Draft2Digital Adding Fees

If you're an author who uses Draft2Digital for publishing your work, then you already know what I'm about to post. For the rest of you, read on.

Draft2Digital sent out an email this week informing its clients that they're going to add user fees to their platform. The first is account activation fees. Due to "automated content farms" overwhelming them with "slop," (in other words, AI-written books) they're requiring a one-time $20 fee to set up an account. Combined with "verification tools and human reviewers," they hope to cut down on those clowns that are abusing the system.

I'm ok with this. Granted, I'm an existing account holder so I'm exempt from this fee. However, the next one hits me, and I'd imagine probably about 90% of the authors who use their service.

There will now be an annual maintenance fee of $12 applied to all "accounts whose earnings from book sales, meaning your net proceeds after D2D's commission, total less than $100 over the preceding 12-month period. If you earn $100 or more from your book sales over 12 months, you will not be charged this fee." (emphasis on "net" is mine)

So if your book sales suck, which admittedly is most of us indie authors, you're not pulling your weight. We apparently need to up our game because we're a drain on their margins. As if we're not dealing with enough production costs (editing, typesetting, cover art) and marketing costs (ad campaigns, giveaways, paid reviews, etc.), we now have the added pressure of meeting our digital printer's revenue quota or else pay an annual fee. Swell.

As Smashwords is a D2D property, expect to see their FREE section to dwindle to next to nothing (well, successful authors can introduce the first book in a series for free to lure readers in and hope they can hook them for the rest of the series). In the past, Smashwords published statistics showing that the vast majority (90+%) of books that were purchased from them were books listed for free.

Needless to say, I am unhappy about this. I typically list my books for $2.99. After D2D takes their cut, I get $1.78. So I need to sell 57 copies to avoid the additional $12. If you think that's easy, then you don't know how difficult indie publishing is.

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DED

I Hate Marketing: Goodreads Giveaway

At the end of August, I announced that I was running an eBook (Kindle) giveaway on Goodreads during the month of September. They were running a special (only $99!) whereupon I could give away up to 100 eBook copies, and they would handle everything: picking winners from those who signed up on Goodreads and sending out copies. I recently had acquired a debit card for switching ISPs, so I decided to go for it.

I chose Armistice Day for the giveaway in hopes that if people liked it that they would go on to buy Gateway to Empire.

I was a bit nervous come launch day. What if no one signed up for my book? I've never had a problem giving away things for free. I've given away couches, stairs, books, tapes, toys, 3D printed models, a door, and many more things, but still I worried that somehow either the book cover or the blurb would turn potential readers off.

Silly me. Never underestimate the power of free.

I had 75 people interested by lunchtime, and 120 people signed up by the time I went to bed. What a relief! Over the course of the month, the pace of signups slowed, but by the end of the month I reached 953 entrants! I was psyched!

Now most people don't go through the trouble to write reviews, so I figured that if I got five reviews, it would be a success. So I sat back and waited.

Three months later, I'm here to tell you what the results are.

Ok, there's no way to sugarcoat this. Things didn't pan out the way I'd hoped: I only got 1 review and 3 ratings. The review was good, and the reviewer gave me four stars. The other two ratings were three stars, which I'm completely fine with. And no, it hasn't led to more sales for Gateway to Empire.

The most recent rating came on November 15th, so what happened to the other 97 winners? Shouldn't I have received a bunch of ratings by now? Based on my GR experience, most people at least rate a book even if they don't review it. GR always wants to know what you thought of a book (so that it can recommend other books to buy read). It'll leave you alone if you rate the book. It won't nag you to review it. So my guess is that the bulk of the winners are voracious readers who enter giveaways because their appetite exceeds their wallet. They collect as many books as they can for free. They'll read them all eventually. Or not.

Just to clear, I don't blame GR at all. They handled everything professionally, didn't treat me any different than trad pub authors, and provided me with the statistics I requested.

Am I bummed about the poor review/rating to books given away ratio? You bet! But that's the way it goes. Would I do it again? Maybe, but not until I've had a chance to explore other methods first.

