One in a row? Not hardly!

 One in a row?  Not hardly!
That’s how I am treated by what used to be my exclusive retailer.  I have over 25 books listed on their site — all 4.5 stars or above.  I get absolutely no support from them.  None — zero — zip — Nada! In addition, they advertise other author’s books on my page.  How crappy is that?  To top it off, Amazon gives my work away for free.  Yep.  You read that correctly for free.  My effort — my expenses to create a product — and they give it away for free. 

NEW PLAN TO ELIMINATE THIEVES FROM MY LIFE.  In weeks to come look for notices to LEARN ABOUT THE ALTERNATIVES TO amazon.com.

Years ago I began converting my novels to e-books using Amazon.  I also used Barnes and Noble but back then one had to have a special device for each.  I owned a Kindle so I opted out of B&N.  I only had a half a dozen titles but I began making some money. I donated my royalties to an orphanage in David Panama.  The monthly contribution kept growing as I added more titles and soon I was able to maintain my donation by halving the royalty deposit and augmenting my retirement income. All was well and good until Amazon got greedy.  They forgot that it was their on-line book business that made them successful and decided to shaft the authors that were part of their foundation. Amazon implemented a program that benefited their company and the readership. If we authors would enroll our books in KDP select, we were entitled to huge promises of promotion — the only caveat was Amazon had to be the exclusive retailer. Most of us saw an opportunity and moved in that direction because we could use the extra sales.  The problem was — the back side of this formula was the fact that Amazon offered the readers free books. We as authors never got any sales because most of our readers opted for the $10 a month and have hundreds of thousand of titles to choose from at no additional cost. The result was disastrous for authors like myself. Amazon told us we were getting paid by the page read.  What a crock of BS that turned out to be.  My royalties went to almost zero.  The orphanage suffered, my income suffered and nothing was happening except Bozo the clown was getting filthy rich.
Here’s the latest from these clowns (thieves).
We will again award "KDP Select All-Stars" for July to the most-read authors and most-read titles in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. All bonuses will be awarded based on total Kindle Edition Normalized Pages read during the month. We will also award bonuses for illustrated kids’ books – the top 100 most read titles in the U.S. and top 25 in the U.K. will receive such bonuses. 
This method is like Socialist hand-outs.  Not like — exactly a socialist/communist formula.  They choose who gets paid out of this magical fund that no one gets to audit.  Typical promise and a prayer BS. Only those that advertise with Amazon get to be on the all-star list.  None other.
Now you understand the reasons why my lead-in is so strong. I will do everything in can to help other authors to avoid the traps set my Amazon and their socialistic ways.  AUTHORS NEED TO BE PAID or there will never be a balance in society.
It’s time for authors — even the one-in-a-row self publishers to avoid Amazon and look in other directions.  Authors, here is the connections to your alternative. Draft to Digital (D2D) is my new choice. https://www.draft2digital.com/book/.  Their motto is AUTHOR’S FIRST.  Not only do they produce the book, they help distribute it to their retailing partners. 
I only have 2 books on their site at this writing but will be uploading my entire title inventory by the end of this year.
In the meantime, go to my new website and order whichever of the 25+ titles you find interesting.  https://publishingunbound.wixsite.com/roberthatting/books.  You can always contact me directly via email.  bobhatting@gmail.com 

New Book Series Launched

JUST RELEASED! The first of a 6 book series set in the Philippines.

On Sale Now via Amazon or direct from author.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GCQXGD7/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534002484&sr=8-1&keywords=Mostly%20moably

Peter Moably, forced out of his business by an ugly divorce becomes an accidental treasure hunter tossed into a foreign country that scrambles his life. Learning a culture the hard way, he fumbles through a myriad of foolish encounters, falls in love, foils an Abu Sayyaf attack and finally takes the fight to the terrorists. 

Take a romp through the Philippines with this new action adventure story by Robert Hatting. The author living in this exotic and dangerous environment used his first-hand inspiration and own adventurous personality to create a story you will not put down until the end. 

