more as they're in that pending limbo I mentioned, all during the time that the policy to redeem once a month kicked in with the additional 60 days redemption to deposit date.

All of this is uncertain and even more so if I only rely on this site for income. Besides this very tedious and stressful issue, I don't know that I would be doing myself a service by complaining. Most people get frustrated with even less, and I don't want to be that guy. I am going to stick with it but, I'm also seeing the reality of me returning to those online freelance slave-markets I hate.  

That just makes the fact that money is money more obscene. 

My Writing Warm Up Is Uninspired

I just woke up within the last hour. Not much going on. Trying to get prepared for this coming weekend, specifically Friday for a interview with a musician who's coming into town. The only thing I can think of is prepping up the show I'm going to put him on for my podcast. That might be ready to post on the same day or I'll hold onto it for some other time. Which of the two will be smarter is a hard guess. I want to give an update on some of the things that happened yesterday that gave me a better look at what I have to look forward to. Wow. When you keep your head down and stay focused, so many things can happen to you that you don't realize are until you lookup and see them from a distance.

Dream Tracking And Daily Writing

First thing that happened was having this wild dream, where telling it might get the authorities called on me but it was just a dream, nothing real. I mean if anything, blame the media. But I remembered as much of it as I could and made a mental note after waking up to write it down.

It's been a while since I've written down any of my dreams. I'd already made another mental note to write them down by the bulk as soon as I could. It's one of those things that frustrate me when I don't keep up with them. Especially now that I'm thinking about it, I can't push myself to write them because I have to write other things first like, this post. It's petty but it makes sense to me.

But yesterday morning, or really more like afternoon since I woke up closer to one, I stayed in the living room watching some television until I could move into the room to start writing. My mom was in the room at my desk making phone calls so, I just waited until she was done for me to move right in there and start my day.

Yesterday was probably one of the first few days that I took my time to write something to my best ability. It seems somewhat worthwhile too because my posts got some responses and still frustrated because I didn't completely finish keeping track of all of those things such as putting them on my blogs. It just takes too much time. Now, I'm awake and getting started with my writing day. I also need to follow up on this payment shit because I'm expecting payment for what I've written and so far, I have no idea if it's ever going to happen.

I Forgot What I Was Going To Write About!

I'm going to try something new here. It's something I did before on another blog I post on, where I would post every single post I write every time I would write it. So, that's what I'm gonna do now, starting with this one:

Blank canvas by PixaBay

Let me first tell you why this is appropriate for this blog. Because it's another one of these battles between me and a blank page, what the fuck can I do but sit here and try to muscle through some half-assed ideas to put something on it?

Time isn't on my side when this shit happens and it's extremely frustrating. Even worse is that I knew what I was going to write about only a few seconds before. GodDAMMIT! So it's another obstacle for me to overcome, but again, what the fuck do I do? Well, I try to write about what I was doing in order to jiggle that memory lever. I almost had it. (I Forgot What I Was Going To Write About!)