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DED

I Hate Marketing - Getting Reviews

I hate marketing; I really do. But I know that "publish it and they will come" is not an effective strategy. I've tried it; many many indie authors have tried it.

So we try to get some reviews. Maybe we ask a friend or they just do it without asking because they realize how difficult it is to get reviews. But that quickly dries up, so we move on.

We submit our ebooks and physical copies—only if necessary—to those few review sites willing to actually read and review indie published books. There aren't many, and so for every book they review they have to say no to a hundred more. I know this firsthand as that's what we had to do here when we were open to submissions—something I hope to do again someday. And after a couple of years, well, you get burned out, or there just isn't time as real life gets in the way. Something has to give, and writing free book reviews is an easy choice to get the ax.

Now some entrepreneurial types figured out how to keep writing book reviews for indie authors. You could pay someone to give you a five-star review on Amazon. Maybe they had a few sock puppets to give you several five-star reviews. Some people did it themselves. Once it got out of control and reviews on Amazon didn't mean shit, Amazon cracked down and only allowed verified purchasers to write reviews. Does it still go on? Maybe. I don't know. But it gave paid reviews a stigma. How would you know if the review was honest?

Well, some people figured out how to do it the right way. I think it might be the norm now. I recently went through the list of reviewers at the Indie View, and there were a lot of paid review sites. But I wasn't ready for that yet.

But the free indie reviews list for sci-fi was short. There were plenty that were MIA or closed to submissions. I did manage to come up with a list of several sites and submitted my requests. That was July. Only one person has replied to say that they're interested. One site auto-replied to tell me to watch their site. Maybe they'd review it; maybe they wouldn't. The rest of them didn't respond at all. I'm not surprised by it really, nor can I blame them. They're probably inundated with requests and don't have the time to reply to them all. I get that. Sometimes people can be rude when you reject their book review request.

I realize that I'm going to have to open my wallet. I've got a debit card for switching my ISP and commiting to an extended period of time. It's found money. But I have to be smart with how I'm going to spend it on marketing. A few indie authors have shared how fast that ad dollar disappears. So I'm going with the biggest bang for the buck. Goodreads (owned by Amazon) is having a giveaway sale. I can give away 100 ebook (Kindle) copies to GR readers (that know to look for giveaways) for $99. The impression I get is that if I get five reviews out of that, it's a success. It runs for the month of September, so I'll report back to let you know how I did.

Want to read Armistice Day? Visit this page during the month of September to enter for a chance to win.

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DED

More eBook Formats for Gateway to Empire

Well, it took far longer than expected, but Gateway to Empire is now available in other ebook formats besides Kindle. If you want it on the Nook, click here. For all other ebook formats, head over to Books2Read.com and choose your preferred platform. But if print is still your thing, well, there's that too.

And when you're done, a rating or a review would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
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DED

Problems with Draft2Digital

I had every intention to get Gateway To Empire published in other ebook formats besides the Kindle, but those plans have gone awry. Previously, I used Smashwords to publish all of these myriad other ebook formats, but they were purchased by Draft2Digital (D2D). I discovered that they use a different formatting program than Smashwords.

I attempted to get this done in February, but I struggled to get the D2D software to properly format my manuscript. After weeks of frustration, I decided to take a break. Days turned to weeks turned to months. My attempts this month to try again have met with failure.

In the help section FAQ, here's what I found:

If I format my file myself, will it look exactly the same when you convert it?
No. Ebooks are a reflowable format that allows the reader a lot of flexibility in how they consume content. Draft2Digital's automated conversion process will strip out things that force formatting to be one exact way—embedded fonts, extra line breaks, empty pages, footnotes, or anything the system considers unnecessary to the final file.

I'm not trying to do anything fancy. I just want to get paragraphs to align, a particular quote to be indented, and the information pages (ISBN page, Other books by..., etc.) to line up. So I'm at a loss. I guess I'll keep pounding my head against the D2D wall.

The thing is: I really wanted to get all of the ebook formats set up so that when I contact indie book reviewers I can offer them copies in any format they might want. But now, I can't.

If anyone has any suggestions for alternatives to D2D, please let me know in the comments.

