A Novel Million Blog

Three years on... where are things at?

2010-08-11T03:09:00.006+12:00

Hi all,

well the time has passed and if anyone has been following the website (http://www.anovelmillion.com/) you will notice a large lack of activity (as well as here with the blog). So what happened, where am I, what is the future?

OK, so the website and progression of stories did not roar ahead as hoped three years ago and my own personal obligations needed to become a focus. Basically, the website started off with a bang and a lot of press interest. This was also seen in the website stats- a lot of people were interested in my website but unfortunately there were not too many people actually purchasing words. Since the website was based on an evolving story, the lack of new input to the stories was not a good thing. The website was needing a lot of my time (and i mean a lot). At the same time as the website, I was a few years into my PhD and needing to conduct some seriously long experiments. Under these circumstances one thing needed to happen, so I stopped focusing on the website and more on my PhD. Obviously people were still looking at the website, but since I wasn't receiving requests to contribute to the stories/buy words it was easy to switch my time to the PhD.

The PhD got serious. I talked at a number of conferences around the world, have published papers and am now officially a Doctor (of philosophy). During all these times, I was checking the website emails but not actually promoting the website since it requires a lot of time and (believe it or not) money. In fact, all of the money that I made (plus some) went on advertising in the beginning. Anyway, the website remained online in the background just in case I had time to give it another go in the future.

Where am I now? Well I finished my PhD and became a Doctor last year. I then celebrated with a few holidays- Sth America and India. I finished up in New Zealand January 2010 and I am now doing a post-doc in France. France is great- I love it here. I live in a chateau (now converted into apartments) on the beach and am loving the change in culture, language, environment. I'm not sure what the future will be with my personal life, but things are going well at the moment.

And what about the website? It's still online and welcomes submissions. I definitely lost the energy to continue my blog and promote the website with everything else that was happening in my life. I also learned from the period when the website began that it takes a lot of energy to run the type of website that I have. I am not going to be so active in the future unless it takes off, but I have decided to put a bit of my energy back into it.

So it's back online and open for submissions. But the websites success, and the amount of energy that I actually devote to the website is really based on the input from others. Let's hope that people will read this blog, realise that I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, and will contact me with their interest and contributions- this is where the real fate of the website lies.

au revoir pour maintenant! (bye for now)

Oh yeah, to check out my website and what I am talking about, here is the link http://www.anovelmillion.com/

D.I.A.H.

2007-05-31T21:57:00.001+12:00

Still here for all concerned and whomever might want to converse via email.
Life can be shit,
Life can be fun,
The world is an interesting but dirty place.
Ignorance and stupidity rules.
Menial tasks prevail,
Self-centered deception is rife.
Interesting truthfulness is rare.

Hello people

2007-02-25T22:58:00.000+13:00

Blog wise, I've been absent. But believe me, I've been busy. Yeah, lots has been happening with me. I've been working a bit more and have just started an experiment. I can basically see the next month being torturous due to an enormous work load. I've got to wake up early for another huge day tomorrow etc. etc. for another month solid. The last person who said they wanted to put something into the story has gone quiet again. No worries, as I said last time, unless this thing starts to go huge, it's more of a background thing at the moment. Hi mum.

ou est mon tete?

2007-02-13T21:57:00.000+13:00

So this whole website idea is definitely not snowballing!!! Last month I was thinking that maybe this was going to be a good year for it (but it is still early days in 2007).

Anyway, life carries on and this website is hanging out in the background at the moment. I think that one day I might become a celebrity due to the lack of forward movement on my stories. We'll see. Anyway, I'm really just trying to come to terms with the fact that I am in the last year of my PhD and have a lot of work left to do. I'm lacking motivation in a large way and am sort of wondering why I'm doing it at all. I really need to knuckle down and lead a boring life for the next 12 months, but at the moment all I want to do is hang out with friends. I'm kind of awakening from the monotonous slumber of a 4 year relationship.

