Moan & Groan Monday

In case you mistakenly thought we’re all goodness & light here in The Dungeon—remember, we’re Heidi & Mistress Heidi…sometimes nice :may223 , sometimes naughty :may23 —I thought I’d share something that we do on my HappyBookers Yahoo Loop:  Moan & Groan Mondays

Yes, I know we’re supposed to “think positive” & “keep smiling,” but once in a while you just need to vent…even if it’s only about the little annoyances in life. :may12

So if you have anything that’s rubbing you the wrong way, feel free to do a bit of Moaning & Groaning here with the rest of us.

For me, I’ll GROAN about the blister I got from a new pair of sneakers.  Of course, when I say “new,” I actually mean I got them at Goodwill, hoping they’d be decent (but not nice or expensive) shoes to use when I mow the yard.  Nothing fancy, but with a good amount of tread on the bottom.  Well, they felt fine in the store & when I first put them on at home.  But by the time I finished mowing the grass—on the riding mower, no less!—I had an ouchy on my heel & my little toe was throbbing.  So back to Goodwill they go.

And I’ll MOAN over the fact that my poor little HappyBookers Yahoo Group has been so quiet lately. :may38   I fear listservs may be on their way out, replaced by the more & more popular social media sites—which is fine; I will do my best to be flexible & adapt.  But I do wish HappyBookers was busier & more popular, with more members of the chatty sort.

Let me know what you think, by the way.  If you’re a HappyBooker, do you like your time on the loop or do you think it might be a waste of time?  And how do you feel about author loops in general? :may20

Allrighty—your turn!  What do you feel the need to Moan & Groan about this week?  Feel free to list more than just one of each, too.  Some weeks, I’ve got lots & lots to M&G about; some weeks I can barely think of a thing, so I know you guys will probably be the same. :may24

Comments

17 Comments  •  Comments Feed

  1. Donna A says:

    Facebook is easier and everyone is in one place rather from going from one group to another and basically I am lazy. :may16

    • Kendall says:

      At the moment I have been fociusng on getting a good amount of music listeners and lovers on my twitter. I am constantly cleaning it out. I’m not interested in numbers of followers. If I were, I would have probably 10k+ right now. It’s always just below 2000 and creeps up slowly. I am also spending a lot of time on my website and the SEO. I’m doing a LOT of work in the background. Placing good backlinks, registering my blog with the best directory sites, tweaking keywords e.t.c. It’s very good to have a good google ranking or google juice’ as they call it.I’m spending a lot of time learning filming and video editing. Youtube is crucial right now. Kids and many people go there first now to look for music. This is proven. I’m working on getting more quality videos of me playing live in the studio and I’m working on two videos for the songs and other things like tutorial videos which bring a lot of traffic to your channel which can turn into fans.I’ve tried getting a street team’ going with zero success. Nobody really signs up to it and the one’s that do, ignore the email. The reverbnation email newsletters I think have reached saturation point with people. They don’t even open them anymore, they get that many of them. It’s a big part of chart placement too on reverbnation. I see artists getting so desperate they are putting the subject line as EMERGENCY’ or something similar. That will just piss people off. I’m trying to do this all ethically. I know I’m not good at selling myself. Unfortunately, it is not one of my skills. I’m just trying the best I can. I’m learning everyday. That is why I have got a PR company involved to give a little helping push.I’ve just started finding and introducing myself to relevant blogs. The PR company will be doing a lot of that also. That is also very important right now as you know. I’m confident that people will like my music. I’m also expecting people to not like it too. I’m ready for that. I’m not shying away from bad reviews. I actively encourage them. It means someone cared enough to write about it.As for sites that work, There is only reverbnation, youtube and soundcloud that are working for me right now. I heard purevolume was big in the states but my profile and music on there is tumbleweeds.I now refuse to enter any competitions due to most of them being borderline fraudulent. The same thing with music submission’. The new Pay To Play’. It’s costs me enough to do the music and keep everything going. I’m not paying $50 to some failed A&R person to tell me what I already know. I earn zero back right now. I’m sick of snakes trying to take thousands from me for black hat bullshit that I could do myself if I wanted to be a fake.It’s going to be a long, hard and expensive road. It already is and has been. I’m not deluded. If I didn’t believe in my music, I would get a real job. I can’t remember what it was like having money in my pocket.I just have to see this through ..

