Part of my French learning involves watching an episode of C'est Pas Sorcier every day. Or at least listening to it. I don't understand a lot of it, but if they say a word enough times, I can nearly always guess the spelling and look it up. It's really too advanced for me, but I still pick up French usage from it and words like champignon.
YouTube recommends all kind of things to me when I go to the page. If something is interesting and short enough, I might watch it. Or at least listen to it. I listen to more things than I actually watch. And I subscribe to more than I listen to. :) I'm subscribed to dozens of pages I never even listen to. I keep thinking I should go in and unsubscribe from most of them and clean up the list. But anyway. Lately, YouTube's been recommending Christian dream videos, mostly about the rapture or the end times. I got curious and listened to some of them.
If there's a verse that contradicts a dream, it's pretty easy to tell it's bunk. Some of the dreams seem plausible. Some seem like day residue, especially the ones that are about people or events commonly in the news. I kind of think that God is giving some people dreams, and others are reading too much into regular dreams.
Should I tell you about this dream I had one time that was purely day residue? I think it was in the 90s. I dreamt I was on this subway train that had TVs in it all tuned to the same channel. The TVs were spaced at intervals. Above and below me were other trains all set to their own specific channel. It was like you had to stop at the train station and change trains to get to watch a different channel, although I don't remember doing that in the dream. It seemed like a really weird dream until I remembered what I did right before going to bed. I looked through the satellite TV guide. It's horizontal like a train track. The channels are stacked from top to bottom just like the trains in the dream. The programs are listed in half-hour intervals. Basically, the dream was something that had happened during the day reinterpreted into dream imagery. I've noticed that a very great number of dreams are like that.
Even though I haven't watched too many of the videos about the dreams, some people mention other people having dreams from God all the time. Dreams from God are biblical, but... All the time? In my own life, if God does something unusual, it turns out later that it's because I needed it to make it through some kind of terrible suffering. God just doesn't pour miracles and such into my life. If he shows up in an unusual and visible way, my reaction these days is "Argh! What kind of suffering am I going to need to know that for?"
When religious figures on TV talk about supernatural manifestations they've had or God showing up as a ball of light in their hotel room, for example, or telling them something in an audible voice, without talking about a tremendous test or trial that accompanied it, I tend to assume they're lying. I've seen one person who said that when God showed up, it meant some kind of suffering was coming. That guy was real. You don't get ark plans without a flood on the way.
God doesn't send me a bunch of dreams like some of the videos talk about. While listening, it was hard not to be skeptical. That kind of thing doesn't happen to me, I was thinking. But wait. Maybe it's just not very common. Do you remember the dream Marion had in Grandtown about Deirdre? A broken moon is still beautiful. That was a real dream I had about a real person I know who was raped and never really recovered from it. I didn't change any of it except the names and calling angels Divine Messengers. I put it in the book just like I dreamed it. The room of learning. The angel above the bus I couldn't see but knew was there. The dialogue. The cul-de-sac. The angel driving the bus was the only time I ever mentioned someone's skin color in the whole series. It's because that's who he was in the dream. And no, Deirdre wasn't based on that person from real life.
It was a strong dream. I knew it was from God, and he was telling me something. Now that I think about it, that person did cause me a lot of suffering later on. I hadn't made that connection until now. Hmm. Anyway, I ended up putting it in one of the books because it felt like the kind of thing that could help someone who needed to hear it. A broken moon is still beautiful.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Friday, November 20, 2015
Who is Daesh?
Last Friday I'd planned to sit down and finish this French book I've been reading that's been taking forever. I was wrapping things up online first when I saw there was a series of terrorist attacks underway in Paris. I still haven't finished that book.
It was weird. While the situation was still ongoing, Obama immediately came forward saying not to jump to conclusions about who was behind the attacks. I assume he also worked behind the scenes to block NATO's involvement. It would turn out that Daesh(pronounced dah esh) was behind it. They had a busy week. Paris. The Russian airliner. Lebanon. They make about $1mil a day in black market oil revenue. They can fund a lot of terrorism.
Before NATO didn't get involved and before Hollande requested EU involvement, I pondered what would happen next. The conclusion was that France had to go to war. Not a few bombs dropped but a real war with troops on the group. Daesh has its own country. The maps on that page are from last year, but they convey the general idea. They're tied down. They can be invaded and defeated. Not invading their country would be the end of France, whose existence is already at risk.