I'm potentially talking at a conference in Australia later this year, so that's something to look forward to...as well as a few other potential plans that I'll elude to at a later date if they happen.

My computer is now back up and running and it only took about 4-5 days to rectify! I remember having a crappy computer in my Honours year. It kept giving me grief time after time. Here's hoping that the same thing doesn't start happening now. The flies have starting having sex around the house and are pissing everyone off. I definitely noticed their absence this summer and thought we might actually not see them, but they've made a late appearance.

Arrgh

2007-02-08T21:15:00.000+13:00

Computers are driving me crazy. Since my computer tried to download the new version or internet explorer last thursday things have not been working. Ive had to fully re-format my computer twice and reload all the software, and then the updates...... It's a long process believe me. Hopefully it's almost over.

Potential new entry to the Word Story which was talked about late last year. Just waiting to hear back from the author.

Still ticking in Nelson

2007-01-30T23:33:00.000+13:00

I've just said goodbye to the final holiday-goer in NZ.... my sister. She left yesterday, and I can officially re-focus on my PhD now. Last weekend was a pretty funny affair, with Saturday and Sunday spent recovering from a very large Friday night. But late-nights-out are a thing of the past, and late-nights-in are going to be standard fare I do believe.

I've now got some photos of the trip around NZ. Just looking through them I can actually only find two of all 4 of us together. So they one are being included as a point of necessity. Those two were taken towards the end of our road trip and we were all feeling the effects of too much abuse and not enough sleep (although we did pick it up most nights again!). The others are showing a bit of the camping, partying, scenic aspects of our trip. No prizes for guessing which one is my sister. Happy birthday to Kylie for today.

1672 characters sold!!!

2007-01-16T20:19:00.000+13:00

Wow!! this is the biggest contribution yet.... Cheers to the Christmas period....I'm back from holidays and my reliable VIP author has put in a mighty effort. Only a mere 1672 characters for the Million Character Story!!! This has pushed the story into a substantial lead over the Word Story in terms of completion.

This is officially the largest effort to date. We had actually been discussing this last year, but the whole thing went on the backburner for both of us. However, he's come through with the goods in the festive season. Now, hopefully I can also get the Word Story moving forward again with an entry from the last person who contacted me late last year.

Watch this space!

Oh, and two days back into my research, it's become pretty clear that there's one or two things on my plate in the near future.

BACK

2007-01-14T19:00:00.000+13:00

Yes, I'm back and I've got 1/2 a day to relax before beginning probably the busiest year of my life- the last year of my PhD- which is a long way from being finished! I've had a huge, long, expensive, party filled, sleep deprived, distance traveled last few weeks showing NZ to a few friends and my sister in the silver rocket on the road trip of galactic proportions.....selected pics to follow.

what a huge last few weeks....

2006-12-27T11:27:00.000+13:00

I simply haven't had the energy to write anything. Relationship issues settled and then came back for a 2nd helping in double strength. Its all really fresh and is where my head is currently at. Life is a strange thing; I'm going to remember to enjoy the good times in the future as the bad ones will inevitably come around even when you least expect it.

I haven't heard anything re. the new entry for the story. I suspect that the Christmas thing got in the way for the contributor, or they just backed out. Who knows? I'll get onto it next year.

Christmas with the family was a mixed affair. My head was sitting in a distant hospital while we cooked a BBQ and sat in the sun. We didn't have any arguments though and it was a pretty mellow occasion.

Words Sold!!- New addition to the Word Story

2006-12-13T14:21:00.000+13:00

Yes, I have been contacted by someone who wants to put a new contribution into the Word Story. I replied today, so I'm now waiting until the words are composed and forwarded to me. Keep your eyes on the website to see what the next direction in this story will be.

Christmas is almost upon us, and I'm doing the family in NZ thing once again- we tried this a few years back and it ended up in long lasting feuds after only the 2nd night! But this year is going to be different and we are all going to be hugs, kisses and supporting each other (well that's the plan anyway).