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DED

Gateway to Empire Now Available

Gateway to Empire is now available in print and on the Kindle!

Other ebook formats to come.

Cover Reveal for Gateway to Empire

Coming soon...

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DED

Mid-August 2024 Writing Update

Finished writing Gateway To Empire! Now to send it off to my alpha readers.

I have a lot that I'd like to say about the journey to get to this point, but I'm conflicted as to how to say it. I can't find the words right now to balance my disappointment that it took me so long to get it done with my pride that I got it done and like what I wrote. But that's the man I am.

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DED

Writing Has Resumed

I finally seem to have made enough progress processing my father's death that I'm able to write again. Obviously the real world events of 2020 didn't help to move things along. While terrible things are still going on, it seems that on a personal level I've been able to turn the page.

Over the summer, I was inspired by a status update I saw on Goodreads to write this short story. The idea rattled around my brain, but I wasn't able to write it up until the week after Christmas. It's titled "Staking Sunflowers". It's 2,100 words long and has sci-fi and horror elements in it.

My wife and kids read it and gave their approval. A reading group on Goodreads has given it positive reviews, too. After a few edits, including tacking on a darker ending, I've started reviewing markets that it might work for. First submission and rejection happened yesterday, so I must keep looking. In the meantime, now that it's out of my head, I can get back to working on Gateway.

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DED

Revised Armistice Day now Available on Nook and Others

The revised version of Armistice Day is now available on the Nook and other devices. Smashwords has a large number of those formats including: epub, pdf, rtf, lrf (older Sony ereaders), and pdb (Palm OS readers). I'm told that it is, or will soon be, available at Kobo, Apple, Scribd, OverDrive, and other platforms that I'm too unsure of to mention. It might even be available at your library. [shrug] Who knows? I saw the old cover on a couple of those sites this morning, so clearly eBook distribution isn't as fast in some corners of the internet as others.

The Smashwords Meatgrinder seems to be ok this time around. With any luck, all of the changes that I made to the kindle copy were ported over. If you spot a mistake, please let me know in the comments.

My cover designer is on vacation right now (he had Covid-19 so I think he deserves the time to recuperate), but when he gets back, I'll be talking to him about the print cover.

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DED

Revised Armistice Day now on Kindle

I'd forgotten how much I hate formatting a manuscript for publication. Nevertheless, the new version of Armistice Day is now available on the Kindle.

How much has changed? The cover is the major difference. A couple of paragraphs changed, but there was some capitalization issues with the phrase "my lord" that I finally got figured out. There were some layout issues encountered when I re-uploaded the manuscript. I don't know if they existed before.

Other eBook versions are in the process of being made. Once they're set, I'll be commissioning the print copy of the cover.

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DED

New Cover for Armistice Day

Hi all,

I hope everyone is healthy and safe.

Here's the new cover for Armistice Day!

It was designed by the good people over at Goonwrite.com. It's a legal adaptation of a work done by the fabulous artist Tithi Luadthong.

Next week I hope to get the cover uploaded for all of the ebook formats so that all new ebooks will have this cover. After that, I'll pony up the dough for the dead tree version.

\_/
DED

Facelift

I confess that the cover for my 2010 novel, Armistice Day, looks dated. It was the best cover I could commission back then. I have no regrets about it (My regrets only pertain to my lack of publishing, but that's another matter).

These days, one's dollar goes so much farther as accessibility to high quality pre-made covers has greatly improved and the price for commissioned book covers has come down. Yes, there's still garbage out there, but the market has improved by so much.

In the days ahead, I'll be posting the new look for Armistice Day.

In other news, I've now launched a Facebook page for my writing news. Marketing, cross promotion, yadda yadda yadda. But if you already read this blog, there really won't be anything there that isn't posted here. I have plenty of complaints about Facebook's content, but I'm also not a fan of the layout/interface. But that's where everyone is so what choice do I have?

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DED

2018 Ends; 2019 Begins.

Yep, I survived the 2018 holiday season. Three months of prepping for not only holidays, but birthdays as well. Woo boy, I'm exhausted. Still catching up on lost sleep, and now I need to lose ten pounds. Seriously. Twenty would be better.

