I don't intend to provide book reviews in my blog as a normal thing, BUT... I was moved by this book and the pain inflicted on our First Nations brothers and sisters. It is time we stop treating our citizens worse than we would treat our dogs.

They Called Me Number One, by Bev Sellars

Bev Sellers has written a memoir of her life and the impact Canadian Residential Schools have had on her and her family (and members of First Nations generally). I am Canadian, from Manitoba, and I was totally unaware of this issue. Manitoba has the largest aboriginal (First Nations) population in Canada. I grew up with a very prejudiced view towards the Indians (as we all called them). I now feel ashamed at my ignorance and at Canada for what it has done to these people.

The Residential School programme was initiated by the churches (predominantly Catholic) and the government of Canada to '...take the Indian out of the children' (their words). It was meant to assimilate the aboriginals and make them fit into the way of life as envisioned by the government and churches. The last such school was closed in 1996. The system was in operation for over 125 years. It took the children from their parents and put them in these schools for ten months out of the year (some were for twelve months). It was illegal for children to stay on the Reservations with their communities. Any stray children would be rounded up by the RCMP and taken to the schools. They were there from ages 7-15 but sometimes as early as 5 and as late as 17. (To compound matters, it was illegal for adult Indians to leave their reservations without a 'pass'.)

It gets tiring to hear about the abuse by Catholic nuns and priests, but I was shocked at the brutality visited upon these young children. In addition to having sexual predators running these schools, the beatings are something out of a horror movie.

A Truth and Reconciliation report has recently been issued by Canada (after this book was published) and this whole process has been called cultural genocide by the report. The churches and government have publically apologised.

This book is not particularly well written but it has a strong and true voice. It has also caused me to read (or at least peruse) the Truth and Reconciliation report as well as research the topic itself. It is a subject that will make you cry at the injustice. I alternated from tears to rage. I don't understand how it is the First Nations can be so peaceful despite the outrages they have endured. Perhaps their spirits have been broken. I have always associated Indians with alcohol and substance abuse. They are openly staggering on the streets of Winnipeg when I visit. I dismissed them as vacuous husks of humanity. Now, I look at them as victims where I am as much to blame as anyone else. I am to blame through my own ignorance and my apathy in trying to understand.

I never thought I'd say this, but Canada's role in the Residential Schools saga is as terrible as what the Nazis did in Germany or the South Africans did with Apartheid. I understand Australia had a similar programme in place for its aboriginals.

News of this has been in the papers and in the news for decades; my ears simply never heard. Now that I have heard, I feel that I can't be silent or complicit any longer. I don't have any solutions; those will only come from the First Nations themselves. But I think Canada should no longer be allowed to 'take care of' these people. If this were a country in Africa, we would be calling for UN oversight.

For those who don't know, all treaty Indians are governed by the Indian Act. (That is probably why we still call them Indians and not First Nations, etc) They live on reservations that they don't own. They can't own anything BY LAW on the reserve. They don't own their home or the land underneath it. They can't get a mortgage or do anything we take for granted (they don't have security to grant to the banks). As a result, they have no concept of ownership or the skills necessary to live in a world of varying shades of liability (all tied to ownership). Everything is rationed out to them from the federal government.

I have rambled on far too much in this review but there is so much to say. We have turned our backs on the aboriginals of Canada, hoping the problem would go away. The government enacted an institutional plan to erase the culture of these people. It is time we take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror...

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I have been told in the past that life is lived and that living is a constant re-calibration of the natural dissonance between our reality and our expectations. Today, I re-calibrate my online presence.

​In my exuberance I wanted to build a twitter and Facebook following base to a million (yes, my goals were modest) and sell my books by the truckloads to adoring fans. I began to focus on the logistics of this, analysing other people's accounts and trying to determine how it was possible for them to have so many followers--unless they were Oprah or Obama or Bolt. I learned that following avatars could be purchased--giving great optics to the casual observer. There are programs that automatically follow and unfollow and monitor and publish, all with the objective of increasing traffic and interest in one's site. These 'bots' are everywhere once you can recognise the signs. It tends to turn off people looking for original content. For me, I have only become aware of this.