I thought about the Gog and Magog war and the Psalm 83 war and the destruction of Damascus in Isaiah 17. They're all waiting in the wings and look a lot closer. Some people think WWIII has already started. Hmm. I'm not willing to go there. It depends on who helps Daesh and who is helping them behind the scenes. Who funded their rise to power until they could seize the oil fields? If there's an invasion, will Muslim countries ally with Daesh and fight the EU?
I had more interesting thoughts than WWIII. When Daesh first declared a caliphate, I thought of Revelation 16:10:
The anti-Christ will have his own kingdom. Caliphate is another word for a kingdom. Assuming the anti-Christ has a Muslim father(too big a topic for this blog), it's reasonable to think that the caliphate is being prepared for him to rule. If that's true, then Daesh cannot be defeated. Somehow in some way, events will conspire to ensure the continued existence of the caliphate. So far nothing's been able to stop them. Their country is small, but it keeps existing, when it would be easy to wipe out.
Who is Daesh? Are we witnessing the rise of the kingdom in Revelation 16:10? We'll have to keep watching and see how it all plays out. Even if their leaders are defeated in a war and removed from power, the caliphate could still survive. That's what I want to know, whether the caliphate survives and becomes more than a group of desert barbarians. I want to see if a peacemaker emerges to rule the caliphate.
It was weird. While the situation was still ongoing, Obama immediately came forward saying not to jump to conclusions about who was behind the attacks. I assume he also worked behind the scenes to block NATO's involvement. It would turn out that Daesh(pronounced dah esh) was behind it. They had a busy week. Paris. The Russian airliner. Lebanon. They make about $1mil a day in black market oil revenue. They can fund a lot of terrorism.
Before NATO didn't get involved and before Hollande requested EU involvement, I pondered what would happen next. The conclusion was that France had to go to war. Not a few bombs dropped but a real war with troops on the group. Daesh has its own country. The maps on that page are from last year, but they convey the general idea. They're tied down. They can be invaded and defeated. Not invading their country would be the end of France, whose existence is already at risk.
I thought about the Gog and Magog war and the Psalm 83 war and the destruction of Damascus in Isaiah 17. They're all waiting in the wings and look a lot closer. Some people think WWIII has already started. Hmm. I'm not willing to go there. It depends on who helps Daesh and who is helping them behind the scenes. Who funded their rise to power until they could seize the oil fields? If there's an invasion, will Muslim countries ally with Daesh and fight the EU?
I had more interesting thoughts than WWIII. When Daesh first declared a caliphate, I thought of Revelation 16:10:
And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
The anti-Christ will have his own kingdom. Caliphate is another word for a kingdom. Assuming the anti-Christ has a Muslim father(too big a topic for this blog), it's reasonable to think that the caliphate is being prepared for him to rule. If that's true, then Daesh cannot be defeated. Somehow in some way, events will conspire to ensure the continued existence of the caliphate. So far nothing's been able to stop them. Their country is small, but it keeps existing, when it would be easy to wipe out.
Who is Daesh? Are we witnessing the rise of the kingdom in Revelation 16:10? We'll have to keep watching and see how it all plays out. Even if their leaders are defeated in a war and removed from power, the caliphate could still survive. That's what I want to know, whether the caliphate survives and becomes more than a group of desert barbarians. I want to see if a peacemaker emerges to rule the caliphate.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Slogging Through Mud
Last Friday I did the first time ever free promo for Call to Selah. I might do one for books 3 and 4 next week and the week after and see what happens. The problem with promos is I don't have enough reviews to run them on a promo site yet. The people who find my promos are random. To do the really good promos, I need reviews. To get reviews, I need the really good promos.
I found a camera I could sell for $90 profit. Amazon won't let me sell it. The same with the $35 profit one. Lumix DMC-FZ70 for $175. Sells on Amazon for $297.99. It has a good sales rank, too, and not a lot of sellers.
I had another sale this week. The bad news is it came out of the handful of non-software items I sent in. None of the software has sold. None. Remember the one I mentioned last week I hoped would be my best seller that didn't show up in any of my searches and ended up not having a good price? I found out the reason. It wasn't showing up in searches at all. I submitted a help ticket. It shows up now but is listed as unavailable. People can't look at the sellers for it. Apparently, I need to do another ticket, although they're supposed to be working on it. However, there might be a silver lining. The item just like it that has a different cover was ranked #688 in Software last time I checked. If they get mine fixed, I could advertise it and hopefully get the sales rank up, get the low-priced ones sold out and then sell it at a higher price like the #688 one.
