Episode #80: How Not To Run A Digital Business

As most of you probably have been able to ascertain from reading this blog, I've been looking to get back into the writing game after retiring from my day job late last year.

To that extent, I decided to re-do and re-publish an old e-book that used to be available on Smashwords but will now be exclusively available on Amazon.

Jumping ahead by 300+ words or so, the sticking point we had to deal with for the past two months was getting a cover. I briefly had issues with my usual designer {turns out my initial two e-mail when to her spam folder by mistake, which got immediately rectified once this particular incident ended} so I went off in search of another designer. 

After making some general inquiries to about a half dozen on what genres they did or didn't do, I found one which I thought would be good, Jesh Art Studio. I sent off an inquiry via FB on the type of genres she did and got a response a day or so later, complete with pricing and a form to fill out.

Here is where things went sideways.

I initially sent the form back on 2/22. On 2/26 I sent a short e-mail asking if she had received it. She said yes, give me a few days to produce something. On 3/5, I sent another inquiry asking for a status update as well as a billing link to pay for the cover {note, due to her response of 2/26, I made a financial commitment to get my book formatted, which in hindsight I could've easily waited another couple of weeks to do}. On 3/7, got an apology for the late response and a promise to have a 1st draft in a couple of days.

Despite another inquiry by me on 3/11, I never received another response from her. I waited a week and decided to give my original designer another shot. And the rest, as they say, is history.

There is a fine line between nudging along and being a pest when it comes to stuff like this. My original designer does say up front that can take one to two weeks to produce a sample, of which I made a mental miscue on this time around and apologized for the miscue. But this person had no such disclaimer on her website. So I was careful with the time gap of the e-mails that I had sent to her. 

But it seems in the end that she apparently decided that i wasn't worth the $300 sale. Which is kind of sad, if you think about. Graphic design, especially for book covers, is a highly competitive niche market and it's imperative that you make things as clear as they can be for potential customers about openings/length of time etc (I came across one who announced in 2019 that they were entirely booked for 2020 and weren't taking commissions until spring/summer 2021). Treating them like garbage is a sure fire way not to get any potential business from them.

But, there is a happy ending to this story, which I will be giving/showing to everyone next week.

Until then, have a happy week, just like these dogs.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #79: I Feel Like Running To Deja Vu!

Way back in the pre-Covid days, when you could say practically anything and not get punished by Big Tech for it, this is what Autumn on Cedar Mountain used to look like, smell like and be like.

{long record scratch that is overly used in most t.v. shows and videos}

But, we're not here to talk about that. Instead, we are mining another olden blog post from one of my previous blogs, this time the blog known as Father Nature's Corner. This was general purpose blog #2 (5th overall) that was created back when I was well on the way to Blogger burnout and I thought that creating another general purpose blog would help with my burnout {note, it didn't}.

Anywho, the content started taking a semi-dark and cynical turn and the post that I'm featuring for my Classic Quotated hashtag is no exception.

For those who don't know the real me, I've always had a semi-tolerated/completely hate relationship with the telephone, going back to the days when I was a lad and was constantly doing the "I'm not the person you're looking for" spiel for people looking for pere Sr, and not me. And this particular post just continues that particular relationship.

This classic post features my years long hatred of Ally Financing (formerly known as GMAC Financial) in regards to my now paid off car loan. The way my finances worked in a one paycheck household was that more often that not, there were bills that I chose to be late on. This was one such bill. How I handled the phone calls associated with this loan, which happened at least 6 times a year, is the subject of our post. From Father Nature's Corner, I bring to you the October 4, 2015 blog post entitled I Are Aggressive. Enjoy!

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #78: Down Dat Der Wabbit Hole

Spring will be spring very soon, so here's a little pic to start off your week with.

The other day, while I was chillin' in my den watching YouTube, I started riffing on Davey & Goliath, usually doing Goliath's popular refrain of "Davey!". Eventually I got to thinking about whether or not there were any episodes on YT, since you can find almost any old time t.v. show there.

After putting in the initial search term of "Davey & Goliath and coming with about a dozen or more variations (including some parodies), I found a complete 74 episode binge-worthy play list.

So yeah, I'm doing another binge of a t.v. series. Unlike the last show I binged on (Frasier. Best show ever), which was from my recent adulting efforts of the early 2000's, this one is very much a complete blast from my childhood. Kind of like the cleaner version of Gumby/childhood version of those Sunday morning adult morality tales (that were actually quite good).

In other fun news, I may be finally getting a cover soon. It's been a long strange journey to get the cover and I'm very glad that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Don't worry, I'll share my journey soon. I the mean time, I leave you with episode #1 of Davey & Goliath to start your week off with. Enjoy.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #77: Re-wash, Re-rinse, Re-repeat

Hello! Welcome to I Have Stories!, where excuses are often masqueraded as pearls of wisdom. As you can probably figure out, 'cause you are one of the smartest readers I has, we're still blipped. With it being tax season and the like, original critical thinking is still sitting on the curb, frantically waving their arms trying to get my attention.

Because of this, we are once again doing a very deep dive of the Cedar's Mountain blog archive, subject label "Humor".

In this particular case, the subset is "computers".

Background: I am old enough to remember using old fashioned computers and the like. I used the Tandy computers in computer class; the BASIC programming language; the 5 1/4 inch floppy discs; cassettes (yes, cassettes were one of the main ways of saving/loading programs); and the most popular computer game at the time was the Oregon Trail. 

Anyways, this particular piece of poetry may confuse the heck of some of you (like the dial telephone does with today's youth), simply because it covers terms that your parents (if they're north of 50) are familiar with. 

So enjoy this ode to the computer called "A Poem for Computer Users Above the Age of 40", post date 12/10/2012.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved