An Ode to Book Reviews

An Ode to Book Reviews

my ebook floundered 

in the internet lake

I gave it away

for review's sake

yet no reviews do I see

sales graph like a cadaver

on an E.K.G.

This morning this little ditty came to me when I checked my Amazon book page, a task I do almost every day with the same outcome.

Last week I set up a five-day free giveaway of my ebook with the simple request that anyone downloading the ebook leave a review. Well, so far only one person out of the sixteen who downloaded the book has written a review.

Sometimes the best antidote for disappointment is writing a jab at the source of the frustration. Not the people, mind you, but at the frustration that I don't know how to fix what seems to be wrong without help.

Determination Versus Surrender

Holy Squirrel Nuts, am I the only one like this?

Since the end of the last ice age, I have jumped into a wide variety of hobbies. I believe this condition was first identified by ancient Roman philosophers who named it; "Varitus Maximus Stupidicus" or, "to much variety makes you nuts." It goes something like this; I apply myself for a while and develop a modest level of skill. Then, after considerable trepidation, I show my work to the world. The praises are profuse until I casually mention that the work is for sale. Then, like the "bum's rush" of years past, the admirer backs away from the conversation as though I had pooped myself.

The story has repeated itself with my paintings, wood carvings, walking sticks, you name it. 

"If I make it, they will leave."

So now I find myself wondering, "why the hell bother?" Like ol' Pavlov's pooch I have a pretty good idea that the end results of this latest experiment will end the same way. Namely, me hoping to make money with my most recent expression of temporary talent, only to find out that, once again, I have been kidding myself.

Then, after realizing that the value of my work seems to be zip-a-reeno, I surrender to the realization that I have created another dust-catcher for some loved-one who is too polite to refuse yet another gift. Some say that I should keep going if it makes me happy, but isn't that just delaying the inevitable? Hell, at least ol' Pavlov's pup knew when to turn on the slobber faucet. I, on the other hand, have some human hysteria telling me that maybe this time things will be different.

So, what do you do when the only logical course of action seems to be ending the hobby? Do you hang on with determination? Is desired outcome only reached after determined effort?

Maybe that determined effort is how we show the universe that we are serious this time, and not just playing around.

Keep on keeping on.

Climbing the Learning Curve

I didn't realize that the learning curve for setting up my blog would be so challenging. Of course, it doesn't help that I chose to leap from arm-chair quarterback to super-bowl in one crazy attempt. when I tried to set up two blogs on two different platforms. 

Yeah, I know Forest; "stupid is as stupid does." But, thanks to YouTube I have waded through most of the confusion and arrived at first base with my blogger blog live, and my website attempt on hold for the time being. Trying to learn two different methods for setting up a functioning blog had me as craze as a monkey trying to make love to a football wrapped in barbed wire.

This blog is still very much a work in progress. To be honest there have been more than a few times in this challenge when I felt like the effort was wasted. Usually, it occurs during those private moments when attempts to improve some glitch in the site navigation decayed into the desire for an extended stay in a mental hospital. Then, as in any learning curve, the incline grows even more difficult, forward progress slows even more, and my sanity is halfway down the block heading for who knows where.

So, why do we do it? Why do we take on challenges that push us out of our comfort zone and into uncharted territory? After all, it would be so much easier to curl up in our complacency and perfect our procrastination skills. But, that is not the way most of us are hard-wired. We crave learning like a carnivore craves red meat. We revel in the chase for new knowledge and bask in the feast of conquered challenges. 

We learn we grow, and we improve.

Blogging is like talking underwater

Remember that philosophical question that goes something like this; "If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Well, I'm starting to wonder if blogging isn't a little like that.

Honestly, I keep seeing an image of me trying to talk underwater when I was a boy. I made some noise, and had to be a little careful about how long I talked, but knew full well that my words ended up sounding like bubbly nonsense.

I see that image whenever I think about this blogging thing. Now maybe for someone living on-line with limitless energy and optimism, someone who has hundreds of online social media contacts this blogging is a perfect fit. For an old fart like me with a sum total of seventeen Facebook followers as an online presence...well, maybe not so much of a fit. First, you have the time siphon of learning how to set up a blog that actually works the way your vision wants it to. Then, when you are down to your last dozen hairs on your head, you have to figure out why the hell your well-crafted words are getting all the attention of a television-evangelist on Super-Bowl Sunday.

I have paid for just about every e-book about blogging and making money with a blog I could find. My conclusion? The people making money blogging are the people writing books about how to make money blogging. The beauty of that line of work is that those writers don't have to know what they are talking about. They string a bunch of words together that sound like a discussion about blogging, often repeating the words in other chapters with a few substituted adverbs, then upload to book and put a price tag on it. The reader ends up with a virtual book full of virtual knowledge and a very real migraine headache from the eye-strain that comes from looking for worthwhile information that will help him create a successful blog.

I do have to wonder whether the term "successful blog" isn't an oxymoron with an emphasis on moron. Still, I have to consider that the term may fit in my case since some wonderful troll felt it necessary to his daily happiness to stop by my author Facebook page and leave me this one-word message of support, "Moron".