I found something I wanted to share with you about upgrading your wordpress blog. It’s an incredibly clear and easy to follow guide to take you through the process step by step. It’s from a fellow who identifies himself as John The Geek, and if you don’t know about him you should. Here’s the link to get this guide. You do have to sign up for his newsletter, but I think you’ll find it tremendously useful. He knows all the geeky stuff, but more importantly, he knows how to explain that stuff in an understandable way. Check it out here:

http://JohnTheGeek.com/WPUpgrade/Refer.asp

If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing from the gurus that you have to be very, very careful when you upgrade your wordpress blog - that is, unless you buy their book. While I am learning a lot of techy stuff, I was sufficiently intimidated that I figured I didn’t really need to bother with an upgrade… Well, wrong. The upgrades have security aspects that really shouldn’t be ignored. Even if your old version blog works just fine, you should upgrade. And with John’s guide, it will take only a few minutes. So pick it up, then stay subscribed for a while, check out his blog, and see if this isn’t just a tremendous resource. Oh, and did I tell you it’s free??

I have another eBay update, too. Well, actually, two of them. First, if you haven’t seen it talked about, eBay has done a 180 on their previous announcement that they’d absolutely, positively not be allowing links off your pages anymore. They’ve decided to leave everything as is for the time being. So, if you have an opt-in on your About Me page, it’s apparently still okay.

And on my saga with them to try to get just one non-complying seller to play by the rules, well, not such good news. I did get another email from some support person who actually, at least for the first paragraph, seemed to have read my email. Then we got lost again. I was told I should visit the support center (and given the generic link, so I had to click around there for awhile.) They wanted to have a specific complaint about a specific item, but then won’t accept a complaint relating to the item because it’s not an active item. It’s been sold. Well, DUH! That’s my point. I bought it, I was given a download link, and that’s why I’m complaining. HELLO?? Bad enough that none of the complaint categories really fits the digital delivery ban, but I’m supposed to complain about a listing that I can’t prove is non-complying. It’s just nuts! And further proof that their interest in dealing with folks at my level is miniscule, at best.

So, that’s all the energy I’m putting into that mess. I’ll just keep posting my little CDs, keep encouraging folks to visit my website through the CD delivery, and work on growing a many-faceted web biz. Which is what we’re all supposed to be doing anyway.

Stay well.

eBay is making me nuts. No, this isn’t another rant about policy change - well, not directly. It’s about their response to email inquiries. It’s like they don’t actually read anything you send. They find a keyword that goes along with a policy, paste the policy into a response, and send it off.

Specific case this time is an email I sent asking that they take a look at an ebook seller who is delivering his goods digitally, although his auctions say they’re on CD.

I know I’m kind of reverting to that 12 year old: “you can’t do that, it’s against the rules!” But it’s frustrating to have gone through all the changes, working hard to comply, and then see someone breaking those rules.

Anyway, I bought a couple of items to make sure, and then I asked eBay to look into it and do something. The first email included dispute resolution policies, suggesting I contact the seller to work things out. Um, no, not going to happen. The last one quoted the digital delivery rules. Hello? I know the rules, that’s why I wrote, and I did explain exactly - again - what the problem is. Don’t know how they’re ever going to take action when they can’t take a minute to read the entire email. Oh well.

On another note, business is picking up for my ebooks on CD business. The beginning of July was dismal, but there seem to be more buyers lately. And I’ve had some lovely emails from happy customers. Always helps keep me motivated!

This isn’t a leaps and bounds growth by any means. My sales are only about $20 more this month than last, but I haven’t listed as many new titles as I’d hoped, either. It does mean that I’m paying all my fees out of earnings, so definitely life is good! And it’s pretty cool how a few sales can motivate me to get more done.

I’m going back to my listings now. Just wanted to share the latest bit of eBay nonsense.

Be well.