All of the software I have for sale have decent sales ranks. They're just not selling. Part of it could be that I'm a new seller without feedback yet. But I think the problem is that sales rank means different things for different categories. A 3,000 rank in one category might be a steady seller while in another category 3,000 is a slow seller. Maybe trying to sell software is a mistake. Or maybe it just takes longer to sell. I wouldn't care too much about how long it takes if Amazon didn't charge $39.99/month to let me sell things. My plan was to put the shipment up for sale and concentrate on writing the rest of the year. Now I'm forced to either find more inventory or not worry about losing money for a while.
I found a particular type of computer memory that seems to sell fairly well. I might import about 20 of them from China. The problem is it feels like a gamble. If it sold, great, my Amazon fees are covered, and I make money. If it didn't, then it would be just like the software.
I don't have health insurance. This is the year the Obamacare penalty jumps up. I have to get some kind of extra revenue coming in. I could use some prayer. :)
I found a camera I could sell for $90 profit. Amazon won't let me sell it. The same with the $35 profit one. Lumix DMC-FZ70 for $175. Sells on Amazon for $297.99. It has a good sales rank, too, and not a lot of sellers.
I had another sale this week. The bad news is it came out of the handful of non-software items I sent in. None of the software has sold. None. Remember the one I mentioned last week I hoped would be my best seller that didn't show up in any of my searches and ended up not having a good price? I found out the reason. It wasn't showing up in searches at all. I submitted a help ticket. It shows up now but is listed as unavailable. People can't look at the sellers for it. Apparently, I need to do another ticket, although they're supposed to be working on it. However, there might be a silver lining. The item just like it that has a different cover was ranked #688 in Software last time I checked. If they get mine fixed, I could advertise it and hopefully get the sales rank up, get the low-priced ones sold out and then sell it at a higher price like the #688 one.
All of the software I have for sale have decent sales ranks. They're just not selling. Part of it could be that I'm a new seller without feedback yet. But I think the problem is that sales rank means different things for different categories. A 3,000 rank in one category might be a steady seller while in another category 3,000 is a slow seller. Maybe trying to sell software is a mistake. Or maybe it just takes longer to sell. I wouldn't care too much about how long it takes if Amazon didn't charge $39.99/month to let me sell things. My plan was to put the shipment up for sale and concentrate on writing the rest of the year. Now I'm forced to either find more inventory or not worry about losing money for a while.
I found a particular type of computer memory that seems to sell fairly well. I might import about 20 of them from China. The problem is it feels like a gamble. If it sold, great, my Amazon fees are covered, and I make money. If it didn't, then it would be just like the software.
I don't have health insurance. This is the year the Obamacare penalty jumps up. I have to get some kind of extra revenue coming in. I could use some prayer. :)
Friday, November 6, 2015
Up and Running
November is the month the Messengers web site comes due. While trying to find a way to use it as a forwarder to the blog instead of a full site and save some money, I rediscovered that I can have a second web site for no additional hosting fee. I vaguely remembered it from when I set it up, but I'd forgotten the details. I'd have to pay $24.99 a year to register another site. That includes a privacy fee that hides my home address. To make that site a business site, I'd need to upgrade my plan, which would cost a couple of dollars more a month. Basically, for about $50 more a year, I could launch a business site for the company and process sales that way with no Amazon fees. I've been thinking about dropping the Messengers site altogether and saving the money. Now I'll keep it around and work out the accounting later so the business pays the hosting fee and I pay the $24.99 yearly registration for the Messengers site.
How's the business going? Tuesday I shipped 52 items to Amazon. They made me split the shipment into two boxes, one for Delaware and one for California. Shipping was $12.15 total, which breaks down to just over 23 cents per item. There were three of this chess game not eligible for Prime. I may list them for merchant fulfilled if I can make the profit work. I'd need to buy a case of bubble mailers. The business can afford it, but I want to get some sales first and expand. My goal is to have the business pay for itself, although just getting started makes that not possible yet.
There's some bad news. A 5-pack of a game I hoped would be my best seller turned out to have a listing that didn't come up in any of my searches for it. It only appeared when I scanned the bar code to add it to my Amazon inventory. Some other extra or missing listings occurred for other items, but it was no big deal for those. When I was initially researching the 5-pack, one main listing showed up, a version that Amazon sells with a great sales rank of 1600+. The listing for my versions said "Currently unavailable". My plan was to make it available and skim sales off Amazon's with a slightly cheaper price. Not any more. The price on the surprise listing is several dollars less than it should be. Automatically, about $44 of the profit I was hoping for seems gone. The good news is that I can use the bar code scanner for searches just like a mouse or keyboard to try to avoid this happening again. Assuming I have the UPC code, of course.
