Kindle Once Again - this time for Walk, Hike, Saunter

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 Last time I did this was Dec 2017. At the moment, memory of how to do it is pretty foggy, but luckily I have my earlier blog posts on this to refresh my memory so printing them out to review. (look for Kindle label in this blog to find).  This book is a little easier than the others - text and inline photos, a table of contents, but no index. Susan has promised it will be out in two and a half weeks, so will try to do that. My immediate issue is that I remember that I have to make some changes to the Indesign file before putting out the epub file that I will update for Kindle, but don't remember quite what they were. Pausing to read my prior posts, and to review Kindle code for Healing Miles . From my 2012 notes I saw that to get reliable chapter breaks, each chapter had to be a separate xhtml file. The default of Indesign is to put out one big xhtml file, but it will break on a style, so I need to be sure the current Indesign document (for Walk, Hike, Saunter ) has an appropriat

Camino Chronicle could use a few more good reviews

You may have wondered about my blog name "This Makes No Sense At All". It came about because one of the things we have always loved about hiking is the consistently wonderful community of hikers, when we meet them on the trail. No matter what their circumstances in the real world, on the trail they are without exception, friendly and go out of their way to be helpful.

When we got more interested in long distance hiking, and I started following the related hiking online forums, I discovered that this spirit prevailed, but that there was also more than expected angry divisive commentary. It was this that made no sense at all. I could not match it with the people I met on the trail.

Last fall when we noticed that our sales of Camino Chronicle abruptly dropped by two thirds, we did some checking and saw that a couple had bought a copy from Amazon, and then posted two very negative one star reviews. Since we didn't have a lot of reviews to begin with, that had a drastic effect. I don't really quarrel with their not liking Susan's journal writing style - some do, some don't. It is just that they seemed so angry about it. This is a non fiction book. The facts are what they are. The scope of information is substantial and took a long time to gather and organize. A one star review is the equivalent of a letter grade of F, and inappropriate. They are hiking the Camino this spring, and maybe when they come back they will have the hiker spirit and revise their review, but I am not hopeful.

Over the years, many people have told us that they liked the book. We didn't think to respond: "Thanks, an Amazon review would be helpful". If you are one of those people, this is your opportunity!

Comments

  1. You are so incredibly spot on here!! There is some strange thing that seems to compel people to complain and write about things they perceive as wrong. Yet by some weird twist...the converse seems to never happen. We may give something word of mouth to our friends, but how often do we take the time to give an atta boy to anyone, be it a blogger an author or a company who made a product we love! Thanks for the reminder to do just that!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Karin. Speaking of atta boys, anyone clicking on your blog will see that you deserve quite a few yourself.

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  2. Having just gone and read their "reviews" I have to chuckle, because quite frankly they sound rather whiny themselves! :-)

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