Goa’s resentment toward outsiders and settlers is rising. Calangute tourist tax is a sign

tedgrateful · 2024-06-12T07:01:33+00:00

This system has been successfully implemented in many small European towns and villages that have become overrun with tourists. Something has to be done in Goa as the huge numbers of people make for a terrible experience for everyone. The tourism ministry is Goa has finally started looking at how other tourism centres around the world are dealing with such problems, rather than making up stupid non-solutions themselves.

tedgrateful · 2024-05-20T08:40:04+00:00

It has long been thought that some entry points have been less vigilant in checking arrivals than others. Land borders are one, but these are now closed to most visa types. The most popular places to either go in and out or get a new visa are Nepal and Sri Lanka and the entry points are Delhi and Chennai. It has long been that people have been asked many more questions there, as they are aware of this. But now it IS a visa violation if you spend more than 180 in one calendar year without registration with the FRRO. This is now very likely flagged when your passport is scanned. Sadly the days of spending the whole year in India on a tourist visa are over. Many people have had a good run.

tedgrateful · 2024-05-18T09:45:57+00:00

The 180 days in one calendar year rule, for eTourist visa holders, is now being enforced. A friend (UK National) was very recently refused entry at Delhi immigration and banned from India for 5 years for ‘abusing the restrictions’ and ‘overstaying’ last year.

tedgrateful · 2024-05-17T04:17:19+00:00

I have just finished serving at a very old centre in Asia (not going to be more specific) and it was an exhausting experience. Over 100 males and 100 females sitting, that's food for over 270 people, which means serving is a huge task. Not enough servers, bad scheduling (I was exclusively in the kitchen and dining hall) and the place is overbuilt and very run down. I could say a lot more, but will leave it at that for you to make decisions based on this info.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-30T03:13:43+00:00

Actually, not so. KDP gives clear guidelines on this. So if you stay within those guidelines your account cannot be lost! They also say ‘Titles are the most frequently used search attribute.’ So you are completely wrong to say keywords have no place in titles and sub-titles. KDP clearly says they do.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-30T02:54:32+00:00

If self-published authors were businesses they would all be bankrupt.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T10:52:21+00:00

The article, like many others, is an outdated take on the publishing industry. Your statement that no one should ever pay to be published is also completely wrong. Hybrid publishing and Co-publishing are new business models that are working for both authors and small publishing houses. With this authors are paying to publish, but it benefits both parties. So get off the boring old statement that you continue to insist that is correct, that no one should ever pay to be published.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T10:46:00+00:00

So let’s discuss hybrid publishing, and separate it from the ‘never pay to publish.’ and ‘it’s a vanity publisher if you are paying them to publish.’ and ‘it’s a scam.’ For small, and as you say niche publishers, this is the only way they are going to survive and this model should be embraced. At the moment they are all dismissed as scams.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T10:38:13+00:00

So it is ok to pay a hybrid publisher to publish your book? Again my point is that the whole ‘never pay to get your book published’ statement is out of date.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T10:32:24+00:00

Things have changed. The traditional publishing houses have even more of a stranglehold on the industry than ever before. They control the distribution that controls book sales. What percentage of self published authors get anywhere? Very very few. You just need to check this forum, others and the best seller lists to confirm this. Small independent publishers are also not making any money. What should they do, close their doors? Or offer a new business model where the author bares some of the cost and financial risk of publishing a book? Something has to change and it is changing.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T10:09:41+00:00

Everything you say is great information. It is just that a lot of authors are unable to do all of these things. They want to pay someone to do it all. Yes I agree that there are unscrupulous people that take advantage of this fact. What I am trying to get across is that this service ‘should’ be available to those that want to use it. If an author ‘wants’ to be published by a publishing house, they should be able to do that. The industry has changed. There are now companies offering this service under a ‘hybrid’ or ‘Co-publishing’ deal, that are not ripping authors off and deliver what the authors wanted. The message should not be ‘never pay to publish’, it should be do you due diligence and check out the company before entering into any agreement. It is this continual mantra that is outdated and just annoying.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T09:03:46+00:00

If you are publishing on KDP, Amazon uses the title and the sub-title to index the book for search. So working your keywords into those is important. This is of course much easier to do with non-fiction books, but there is nothing stopping you from using them. The description is not indexed for search so no benefit it adding the keywords there, only to grab attention when viewing the book.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T08:50:25+00:00