I am guilty of using a program to automate my "thank you for following" messages. I read that I needed to automate as many of the processes as possible. So I started with the easiest thing first. I think I'll keep that going as it is only polite to say "thank you" to someone joining.

I am also guilty of pulling articles and publishing them on twitter/facebook. I assumed this is what people did (and they do). Many of the streams that I see are full of quotes and articles and packaged goods that are consumed by all of us. I don't mind it; I like some of it. But I am going to stop doing this (there is a buffer of a few days, so the last of my packaged publications will end in the next week or so). 

I am going to tweet and post original material--my material. Hopefully there are people who may find some of it interesting and relevant to themselves. In any event, it will be real. No bots.

I will continue to focus on my journey in social media--I anticipate this will occupy this space for at least a year as I learn and unlearn things along the way. I will also talk about my writing, the thought processes behind my writing and my ups and downs along the way. I came to this realisation as I became more obsessed with the internet and marketing of my wares. I was losing the enjoyment of why I started this in the first place--to write. I don't like to market myself or my wares. But, at the same time, it has become clear to me that wares don't market themselves. Hence, the calibration and re-calibration of the process.

My struggle with regard to my 'wares' is that I write in different genres. I have a non-fiction book (The Art of Wealth) that deals with wealth and business elements of our lives. It was an important work for me because it represented everything I knew about business and money presented in a way that was easy to read. I wanted everyone to realise that they could achieve more from their lives. I have a spiritual book (Revelation) that deals with existentialism and our inter-connectivity with all things. It is everything I (think) I know about that subject. It is presented in a way that does not argue the point (ie. this is correct because of x,y,z). It states my conclusions and lets the reader continue on his/her journey. It is a tool. I have a book on Faust which was my first attempt at literature. It takes the classic story of Faust (by Marlowe and Goethe) and uses the existence as set out in my Revelation to explain why a Devil character would want our souls to begin with. Then, finally, I have my fictional series Man on the Run. I am enjoying the series as each book is a stand alone novel but the series is an interwoven saga that spans decades. I have written volumes 3-6 and am now writing volumes 1 and 2. It is very exciting and I hope to share the process of writing with you. Volume 3 has been published and is available from all the retail outlets.

I have just signed off the final forms with FriesenPress on Volume 4 which should hit the stores in the next few weeks. (FriesenPress is my publisher/printer and Ingram is my distributor; I am the author and marketing guy. I'll need to do a blog specifically on the difference between publishing and marketing.) Chaos (Volume IV of Man on the Run) has a number of story threads, the main one being that of a good man fed up with a bad world. His solution is to show how bad things can get if you piss off your core citizenry. His solution is extreme. I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you everything here and now. Needless to say, hundreds of planes blow up simultaneously and hundreds of thousands of people are killed. This is the backdrop to the lives that are lived in the book. I am happy to send out Advanced Reader Copies for reviews. You will be able to post your reviews on Amazon (and the other retail outlets) once it has been published. If this is of interest to anyone, please let me know and I'll figure out a way to get you a copy.

Until next time, that's it for today!

My niece 'tagged' a post on Facebook (still not sure what that means exactly) telling her friends to check out her uncle's website (ie. me). I received a lot of extra traffic as a result. One of the nice things about these websites is that they give you a full breakdown of analytics--unique visitors, page views (and which pages). It is interesting. It also shows where the people come from--Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.

This is a very clear example of social media working. Someone suggests to their friends to check something out and they do. Result.

In another recent example, last week, a blue van approached a worksite where we are renovating a 17th century house. The van driver asked if there was any scrap metal. They were told 'no' and they left. One of the builders thought the behaviour and look of the two guys and van was suspicious so he took a picture of the van and the licence plate and posted it on facebook. He warned others in the area that these suspicious guys were cruising around building sites. Within a week, another citizen (unconnected whatsoever) saw a quad bike being loaded into a blue van by two suspicious looking characters. (I never saw the people; I'm not sure what a suspicious looking person looks like, but you know what I mean.) They took a picture of the event and called the police. The van and occupants were arrested as a result. This is an example of social media working. (It is also an example of big brother--something I abhor but that is a separate issue.)