And this is just the first book of this Philippines series, with Book 2 already in the queue.

****Friends, please share or retweet my newest novel release post; MOSTLY MOABLY. The first of my Philippines series. This book is available to you even if you do not have an amazon account or a credit card. Download and read on your cellphone or tablet. PM or email me for instructions; bobhatting@gmail.com.

SYSTEMS TO ACCOMMODATE LOCAL READERS

NEW SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT & DELIVERY
Since my next series of novels (six in total) were written here in the Philippines and feature the Philippines and foreigners living in PH, I've decided to make it easy for locals to buy and enjoy my novels. If you have a cell phone and a Palawan or Gcash vendor, you can buy my work.  Other methods include PayPal, credit card on my website, or directly with Amazon Kindle Store.  The novels can be delivered to you instantly and you can download them on any device ; a cell phone, tablet, Kindle, or computer.
In addition, selections of my titles may be purchased on SD chips and/or USB memory sticks. Four selections.  My entire library of novels, one with just Period and Contemporary Westerns and a ten title mix of your choice.
LOOK FOR IT SOON!

Alternative to FaceBook -- the Blog

Let's try this instead of FaceBook.

Some people know I write novels.
Here’s a problem I face every day.
One has to place a bit of priority to how you approach your day when keying in thirty or forty thousand words one character at a time. Any distraction will kill the flow of thought, the tempo of the story and if the distraction is strong enough, it will kill the creativity altogether.
Distractions come in many forms; traffic noises, the housekeeper’s kid, the television, or the neighbor’s loud music.  Nothing is worse than my own FACEBOOK ACCOUNT!
My biggest distraction used to be my OZONE Business.  Dealing with all facets of international laws, regulations, shipping, and actual assembly took copious amount of time.  Since closing the business, I have more time and enough discipline to write several thousand words each day.  Unfortunately, closing the business eliminated my income. Income that is needed to publish my books.  Most don’t understand.  It takes about Two-thousand USD to publish a book — not counting the printing costs.
So, I have a backlog of unpublished manuscripts:
COIN OF THE REALM Published last month.
PEPPER PYLE —Period Western
UNBROKEN — Contemporary Western
WILSON’S WAR — Contemporary Western
BROKEN BADGE — Period Western
KID MUSTANG — Period Western
SHANIKO SAM — Period Western
MOSTLY MOABLY — A/A Moably PH #1
SECOND VERSE — A/A Moably PH #2
COUNTERFEIT KATHOLIC — A/A Moably PH #3
WILLFUL IGNORANCE A/A Moably PH #4
RING OF FIRE A/A Moably PH #5
COTUN BAWLS A/A Moably PH #6
MIND YORE MANNERS — A/A Slug Manners # 1
WILDERNESS COWBOY  A/A Slug Manners #2 Just finished.(4th rewrite)

Fifteen full novels are ready to enter the publishing process.  The only manuscript that is in phase 3 — the editing process is WILSON’S WAR. All others except WILDERNESS COWBOY are residing in my hard drive waiting for funds to initiate the process. Any idea when I can find $30,000 to get these published?

Food from Scratch

DON'T BE LAZY -- PREPARE YOUR OWN!

I’m often asked — ‘why do you not eat in restaurant more often?’

The answer I usually use — it’s a health issue.  That’s true but it goes way beyond health.  It’s anti-aging. If you can limit the poisons you add to your body by breathing and ingestion, you will live longer.  When you recognize the benefits of certain foods and combine them to repair your body’s natural immune system, reverse aging occurs.

So, in my household, we bake our own bread, we juice local tropical fruits, we make tea from ginger, lemon grass, and turmeric we grow in the pyramid herb garden, we roast our coffee, we ozonate our drinking water and we make our own sea salt.  The sugar we use is either honey or muscavado (raspadura).  We make our own coconut oil. And when we ozonate it — it becomes our miracle cure for most everything (from burns to ulcers).