Underneath the radar

2006-12-10T18:11:00.000+13:00

Yes, I think that's where my last post ended up. Nevermind, there's something satisfying about keeping secrets. My life has been slowly leaking for the last few weeks, but I didn't come across any amorphous nymphs or incestuous sibs, although I did dream about heliphonts...it has also been a lot of working with a visiting scientist during a time I would have rather worked from home, writing things for my thesis. But I am now taking the opportunity to write up a lot of experiments in the next few weeks.

I'm kind of like a slow boiling pressure cooker at the moment. The general mood is dark, mixed with occasional spurts of anger or sadness laced with mistrust, although I have had time to think about life and myself in a way I haven't really done since I was a teenager. I'm going to be good once I get out of this, I've got a great new mood for life which is just waiting until the gloom is over to really take off. At the moment I'm still trying to get the knife out of my back. I had a jam a few weeks ago which was pretty good fun. I've been playing guitar a lot, and am destined to become a famous rock star some time shortly. Will probably be having another jam next week.

Maybe time for another photo.

Heliphonts

2006-11-26T18:54:00.000+13:00

One of these days this thing is going to take off....hopefully. The people that have seen the site are definitely interested in seeing how it pans out (based on a high ratio of people adding me to their favourites), but still a lack of actual crowd participation, and I still need to get out there into new areas of the public.

But until that happens, I'm getting into the whole idea of my blog. It's a nice thing to document, and I'm sure I'll find it interesting to look back on in the future. Today I found out that a proposal for a review article on probiotics in bivalve aquaculture has been accepted for a peer reviewed scientific journal. So that's pretty good in an otherwise bleak mentality that I have at the moment. Here's a few poems I wrote the other day:

KITCHEN

Bechemal over broccoli

Enchiladas with salsa

Taking trust away

Raffled emotions like turkey

Anything you say means shit

Yesterday lasagne

Every day bitter

Dirty BBQs forever

MISERY

Amorphous nymphs negotiate ill-fated kaos altogether.

Yet order unravels

Because intricate teachings considered heliphonts,

Heliphonts outside wisdom

Constructions of unreasonable living dreams.

Yonder, outer, upturned

Dreams opposed

Telescopic hybrids, incestuous sibs,

Tumbling octagon

Melody ending

Slow leaking umbrellas torment.

Slow loading under tones

2006-11-22T21:19:00.000+13:00

Buon giorno come stai, today my van ran out of petrol and I had to hitch back to work to get some petrol and a return vehicle scenario happening. This sort of thing is a bit of a regular occurrence for me. The last time, I was heading for a surf and it stopped on a dirt road about 40 minutes walk (with surfboard and wettie) from the break. That was a bit of a "stuck in the middle of nowhere and in a hurry" situation. Lucky for me another surfer (a guy from work actually) was driving past and picked me up. I seem to be one of those people that always drives on the "red light"; an expression I heard a few months back. This is basically because of two reasons: 1) petrol is really expensive so I always just feel like putting a little bit in, and 2) my car's petrol dial doesn't work, so it always shows a red light and empty regardless of how much petrol is in the tank.

Oh, I also remembered the other day that I actually have had a jam before. A couple actually, but nothing really serious. I'm a bit of a closet guitar player; I like what I play but don't really know how to jam with others (yet!). When I was in Melbourne the other day, I pulled out my little book of songs I've written . I was pretty surprised at how many I have written (and also what I've written- they go back 10 years ago). It's awesome to look at. They are generally bleak songs, or songs about broken hearts. I've just added a few new ones to it which is great (the last were dated 1998, so you can tell it's taken a back seat).

Oh yeah, for the record, I quickly lost $30 at the casino the other night. It took 2 hands of blackjack and about 20 seconds, so I decided I wasn't going to make loads there and called it quits after that.

My all nighter the other night went OK, but I didn't pull off the 40 hours straight thing. I made it through the night but fell asleep on the floor of my office at 9am and decided to have an hours sleep. After that, I decided my bacteria were not so important, and I headed home to have a sleep from 11am to 1pm. I did return for a meeting though, but missed my jam session- it's been postponed until next week.

