Track Your Amazon.com Ranking

Here is a way to track the Amazon.com ranking for your book...  pretty cool.  He provides the code so you can do it for your own book.

What Is Your Website Worth?

I went to http://www.freewebsitereport.org/ and put in my www.johnspiers.com website and found out it is the 4.5 millionth most viewed site on the web.  Say!  And it is worth $539 in advertising revenue per year!   Well, that's about right.  It pays for itself.

I put in http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/ which must bring in more revenue, but there is no report.  Sigh.

Promo Potentials Roundup

Assuming one is self-publishing and gets Bowker ISBN,  then...

1. Amazon

A. Amazon marketplace...  personal account, to sell your defective and signed books ON amazon.com.

B.  Amazon associates... personal selling THROUGH amazon.com... links to your own books and other goods on your own website, blogs, etc... for affiliate fees income.

C. Amazon.com Advantage... corporate selling TO amazon.com, your USA biz wholesaling books to amazon.

i. list your books for sale

ii. set up author central to promote yourself

iii. KDP facilities... book to kindle

iv. inside the book so amazon peple can read the entire book before buying (similar to google books)

D. Amazon.ca Advantage ... 

i same as item C but for for canada, 

ii. needs canadian bank account.  Easy to get.

2. Google books

A. read for free with sales link to self and amazon

b. Worldcat (automatic)

C. distribute droid versions instead of Kindle.

3. Apple iPublish.  So far, I know nothing about this.  I need to develop.

World Association for Online Education (WAOE) invites active global scholars

One of the first global virtual organizations, the WAOE is a free academic association for
individual educators concerned with distance education, e-learning, and online education.  
We are not just seeking to increase membership but rather to give active educators an 
opportunity to make a difference in this sometimes murky field, by collaborating with 
other idealistic educators around the world. We started in 1998 with the purpose of  
turning online education into a new professional discipline, and as an international NGO  
now we see much more to do. So with renewed energy, we are calling for active new members. 

Please take a glance at some of the current WAOE elected and appointed officers:  

President: Prof. Steve McCarty, Osaka Jogakuin College and University, Japan  
Vice-President: Dr. John Afele, U.S.-West Africa Group, Tunisia / Ghana 
Membership Chair: Dr. Ramesh Sharma, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India 
Executive Secretary: Dr. Jodi Richardson-Delgado, Mesa Community College, U.S. 
Treasurer: Mike Holmwood, retired Division Chair, Langara College, Canada 
Chief Technology Officer: Ms. Victoria Ramirez, EFL Teacher / Designer, Mexico 
Cyber-Parliamentarian: Michael Warner,Tempe H.S. / Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, U.S. 
Publicity Coordinator: Dr. Begum Ibrahim, MARA Institute of Technology, Malaysia 
Publications Coordinator: Dr. David Sidwell, Utah State University, U.S. 
Journal Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Rozhan Idrus, Open & Distance Learning, Universiti Sains Malaysia 
Officer At-Large: Dr. Gary Wixom, Assistant Commissioner, Utah System of Higher Education, U.S.

Volunteers are sought for Research Coordinator, Program Coordinator, Associate Editors, etc. 

To reassure everyone, we have endorsements from scholars familiar with WAOE history:  
Society for College and University Planning senior executive Terry Calhoun recently  
called the WAOE a "very good organization." UNC Chapel Hill Professor Emeritus of  
Educational Leadership James L. Morrison added: "with an important mission."  

Dr. Ramesh Sharma writes: "As a member of the WAOE we look forward to your input, ideas, 
insights, interviews, write-ups, videos, etc. on online education. You may like to share 
innovative practices at your institution so that other members can benefit from them too." 

The WAOE is establishing the _International Journal of Online Education_, 
using our imagination to accommodate various categories and media besides double-blind 
reviewed papers. It will be an online journal and an open educational resource. Join us 
as a contributor or section editor for a content area, language, or world region. 

We have opened up our moderated discussion list WAOE-Views so you can join directly: 
http://groups.google.com/group/waoe-views 

You can also like us on Facebook to share resources: http://www.facebook.com/waoepage 

It is best to study our main Web pages (Home, Vision, More About Us, and Archives), 
then go to the Participation page to become a member for free and join WAOE-Views:  
http://www.waoe.org/ 

e-mail membership questions: rc_sharma@yahoo.com | to volunteer: waoe@mail.goo.ne.jp 

Free Stuff vs Free Education

I was having a Basil Gimlet at the new bar in San Francisco called Rye with a continuing education director, with whom I shared the idea that a way to sell classroom seats would be to auction them off.  He replied the idea appalled him, that he believed education should be free.

I replied I though that kind of free is far too expensive, and the auction idea had merit, for say we have 30 seats to auction off, and the dentist who badly wanted into the class bid $250 for the seat and won a place, and son on down to the last seat, which sells for $6 to the nurse's aide who badly wants to take the class. He asked what is all 30 seats went for $250, and the nurses aide never got in.  I assured if I sold 30 at $250 I would add more seats until the $6 person got in.   It is a hypothesis that needs to be tested. 

But in his sense "free" is where economy is ordered to where a basic good, education, is available to everyone, ability to pay of not.

This is a fine sentiment, and it reflects the reality that many worthy people find they cannot afford or otherwise access education.  But pause and ask "how come?"  We once had free trade in education, with people opening colleges as fast as a need was perceived.  We had that with parks, doctor offices and HMOs, housing, food, well, everything.  I remember this very well.

But I also remember the state finishing up on say, parks.  Once upon a time people would take a big piece of land next to a lake and turn it into a place for families to spend a day picnicing, baseball and swimming, for a fee.   The fee was cheap, it covered the overhead, the park owners had a good life, all was well.  but the state came along and starting making rules and regs that made it harder to turn a profit, and then started buying up these parks with taxpayer funded bonds, and made the parks "free."  Hence every city now has "parks and recreation" departments, which cost so much to run that the fed and state ones are all now fee based, and hefty fees at that, and city ones are not afraid of a fee either.

I think it was Aristotle said the thing that creates it sustains it. So it is with small business. One thing we could do to cut the deficits is to return those parks to their original condition, to people who start parks.

Community colleges has only been around about 50 years.  Before that there were some "junior colleges" and very many private voc tech schools.  Like parks, the squeezed these schools and then took them over.  And now, the cost/benefit is out of control.  Before, students could afford to pay cash at these schools and learn a trade, probably less than students pay now. What students paid covered 100% of schools cost, with a profit.  But what students pay now is less than 1/5th of the costs, because these schools have so featherbedded their operations.  Taxpayers are mulcted for the rest.

We can have free trade in education, well we have it.  This is an area where many good things are percolating up.  If you love education, it's time to come up with solutions to problems you experience.

The solution is not free stuff, a band aid over a gaping wound.  The solution is free from force and fraud.  The state uses force to limit who can offer an education.  And they use fraud saying "this is what an education costs." The solution is an alternative in which you can afford what education you need, out of your own pocket.  Let that with the gaping wound bleed to death.  Grow something just instead.