Unfortunately, the fourth quarter of 2018 was a bust for writing. There hasn't been time. I completely understand why some writers run away to remote locations or hide themselves to get work done. I love my family and friends, but maintaining healthy, happy relationships requires time and presence. So, writing is neglected. And as I watch the pages on the calendar flip by on the breeze of time, I try really hard not to let it eat away at me.

Here's to a more productive 2019.

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DED

Disconnecting the Feed

When I started this blog, I'd intended it to be a PR feed for all things pertaining to my writing career. I didn't have any illusions that progress was going to be so great that this was going to be a "must watch" space, but I'd hoped for a bit more than it has been. Life has a way of throwing up roadblocks and detours. Let's leave it at that for now.

The blog feed link is a nice feature on Goodreads. It lets authors keep fans updated without having to remember to cross post. But I really haven't been doing that. What this space has become is a repository of book reviews in case something goes awry with Goodreads. I post little else. I have conflicting ideas about privacy versus self-promotion. I also don't want to repeat the mistakes I made with my first blog.

Since my blog feeds into Goodreads, anyone following me there sees double of my book reviews in their feed. That could be perceived as annoying. So I'm disconnecting my blog from Goodreads. This will be the last post that appears there. If I've got something to say that isn't a book review and want it posted there, I'll just use the "general update" feature or their built-in blog.

On the social media front, I'm transitioning from Google+ to Facebook. It's still in the early stages. I have to study what other authors have done in separating the professional from the personal. I'm not posting a link from this blog to Facebook until I'm 100% ready to go. I realize that could be never.

I haven't ruled out other social media platforms, but besides finding the right fit, network size is a major factor in determining if it's worth the effort. At this stage of the game, I'm still unknown enough that I haven't ventured beyond square one. When Gateway is finished (currently about 50%), I'll have more of an impetus to drive social media and marketing. Right now, it's not worth the time or effort.

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DED

I Killed MySpace

No, not really. It's just a coincidence that the #1 social networking outlet went into decline shortly after I joined up. It's also very much alive, albeit largely irrelevant in the social media landscape, as a music and entertainment platform.

I resisted joining for years, but I finally gave in to peer pressure. While I was connecting with obscure indie metal bands, scandals rocked the platform. It was labelled a "vortex of perversion" after sensationalized stories of teen sex, drugs, and kidnapping surfaced, reinforced by unsavory ads that everyone could see regardless of age and "moral standing." Throw in technical difficulties and the platform quickly hemorrhaged users. If you want, you can read a thorough story here.

MySpace was displaced by Facebook, and the rest is history.

I'm still not on Facebook. Why? So many reasons, but they can be categorized into two camps: the politics of personal relationships and Facebook's use of my data. I think both are pretty self-explanatory, but I'll elaborate.

The politics of personal relationships requires that I friend people who I don't like or don't really connect with in real life. And then I have to like things that they post like "sitting on the couch with a bag of Doritos watching TV" or "here are 32 pictures of my kid". Some people don't understand the concept of oversharing. In either case, if I don't play along, I'm a dick. When I see them in person, I then have to explain why I didn't "like" their post or refused their friend request. Makes for some really awkward times. I much prefer to be polite and keep my interactions with them in small doses.

If that makes me seem like a jerk, I'll accept that. But one should bear in my mind, that politeness in uncomfortable situations keeps things civil. Human history is rife with violence. The polite veneer of civility helps us all get along, but it can be exhausting. Do I really need to play this game with people who overshare? Do we really need more drama?

Facebook uses its members' data to make money. Nothing is off limits. It seems like people are just waking up to this. The counter argument is that you can't something for nothing. Yeah, I get that. I'd pay a reasonable subscription for a social media platform (I already pay for my website) where I had full control over how my data was used. But nothing sells like FREE.

I'll spare you the whole fake news crap that surfaced during the last election. Like I want to have a page of lies clogging up my screen.