Back into it

2006-11-20T18:26:00.000+13:00

No rest for the wicked. I returned from Melbourne on Saturday night. I was straight back in to work for 5 hours on Sunday, and I'm getting set for an all nighter tonight. I've got to construct growth curves for 2 bacterial isolates I have, which will see me assessing things every 30 minutes for hopefully no more than 24hours. I've done this a few times before, and it's really not very enjoyable. But in my current state of mind I think there should be some solace in working my ass off in a state of delirium. It's now 6:30pm and time zero will begin at 11pm- that should see me through to 11pm tomorrow night, but Im actually hoping to finish at 9pm to start my rock-and-roll career. Yeah, I've decided to become a rock-and-roll outlaw and will try to have my first ever (in my whole life) jam with someone. So at the end of it, I'm looking at about 40hours straight- no biggie! I had been thinking I would try to get some sleep before beginning tonight, but with only 4 1/2 hours left, I'm now thinking I'll just stick it out and maybe watch the Godfather on video.

Melbourne was fun. I got to see some friends and get a bit of moral support, as well as just relax in my home town. It also started a bit of a sequence in sleep deprivation; I slept for 1 night out of 3 in Melbourne, and now I've got tonight all organised. I arrived at 7pm on Wednesday and was straight into a dark room for the final assessment of my mate's course in "sound interpretation in space" at RMIT. There were about 30 speakers arranged around the room pumping warped, processed versions of everyday sounds. Pretty surreal. I was straight in there off the plane, beer in hand, backpack and all. From there we had a couple of beers and headed back to my mates place where I cooked dinner at 2:30am while he tried to get his final portfolio together. That saw us up all night just hanging out, and I then went and pledged allegiance to the Queen at 9am pretty dreary-eyed. I thought I was then going to vege at home, but 5 minutes before I stepped onto the train, I decide to hang out with my mate and his 5 year old boy for the day. Very pleased I did; he's a little legend. So I hadn't really stopped or even been home until the 2nd night when I got to relax and sleep! But the last night was also an all nighter for my mates 30th, after which I jumped back on the plane at 9am. Somehow in a pretty altered state, we found ourselves wandering through the bright lights of the casino at 6am- it was a fittingly surreal way to depart Melbourne. There really is nothing quite like a good rail network- you appreciate it after not having one for a while. And returning to the scene of the crime, my childhood home where I was moulded, is always great. Melbourne is such a great place. Well, I might be out of blog commission for a while, wish me luck!

Hit the break key, hit the break key

2006-11-14T22:05:00.000+13:00

Ah, flashbacks to year 8 computer classes where we used some antiquated machines and tried to draw triangles in green outline on a black screen. We used to have an Asian teacher, Mr. Ong, who had the classic line "hit the break key" in an Asian voice. I can't remember what he meant by it.

Anyway, thank God for the delete button. I really didn't like looking at my last entry so have deleted most of it. For those of you who didn't get to read it, it was a little reactionary entry that I had over a pretty big hiccup in my life.

Ezza

2006-11-11T17:59:00.000+13:00

Ezza, happy 30th (I've been thinking about that for a little while now).

Late notice

2006-11-09T20:27:00.000+13:00

Looks like I'll be talking on this show in about 10-15 minutes in Brisbane. Maybe some of you can log on.
http://www.hot91.com.au/

2nd Brisbane radio interview

2006-11-07T23:36:00.000+13:00

Following on from the mention in the press recently, I might be on a radio show in Brisbane, Australia (the second radio station in Brisbane to talk with me!). I'll let you know more details as they come to hand, but I received an interview request via email yesterday. This station is based on the Sunshine Coast. I've also had email contact about a possible story in a New Zealand magazine....I'll also let you know more as it happens.

