Weird facebook likes (part 5)

Facebook recently introduced 'reactions' to give users more options for responding to their friends posts, but some people are still using the good old 'like' button ... sometimes for the most inappropriate statuses. I have to admit, after seeing some facebook likes, I'm left wondering, are they facebook friends ... or enemies?

Here's another round-up of weird facebook likes, starting with that popular source of good news, a car crash...

"I've just smashed my car into a bus stop."
7 friends like this.

1) "Anyone else forget how to drive when there is a bus stop about????"

7 friends like this.

The status was accompanied by the photo shown to the right to illustrate the damage to their car. I think I must be missing something here, because I can't quite grasp how your friend smashing their car up is something you would like.

Funny holiday complaints

Life is better in flip flops...
...but not for some 'unfortunate' holiday makers.

The summer holiday season is now well and truly upon us, and I've been lucky enough to enjoy many brilliant holidays and travel experiences. However, not everyone has been so lucky.

Here are some amusing complaints raised by some 'unfortunate' holiday makers on holidays gone 'wrong'.

1) "It was hotter in Britain than where we went. That's not fair!"
...I have to admit, I would find that annoying as well.


2) “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It only took the Americans three hours to get home.”
...Yeah, it's so annoying when travel companies abide by the the laws of physics.


3) “We had to queue outside with no air conditioning.”

Ebook publishers: A comparison

The pros and cons of various ebook sellers when self publishing your book.

I've published some of my books with various ebook publishers, so I thought I would write a post describing my experience with each of the ebook stores I self-published with. Some of the following points are straight forward facts, e.g. 'Smashwords let you generate coupons for discounts and promotions on your books.' That's a fact. Other points though, are my opinion, so in the interests of fairness this article should be read with that in mind.

Here are the pros and cons that I experienced with each ebook publisher.

Note: This article was published in 2016. Some of the following details may have changed since that date, so do your own research before making a final decision on self-publishing.

Kindle Direct Publishing:

Kindle Direct Publishing is the self-publishing service for authors who wish to publish their books via Amazon. 

Pros:

Amazon kindling.

1) Amazon have a large chunk of the ebook market, so offer a bigger potential for sales. As a rough guideline, a figure of around 65% market share is quoted by most ebook market analysis websites.

2) Before finalising publication, you can download a preview file of your book which you can view with the Kindle Previewer tool, or on your tablet if you have the Kindle app.

3) If you enroll your book in KDP Select, i.e. make it exclusive to Amazon, you can offer your book for free five days per quarter. If you only have one book this isn't really a great sales strategy nowadays (the benefits of free promotions aren't what they used to be), but if you have a series of books then a free introductory book can lead to increased sales of the subsequent books in the series.

4) Amazon Prime members can borrow one book per month for free. If you enrol your book in KDP Select then your book is eligible to be borrowed, and each borrow earns you a small payment.

5) If you choose to get paid by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) then Amazon have no payment threshold*, so you don't have to wait for your royalties to build up before getting paid.

* This applies to UK and US authors, but check Amazon's terms and conditions if you're based elsewhere in the world.

Who will win the Euro 2016 final?

Let's ask Siri...

According to wikipedia, Siri is 'an intelligent personal assistant who answers questions and makes recommendations', so out of curiosity I decided to ask Siri who would win the Euro 2016 final between France and Portugal. Siri had a quite a bit to say on the subject, so here are some of her quotes...

"Hey Siri, who will win Euro 2016?"

Siri started by showing her sense of humour...

Silly slogans

This week's blog post is dedicated to the increasingly common trend of using silly slogans and meaningless marketing speak to advertise a product.  First up is a rather dubious tagline from The Jeremy Kyle Show...

Friendship and love...
...but what TV show could we be talking about?

1) The TV show of friendship and love ... allegedly.

Viewers of daytime UK telly may have noticed the perhaps controversial slogan for The Jeremy Kyle Show...

"Bringing people together."

Bringing people together!?!? The Jeremy Kyle Show? Have they ever seen Jeremy Kyle?

If the slogan was, "Bringing people together ... so they can have a big massive fight," then perhaps I could agree, but describing The Jeremy Kyle Show with the slogan, "Bringing people together," is like describing Jose Mourinho as 'The Humble One'.