So why am I considering joining? Because nearly everyone is on there! That isn't hyperbole: 40 million businesses, 2 billion people. Start up companies (breweries come to mind) forego having websites in favor of a Facebook page due to cost and simplicity. But even mature businesses have a presence on Facebook to drum up interest and will use it to handle their communications.

As an indie author, I need to find ways to reach out to people. Websites and blogs are just islands in the vast sea of the internet. Facebook is a continent. If you don't have some connection, you won't necessarily die, but you won't flourish either. If one person likes something, it shows up in their feed, which their friends see. Some might actually follow up and see what their friend liked. Such is the power of the network.

I've tried two other social media platforms (besides MySpace), but neither compares to the Pangaea of Facebook.

Google+ is fine, but its activity is tepid. Yes, I realize that Google is using my data, but I'm careful about what I share. Also, I haven't had any of the liking pressure. Of course, nearly no one I know uses it. I keep wondering when Alphabet is going to pull the plug on it.

Goodreads is a haven for bookworms. Its defined structure means I don't have to worry about drowning in cat videos. Again, no pressure to like someone's review or update. But maybe that's because I don't have a big network of people I connect with there. That's not to say it doesn't have issues, but I haven't had a problem avoiding them. It also offers authors a means to self-promote. I haven't taken full advantage of them yet, but plan to once I finish Gateway to Empire. Maybe that will be enough, but I'm inclined to think not.

But maybe this angst is all for naught. There's anecdotal evidence that Facebook usage is in decline. By the time I get around to joining it, maybe all of its issues will have finally caught up to it and send the company down into a death spiral. I don't think so. It's too big to fail, and there aren't any real alternatives. Unless there's an anti-social media movement where we downplay the importance of its role in our lives, I don't see that happening.

So I guess I'd better get ready to like a lot of cat videos and baby pictures.

\_/
DED

First Milestone in a While

Every winter for the last several years, I've made it my resolve to take advantage of being cooped up indoors and write. If you've paid any attention to me whatsoever, you know that I haven't been successful at all at seeing that resolution come to fruition. Sometimes the reasons are good: I have a freelance job editing or coding and I'm actually earning money. Sometimes the reasons aren't so good.

I'll confess here and now: I have seasonal affective disorder. I've had it at least as far back as my teens. It varies in intensity over spans of weeks and from one year to the next. Most years, it just wears on me, dragging on me like I'm pulling a sled full of firewood uphill in the snow. But occasionally, it pulls me down into a pit of despair. Over the last few years, I've had back-to-back bad winters and life came to a grinding halt. Fortunately, I have a loving wife and family to help me get through it.

I don't bring this up because I'm seeking pity. I don't like talking about it in general. When I grew up, admitting that you had a problem like this was a sign of weakness (I can only imagine what it's like for veterans with PTSD), and that hasn't left me, though society seems to be getting better about it. The reason why I'm bringing it up at all is that I feel like I owe an explanation to anyone and everyone who has paid any sort of attention to me as a writer. I feel like I've let them down. I want them to know that I'm not lazy or apathetic; I self-sabotage. I make up reasons not to write, or I'm such a zombie that before I know it, the day is gone. And this goes on every year.

But this winter I've managed to keep plugging away. I still throw up roadblocks to progress, but I've been able to make my way through the barricades more often than not. So I'm happy to announce that I've reached the 30,000-word milestone with the manuscript. To me, that could very well be halfway. Armistice Day wound up at 66,000 words over 250 pages, so there's that. For me, it's a psychological milestone, and I felt like sharing. It gives me a measure of hope that I'll actually keep my word about finishing the book this year.

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DED

But it wasn't all bad

Lest I give you the wrong impression, my summer wasn't all work and no play. For instance, in July my wife and I got to see the Church perform at Darryl's House in Pawling, which is just over the border in New York.


While most people only remember them for their 80's hit "Under the Milky Way," they actually have twenty-five studio albums. A new one, Man Woman Life Death Infinity, has just been released. They remain one of my all-time favorite bands.

Despite the small size of the club, there was a VIP section (basically right in front of us). VIPs were treated to a meet & greet with the band. It was weird. We were separated from the VIP section by a bar rail, so we looked on as the band talked with VIP fans right next to us but we were forbidden. Kind of silly.