To make the kind of profit I need, I need to buy things by the pallet. It turns out pallets ship on trucks with a lift gate that looks something like this. I'd have to have a forklift to remove the pallet. Or something cheap like a pallet truck or a straddle stacker. For storage I'd need something similar to this. A metal building is another option. A concrete foundation would cost extra. Once I made enough, I could get a cheap pallet truck and get by without the building for a while by putting a pallet or two on the porch. Not elegant, but it would work.
Remember the missing shipment to Amazon that never went on sale? Yesterday I submitted a ticket. It was answered automatically. "We have confirmed that the following units are missing from the fulfillment center..." and "We've initiated a reimbursement of $14.92 for the missing units." Initiated does not mean made. It means started the investigation process.
I had two items in the shipment: a Barbie learning game and an ACT study guide listed for a combined price of $26.54. After subtracting all costs, I'd have made $4.17, assuming they sold. The reimbursement gives me a profit of $3.23. Today they credited me the $14.92.
I don't know if it was because of the missing shipment, but Amazon processed my Delaware package last night. It only arrived yesterday around noon. It's supposed to take 24 to 48 hours up to 72 hours to process and longer during the holiday season like we're in now. I have 41 items for sale minus one that sold today. First sale! It's not listed as sold yet, but it should be within 48 hours, if the buyer doesn't cancel for some weird reason. Profit's about $3.42. Between the reimbursement and the sale, shipping charges are all covered, even for the missing one. I should see a small deposit.
The California box of 11 items should arrive Tuesday.
How's the business going? Tuesday I shipped 52 items to Amazon. They made me split the shipment into two boxes, one for Delaware and one for California. Shipping was $12.15 total, which breaks down to just over 23 cents per item. There were three of this chess game not eligible for Prime. I may list them for merchant fulfilled if I can make the profit work. I'd need to buy a case of bubble mailers. The business can afford it, but I want to get some sales first and expand. My goal is to have the business pay for itself, although just getting started makes that not possible yet.
There's some bad news. A 5-pack of a game I hoped would be my best seller turned out to have a listing that didn't come up in any of my searches for it. It only appeared when I scanned the bar code to add it to my Amazon inventory. Some other extra or missing listings occurred for other items, but it was no big deal for those. When I was initially researching the 5-pack, one main listing showed up, a version that Amazon sells with a great sales rank of 1600+. The listing for my versions said "Currently unavailable". My plan was to make it available and skim sales off Amazon's with a slightly cheaper price. Not any more. The price on the surprise listing is several dollars less than it should be. Automatically, about $44 of the profit I was hoping for seems gone. The good news is that I can use the bar code scanner for searches just like a mouse or keyboard to try to avoid this happening again. Assuming I have the UPC code, of course.
To make the kind of profit I need, I need to buy things by the pallet. It turns out pallets ship on trucks with a lift gate that looks something like this. I'd have to have a forklift to remove the pallet. Or something cheap like a pallet truck or a straddle stacker. For storage I'd need something similar to this. A metal building is another option. A concrete foundation would cost extra. Once I made enough, I could get a cheap pallet truck and get by without the building for a while by putting a pallet or two on the porch. Not elegant, but it would work.
Remember the missing shipment to Amazon that never went on sale? Yesterday I submitted a ticket. It was answered automatically. "We have confirmed that the following units are missing from the fulfillment center..." and "We've initiated a reimbursement of $14.92 for the missing units." Initiated does not mean made. It means started the investigation process.
I had two items in the shipment: a Barbie learning game and an ACT study guide listed for a combined price of $26.54. After subtracting all costs, I'd have made $4.17, assuming they sold. The reimbursement gives me a profit of $3.23. Today they credited me the $14.92.
I don't know if it was because of the missing shipment, but Amazon processed my Delaware package last night. It only arrived yesterday around noon. It's supposed to take 24 to 48 hours up to 72 hours to process and longer during the holiday season like we're in now. I have 41 items for sale minus one that sold today. First sale! It's not listed as sold yet, but it should be within 48 hours, if the buyer doesn't cancel for some weird reason. Profit's about $3.42. Between the reimbursement and the sale, shipping charges are all covered, even for the missing one. I should see a small deposit.
The California box of 11 items should arrive Tuesday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)