I have been mostly writing at HubPages recently.  I’m happy to have you come visit me there.

Some recent posts:

Backlinks and cream: about spammy backlinging practices

Some people say “Excuse me” as they climb by.

Some don’t bother to climb at all.

Some kick other folks in the throat and laugh as they fall.

Some help other people climb.

Some climb up so far and are happy.

Some are never happy.

Some find a ladder that isn’t so damn crowded.

What kind of climber are you?

At one point the band played and sang Sinatra’s “I did it my way”. I would say almost all the men and quite a few of the women sang along, mumbling most of it but always enthusiastically belting out “I did it my-y-y-y way!”

And yet – most of them surely did not.

Most of them spent their lives doing what someone else told them do to. Not only what, but when and often how. That is the typical definition of an employer/employee relationship, after all:

Direction and control – Under the common-law test, a worker is an employee if the person for whom the work is performed has the right to direct and control the worker in the way the worker works both as to the final results and as to the details of when, where, and how the work is to be done. The employer need not actually exercise control, it is sufficient that the employer has the right to do so.

(From State of Texas Tax Audit Manual)

Unless you work for yourself, you really shouldn’t be singing that song, should you?

You’d think that would cut car expenses and mileage but it hasn’t that much because of my wife’s illness (trips to doctors) and the long trip to see her father at his nursing home each week. Between those things and the outside work that I still do, the yearly mileage is still 24,000 or so.. it was 30-35 in the “old days” (not even ten years ago!) so I suppose that’s something, but it could be better.

Dunkin Donuts often has grumpy employees. Not always, but often. Honeydew almost always has smiling, friendly people. Not always, but almost always.

I like DD coffee. Honeydew is OK, but I like DD. Still, given a choice, I’ll go to Honeydew before DD.

Don’t be putting a shot of grumpy in whatever you are selling.

After extensive updating, I decided to raise the price. $9.95 was really too little, so I’ve bumped all of them to $19.95 with discounts for multiple purchases. Considering the length, quantity and quality of information, that price is still low.

I’m experimenting now with different sales pages for the most popular book. I want to see which draws the most sales over a month long period.

That didn’t happen this year. First year ever for me..

I wonder if it will be the same this year. Will I get as much paid up as I used to? Will the customers let the checks age a few more days before mailing them?

We’ll see.. I hope it’s not a bust because I paid off some things early too – anticipating that I’d have the cash flow to match. That might not work out..

On the SEO front,  I noticed that these books hit the Google sweet spot for at least some of the phrases I wanted them to rank with, so I’m happy about that.

The graphics definitely improved click-thrus to the sales pages – easily four times more than what I was getting with text links, so I’m very happy about that investment.  Unfortunately, conversions haven’t risen proportionally. It’s only been a few days – could be too early to say, but I probably do need to do a better job on my sales copy..  oh well, there’s always something to work on, right?