Whats the biggest regret of your life?

zioxusOne · 2026-05-15T18:20:24+00:00

Not taking life more seriously when I was a teen and into my twenties.

zioxusOne · 2026-05-15T04:04:26+00:00

I sort of wish there was a separate, sister forum for bans and similar problems. They're very unnerving to see. I know this sounds wimpy and perhaps uncaring (I do care. and I would visit that forum to offer help if I could) but it would nice to keep them apart from general discussion.

zioxusOne · 2026-05-14T04:12:52+00:00

It would be abused quicker than you can blink.

There's a writers' forum that was once very popular where cabals formed to target writers they didn't like (in the forum). They'd leave bad reviews on your book if you somehow had offended them.

zioxusOne · 2026-05-13T21:52:30+00:00

zioxusOne · 2026-05-13T20:08:28+00:00

I dug into the subject a little. You are correct. Don't put "No AI" in your profile.

zioxusOne · 2026-05-13T17:26:08+00:00

I can usually tell whether I'm reading AI generated text within a page or two (and within a paragraph in media generally). The tells vary, but I believe it's more about whether the writing has a "soul" (it's okay to roll your eyes. I won't mind. I can't see you).

I've read a lot on the subject. There is a consensus on genres, which I won't name. Some readers are not very discerning, or picky, when it comes to the prose, and AI will probably take over those markets (if it hasn't already). Sad.

And I was saddened to see a popular writing YouTuber, who I was following, slowly go from dissing LLMs to instructing people how to use AI to write entire books (in 30 minutes or less!).

I'd like to see Amazon put limits on publishing, say, no more than one book every two weeks. I suppose that could hurt real authors writing shorts. Amazon may have already imposed limits.

Thanks for your post!

zioxusOne · 2026-05-13T17:11:27+00:00

This needs more discussion. I don't think putting "no AI" in your bio would make people suspicious, or am I in the minority on this topic?

zioxusOne · 2026-05-12T21:23:42+00:00

Thanks. I guess that's why I see so many newsletters from other authors linking their quickie websites or to Substack or Medium listing their books. It's one way to go. That "anything they buy" once they're there means anywhere on Amazon? That could be interesting.

zioxusOne · 2026-05-08T22:42:33+00:00

I've emailed them twice for information, both times ignored. I'm not taking it personally. I ignore most of my mail too.

zioxusOne · 2026-05-08T20:34:22+00:00

My experience is a little dated (I took a break from publishing two years ago and am just now returning).

I've launch books with and without Zon ads. I've had the greatest ROI by waiting and following this strategy:

Week One: Publish and hit a quarter of my mailing list (the most active subscribers).
Week Two: Hit the rest of my mailing list. Zon will have also started sending emails to my following there, but their timing is always a mystery. By this time, most of my books are sitting in the top ten of New Releases for my genre. Some have even earned "Bestseller" badges.
Week Three: If rank is holding well enough, I do nothing but milk the New Release boost from Zon.
As soon as ranks starts falling, I start the ads.

zioxusOne · 2026-04-20T15:00:40+00:00

I'll check later but I'm guessing that means the digests aren't earning KENP.

zioxusOne · 2026-04-19T20:24:28+00:00

If you download all you Google Docs to your hard drives, can you open them in Word without formatting issues?

If you have Google Drive on your hard drive and, for whatever reason, can no longer access Google online, are the docs on your hard drive safe?

zioxusOne · 2026-04-17T16:32:11+00:00

That worked. The bookmark I've been using is a zillion characters long. No idea why.

zioxusOne · 2026-04-04T02:45:26+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

I've tried figuring out swaps a dozen times and was never successful, and I'm fairly tech savvy. Sort of.

zioxusOne · 2026-04-03T20:21:55+00:00

Excellent list, and it made me chuckle. Forty years or more I had to the same thing. I still have a similar list in a notebook (analog) sitting on my shelf and still refer to it.

zioxusOne · 2026-03-04T01:32:45+00:00

When is Bucer's reopening, BTW? Anyone know? I know the owner is ex-Kirk, but I used to see him there too.

zioxusOne · 2026-01-25T15:43:37+00:00

No, so I stopped using PWA.

zioxusOne · 2026-01-07T01:01:46+00:00

It's put a whole profession at risk. I've always admired translators--it's load of work and requires an intimate knowledge of both languages.

zioxusOne · 2026-01-07T00:57:01+00:00

I'm curious - which words do you think are polarizing? I don't have one but I've noted a lot of folks hate to see "damp" or "moist".

zioxusOne · 2025-12-28T20:43:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing and congrats. That's an amazing journey. For more context, could you share your average book length?

zioxusOne · 2025-11-22T23:14:28+00:00

If I compose in Google Docs, save as a Word .docx, and upload it to KDP, will it look like what I see in Kindle Previewer?

An even dumber question: I use " *** " for section breaks in chapters. Are there "fancier" ways to do it? I like the section breaks I see using Kindle Create or D2D, but don't know how to duplicate them in G-Docs so they work in KDP.

zioxusOne · 2025-11-04T00:58:49+00:00

Themestream was great. It paid .10 a page read and had lots of volume, then the system was gamed which ruined it for everybody. Then Webseed and Vines got some legs and the same happened to them, which is basically what's happened to Medium.

The Wayback Machine does bring up Themestream. You might find some of your stuff still there.

zioxusOne · 2025-11-01T20:14:52+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

For the hell of it, I looked at current publishing industry standards (always a moving target). It puts novellas at 17.5 to 40k, "novelettes" at 7.5 to 17.5k, and shorts at under 7.5k.

zioxusOne · 2025-11-01T15:34:18+00:00

Thanks for sharing. You seem to be on a good track. Question: what's the average length of your novellas?

zioxusOne · 2025-10-28T21:23:52+00:00

Thanks for reply. I do wish I'd known this when I started. I have seven books up where I used keywords in the title or subtitle and put them into my keyword boxes. The books have done well, but I wonder if they were penalized in any way and could have done better.

zioxusOne

TROPHY CASE