Sales here are surprisingly good and...

...given I had not expected to sell here, it's all the more surprising. With sales just short of 100 copies I've nearly recovered the cost of printing. I have an agent in the states; so we'll see what happens there. Until I can get a PayPal account set up my online sales are basically stalled. Things tend to move slowly here, so patience is very important.

PayPal here in Thailand is...

...proving to be very difficult to set up. I'm not in Bangkok and the banks here where I live have no idea how to do it. I've made 2 attempts and both accounts were denied approval by the two respective banks. Very frustrating to say the least. I haven't given up; it's likely I'll have to go to Bangkok to get this done. More later...

There is no place to rest...

Kindle Warning...

...There are NO provisions with Amazon Kindle for removing/unpublishing your book! I only found this out when, for personal reasons, I decided to remove my book from Kindle. I queried their site for the way to remove my book and was promptly told there are no provisions for this operation. WTF??? This is BS of the highest order; my book is my property and having signed no contract for longevity I have the right to remove my book with no notice. This is a scary scenario and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I, being of large imagination quickly came up with a way to remove my book, which is no longer available on Amazon's site. I will think long and hard before I post a book there again. They need to come up with a way to rectify what I consider to be a very big problem. That said, I'm enjoying unexpectedly brisk sales here in Thailand.

I would add this; there were more than a few requests to "unpublish" author's books. I found this disturbing as previously stated.

There is no place to rest...

Quality

Having had some time to go through a number of books it appears the quality of the printing and binding is excellent. I have found no printing errors (ink smudges, spots, or bleed throughs). So far I'm very happy with the quality; it is as it should be.

There is no place to rest...

Strange day today (Monday the 25th);

I picked up 560 books from my printer and the ones I checked were fine. I/we then tore the covers off of 540 books from the first printing (disaster) and I took them with me (the covers). How very weird to do that to my books. As we tore away we would check random copies and yes; they all had the same problems. The printer will get 4 baht (about $.12 USD) per kilogram at the recycle center for the naked books.

While I'm satisfied with the final result; I won't use this printer again. There are two reasons for this; 1st, he expressed doubts about wanting to do a job for a farang (western white person) again because; 2nd, we want too high a quality of work. That just completely defies my sense of logic or reason. It's a matter of attitude; one which I don't like. Can you imagine Toyota/Honda/Ford telling a customer that 8 out of every 100 vehicles you buy from them will be defective and that's just the way it is? Mind boggling. The printer didn't even approach his own standard of 92%: his was a 100% failure to deliver quality. Okay, I'll stop beating a dead horse and move on. My real purpose here is information for you; the readers of this blog who dream of having your own book printed.

Now I have 560 books and no idea how to sell them (LOL). Well, now I'll have to learn marketing; let the adventure begin...

There is no place to rest...

Today is Saturday the 23rd (here) and...

...my wife called the printer...he said Monday the 25th at 9 am I can come and get my books. I ordered 500; he printed 560. On the first order he went over by 45. If I do a second printing it won't be with him. This has been an excruciating process that falls entirely on the printer; he mis-spoke/mis-represented his ability and quality and generally got in, way over his head. Live and learn. My wife is an author also and I'll use her publisher's printer for the next book and or, second printing of my first book.

So, we keep going; for there is no place to rest...

Kindle; some comments...

...After a book is uploaded to Kindle, you can do a preview to see how it will look on the device. The text in my book was fine, but the beautiful color illustrations were in black and white. Frankly, they didn't look good at all (picture quality was bad). Amazon needs to include color or what's the point? Think of all of the childrens books and the illustrations that generally go with them. That's a huge market. Think of the possibilities missed; long rides in the car on a family vacation and having a library for the kids to read while on the road; or, in the air; or on the train; or on a long boring bus ride. This will limit their device to text only literature. It does seem an oversight which I fervently hope they correct and soon. At this point the market is wide open and who knows? Competition usually separates the wheat from the chafe.

There is no place to rest...