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I've been adding recipes so be sure to check out those three pages...
Oh, that reminds me. I added a Wild Game and Fowl page under the Recipes menu. There are books to review on Amazon as well as some DU recipes. There is also a website. Have a look then go shoot something and cook it!
In most places of the northern hemisphere, winters icy grip is starting to relent as spring is almost here. This is also true of many stores and internet retailers. As such, this is the right time to look at your cold weather gear and assess its performance.
What ever the situation is with your gear, you should have a good idea as to what worked, what didn't, what broke, and what needs fixing or replacing. If any of these issues ring true with you after this winter, you should be shopping the end of season sales at your chosen outfitter or supplier. Things to keep in mind:
For example, I was in my local grocery store the other day and they were unloading several bins of these "HotHands Hand Warmers". With my points card, they ended up being about $0.50 apiece. Best price I could find online was at Amazon at about $0.60 per.
I use these in my boots when I go duck and pheasant hunting... they fit right under my arch and do the trick every time. My daughters like to sneak 'em out of my pack when they go to sporting events with friends and the weather has already turned to fall or when spring hasn't quite arrived yet.
I figured why not, I had an extra $20 so I bought forty of them.
And this is whole point... keep your eyes open, ask for discounted prices, ask for deeper discounts when things are on sale. Use these methods to your advantage. By doing so, you'll be able to build your resources and gear pile and/or replace existing worn out items on the cheap.
As the author and (self)publisher of all four of my books, I can do whatever I want when it comes to sales, promotions, giveaways, etc. on Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). So, seeing how I hadn’t done much in the way of any of those three forms of promotion in some time, I decided to drop the prices for all four Kindle versions to $0.00 as part of a limited, four-day, ‘giveaway’ promotion.
Honestly, I thought I’d give away a couple hundred free downloads at most.
What I didn’t know, or realize, at the time of the giveaway was the sheer extent of Amazon’s reach. Somehow, some way, a company named eBook Daily found Part I of my fictional series and publicized my giveaway in their newsletter to over 23,000 recipients.
Unexpected… but I’ll roll with it.
In the end, I wound up giving away over 2,100 free downloads, total, for all four books!
Needless to say I was pretty pleased with myself… until I realized the breadth of what I had just done. By giving away all those free downloads, I was also giving away the royalties associated with each downloaded copy.
Here’s how the four-day giveaway shook out for a ‘sales’ perspective… let’s call this the short game:
As expected, Day 1 was pretty much the heaviest day for traffic with a steady decline until the end of Day 4.
What’s the adage… you gotta spend money to make money? Boy, I sure hope that’s true.
If you add up all of the sales (downloads) for each book and then multiply by the royalty generated for each download ($0.35 for each of the $0.99 books and $2.03 for each download of Part III)… man, that adds up fast… especially the royalties for Part III.
A giveaway where I thought I’d forego maybe $50-$100 in royalties ballooned to $1500 reeaall quick…
The good news, or saving grace, is that this is only one of the two ways royalties work with ebooks. I still get paid for each ‘page turned’ on the device used to read the books. This royalty stream pays considerably more than the download royalty. This is the long game…
What I’m hedging, hopefully, is that those 2100+ downloads turn into page views ($$$ royalty) and solid comments and reviews (4-5 Stars) on Amazon.
Or…. It could all blow up in my face… and I paid over $1500 for the experience.
Time will tell.
According to a Fox News article (link below), a second vault is being constructed in Svalbard, Norway. However, instead of additional storage for life giving sustenance, they are storing analog data in the form of QR codes.
It's one thing for nations to store and preserve historical documents like those present in the Library of Congress or even perhaps the scrolls that were once part of Alexandria. It's an entirely different matter when this new vault is open to individuals.
Launched last week, the Arctic World Archive is a place where governments, research facilities, companies and private individuals can store their information for 4,000 generations...
It's this last part concerning 'private individuals' that gives me pause.
Here's the link to the Fox News article. You be the judge. Second Arctic 'doomsday' vault will store the world's data.
Unbeknownst to me, a company/website named eBook Daily is somehow affiliated with Amazon/Kindle. On Sunday, I was notified via a tweet that they had 'highlighted' my first book, When Rome Stumbles, in their newsletter which was sent to over 23,000 subscribers.
Needless to say, I WAS FRIGGIN' ECSTATIC!!
Now all of the numbers I was seeing on the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) website made sense... there were literally thousands of downloads for all four of my books as a result of my generosity in making them all free for four days.
Here's the link they sent to me via email:
http://ebookdaily.com/free-kindle-ebooks/2017-04-02/B00FCFH056
Granted, I'm missing out on some serious royalties (over a grand) as a result, but the point of the freebies was to expand the audience and generate electronic page turns... hopefully that pays off several fold!
REMINDER: Today is the last day to get all four books in Kindle format for free!
No, not THE mob, but rather the Roman mob.
I found myself at a professional sporting event tonight and, during halftime, I noticed something peculiar. The PA announcer declared that it was time for the t-shirt cannon, but the little dude assigned to our section didn't have a cannon. He just had to chuck the giveaways up into the stands.
I like to stretch my legs and walk around a bit during the break so I happened to be standing at the top of of the lower bowl observing the mayhem.
It was then then that I was struck with the oddest thought.
This scene looked familiar...
