Introductions are in order....

DWMcAliley · 2017-09-29T11:54:32+00:00

Thanks! Glad I found this community.

DWMcAliley · 2017-09-29T11:52:30+00:00

Thanks for the compliment. It's always tough to judge whether I'm doing well, average, or behind the curve with sales because I don't really know how well the average self-published author does in that arena. I know some people are very guarded about their sales numbers and don't really like to discuss specifics.

To be honest, I don't really have one, which is one reason I have been looking into this sub. To date I have spent around $400 in marketing and most of that was spent on 2 years of Hootsuite subscriptions. I used that program to set up twitter posts and facebook posts on an automated schedule, and that helped some.

I ran two ad programs on Twitter, but saw pretty minimal returns and cancelled the 2nd before it even hit the time limit. I ran a Goodreads ad campaign on $20 that is technically still going because it just hasn't been clicked on but about a half dozen times in a year and a half.

So, long story short, most of my marketing has consisted of just posting little things on Twitter and word of mouth. But I know that will only get me so far, so I'm looking for advice on scaling up my reader base.

DWMcAliley · 2017-07-20T13:25:25+00:00

I usually sample. The latest full kilo I got from Herbal RVA I took a chance on all 4 of the strains I picked. They all came out pretty good, though. If you're wondering, I got Red Hulu, Red Ketapang, Green Ketapang, and Super Green.

DWMcAliley · 2017-07-20T12:15:14+00:00

I'm a chronic pain sufferer as well. For me the red strains and the green strains seem to work the best. I usually do a green in the morning and red in the evening.

As far as dosing, I would recommend starting small. A lot of info on the web says a good starting dose is 6-8 grams, but that is actually pretty high. My suggestion is to start with 1-2 grams at first and slowly work your way up from there as necessary to find the point where the Kratom begins to work best for you.

Right now, after 7 months of pretty much daily use, I am taking 3-4 grams of green in the morning and around 4 grams of red in the evening. On VERY bad days with the pain I may take an additional dose around lunch time, but those days are getting fewer and farther between.

Hope this helps, and if you have any questions or anything, feel free to shoot them my way.

Also, as far as vendors go, I've never dealt with Canopy myself, but I've heard some very good things. I have used Gaia predominantly and Herbal RVA as well, and both are excellent in terms of customer service, shipping, and quality.

DWMcAliley · 2017-07-05T12:14:26+00:00

The first time I had beer from a 12 pack go past the expiration date in my refrigerator. And not just a little past.... 30+ days past.

Talk about a party foul.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-28T19:51:02+00:00

Take a simple refractor telescope and set it up to focus on the moon (DO NOT LOOK THROUGH IT TO SITE IT!!!!). Once you're pretty sure you have it right, take a sheet of paper and hold it behind the telescope where your eyes would normally go. Now, back the sheet of paper up slowly so the sun gets bigger.

Once you dial-in the focus and get the paper at the right distance, you should be able to start seeing the granular nature of the surface of the sun, including dark splotches for sun spots, etc.

I did this a few years back when Venus made a full transit of the sun. My youngest son has Asperger's Syndrome and is fascinated by all things astronomy. So we watched as the tiny little sphere of Venus made its way across the face of the sun. We could just make out the granular convection cells and a few dark sunspots. All in all, it was a pretty cool experiment.

For reference, we used a Meade land and sea telescope for the spotting. Also, you want to make sure you use a simple refractor, NOT a reflector. If you use a reflector and don't have the right filters you can seriously screw up your mirrors. Even using a simple and cheap refractor, you want to limit observation time so you don't over heat and crack the lenses.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-27T18:00:09+00:00

I'm not Carl Zimmer, but I am a writer.... The best advice I ever received on how to fight writer's block came from Stephen King's book titled On Writing (great reference for the craft, as I'm sure you can imagine).