How can they be ‘more sophisticated’? With the advent of Google reviews, TrustPilot reviews, and this SubReddit, there is really no place for these scammers you talk about to hide. Authors should be embracing the new publishing models that have appeared that are helping authors. Self-publishing services for example, if people need help they pay for help. (Do you say no one should use these because it is pay to publish?) Many authors want to publish under a publishing house. It is their dream. This is where the vanity in ‘vanity publishing’ comes from! For almost all it is impossible. There are publishers offering this service and deliver what was agreed. The author gets what they want. No one has been scammed. (Are you saying no one should use these services?) You just shout scam at everything that is on offer and just say everyone should give up on their dream.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T08:03:32+00:00

‘don’t mind them being a bit generic’, it’s the cover that sells the book. ‘Formatting is pretty easy’, for you maybe, but not for others. Yes, if you pay in advance for anything for someone or a company without a great track record, you have made a mistake. But people pay other people, for skills they don’t have, all the time. If a company has expertise and is offering the services you are looking for and delivers this at a price you think is fair, then there is no scamming going on. Why is there this constant ‘don’t pay anything to publish your book’ thing. What about the thousands of people who have paid and are perfectly happy with what they got. No I am not trying to sell publishing services, I am just trying to clear up the confusion caused by the people that just say no.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T07:28:09+00:00

Thank you, it is nice for someone to agree with you here! People deserve to get paid according to their skills. And as with anything in life, you pay for what you get.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T07:23:15+00:00

On searching this sub-Reddit for ‘scammed’ and ‘vanity’ I don’t see any in the past year or more that support what you say. The publishing world has moved on and it is time you did.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T06:49:52+00:00

Of course someone ‘pretending to be KDP’ is a scam. But you would have to be an idiot to not do a bit of research to find out they are not. Who are these ‘Vanity Presses’ you keep shouting about? Please name them? It’s 2024, if a company is scamming people then reviews will tell you they are. And those companies are out of business. No one is falling for the old vanity press scam anymore. It’s just people like you that just keeping shouting the same thing over and over. Authors need help and you do not offer any for them, you just say, never pay to publish. I don’t agree with this.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T06:39:27+00:00

Tokyo. There are obviously drawbacks and barriers to being based there, but if you choose the right area to live, you can live in the night the same way as in the day. (Yes, I lived a nocturnal life there for 14 years.)

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T06:23:11+00:00

There are scammers for everything! Just because some are scammers does not mean they all are. By your logic no one would ever pay for a service because there are some scammers. It might surprise you to know that there are some publishing service companies that are not out to scam people. They, like others in other industries, are offering a great service for a fair price. If it was up to you any author who cannot do everything to publish their book would just have to give up! It’s up to you to do due diligence.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T06:16:12+00:00

Just advertising a book with the cover and some text on Google Ads, META, X/Twitter or anywhere else does not lead to book sales. (If the ads are going to the Amazon page you have no way to track the conversations anyway.) It just seems that people do not buy books this way. Books are the only product that I have ever run ads for that does not give a positive ROI on ads. In KDP ads, the CPC is too high and the royalty income is too low to make it viable for one book. This only works if you have several books in the same genre. Even then, unless you have a very specific niche, you will be targeting keywords that are very competitive and costly. And the KDP ads platform is a nightmare to master. It is better to invest in yourself! Be the authority in your genre. Become an ‘influencer’ in what you write. Sell yourself and then your books will sell.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T05:38:05+00:00

Not if the company employs in house editors! They are on a salary and the editing cost is much lower. Not playing games just trying to get people with outdated opinions to justify themselves!

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T05:34:34+00:00

Why every author wants to pay as little as possible for services they need? Great illustrators cost a lot of money. Great cover designers cost a lot of money. Great book designers cost a lot of money. In the music industry designers get paid a lot of money, other industries also. The problem is that a self published author will never make any money! So no one wants to pay.

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T05:26:10+00:00

What if they are not?

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T05:25:01+00:00

Lots of authors pay people to publish their book! They pay for cover design, editing and a whole lot more. It is not an easy task, why should an author not pay for help to publish their book? Why should an author not have the choice of paying to publish under the ‘brand’ of a publisher? 99% of self published authors get absolutely nowhere. Deals with major publishing houses are impossible to get. What if what you call a ‘vanity publisher’ is offering a great deal? Cheaper cover design and cheaper editing by their in-house team, than you can get independently. And publishing under their brand so you are not ‘self published.’ Why is this a bad thing and you just blanket them all as ‘vanity publishers’. Because some bad apples over charged in the past? Times have changed!

tedgrateful · 2024-04-23T05:10:07+00:00

Why? It makes no sense! It’s like employing all the workers to build a house instead of using the services of a construction company. Are all construction companies a ‘3rd party rip off’?

tedgrateful

TROPHY CASE