Towards the end of meet and greet period, Tim Powles, the drummer, was oblivious to the divider and, unbidden, came over to talk to us. When we informed him that we weren't VIP, he shrugged. I don't want to misquote him, so I'll just say that he didn't really care, having had enough pre-show wine. We were unprepared and scrambling for something to talk about. We noticed was that he was barefoot. Presto! Instant conversation starter. We pointed out their naked condition and wasn't he worried about stepping on something. He knew he probably should be, but he was more relaxed. I mentioned that one couldn't go too many place barefoot in the US due to liability issues. I asked if other places were as litigious as the US. He said, "No," with conviction.

We chatted with a little while longer, then let him go before he got in trouble with management (club or band). Nice guy.

The show was great. Old favorites dominated the set, with some newer tracks mixed in.

Every July our town hosts a small brewfest. This was the first time we had a chance to go. Normally it's one of the hottest weekends of the year. When the thermometer climbs into the 90s, the last thing I want to do is drink beer. But this year it was cloudy, drizzly, and cool enough to wear jeans. In fact, it's 78°F (25.5°C) today and I'm in shorts. You know the weather's gone weird in the northern hemisphere when an October day is warmer than a day in July. Anyway, it was pretty good. A few new local startup breweries (Nod Hill, Broken Symmetry) were present, which was nice to see.

Every year, the Newtown public library hosts a large book sale in one of the schools. My daughter and I got to go this year. Here's my haul:

While I've always enjoyed perusing book stores (an activity all but extinct), I think this is the first time I've had a chance to go with my daughter. Yeah, she goes to the library, but that's always seemed to be satisfying some school requirement as opposed to reading because she enjoys it. It was a nice moment to connect with her over something we both enjoy.

But the highlight of the summer was witnessing the great North American eclipse of 2017! My parents live in the path of totality down in Tennessee, so we trekked on down to watch it from their front yard. The weather was perfect.

While I knew that the internet was going to be flooded with professional pictures and video, I just had to try and take some myself (Isn't that what people do?). I cut up one of the cheap (but Discover magazine approved) solar eclipse glasses and put one of the lenses in front of my phone camera lens. It didn't work very well. Most of the pictures were fuzzy blobs. This one was probably the best:

Obviously not good at all!

I waited until totality before I brought out my Olympus. I didn't want to risk damaging it (or my eyes) during the partial phase. I had much better results.

For these next four, I cropped the pictures so that I didn't have to re-size them. I think the pictures look better from a distance as the zooms reveal the limits of my camera.




This last picture is the same as the previous one, just zoomed out.

Venus made an appearance in the west once totality began, the reflected sunlight finally visible once the sky went dark. I didn't think to take a picture of it however.

If you've never seen a total solar eclipse in person, you should put it on your list of things to do. It was a sight to behold that my pictures don't do justice (or even the professional ones). It was like a hole in the sky, something physical yet completely dark. I understand why eclipses were viewed as ominous portents and signs from God (or the gods). For those two minutes and twenty seconds, it was as though a great secret had been revealed, but we all forgot just as soon as it was over.

I can't wait for the next one.

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DED

How I Spent My Summer (2017)

Like every other summer, I had my usual assortment of tasks: take the kids to their various summer camps (band camp, Irish dancing camp, sewing & embroidery class, field hockey, ice hockey), chop some wood for winter, and finish random small outdoor projects (like power wash and re-stain the deck). I got off to a good start by finishing a small retaining wall for a flower bed and collecting a couple of cords of wood from my in-laws (they had a couple of trees taken down). But while I was in the shower one day, my daughter answered the door for a guy going house to house to set up sales meetings for a home remodeling company.

I was a bit taken aback by this behavior of hers. She's 11; I thought she knew better. We went through a plague of Jehovah's Witness visits whereupon we hid and pretended we weren't home. But no. I get out of the shower and learn from my son that his sister is talking to a guy through her window. I scrambled to get dressed and send this guy on his way as nicely as possible, but once I went outside to talk to him, I was already caught in his net. When I explained that my wife wouldn't meet with anyone after work—her average arrival time home is 7—he countered with a weekend visit. The time was drawing near that I had to drive my overly friendly daughter to her Irish dancing class. I couldn't get rid of him without being a jerk so I gave up and agreed to a weekend meeting.