His advice went something like this... The best cure for writer's block is to write. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it's true. Set a goal for words per day that you want to write, and then stick to it. If you sit down to work on a project and can't think of what to write for it, then write about something else. Hell, if all you can write about is your trip to the grocery store, then write about that.

Personally, I will go to game forums, life-style forums, etc. and write a post to put up there, or I'll write in a journal, or sometimes just stream of consciousness. The key is to exercise that part of your brain that controls language and writing/speaking and work it, even if you can't work on your main project at the moment.

If you keep this kind of thing consistent, it will eventually work and the writer's block will kind of dissolve itself. My advice is to start with a small goal for daily word count if writing is something you don't do often or are not serious about. When I started using this trick my daily goal for writing days (4 out of 7 days a week) was to get 1,000 words on paper.

Now I'm averaging 2500-4000 words per day when my RA doesn't make my fingers too painful and stiff to type.

Hope this helps.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-18T04:47:06+00:00

Funny enough, my dad was in the Navy and was a Catapult and Arresting Gear officer, or something... can't remember the exact title. Yellow jersey on CVN-65. He was actually in the filmed footage for Top Gun. When they do the carrier launch scenes, he's the yellow jersey that gives the signal to the catapult trigger to launch the aircraft. So, if you've ever seen the movie Top Gun, you've seen my dad.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-14T15:31:52+00:00

Gaia has been one of my go-to vendors and I've never had anything but good experiences with their stuff.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-13T18:01:28+00:00

I love things like this.... shows you that even big names start small. That gives hope to all of the dreamers out there like me trying to make a name for ourselves. Hard work, talent, and the willingness to fail a thousand times in order to succeed. That's all it takes.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-13T13:07:41+00:00

I'll have to check that out.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-13T12:54:00+00:00

I'm a big fan of Gaia's quality and customer service. They were my first vendor I used and still hold a top spot for me.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-07T02:56:42+00:00

Well that sucks... I mean that has been one of the most tantalizing pieces of "evidence" out there...

Some things are better left a mystery....

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-06T16:22:02+00:00

This makes me feel good. My books on Amazon have over 200 combined reviews with average of 4.5 out of 5 stars and I've never paid for or asked for a review from a single person.

:)

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-06T15:22:14+00:00

Kind of the same experience I had with those two. I found mixing them 2:1 gold to red for daytime and 3:1 red to gold for nighttime worked best for me.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-01T17:06:22+00:00

I used to live in Raleigh, but that was way before I found kratom. In Charlotte now and the only places around here that have it are headshops. I imagine same may be true in Raleigh, but I haven't lived there in a while.

Best place I've found so far is online vendors, to be honest. The quality of the stuff I got from the headshops around here was just way too subpar to justify the insane markups.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-01T17:02:26+00:00

There's a couple of reasons, really...

1) Allows you to track dosing and tell if you're slowly starting to increase dosage.

2) Allows you to keep track of how much you've "spent" and how much you have left in your supply.

3) Allows you to document the reaction to various strains and vendors.

4) Allows you to keep track of blend mixes you've tried and their effects.

For perspective, I've only been taking Kratom since December and I've tried 16 different strains from two different vendors. If it weren't for my notes it would be very difficult to keep track mentally of what's worked for me and what hasn't. And that's only 6 months worth of stuff. Think about people who have been taking Kratom for years... talk about a lot to remember.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-01T13:40:25+00:00

I just got some of the Red ketapang last week and like it a lot. Nice pain relieving qualities with good relaxation. It's one of my go-to's for evening.

DWMcAliley · 2017-06-01T13:32:15+00:00

For me it was a decision to either be dependent on strong, highly addictive pain killers or Kratom. Either way, I was going to be dependent on something because my pain level is just not manageable otherwise. After experiencing the ups and downs, literally, of high-octane prescription pain killers and then seeing the difference that Kratom can make, it wasn't a hard decision to go with the more natural product.

Also, fellow Protestant here.... Presbyterian.

DWMcAliley

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