eBook Decay, Poor Man's Peloton, and Hurrah for France

How loquacious I feel today! Three topics for the non-price of one. For openers . . . .

Crossroads Initiative 

Geriatric eBook Irks Aggregator

To be fair, Smashwords wasn't especially miffed, but they won't release one of my ebooks to their premium catalog—which means no Barnes and Noble, Kobo or other potential sales sites. Reasons given are murky and technical. Fixes necessary are to refer me to a list of approved technical fixers. And the book has been up on Smashwords for almost seven years. I have another idea.

Draft2Digital Beckons

At least their advertising is winsome and coy. Allow me to quote:

"Draft2Digital has always made it a priority to make eBook conversion as easy as pushing a button. Our free eBook conversion tool has been praised as the best there is.

Authors get attractive EPUB and MOBI files they can count on to work with any eReader app or device on the market. They even get a print-ready PDF to use with Print On Demand (POD) services, such as CreateSpace and Ingram Spark—all for free."

Basically, I send them my doddering old manuscript and they update it to Mobi or Epub or pdf for a writer guy like me. They'll supply an ISBN, though I prefer to use my own. That said, I'll be shifting the surreal, cosmic satire Little Book of Big Enlightenment over to D2D. If successful, more books may follow. 

Cycle Through the Seasons

A cross-training favorite of mine is stationary cycling. My ride consisted of a cheap Chinese bike

with pedals, wheels that turn and a knob for increasing effort. Basic with a capital "B." However, my force multiplier is YouTube, specifically the Global Cycling Network. By spinning away to one of their numerous videos I can ride hills in Majorca, or perform sprints, tabatas, fat burns all to human beings with British accents urging me on. (Note: I'm paid nothing, NOTHING for this.) Commercial at the beginning, but no interruptions, at least on the videos I employ. My current favorite is a 15-minute cardio burn. You sweat more than an IRS audit.

Thanks, Nice French People!

Speaking of Europe, a tip of the old beret to the French who've been clicking through Write Enough! in large numbers the last two weeks. Why? I cannot say. But muchas gracias for stopping by.

WSJ