Tag Archives: Nourlangie

Diary of an ebook -14 How did I get here? Where do I go from here?

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Finally some progress on disaster recovery! The insurance has finally come through almost 2 months after the disaster and I can recoup money I’ve already spent. They had the gall to offer me a Visa credit, after all this time. I said, no, I want cash, so they credited my account which means it goes into their coffers anyway. Its all Suncorp.

I checked XLibris website and they have recorded only one sale of Kakadu Dreaming. That was a copy I Purchased. Despite getting over 1000 hits a day on my blog and over 1200 comments made, I’ve only sold one book. I can only surmise I’m way off track somewhere or Xlibris aren’t reporting correctly. What to do about it?

Well I certainly don’t want to give any more books to them. Meanwhile Lulu.com have changed their policy on Digital Rights Management. I assume this means I won’t be paid for any content on LuLu. When I tried to retire my books they have changed the website, so I wasn’t able to. They don’t have a marketable product anyway.

Currently I’m offering them on WordPress on my other site: christinedeacon.wordpress.com where they can be purchased on CD in .pdf format.I’m wanting to make them available as a downloadable file, but don’t know how. I’m surely not the only one with these problems.


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Diary of an ebook – 12 Disaster Recovery continues

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A month since the disaster hit! Finally it stops raining long enough to pour concrete and dry enough to get a mini-crete truck down the driveway. Meanwhile I’ve received no money from insurance and this has to be paid for out of my meagre savings. I’ve said no to Xlibris to their 2 for 1 offer to produce my next 2 books and am concentrating on getting back my space downstairs to the condition it was in before the flooding.

Meanwhile Kadadu Dreaming is now getting over 1000 hits a day on the blog site. I don’t know if anyone is buying the book, but there are lots of positive comments on my writing ability and my blogsite ability. Some commenters seem to think I know everything about building a blogsite. Really, they have higher expectations than I do. As I said in the beginning its all trial and error.

Just a short exciting update. On going through the comments(I read them and include anything unusual): Someone wants to translate the blog site into Chinese. How amazing is that! I suspect people are getting more than they bargained for with me. I think they are tapping into my Higher Self. Like in the book : Finding your way in a Wild New World – Reclaim your true Nature to Create the Life you Want by Martha Beck

I’ve just been reading a very good book about this. `Finding your way in a Wild New World’ Reclaim your true Nature to create the Life you Want by Martha Beck. Its in my local library and its what I’ve been on about in my poetry. Its time I met my rhinoceros.

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Diary of an ebook -9 Not all in the garden is rosy

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I’ve had discussion with Anne Razel re doing the production on my next 2 books for $1 more that the price of one. In other words 2 for 1. Since I have a number of books ready to go, that was very tempting.

However I have not seen results from their first effort, on KAKADU DREAMING – no sales figures, nor royalties, nor feedback from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, who have it now for sale. I do however have a number of complaints from an internet search on Google of authors who have been ripped off by Xlibris.com

Despite desperately wanting to get the backlog of books into production, I decided that I needed these issues addressed. Hence I sent a copy of them to Anne Razel, refusing the two for one offer.

Since the books are New Age spiritual books, I did not feel I could ignore the lack of integrity I was seeing in the complaints. Here are a couple of examples:
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8/6/2012
5:36 PM

Xlibris Corporation, Xlibris Publishing, Penguin Group, Sharon Lauta, AJ Barco Has been withholding royalties payments, underpaying me royalties, telling me they will pay and months and months have gone by with no payments received. Bloomington, Indiana Author: Northern California Questionable Activities: Xlibris Corporation
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6/9/2012
1:21 PM

xlibris publishing i published in 2010 with them and had no sales i then got a family member to purchase a couple copies as well i purchased one they still said no sales , then i recieved royalties for 49 copies Internet Author: red lake Ontario Book Publishers: xlibris publishing

Xlibris Publishing Xlibris2 BOOK selling everywhere but NOT A ROYALITY IN SIGHT Bloomington, Indiana Author: Los Angeles California Book Publishers: Xlibris Publishing

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10/25/2010
10:07 PM

Xlibris publishing E-Books royalty of over six months reported on Amazon E-books, but failed to be reported and not paid by Xlibris. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Author: Sacramento California Language:
Xlibris publishing

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12/15/2009
6:59 PM

Xlibris Corporation xlibris publishing company won’t send my signed contract. i am trying to end my contract but they won’t let me. won’t answer my calls, won’t return my emails. when i get through to them lay hang up or have me on hold for long Bloomington, Indiana Author: norfolk Virginia Questionable Activities: Xlibris Corporation

I can only say, reluctantly I said no to their offer. So now I’m looking for another publisher. Alternatively I can continue publishing this blog with links to my other books: Australia Down Under, Uluru by Arunda, String of Pearls, Killer Whales, Gemstones Down Under, or publish this blog. By the way,
these are available on CD by contacting me at : christinedeacon2@gmail.com


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Natural disasters – earth changes

One of the indicators of earth changes I was shown was a meteor shower. In a dream sequence, meteorites hit people on the skin. This is a report from Russia on Friday from Big Pond News:

‘A plunging meteor exploded with a blinding flash above central Russia on Friday, setting off a shockwave that shattered windows and hurt almost 1000 people in an event unprecedented in modern times.