We recently moved to another house in town and now I have my smoker installed and functioning properly.  We are currently experimenting with making our own bacon, ham, and Cdn bacon.  It’s turned out quite nicely; not only with taste but also the simplicity of production.

Here’s a synopsis of that process.  

  

Homemade bacon and Cdn Bacon or any of our smoked products begins with the salt.

We make our own salt from seawater.  The seawater is purified by ozonating a two gallon glass jar of the raw seawater for five (5) min.  This kills all the bad organisms and lowers the radiation.  Then water is cooked down to salt — basic clean sea salt.  

The curing of bacon and Cdn bacon begins with the brine.(dry or wet)  We use only our salt and muscavado (Raspadura in Central America) No chemicals allowed.  The spice mix we put in the glaze is all natural as well as the coconut milk and pineapple juice.  We juice our pineapple to get the juice — we squeeze the coconut milk from the shredded copra (this is also the way we make coconut oil)

The curing process takes 4-5 days.  The smoking process takes 4-6 hours.  Then like magic, the bacon and the Cdn bacon are finished.

Fish fillets, beef and chicken jerky take less time in the smoker.  They are not cured but they are brined; usually for 24 hours. Smoking is usually on racks rather than on hooks and takes less time.  All in all, the preservation aspect is good and the flavors are wonderful.

As an aside: we use a vacuum packer and then put our food products in the freezer or refer.  Two things happen — if you lose power —no problem it will maintain its freshness for about 2 weeks.  If you defrost and then change your mind, you can refreeze without creating any risk of food poisoning. With a vacuum sealed package it adds four times the ‘goodness’ life to ordinary frozen meats.   

  

ANSWERING A NARCISSISTIC NINCONPOOP

I have an acquaintance who says he’s my friend. Actually, he’s not. I have nothing in common with the man except we come from the same country.

He’s the type who asks personal questions disguised as though he’s interested. Most ranchers know what I’m referring to: 1.) “How many cattle do you have on your ranch?” 2.) “How many rental houses do you own?” 3.) “How many books do you sell each month?” 4.)”How much did you pay for your house?”

These questions and many like them are asked by these types of people. In my mind it translates to — HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU HAVE IN THE BANK? or — HOW MUCH DO YOU EARN? Am I being rude by pointing this out? Perhaps, but the rude people in my mind are the ones who ask those kind of questions.

This guy scoffed at my response to his question about my royalties. “Christ, you are wasting your time!” he stated in an angry tone. “I have part time employees who earn more than that each month!”

I didn’t argue with him. I smiled at his response and exited his space. Frankly, I haven't seen him since nor do I wish to. He’s what I call a NN person (narcissistic nincompoop)

So to enlighten some of you folks who don’t know authors, I’ve decided to post this set of facts and opinions on my blog.



HERE’S SOME TRUTHS ABOUT AUTHORS
Authors don’t write for anyone except for themselves. They write to salve the inspiration they received in some form.
Authors seldom write for money. They accept money but it’s not what drives them.
Authors seldom write for fame. Show me a writer who glories in the limelight and I’ll show you an author who has a ghostwriter.


Authors have enormous freedom. (In more ways than one can imagine.) Think about it : we can work anytime from anywhere. But that’s not all. We choose — everything!


Authors don’t care what anyone thinks. The harshest critic cannot contain or quash the creativity of an author.
Authors create legacies within their genre. Think about it: no one writes like Jack London, Elmer Kelton, Edward Abbey, Hemmingway, Dunbar, Louis L'Amor, Zoe Saadia, or Robert Hatting.
Authors educate, entertain, and perhaps enlighten. No matter the genre — a reader will take something away from a well written book.
Authors create estates —
Let’s break down that last statement. I’ll use my inventory as an example. I have 25 novels published and another 4 completed and in the Que for editing/formatting. Two others are WIP.  Fifteen are outlined.

