The glamour of being a one woman band
To the traditional publishers who turned me down, may I just say I hate you. I am sure there is something to be said for you guys handling all the damn paperwork/packaging/postage!
This self-publishing gig is damn hard work, you know.
You, dear reader, may remember I had a little glitch with generating my invoices for advance orders. I forgot a minor detail: the INVOICE NUMBER! OK, so sending out invoices is OK once you get that minor detail right, but then one has to keep track of who has paid. Create a spreadsheet to keep track of the GST (who invented THAT anyway?) and the postage collected.
Box of Books
Today’s processing started with getting a co-worker to help me lug four cartons of books to the car. Each book weighs almost half a kilo, so muscles are needed.
By the time I left the office I had already autographed 11 copies of the book.
Stopped off at the store to buy a marker and a pen. Stopped at the post office to buy the padded envelopes and the boxes for the multiple orders. This meant lugging a half empty (luckily) carton into the post office to make sure I picked the right sized boxes. Naturally, the closest car park was half a block down the street.
Got the boys to haul the cartons out of the car.
My accounting epic fail
I am an accountant. Many years spent going to night school after work two days a week. Worked damn hard to get that piece of paper!
Having blithely offered paperbacks to people, I needed to send buyers invoices, didn’t I? So they can pay me – always a good idea, getting paid! 
I had issued an invoice when I did the migration agent Continuing Professional Development talks so I just opened that and over-typed, as you do!
Football Boots
Do not ask me WHY I thought of it while I was buying Mr O Jnr 1 new football boots this morning, I have no idea, but suddenly I thought, “OH BUGGER!!! I don’t remember putting an invoice number of anything.” 
Came home – no, not an invoice number in sight. Not only that, there wasn’t an invoice date either. It is not like I don’t know the Australia Tax Office regulations for a Tax Invoice (including the fact it must have the words “Tax Invoice” on it), I do! So how on earth did I manage to issue a heap of invoices without a darn invoice number and a date?
There went MY Saturday afternoon – re-issuing invoices!
Marking that one down as a lesson learned as well! But at least I now have a proper invoice issuing system in place, so it was all good! I think!
Still wondering how I did that……
If you want an invoice, with a number and a date, you have to order a book and you can do so by going to the bottom of the previous article!
Your strange questions answered
English: Motherboard of Toshiba HD-A1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Questions being the search terms used to find this site. Many of the search terms are questions relating to Form 888: as that form has its very own page, I am not answering any of those here!
There are other questions that regularly pop up.
what is motherhood in the computer
No, no, no. Look I know I wrote about motherhood and a computer in an article, but really what you are looking for is MOTHERBOARD, not motherhood.
While it would be great to delegate motherhood duties to the motherboard, it doesn’t quite work that way.
To the right is a motherboard.
Motherhood is more like being knee-deep in dirty laundry and deciding what to cook for dinner. Completely unrelated.
Dear Deputy Leader of the Opposition
Dear Julie,
You and I have a lot in common, I notice. I am only thirteen months older than you and we both grew up on farms: mine was sheep and cattle. We are both female, something I will look at again later. We are both degree qualified and we both work.
As you know, I used to be a member of the Liberal Party. Recently I was sent a reminder by text message to renew my membership. I replied no, including a link to my published article explaining why I would not be renewing my Liberal Party membership. I have to say a few more things have popped out of the woodwork about our young Tony since I wrote that. Very sad.
Yesterday a really strange thing happened. I got a phone call on my mobile and a male voice announced he was calling to let me listen to a recorded message from you, Julie. Your voice (I assume it was your voice) then assured me you needed my membership to fight the terrible Labor government.
Apart from the fact I am yet to be totally convinced the Labor government have been worse than a coalition government would have been, you didn’t really tell me why I should vote for your party, let alone renew my membership.