Oh yeah, and that pasta dish I made the other night...we'll I cooked it and was all set to eat at around 10:30pm (I was pretty hungry). It was a large amount, which was set to provide left-overs for the next day. I put the bowl on a table in the carpeted living room. Only, in my tiredness, I hadn't actually put it on the table and the whole thing deposited on the carpet where it combined with the hairs of my female flatmate! If there is one thing I really hate about eating, it is getting hair with it. So I wasn't too happy. I think I looked at it for about 5 seconds just thinking "Fuck!" before I actually did anything. Then it was a bit of a recovery mission with only the top layer making it through the screening process- anything close to the carpet was dumped.

And then there's my work. Basically my life at the moment is just getting my work done, coming home late, making dinner and eating really late, before checking the computer for a bit. It's kind of one of those degenerative routines where everyday you feel a little worse, and vow to finish a little earlier to catch up a bit, but this doesn't actually happen, and you end up feeling even worse the next day etc. etc. Well, tomorrow I vow to finish a little earlier! In all practicality I sincerely think this is highly unlikely- tomorrow is a mega day, and there's also the possibility that some waves might be heading our way (I haven't had a surf in months).

Another public spurt

2006-11-05T20:36:00.000+13:00

I've been working like a maniac this weekend. I had to do a weekend shift at our hatchery facility and also get myself prepared for a large experiment which I am starting tomorrow. I worked an 11 hour straight day yesterday and got home at 8pm last night. I then stayed up until 3am to watch an auction on an international auction site. I have a little bit of a skateboard collection and am always looking for worthy new additions (oh.... so if anyone has any old Vision Lee Ralph or Santa Cruz Gregor Rankin skateboards they would like to get rid of, please let me know!). They are a few amongst many that I would like to get hold of.

So anyway, today I have also worked 10 hours already without eating.....that's one of my things, I tend not to find time to sit down and eat until dinner. It's now 8:30pm and I have to head back into work at 9pm, and also 11:30 pm. I expect I'll eat my dinner in between that. Tonight's menu is a simple but delicious dish of pasta with seasoned fresh tomato, lots of fresh parsley, garlic and parmesan infused with extra virgin olive oil. Mmmm, you can probably imagine that because I don't eat lunch I really look forward to my dinner! I also like to cook and eat nice food.

This weekend I got a mention on a news story in NZ (on the internet, but possibly also in print somewhere http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3850585a4560,00.html). It's nice to get a bit of publicity without even trying. In fact it felt pretty weird to be reading a story on the internet and then come across them talking about me! It has seen my visitors return to the levels they were before the last month (where I have been terribly busy with my research). I guess it's that wave/7-year property cycle thing again- the website will go quiet for a while, and then get in the public circle once again.

Anyway, it's nice to see it happening and I have had a few complimentary letters from people. Re. the PR stuff, well it's still on the cards. I need to look into it more and that means I need to find the right time to do it. The last people I spoke with are involved with pretty big companies and they gave me a few suggestions about more appropriate organizations. I have a few names, but I just need to find the time to contact them. Oh yeah, I finally got my van legal again. It's a big relief to know that for the next 6 months I can drive past police cars and not feel guilty.

Orange

2006-11-01T23:43:00.000+13:00

Sticking with the topic of royalty. The Prince of Orange (Netherlands) and his wife Princess Maxima flew into work in helicopters today. This was at our aquaculture research facility. It's generally a pretty quiet place with about 10 people working there. However, today there were police roaming, press (even Dutch press!), and of course royalty. It was a little bit of excitement.

The website is still meandering at the moment. To tell the truth, my PhD has been consuming my life recently so I haven't had much time left for promoting the site... oh the nice dream of word-of-mouth taking care of that for me! Well, hopefully the PR people will get back to me soon and I might have someone else to give me a hand.

And I'm off to Melbourne in a few weeks to pledge allegiance to the Queen! I'm only there for a few days, but I'll definitely take the chance to stick some promo stuff around a couple of places. That's all for this brief update. Hopefully one of these days, the stories will get a little move along.