The extraordinary event brought morning traffic to a sudden halt in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk as shocked drivers stopped to watch the falling meteor partially burning up in the lower atmosphere and light up the sky.

It appeared the meteor’s entry into the atmosphere was not linked to the asteroid 2012 DA 14 which is expected to pass about 27,000km above the Earth later on Friday in an unusually close approach.

But experts said that the fall of such a large meteor estimated as weighing dozens of tonnes was extremely rare while the number of casualties from its burning up around a heavily-inhabited area was unprecedented.

Chelyabinsk regional governor Mikhail Yurevich, quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency, said 950 people were injured, with two-thirds of the injuries light wounds from glass shards and other materials blown out by the shockwave.

Windows were blown out by the shockwave across the city’s region with the ministry saying almost 300 buildings were damaged including, schools, hospitals, a zinc factory and even an ice hockey stadium.

‘At 0920 (1420 AEDT Friday) an object was observed above Chelyabinsk which flew by at great speed and left a trail behind. Within two minutes there were two bangs,’ regional emergencies official Yuri Burenko said in a statement.

The office of the local governor said in a statement that a meteorite had fallen into a lake outside the town of Chebarkul in the Chelyabinsk region and television images pointed to a six-metre hole in the frozen lake’s ice.

However it has yet to be finally confirmed if meteorite fragments made contact with the Earth and there were no reports that any locals had been hurt directly by a falling piece of meteorite.

Schools were closed for the day and theatre shows cancelled across the region after the shock wave blew out windows amid temperatures as low as -18C.

‘Thank God that nothing fell onto inhabited areas,’ President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with the Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov, ordering him to look into how to warn citizens about such events.

The Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement that it estimated the body to be several metres long and weighing several dozen tonnes. ‘It burned up at a height of 30-50km … but pieces could have fallen to Earth as meteorites.’

The meteor explosion appears to be one of the most stunning cosmic events above Russia since the 1908 Tunguska Event, when a massive blast most scientists blame on an asteroid or a comet impact ripped through Siberia.

‘I am scratching my head to think of anything in recorded history when that number of people have been indirectly injured by an object like this … it’s very, very rare to have human casualties,’ Robert Massey, deputy executive secretary of Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), told AFP.

But he stressed that he saw ‘absolutely no connection’ between the Chelyabinsk event and asteroid 2012 DA 14, which was to skim the Earth later on Friday at a distance of around 27,700km.

With the meteor already becoming a leading trend on Twitter, locals posted amateur footage on YouTube showing men swearing in surprise and fright, and others grinding their cars to a halt.

‘First I thought it was a plane falling, but there was no sound from the engine … after a moment a powerful explosion went off,’ said witness Denis Laskov.

‘In a lot of the houses on our street the windows were blown out,’ he told state television.

The Chelyabinsk region is Russia’s industrial heartland, filled with smoke-chugging factories and other huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the massive Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre.

A spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy state corporation, said that its operations remained unaffected.’

How to buy My Other Books: christinedeacon.wordpress.com

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Diary of an ebook – 7 Disaster Recovery

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I had rung to apply for the Qld State government grant to recover the lost costs of food and other hardships suffered during the cyclone. They hadn’t rung me back so along I went to the newly opened Disaster Centre in the Tamborine Community Centre. This was funded by the government with helpers mainly volunteers and councillors organising the response. I went first on Saturday and was told it was a 5 hour wait and to come back later in the week.

I went back on Tuesday. This time they gave me a raffle ticket. At 3 pm I was too late to get in that day, but at least I had a ticket to come back the next day. They advised me to come before the Centre opened at 10 am. I turned up at 8 am and there were already people there. Most had tickets, so when the Centre opened around 8.30, those with tickets were let in and could access the facilities in the Centre including a seat and toilets. They then called out the tickets that had been issued since Friday, and those people had priority. That was about 3 hrs worth of people and bear in mind the processing officers hadn’t arrived yet to even begin.

When I was moved up to the next stage, they were still processing people and letting them into the hall, where the queues were about 3 hours. Well before midday, they closed the queue for the day and people were told to come back the next day. There was uncertainty whether they were even going to continue the next day. These people who waited all day, in my case 5 hours, had all suffered damage, some had children, babes in arms with them. To say it was over whelming is an understatement. However it did bring out the best in most people. There were volunteers who provided lunch with goods supplied from Coles.

A Channel 9 filmcrew arrived and interviewed some of the people waiting, so we had our entertainment and proved some for those watching the 6 pm news.

Of course they were mostly locals, so you chatted to your neighbours and told stories of what you’d endured during the cyclone. The woman I had minded a place for while she went home to attend to some business, (I told everyone was my imaginary friend, as I moved a bag up, as we edged closer to the front of the hall) had had the next door neighbour’s roof land on her verandah. Yesterday I met someone who had just scattered her husband’s ashes interstate and returned to find her house covered in mould. Is it really necessary to put already stressed people, through more stress? There has to be a better way.

