"The undertaking of a new action brings new strength." - Richard L. Evans

I realize this is more like a second quote than a pic, but I thought it was potent. Agree/Disagree?

We got 1.5" of rain yesterday and as I type this (5:45 a.m.) it looks like we'll get at least that much today. It rained very hard during the night and it's coming down in buckets now. We won't get out of the upper 40's today so the wood stove will probably go non-stop. MoHo has very poor insulation, but it's small enough (840 sq. ft) that sometimes we struggle to find and keep it at a medium temperature. We're so used to wearing sweatshirts inside that 70 degrees feels cozy. Wood stoves don't have thermostats and even with the air control on the back of this mid-70's model it's hard to regulate the fire.
I look forward to the day when we can afford a new wood stove that is more efficient (they said we'd gain about 50% in efficiency), has a glass door so I can see if more wood is needed, and better controls for regulating the fire. Alas, at $4k installed that's going to be awhile.
(The electrical cord goes to a fan that helps push the hot air into the room.)

BTW, I've never been real sure whether I should use awhile or a while. There's a rule but I can never remember it and don't care enough to look it up each time.

I find it interesting (I'm easily amused) that English gives us whether, wether, and weather.
I need to come up with a sentence that uses all three.
Tomorrow I'll turn Burrito into a wether whether or not the weather is conducive.

A large (~20) flock of wild turkeys lives down at the bottom of Sheffler, the turn-around point on my 5-mile route. Today it's down to ~19. Went to the coffee shop this morning. Just as I was coming to the stop sign one of them flew out from my right about 18" off the ground. I had no time to do anything but watch the feathers fly.
So much for his Thanksgiving.

I've mentioned that our Tuesday night small group has a potluck dinner before our discussion of the sermon from the previous Sunday. We talked about whether or not to meet this coming Tuesday because it's Thanksgiving week but decided none of us were affected by that day vis a' vis Tuesday night so we'll meet as usual.
This week Pam and I are bringing the entree' - shepherd's pie made with goat meat. Our group has grown to about a dozen so Pam will probably make two pans. She made some over the weekend to test the recipe and it was very good! We don't have a meat grinder so she cooked the meat in the cooker to get it tender and then shredded it. Mmmm.
We asked if everyone was OK eating goat and they said they were eager to try it. I think they'll agree that if they didn't know otherwise they'd think it was beef, maybe just seasoned a little differently.

One of the national news stories I saw on TV last night was about Whole Foods' dramatic price drop on turkeys and other items leading up to Thanksgiving. Since Amazon bought Whole Foods a couple of months ago the grocery business is getting a shakeup that's got the big boys nervous. The story said we'll have to see if the major grocery chains respond with their own discounts in order to keep pace.
Amazon is making waves in several areas, including now the Rx business and in publishing.

For the last 8-10 years the big thing in publishing is Print On Demand (POD), a system that allows a guy in Elmira, Oregon to publish as easily as Simon Schuster. Big and expensive offset printers are no longer necessary in a digital world. A company can take a digital manuscript, install it on their massive computers, and then print it out on their massive digital printers without any of the time and expense involved in offset printing. They can just as easily print one copy or thousands and do it in hours instead of weeks. That means no more need to stock boxes and boxes of books waiting for a retailer who wants two dozen. The digital publisher can print on demand as many (and no more) copies than are needed and then ship anywhere they're wanted.

Two kinds of POD services exist. The first, like IngramSpark (one of the two big POD firms) charges a fee for their services - digital conversion of your files to their format, binding, shipping, etc - that varies depending on the number of books you want shipped. For example, 300 copies of a 6"x9" paperback on white paper with black ink, glossy cover, and shipped to zip 97437 runs about $1,500 if I supply the cover art and have a few other details in place. They'll ship those 300 copies within a week of receiving my digital files assuming I've approved the proofs they'll email to me.
I can then sell those books for whatever price I decide, or give them away if I choose to do so, because IngramSpark has made their money.
Oh, and they'll also format the book in the standard digital format so it can be sold for any eBook reader, whether Kindle, AppleReader, or.... Again, I set the price after paying them a pretty reasonable fee.

Enter Amazon! They do it all FREE. Yep, no charge for either digital formatting or printing hard copies. Order one or 10,000 paperbacks and you pay nothing. Nada. Zip. Not for printing, or digital publishing, or shipping.
What's the catch?
OK, they format the digital version in Kindle's proprietary format so it can only be read on a Kindle or on a device like an iPad with the (free) Kindle app installed.
And because all sales go through them they take a piece of each book sold, digital or hard copy. The author can set the price at anything from $1 to $1,000 per copy and Amazon takes the same percentage of each sale. That percentage varies depending on some variables, like the cover (glossy or matte?), paper (white 50 lb. or color 80 lb.), and ink (black or full color). Their cut ranges from a low of 30% for a paperback and 20% for a digital book to about 45% for the more expensive formats.
And they promise a 48 hour turnaround. And they'll drop ship to any location you specify. And they'll give the author his portion of the sales weekly via a wire transfer. And the author can make any changes to the text at any time, free. And they'll link the Kindle and hard copies on their website so you can choose your preferred format. And they track sales so the author can see how many have sold, where, and in what format. Free. And anyone anywhere in the world can order from their site, or the author can order a supply to have on hand and ship to whomever. And they can do it in any language so long as the digital file they get is in that language (i.e., the translation already done).

Obviously Amazon is taking a risk. Their overhead for any given book is fairly fixed, so a book that sells 20 copies is a loser for them. But a book that sells hundreds of thousands makes them a ton of money. They're betting that the ease and convenience they offer will get them a sufficiently big part of the market that they'll make big money.
And so far they are.

When I started doing my research I looked at Amazon's model and ruled them out. I didn't like restricting myself to their Kindle format or restricting sales to the Amazon portal. Then I learned from Brian yesterday that virtually all the students at the college use the Kindle format even if they have a Mac device because they've downloaded that Kindle app. And I can't think of a downside to doing all sales through Amazon's site. I can still keep a modest supply of books here if I want and churches can easily order in multiples if they want, direct from the Amazon site.

I'm still working my way through the Amazon tutorials. This morning I watched a video about tax forms and reporting. But I'm beginning to feel like I have a bit of a handle on this.