Peter Chase Wetherill

Science, Technology, Writing and Beyond
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YouTube

Past Due Post: Tribute to my Mom and My First E-Book Sales Report

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On a Personal Note

September 15 is a date I will never forget. On September 15 2006 I was playing a gig with the Lisbon Swingers Big Band just south of Lisbon. As we were waiting to start our performance I received a call from my step father, Jim. He told me that my mom had lost her battle with Mantle Cell Lymphoma. I was devastated. I walked away from where we were waiting and found a wooded area away from everyone. I gained my composure but could not talk to anyone, and then we played the gig. This was the most difficult performance of my life. My mom was the most influential and special person in my life. Last year I wrote this article on Bubblews about her:

The Most Positive Person in My Life

September 15, 2014

Today is the 7th anniversary of the passing of the most positive person in my life: my mom. She was born Hendrika Charlotte Hilbers and despite many hardships in her life she always had a positive attitude. At an early age her and her family survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. My mom endured bombings (she never liked fireworks displays because of this) and severe food rationing. My mom always made me finish all of my food …

A New Trick

I am a person who is always trying to learn something new. You may notice that I have a link to download my e-book on the right. I didn’t know that this could be done on WordPress until a fellow writer, Ana Spoke, blogged about how she figured out how to put a link to download her first e-book on her WordPress site. I posted her blog before this one, so check it out if you want to do the same. The link to her post is at the bottom of this page. I also did this because at my age my memory might fail me the next time I publish a book, so if I forget I have her post to remind me.

“Resveratrol: Just the Facts” Earnings Update

So here is what everyone is waiting for. Did my book “Resveratrol: Just the Facts” make me a millionaire? Not even close but some people have downloaded it. I offered it for free for the first five days and 68 people took the bait! Since then I have sold 5 more copies; 3 in the US and 2 in Great Britain. I have made $1.05 and .58 GPB. The Kindle select program also pays royalties for pages read and so far 122 pages have been read in August, but I have no idea how many pennies that will total.

YouTube

My YouTube revenues are continuing to trickle in but I have not posted many videos recently. So far I’ve accumulated $7.16 in revenue. Here is my most recent video from when we owned a gym:

Other Pay Writing Sites:

I am still a member of Bubblews but do not post there anymore. I will start to post more of my writings there like the article above. I have a balance of $28.33 and need to get to $50.00 before I can redeem my money. I don’t count on it since my earnings have only gained about $.05 in the last six months. Bubblews is considered a micro blogging revenue sharing site as well as another site Persona Paper which I also belong to. They both suffer from lack of ad revenue. So far I have earned about $.17. I have published one article there about how micro blogging sites don’t make any money:

Why Micro-Blogging Sites Don’t Make Financial Sense

Revenue sharing writing, and blogging sites are rapidly being started, copying the idea of Bubblews. I think these sites are a great idea but some are doomed to fail…

What I’m Working On

My newest project “The Vitamin D Conspiracy” is started but I have been doing some more research on the subject. I have a rough draft of the outline finished and will start filling in the chapters soon. I got some good marketing advice recently. The learning curve on marketing books and e-books is even steeper than self-publishing a book. One tip I got was to make a cover first before the book is written and start using social media and e-mails to create a buzz about the upcoming book. This sounds like a good idea. I think I will hire the cover design of this book out. I found a site called Fiverr.com that does this kind of work and comes highly recommended. Five bucks is not a lot to spend. They also have many other services for a fiver.

As far as promoting a current title I am at a loss other that social media. I have checked a few paid advertising sites. One seemed like it was OK until I did the math. They wanted something like $350 for an ad campaign that would average about 1000 sales. Each one of my e-books makes $0.35. That would only just break even! If anyone has some suggestion my ears are open.

Photo credit: Three family photos of Hendrika Charlotte Hilbers Wetherill and her son Peter Chase Wetherill taken by his father Frank Doster Wetherill.

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My First E-Book is Now Published!

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Yes, I finally pulled the trigger and self published my first e-book. It will be offered for free until August 4th on Amazon for world wide distribution at all Amazon locations. Her are some direct links for downloading:

US and Portugal

UK

Spain

Netherlands

Brazil 

If you download my book I would love to hear from you and your opinions. It would be even better if you left an Amazon review.

Now on to my publishing update. I did not post for a while for a few reasons: 1. I was working on my book, 2. I wasn’t feeling well, and 3. I just got lazy with the summer heat. I think the main reason was the last one. The final additions to the book were just tedious. Adding an index of the conditions that resveratrol has been studied was tedious but adds to the reading value of the book. This was all a learning process for me since this is my first e-book and using Word to write the book.

The uploading process to Amazon was a bit more complicated. I had a e-guide that is a bit outdated. It stated that I had to convert my Word file to HTML to upload to Amazon. After finally figuring out how to do this on Windows 8, I uploaded the file successfully, I thought! After uploading there is a way to review your book on all the e-book formats. I started to check and found all of my bullet indents were a total mess. I went back to the original HTML file on my computer and tried to make all of the bullets consistent, then upload the file again. No go, still a mess. After many hours of fiddling I decided to try an see what advice the Kindle help section could offer. I was shocked to find out that it was not necessary to convert my file to HTML and I could upload the Word file directly. I did this and wah la, everything looked great. I did find a few glitches and corrected them in Word and uploaded again, then hit the publish button.

I am now a bit more inspired to write and I am finishing the research part for my second book tentatively titled “The Vitamin D Conspiracy”. This subject is more involved and I feel that it is a very important one for everyone’s health on the planet.

I have failed to keep you updated on my YouTube progress. I have posted a few more videos and actually have earned more money than I thought. I keep on studying YouTube techniques like how to craft an interesting title. This is one of the most important things to get people to watch your videos. If you title your video with something bland like “What we did on Our Summer Vacation” you won’t get much response. Better is “How we found the perfect vacation spot” which creates value to the watchers or “We had a crazy fail on our trip to Safari Land” which creates curiosity for the watchers. I am currently changing some of my titles.

So far I have accumulated $6.33! Maybe if I change a few more titles I’ll get that video that attracts a million views! Here is a link to my playlist.

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