I have resisted social media up until now for the very reason that I dislike the breach of privacy that results from us sharing intimate moments with others--only for it to be connected by an algorithm into a search engine for the world to see. Or, for countless accounts to be hacked and sold. If there is one thing we are told repeatedly, there is no such thing as absolute security. The option? Transparency and honesty? Not sure. Perhaps we have nothing to hide. I disagree as many of us refrain from saying what we really think simply because we are uncertain about how it will be received. This is a form of self-censorship that I dislike. It restricts the mind from expanding and exploring the world around us and making mistakes. Unless we make mistakes, we will not learn. Unless we share our mistakes with others, we are all worse off. It comes down to our personal freedoms to express our beliefs, our stupidity and our outlandish dreams. To achieve this requires tolerance of ourselves and others. We need to accept ourselves and our sometimes irrational needs/wants and calibrate those urges into the accepted norms of society. The good part of social media is the speed by which these calibrations can be made. The bad part is the permanence of any mistakes.

The purpose of me joining social media was simple: become visible and try to sell books. The reason for me to stay visible is increasingly becoming the journey itself. I am enjoying learning the complexity behind the screen. I am enjoying learning about the torrents of data that course through the fiber that connects us all. I am beginning to enjoy this blog as an outlet to my inner ramblings. Hopefully you find some resonance with my words. If there is any subject you wish for me to explore, please let me know.

I continue to look at twitter as something that is magical and useless in equal measure. I am contemplating building a list of followers for the sole purpose of building a list. I think it will have value as it drives people to my website. But it is a bit of a vanity project unless it can add value to all of our perceptions of social media. What will I prove by building the list? Last week, I saw a photo of a young girl with long hair next to the same girl with a shaved head. It was listed as requesting prayers for the young girl who had cancer. It had nearly 300k likes and comments. It pulled on my heart strings. Yet, I didn't click on it as I felt manipulated. Why am I being shown this? Are they collecting names/data or is it legitimate. If legit, why put it out into the facebook-sphere? Maybe I'm overthinking this but the image of that little girl still is in my mind. And perhaps that is the value of a good posting or why we follow these various media streams. We desire a lasting image that will form part of who we are. Social media has become part of the building blocks for what we now are.

Following on from my blog of yesterday, the feedback I have been receiving has been twofold. Some are saying that twitter has little to no relevance to them and they use Facebook as their preferred medium. Others love twitter as the tool it is--using hashtags to locate sites or events in a new city, etc. As an author, I remain ambivalent. 

In the business world, the mantra is all about transparency. The purpose of my blogs is to create a contemporaneous memory of my journey for myself for future reference--and to share this with others who are struggling with the same issues. In one of my discussions with an entrepreneur, who is currently undertaking a $100 million plus business venture, I was struck by the similarities he and I both struggled with. One of the recurring themes is that the creative element of the brain can not function adequately when bogged down with the mundane realities of marketing logistics. He needs to allow his mind to 'connect' to the world of cutting edge manufacturing techniques, marry that with progressive financiers and then sell his product to the world. Knock off seven or eight zeroes, and you could be describing any aspiring author. As an author, we need to write well and in a genre that resonates with us. Somehow, we need to sustain ourselves during the process. Many authors do their writing part time, stealing time from their day (or sacrificing sleep). Then, we need to present this product to the market, nervous that they are going to discover that we are terrible writers, incompetent in our subject field and a total waste of time. 

All media, print or digital, becomes a carrier for others' messages. Lord Beaverbrook (a newspaper tycoon) is purported to have said that newspapers articles are the things that go in between the advertisements. He knew on which side his bread was buttered. All social media, to be sustainable, is being driven by advertising. As consumers, we benefit. But we are the algae and little fish that the whales consume in great volume. We simply don't realise that we are being digested.