My wife and I were impressed by the sales presentation, so we took the plunge on vinyl siding with a side order of new (and bigger) gutters. We'd been wanting to go vinyl for several years, but opted not to make the huge investment. The materials technology has improved over the past decade. That and the company's size made me feel confident that we weren't going to have any issues down the road. And new gutters...I've been struggling with the ones we had since year one.

So this meant that I had a few weeks to split and stack the wood in the driveway. They needed the space for the materials and the ginormous dumpster—7 feet high! It was doable, but one week later, after we'd returned from "celebrating" the move, fate threw a wrench into our plans. A pipe burst in the bathroom on the ground floor, flooding most of the lower level. I opened the garage door on my way to the main shutoff valve, and a wave of water rolled out and down my driveway. While it was only a couple inches, anyone who's been flooded will tell you that it doesn't take much water to cause damage (I can imagine what Harvey's victims are going through).



We pumped out as much water we could and used every non-bath towel in the house to absorb the rest. We thought that we were going to be ok. I left the dehumidifier on all night and hoped for the best. The next day we discovered that the wood parquet flooring in the foyer was trashed once and for all. The carpeting in the den was soggy. We tried the shop vac, but that was a joke. The padding underneath was a sponge and not letting go. It had to go. The more we ripped up, the more wet stuff we found. By the time we were done, half of the den and a quarter of the office was lost. We got to most furniture in time, but an old particle board shelf tower disintegrated.

Sheet rock is also notorious for disintegrating about immersion in water. If it doesn't crumble, that evil black mold grows on the surface. I had to rip out the bottom two feet of sheet rock in the bathroom and laundry room. The other rooms were spared as the carpet and padding sponginess worked in our favor, hogging the water to itself.

We kinda knew this day was coming. We've had water issues many times before. The guy who built our house in 1973 used the cheaper, thin-walled copper pipe meant to be used for re-circulating water heating systems. We have electric heat; so either he was an idiot or a cheapskate. 25+ years of hard and acidic water led to pinhole leaks and cracked pipes. As projects arose and pipes failed, we replaced the copper pipes throughout the house with PEX, except for the laundry room and downstairs bathroom. The pipe failed on the wrong side of the shutoff valve. It sheared right off, and at four gallons/minute (~15 liters/minute) it may well have been a fire hose.

I exposed the old copper pipes so that my plumber could get in there and make the swap. He also suggested getting our water tested so that we could get the proper water treatment system installed. We came in with a pH of 6.1 and a hardness of 154 ppm. That meant we had to install a water filter, neutralizer, and softener. It was a big expenditure on top of an already large investment, neither of which we'd planned on making.

Someone asked me if my insurance company was covering any of the cost. Honestly, I hadn't even considered it. So I decided to call my insurance agent and hear what they had to say. I was informed that the insurance company would cover the expense for the damaged flooring (minus the deductible) but not the corrective equipment we'd installed to get our water in line. After filing said claim, our rates would then go up as we'd lose our 20% discount for being claim free. Factoring the rate increase with the high deductible, we decided not to file a claim.

After I got this taken care of...



...I got to work on repairs. All the sheet rock has been replaced, spackled, primed, and painted. Both the bathroom and laundry room are fully functional again. All of the foyer flooring and old carpet have been disposed of (Thank you, ginormous dumpster).

I still have half the old padding and all the tack strips to remove and dispose of. Since we have to replace the foyer flooring, we decided to completely renovate it. That's on my plate for September. After that, we'll have someone install carpet (That's beyond my skill set) in the den and office. So you can see that I won't have a whole lot of time for writing in the weeks ahead. All is not lost though. I did manage to find the time to write up this explanation for my whereabouts.

EDIT 9/14/17: Forgot to mention that our microwave oven died the week before the siding guys arrived. So that was yet another thing to buy and install.

\_/
DED