Channel 9 film crew

Channel 9 film crew

When I finally got out of there with my cheque for $180, I had hired a trailer to remove the rubbish to the tip and got on with the clean up. Meanwhile XLibris has now got Kakadu Dreaming up on their bookshop and is taking orders and they have started the classified marketing campaign. I have ordered a copy just to make sure it arrives in good time as standard postage.

Diary of an ebook – 5 Marketing and Promotion

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I contracted XLibris to do the marketing and took a marketing package. They contracted to do a:

Social Media Marketing Package comprising A Goodreads social book account which I’d already set up and a Facebook page, which I’d had running for some time and had 80+ members.

Google Search Marketing – I’d set up the WordPress site for this already, which I’d informed them.

On-Line Banner Campaign –

On-Line Classifieds Campaign – I selected 3 blogs – to advertise the on-lone banner campaign
They produced a 50 worb blurb for the campaign and a cover.

Email Marketing campaign to 1,000,000 recipiants

This all sounds very impressive and professional, I had doubts when it appeared on the XLibris bookstore as a link to Blurb.com.

Next I had a request to purchase a Coast to Coast Book Gallery Tour 2013 After some angst, I declined, saying I wanted to see some results first. This was when I checked the internet for complaints and decided to withhold the last payment on the payment plan due on 26th Jan, Australia Day which I stated as the day for release and book launch


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Diary of an ebook – 4 Publishers

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Since this was to be my first ebook, I looked for ebook publishers. The first I tried was Lulu.com. Despite a lot of difficulties in getting my books onto the site, I did succeed in offering them for sale. They has an ISBN and and were listed for sale.
I was having trouble downloading them myself, but I thought this was probably my inadequate computing power and server problems, but they were not selling.
I did a design on Lulu which is now offered for sale. I didn’t order one, but I have now after reading this: http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/007040_11172011.html

When I was unhappy with the design and in spite of thinking, I’d like all my books in one place, I tried Blurb.com They had a superior design, I could see that. So I went ahead using Bookify, one of several programs they offered. I was happy initially, when I received copies, but needed to alter one or two typos which had slipped through and some photos they identified as being inadequate.

I altered it on line and reordered more copies. Unfortunately the second lot I ordered, had reverted to
the original draft. This was unsatisfactory and I complained and changed publisher again. I had to pay for the copies plus expensive (over priced) postage and I couldn’t sell them, they were not up to standard. http://forums.blurb.com/forums/5/topics/13515

The third publisher XLibris rang me. I may have made an earlier inquiry. They persuaded me to publish with them because they said the book is always in print as they have it in their bookshop and it can be ordered anytime. Blurb were saying it would go offline if I didn’t keep ordering books. I paid for republishing and ordered the Marketing Package for on-line promotion which would promotion the book on-line, including banner ads and an email campaign. Meanwhile I was still progressing myself through establishing a site to promote it, here on WordPress and following the guidelines I’d read online.
http://www.scambook.com/report/view/65902/XLIBRIS-PUBLISHING-COMPANY-Complaint-65902-for-$100,000.00
I was progressing slowly, I now had a cover and a printed copy from XLibris, but still no Bookshop entry, only the Blurb.com previous site. Are they affiliated with Blurb? Is that how they got me as a contact.

The next approach from XLibris was to ask me (sell me) on being represented in book fairs coast to coast in USA. They wanted another $1400 to do this. They were feeding me a dream. I had wanted

Australia Down Under

to go on American market when it was published. I almost said yes, but fortunately at that point I looked up XLibris complaints on the internet.

So I told them I wanted to see some results before I spent any more money. After reading that they didn’t pay royalties to quite a few complainants, I realised I couldn’t win. Even if they did fulfill their contract, I probably wouldn’t be paid! I cancelled the last payment I owed. Fortunately I hadn’t organised a launch and ordered books for it. It was to be launched on Australia Day, today. Its raining cats and dogs from an ex Tropical cyclone and we’re about to be cut-off. I do live on a mountain and these things happen from time to time.

I’ve just had a call from my original Xlibris contact and told her that I was wanting some action to fulfill my contract before releasing the final payment. I don’t know why I didn’t say: get nicked! I guess I still hold out hope for this book.


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Diary of an ebook 3 – Rainbow Serpent

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These are the paintings that should have been included in the text. They are of sites in Kakadu and provided the spiritual insights from the land, that are described in the poems. It is by tuning into the land that another level of awareness arises – the interpretive psychic awareness, the feminine creative side that offers another level of understanding.

The Rainbow Serpent came up from the land in various places in the Dreamtime and created features of the landscape. Sometimes he can still be seen. For example at Homebush, during the Olympics in Sydney he appeared. Later I did a silk painting of him which is what you see here.

From all this came concept of the Kakadu Dreaming book.

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