What I am contemplating (and this may be me being naive again) is to create (or expand) a twitter feed to an enormous following--with the sole purpose of demonstrating whether Twitter has value for authors (and in what form). I will talk to people this week and see what their feedback is. If you have some views, please let me know in the comments box below. I would like to shoot for a large number (a million has a nice ring to it) and then document our collective journey through these blogs. I have no idea if this is delusional on my part or a reasonable target. If I take this journey with you, I will outline the software that I use, the techniques employed and screenshots of the scheduled tweets and following algorithms. To me, it would be an interesting experience. Hopefully it will provide valuable feedback to others. If there is value to the list, in due course, I open it up for everyone to use (assuming this is allowed). As you can see, I really have no clue as to what is realistic or possible. That's why I think it can happen.

I just wrote a long blog on how I was frustrated at Twitter and the computer-generated lists that are based on following people and then unfollowing them if they don't reciprocate. Somehow, that blog got lost in cyber space. I am still amazed at how that happens. It is usually the result of me clicking before thinking. As my blog / website editor doesn't have an undo button (it saves as I go), I thought I was safe. I wasn't. Lesson learned (again). (They say only fools learn from their own mistakes...)

This was precipitated by my poorly executed automated thank-yous on Twitter. I have since tweaked the automation; apologies if I have offended anyone. This same program monitors those who you have followed and recommends unfollowing those who don't follow you back. It is all part of growing one's Twitter lists. As I can barely follow my own meager list, the only reason I can see for doing this is for marketing purposes. Hopefully it works for them.

I am already feeling embarrassed about my scheduled tweets. I want to improve my offering to people and not waste their time with recycled quotes (unless I genuinely like them) or adverts for purchasing things. I am transparent about my interest in people visiting my site and buying my books because I would like to sell my books. Apart from that, I am trying to learn what works and doesn't as an indie author and marketer. What I am concerned about is the time this takes mentally and emotionally. It is definitely impacting on my writing time. I find my mind has a difficult time getting into the zone as I struggle with these online platforms.

I'm sure everything will be fine in the end--as we are all irrelevant in the end. The twitter streams will flow over us whether we are watching or not. How we are able to dip in and enjoy the stream will be for each of us to determine for ourselves.

I committed to making myself visible on the internet a few weeks ago. I am documenting this process in these blogs (video and written) for both myself and the outside world. I received an encouraging word from my IT guy who commented that, while he is an expert in IT, he is not an expert in social media. He understands the programming and technical workings of applications better than I could hope for--and he is patient when I complain that my email doesn't work or doesn't sync, etc. For me, it was encouraging to know that even people with technical skills are not entirely comfortable with social media. So, I thought I'd summarize what I know thus far:

1. Understand why you are on social media. Are you selling something or keeping in touch with your friends? For me, I want to sell my books. (And, I don't have that many friends...)

2. Make yourself visible on multiple platforms. I have accounts with most of the major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc) so the next question was how to manage all of the demands of posting and monitoring postings. I achieved this via Hootsuite.com   This is a site that will show all of your streams of twitter/facebook/youtube/instagram, etc posting and allow you to analyse and schedule your future postings. I don't fully understand this yet and I am waiting for my marketing expert at FriesenPress (who have published me) to let me know how to handle this better. So far, I have selected areas of interest to create postings that may be of interest to people who follow me. It is not the best, but it is what I am doing in the interim. Please be patient with me as I understand and tweak this to make it more reflective of me and relevant to people who are interested in my journey (or, who are undertaking a similar journey). I came across a number of authors who selflessly share their information with others (Nick Stephenson and Joanna Penn are two such authors) and who suggest how to automate and improve your interaction with the public. Unfortunately, the more you automate the more it begins to cost money. So far, I am trying to do everything on software that doesn't cost me anything. When I see results, I can upgrade to the more professional versions. Watch this space.

3. Generate traffic to your website(s). To achieve this in the best manner, I have discovered that it is best to give value for free to the person discovering your site. I am doing this with my free books. In exchange, I am asking for their email so that I can notify them of future books and interact in a meaningful way. Hopefully, this can be done without offending or causing people stress. People can unsubscribe at any time, so it seems to be a harmless process.