It seems since the idyllic days of our respective childhoods, we may have moved apart. I am so sad about this, Julie, because we should be closer. I just didn’t feel terribly flattered or needed listening to you criticise the current government. If you want to attract me, you have to tell me what you are proposing, to improve life for my family and me, for Australia and for the causes which I am passionate about. Of course, as an accountant, I’d like to know how much your policies are going to cost. For example, will you be reducing the fees for partner visas? Will you be supporting a humanitarian approach to the treatment of asylum seekers and prevent Scott Morrison from inciting moral panic in the community? Actually, just teaching Scott enough manners to respond to dinner invitations would be nice.
Really though, a RECORDED MESSAGE? How uncouth! If you want to beg me to renew my membership, at least have the decency to make a damn phone call. It doesn’t have to actually be from you, after all we know how busy you are preparing costed policies to release before the election. I just feel the personal touch might be nice.
I’m also very puzzled about the gender aspects here. If I had been a male ex-member, would my recorded message have been from Tony? Was a female reaching out to me in a recorded way supposed to make me feel special? If that is the case, I seriously suggest you look for a new public relations team because frankly, unless everyone got your voice and no-one got Tony’s voice, I find the whole damn thing rather sexist. You might be aware I am not that keen on sexism. Please tell Tony I rarely iron anything.
Necessity is the mother of invention
Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say!
I thought today I would share two small experiences of the process of lateral thought.
Hot Water Bottle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Our kids had never seen hot water bottles before arriving in Australia. It is never that cold in Nigeria!
One evening during our first summer, I went to get ice-cream out of the freezer. Lo and behold, what did I find? A hot water bottle, chilling. Mr O Jnr 2 had applied what I think is great logic – if a hot water bottle full of boiling water kept a person warm in winter, surely the same thing filled with ice would keep one cool in summer! Problem is freezing rubber is not too good for the rubber. I just couldn’t fault the thought process!
A couple of weeks ago I was rudely awoken by the damn alarm clock arose from my slumber and staggered danced to the kitchen to make that first coffee of the morning. I found myself pouring brown water into my coffee cup. WTF??? Hmmmm – this brown water smelt suspiciously like Milo.
Later in the day I checked with Mr O. “YES!” he exclaimed! He had experienced the same thing when he was having breakfast.
Not only that, I could see the streaks down the jug from someone trying to tip Milo into the jug.
ALL denied having put Milo in the electric jug. Well, SOMEONE did. Milo doesn’t relocate itself!
About a week later one of the four managed to summon the courage to admit, yes, it was her. Again, I have to admit the idea was probably not so bad.
I’m wondering if I have a couple of budding inventors on my hands. This is just TWO examples. I will leave you with that thought.
Learning a new dance
This damn trying to get a book published is a very strange dance.
It goes like this.
Just a jump to the right: I email off submission to company, being ultra careful to follow the rules.
A step to the left: I follow company on social media (author rumour tells me this is OK).
Hands on hips: Publisher of said company follows me on social media.
Bring your knees in tight: I follow publisher person.
A step to the ????? : Buggered if I know!
Do I say “Hi, thanks for the follow” or “Oh, I’m so excited you followed me!” or nothing at all? Yes, well, we all know the middle option isn’t exactly my style, don’t we? 
Then I wonder about the actual dance floor. Some of the other dancers cause me to raise my eyebrows: not sure how my dress would look next to theirs.
Do I even publish this musing nonsense? What if I insult the new follower? What if that person is thinking “YES! Found my 2013 best seller” and I frighten said person away? Oh, well, if person is THAT easy to frighten, will never handle the book anyway.
Then there is the beta reader feedback. One would like more photos. Done! Another wants a section compressed, but yet another doesn’t want same section compressed.
Compress, don’t compress. *Tears hair out*
Yes, folks – this publishing dance IS a Rocky Horror show sometimes.
This article is dedicated to my fellow author and internet buddy, MJ Cache. She knows who she is and why this is for her!
Dave Allen on religion
Religion from the perspective of a four-year-old.
This video was pointed out to me tonight during a conversation about religion and I just had to share it with our audience. To those of you too young to remember Dave Allen, he was perhaps one of the greatest comedians of my generation my parent’s generation. I particularly like the bit about the burnt finger!
Hope you enjoy!
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