As an Indie — all my rights and all my revenues belongs to me. LET’S ROUND OFF to 30 novels with an average net to me of $4.00 (digital) $18.00 (print)

Take one digital unit… if I sell 5 per week = $20. 52 weeks in a year = $1040. I plan on living another 20 years, so I’ll make 20 grand more or less for this one novel. But it doesn’t stop there. My copyright is good for another 51 years after I pass. My designated heir will continue to receive my royalties. Do the math. 71 years x 1000 m/l = $71,000. X 30 titles? 640K?   Not bad but there's more.
 Let’s talk about those 20 additional years. I can produce at least 2 novels per year. If I quit dicking around with my inventions, I can write 4 per year. Just for grins let’s assume I can at least produce those 2 per year. That’s 40 more novels for a total of 70.  $ 70,000 X 70 = 4.9 mil. That’s an estate!

Okay… maybe this is a stretch with a digital novel ( especially after I pass). But, what if one of the 30 (or 70) novels gets some upward movement? Perhaps a second title gains some traction? Then we have the proverbial jump rope scenario — the 2 handles raise the belly of the rope — all the titles get more exposure and consequently there is much more revenue. It’s happened with a lot of my contemporaries. Edward Abbey for one… DESERT SOLITAIRE was a mild hit. Then MONKEY WRENCH GANG was published and took off like a rocket. Overnight (after 40 years of writing), Ed became a star in our industry.

My point is — investing the time to write a book may seem like a vanity play or a waste of time to the NN types. Over time it’s actually rewarding. Ask any author that’s published over five books to describe the feeling one gets when they finish the first draft of a manuscript.. By typing finis or ‘30’. Most can’t. I know I can’t put it in words.

‘30’

 

Rustler stove revisited

CONCRETE RUSTLER STOVE  Homemade for about 1250 pesos ($25.)
(prepper 101)



The rustler hole fires have been around for ages. They were upgraded to wood stoves and forges a few hundred years ago. Those which are commonly called Rocket Stoves and featured on you tube are just remakes of the original wood stove. Create a draft; AIR+FUEL=FIRE, the more air (oxygen)the hotter the fire and the combustion will eliminate smoke and increase the BTU’s. There’s really no new science — just new materials, designs and applications. 

I built my rustler stove for several reasons. I’m in the tropics and need to burn lawn refuse now and again. The synergy of burning junk and cooking down sea salt plus drying oregano is shown in one photo. Creating something out of nothing appeals to me.

One does not need a large fire — a hot fire is what is needed. The fire pit is only four inches in diameter. Once combustion reaches almost 100 percent, however, the heat created encompasses the entire chamber. Of course the heat rises, so the end result is a fire which is cylindrical(4”x 13”). Harness the heat with an iron pot, a skillet, or grill, and it becomes the off-grid — free energy stove.

When I want to B-B-Q a hamburger or chicken, I use charcoal made from coconut shells. I added an air intake into the feed hole and inserted an aluminum tube to convert the trash burner into a forge by adding a small air pump. I have a foot pump that I can use when the power goes out.

It’s multipurpose but not portable.(I included handles, so it can be moved around the yard, but it’s heavy.) I’ve made a similar unit out of stainless steel in the past. They are perfect for packing to the beach, but too small for my yard refuse.

I had to sell my dutch oven before I left Panama for the Philippines. That would be perfect for an oven for this unit. I’m looking, but in the meantime I will craft some sort of oven — either out of clay or steel.

Future experiments will be canning with a pressure cooker, baking with a crafted unit, and perhaps adding a basin for larger forge capacity.

Future photos — roasting our coffee using the coffee husks as fuel. Actual step by step building of the units and the enhancement of the forging capabilities.

Note the grate inside the steel feed tube, the pot ring and the grill.

Rebar reinforcing placed inside each unit before concrete is poured into the plastic bucket 

Steel parts primered with anti rust paint.


 

Ozonated sea water being rendered down to sea salt.  Fresh oregano being dried by the extra heat.