4. Convert traffic into interest and, hopefully, sales. This is the tricky part. I assume this will be up to people to determine whether they like my writing and/or if the writing is worth paying for. It is like setting up a stall for bananas in a market. People may feel like buying bananas or not, depending on the day, their mood or the alignment of the stars. All I can do is hope to get my product in front of their eyeballs. The rest is up to them. There are ways to trick people into viewing and I want to avoid doing anything like that. It is not sustainable nor is it the path I want to pursue. I want my writing to resonate with people. My aim is to write literature and my journey thus far has been to hone my writing skills in both non-fiction and fiction. After my Man on the Run series, I hope to tackle a standalone book that would be worthy of the designation 'literature'. I will not be able to compete with erotica or sci-fi fantasy as we are different genres (although I do try to spice things up from time to time in my series).

5. Getting traffic and the economics of emails. I have heard from some authors that a well targeted email list can generate upwards of $40 per reader (ie. per email). This means matching the genre with the right reader who also likes what the author writes. It means an audible title (or two), a few purchased e-books and a lot of free books/blogs. These are true fans and I aspire to find those readers. Note to true fans: the best thing you can do for an author is give a review (positive or negative) or to click on 'like' or 'dislike' on their postings. This provides valuable feedback and makes the author relevant. For me, I would be ecstatic to receive a million 'dislikes' because it meant I had at least a million readers! The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference. The worst fate for authors struggling in the ocean of indifference is irrelevance and anonymity. On a more mundane level, a successful author should be looking to invest approximately 10 cents for a potential reader who may net the author one dollar. Facebook ads are expensive and will likely cost an author 50 cents per reader. Unless s/he has a very efficient system to handle inquiries, those 50 cent readers turn into unconverted 50 cent leads. The economics look great but it is important to crawl before walking and definitely not to run before you can walk. I am still at the crawling stage so this is something I aspire to in the coming months. But, every journey starts with the first step (or crawl, which doesn't really have any steps and is more like a body drag).

There are a number of sites I will test and learn more about before listing here. Watch this space. The next thing I want to wrestle with is the idea of Metadata and how the search engines find you. I was intimidated when I first heard the term Metadata. It just means labels for data--not that dissimilar to the Dewey Decimal system in libraries. It is a way for search engines to find and latch onto your website or postings. I am a little concerned that I'll do something wrong and then be black listed by Google. Each engine announces how it prefers to search for its metadata, so there is a structure for firms to follow. This is not to be confused with the search engine's algorithm. The algorithm is the secret sauce that makes Google number 1 with everybody else an also-run. One thing I realized is that you shouldn't try to outsmart or configure you business plan according to your understanding of Google (or Amazon)'s algorithm. They change it frequently and your entire business model can implode. This has happened to indie (self-published) authors when Amazon changed its rules and algorithms. Many authors have seen an 80% reduction in their income with Amazon's introduction of Kindle Unlimited and other monthly payment packages. All of these problems are theoretical for me so I keep them in mind for the future. By the way, another acronym I came across that intimidated me at first was SEO. I saw it on buttons in my website and referred to in documents but no one defined it. It is simply Search Engine Optimization. It is so simple that most people don't bother to define it. This relates to the metadata referred to earlier in this paragraph. I'm assuming it also relates to something super-clever as well, but those are the dark arts of firms that advertise their SEO services. 

For those who are keen on knowing more now (and are not able to wait the 3-6 months that it will take for me to learn and write about), check out the following sites:

https://www.yourfirst10kreaders.com/       (This is Nick Stephenson. He is focused like a laser.)

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/               (This is Joanna Penn. I think she is great.)

Another thing I've noticed is that authors are banding together to create co-authored books. This is to monetize their combined mailing lists / readership. You will notice the same authors popping up in this regard. In addition to co-authoring, they are selling box sets to provide more value to the customer.

We live in the golden age of writing/publishing where both the writer and reader are winners. My objective is to find readers who like what I have to write.

That's it for today!