If you had turned the clocks back 2,000 years you could have been at the Coliseum in Rome.
Just imagine, the Emperor in his little box observing the masses while the breadth of his charity strode in on a cart pulled pulled by a horse or a team of horses. The driver stopping and pausing for just a few moments in front of each section so the slaves could throw loaves of bread up into the stands for the mob.
That is exactly the scene I witnessed tonight.
Try and picture each member of the mob raising their hands, yelling, jumping up and down, all in a vain effort to get the attention of the thrower in the hopes of receiving some of the scrapes from the Emperor.
It was quite surreal...
P.S. Don't forget all of my books (Kindle) are free until April 4!
That's right folks! You read that heading correctly... all four of my books will be free on Amazon for four days starting April 1 and running through April 4. That means you can get all three parts of the Foreign & Domestic series plus the cookbook ALL FOR FREE!
This is not a joke or an April Fools prank.
Just go to Amazon between April 1 and April 4 and do a search for 'David Kershner' and you'll see I'm telling the truth... or you can click any one of these handy links:
I was perusing through my personal Facebook page and came across a post from Matthew Bracken. Matthew is a fellow author and former SEAL. He wrote Enemies Foreign And Domestic, Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista, Foreign Enemies And Traitors, and Castigo Cay. I've read them all and they are rather enjoyable.
Anyway, he shared an article from PetaPixel.com regarding topographical maps. I love these types of maps as they are invaluable when hiking, camping, hunting, etc. Now, given the genre in which I target my books, it goes without saying that this type of map would be invaluable for land purchases, recon patrols, defensive postures, etc.
Many people that read books or watch shows or listen to podcasts geared toward self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and the dystopian genre refer to their immediate area as their AO, or Area of Operations. Knowing the terrain is an essential part of understanding and working your AO to your advantage and to someone else's disadvantage.
According to the article, National Geographic has managed to merge previously unformatted USGS maps with the regular Johnny Homeowner printer. This means that now, instead of having to search for a map and locate your exact location on their grid, you can now just zoom in on your needed location, AO, hunting ground, etc. and simply print the area you need.
Here's the article name and link if you're interested (Just click it... you know you're gonna click it!): Nat Geo Launched a Free Website for Printing Detailed Topographical Maps.
Most, if not all, of the people that would visit this site more than likely have some form of a garden... probably. But how many of you know how many cubic yards of materials are needed in said garden?
If we use my drawing as an example, I'll show you how to determine the amount of dirt, in cubic yards, that is needed to put three inches of dirt in all six of the raised planters.
In a nut shell, and to give you a full measure of the math, we are going to go, mathematically, from square feet to cubic feet to cubic yards... if you can multiply and divide you're good to go.
Square Feet: There are 4 planters that measure 6' long (length) by 4' wide (width) and there are 2 planters that measure 4' long (length) and 4' wide (width). NOTE: The math below does not account for the potato planter as it is filled continuously as the plants grow.
Unfortunately, this information is, basically, only useful for the purpose of communicating the sheer size of your garden when speaking with friends, neighbors, family, and colleagues.
Cubic Feet: To find cubic feet, you need to add the dimension of depth. So, say I wanted 3" of dirt in each planter. To get to cubic feet, I simply multiply L x W x D. However, I first have to convert any dimension that is measured in inches over to feet. As a result, I need to divide my depth (3") by 12". Therefore, 3" / 12" = 0.25'.
OK, so now we're getting somewhere. We now know that we have 32 cu ft (total #2) in the six raised planters.
Cubic Yards: Now that I have cubic feet, I need to divide total #2 (32 cu ft) by the number of cubic feet in a cubic yard, which is 27.
If I round up the purchase to make sure I have enough dirt due to settling, I'll purchase 1.5 cu yds of dirt. Well, technically I won't be purchasing the dirt as the dirt is already available back at my house... that's a completely different problem
Amount of Pathway Rock Needed
Calculating the amount of rock needed is a bit more complex because, while the pathways are contiguous, you have to add up the length and width and depth (2") for each pathway. What I did for this calculation was to determine the vertical paths (4) and the horizontal paths (2)... look at the image above again and you should quickly see what I am referring to. Here's what the math looks like for that:
Calculations:
Rounding up the 0.38 cu yds indicates that I'll need about 1/2 yard of rock.
Easy peezy... now you know how to estimate.
Decided to get away with the family for the girls spring break and we stopped at a friends home along the way. When I describe it to people, I generally state that the home looks like a giant hunting lodge. I used this home as my muse when I described Edward Tomason's retreat in Montana in Chapter 5 of Part I - When Rome Stumbles.
While we were there, I decided to take some pictures of their outdoor fireplace. The one I'd like to build would have some modifications... of course.
What I would like to add would be a firewood box on one side or another for additional wood storage as well as the ability to add a grate for cooking. The homeowner did highly recommend the implementation of a modification he made which was to increase the height of the chimney stack by a further 18". By adding some additional height, he was able to keep smoke from drafting down on the seating area in front of the fireplace.
The downside to my construction would be the fact that I would have get a footer below the frost line which he didn't have to do given his location. I also would have to present "plans" to the suburb for a permit... and I'm sure my prickly neighbor would have a few choice comments given my desired placement.
Regardless of the drawbacks, I very much look forward to constructing one of these!