  2. Kathleen O says:

    I do use FB a lot, but I do check in with my blogs and email notices through Yahoo as much as I can. :may7

  3. Heidi says:

    I understand…I think loops may be on their way out. Or maybe if I had more books out closer together there would be more to talk about on a regular basis. One of these days, I’m going to ask the HappyBookers if they’re prefer to close down the loop, or maybe turn it into an “Announcement Only” forum instead. That could work. :may11

    • Laura J. says:

      Announcement only is a good idea! (see my comment below and you will see why I agree with that! :may223 ) Also, People’s emails are so flooded with stuff now (and most of it, I have no idea how they get my email–not the group of course but weird stuff).

      And here I get pictures and emoticons like this :may18 and this :may26

      • Heidi says:

        Been thinking the same for a while now, I just need to brooch it to the loop. I’d still post about stuff going on in The Dungeon & on FB/Twitter, I just wouldn’t expect anyone to respond. :May37

  4. Heidi says:

    Oh! But you both forgot to MOAN & GROAN — did you forget or do you not have anything to complain about? :may30

  5. Kathleen O says:

    Not much to moan and groan about.. The weather today is lovely and it is a holiday in Canada.. We celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday, which is actually on the 24, but we always celebrate it the 3rd weekend in May.. There will be fireworks all over the place.. lots of fun. And this year it just do happened to fall on what would have been my dad’s 93 birthday.. So like I said nothing to really moan and groan about. :may39

    • Laura J. says:

      Kind of sounds like some of our holidays around here. :mat27 Happy Queen Victoria Day!

    • Heidi says:

      Yes, Happy Victoria Day! It’s not a Canadian flag, but um… :may1 (Pretend it is, okay? :may223 )

      They do the same thing here with holidays—mainly so they’ll fall on a Monday & folks can get the day off. :mat27

      • Kathleen O says:

        Thank you.. I know you all have your Memorial day holiday this coming weekend. I hope you get nice weather like we did. :may1 back

  6. Laura J. says:

    I love the group, but sadly only a few people respond to anything (yeah, I’m one of them currently–but I read everything!!Usually I read it and say I’ll respond that as soon as I finish *this* but then never get back to it) It seems to be that way with a bunch of groups though. HB is the only one where I read everything.

    As for moaning and groaning…. :may18

    Oh wait…you don’t mean it like that. Well then, I got nothing. (At least not today…tomorrow will be a whole other can of beans)

    • Heidi says:

      Hey, I’m the same way. My inbox is out of control. And I always think, Oh, I’ll come back to that…then hardly ever do. :may38

      Yeah, yeah, you & your word play, Darling Laura! :may18 :may18 :may18

  7. Dee says:

    I like Laura’s definition of moan and groan.

    :may18

    Nothing to really complain about…had a drama weekend at an out of state wedding, but it was all resolve and the happy couple made it to their honeymoon cruise.

    • Heidi says:

      Oh, no! Well, I’m glad everything turned out okay. You know what Dr. Phil says—a wedding is only one day; better to have stuff go wrong then & still be off to a decent marriage than the other way around. :may21

  8. Heidi says:

    I’ve got a new M&G to add:

    I think I killed my iPod. Not sure what happened, but when I hooked it up to iTunes to sync, the screen went white & it’s been that way ever since. Nothing I do seems to fix it. :May37

    I’m going to plug it in & see if a full recharge helps, but if not… :may38

  9. Barbara says:

    Moan :may12 why do i think summmer school was a great idea?
    :May10 Groan if your fictional characters are keeping you busy my two discussions on the middle east is going to do the same thing..need a males slave :may30

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