Unseasonably cold

2006-10-28T12:22:00.000+13:00

We've been getting some terrible weather here in NZ. It actually rained in Nelson for about 2 1/2 days straight last weekend (which is highly unusual for a place that is normally sunny). This brilliant weather also happened to coincide with a 3-day weekend, which made it more satisfying that I had to do work (as per usual).

Looks like the Queen has decided that I'm not too bad after all and she's welcomed me into her community. Yeah, I'm getting citizenship. Pretty happy about this- having an EU passport definitely offers many options.

And I've finally got hold of a PR person. We had a little chat last week, and we'll see what the go is next week. Together we are getting ready for world domination!

Bonjour mon petite copaines

2006-10-23T18:41:00.000+13:00

Back again. I haven't written for a while, but there hasn't been much to talk about re. the website. I'm trying to get in touch with a PR firm in windy Wellington, but haven't had any replies to my couple of emails, and haven't found time to call yet (that's this week's task).

I've been really busy at work. I've been making nice photos with bacterial DNA. I've now got just over 1 year left before my thesis is due in. I've got a pretty good idea of what I need to do between now and then and it's not going to be easy to get it all done in that time. I'm already working silly hours (I have been for a few years now) but I suspect that the term silly hours is going to get redefined by me in the next year and a bit.

Oh yeah, going back a week or so now, I finally took my car in to get a road certificate. I had been putting it off for fear of large expenses to satisfy the criterion. Well, it wasn't as bad as I feared. My car still failed, but not for the things I thought it would. So it's currently got no certificate until I get the handbrake and rear license plate light fixed. Hopefully they are easy things to do.

...And the latest on the Trademe saga. Well, I still think they are a bunch of wankers, but I haven't had much time to think about them recently (and it's not like I really want to waste my time thinking about them anyway). I actually started up another Trademe user account (I think they were probably monitoring my regular account and pulling any auction I listed). On this new account, I re-listed an auction for a sticker for my website. It went through un-checked!!!! This just proves how ridiculously inconsistent they are. They have a rule that states you cannot sell anything to do with websites, or promoting websites- but my sticker auction was selling a sticker saying WWW.ANOVELMILLION.COM . Really stupid stuff and I just think they are a bunch of idiots that somehow made a lot of money and now have the power to be idiots to their customers.

TradeMe hypocrites

2006-10-13T18:49:00.000+13:00

Well well well. Not too many surprises that TradeMe continue to be assholes to me and not let me list anything at all- not even stickers. Both my auctions got pulled yesterday. The reason I was given is as follows:

The content and the item in this listing is not suitable to sold on the site. TradeMe reserves the right to remove other items that are not on our Banned and Restricted items lists if they are considered offensive or are in breach of our terms and conditions.

In case you couldn't read the picture in my previous post, I was basically selling stickers that said the following :

TradeMe wouldn't let ANovelMillion.com sell 50 words!!

They made up reasons why they wouldn't let him sell them, but none of them were valid and they contradicted themselves and other auctions that were allowed to run.

So, I bought this sticker instead to decorate my windows with.

So there you have it, a simple sticker got pulled off TradeMe. Maybe I just hang out with the wrong crowd, but I've seen some pretty slanderous stickers before. I think that's the whole point of stickers, they say something shocking, and mine were really just telling the truth- the fact that TradeMe has inappropriately banned me from selling 50 words. They were innocent and legitimate auctions selling 50 words. Because TradeMe continually gave me nonsense reasons for pulling my auctions I was led to sell stickers instead. And now I can't even sell stickers! These guys really need to go to business school to see how to run their own!

Fun for the 3 hours it lasted

2006-10-11T23:52:00.000+13:00

Yeah, a few hours ago I listed the same auction twice on TradeMe . One listing was in the car decal section, the other in the retail business section. One of the auctions (the one I didn't provide a link for) has already been cancelled by TradeMe. The reason this time is as follows:

Your listing for WINDOW STICKER- JOIN THE REBELLION! Listing no. 73582970 has been withdrawn. You may not be aware of this, but it is a breach of our terms and conditions to use a listing purely to promote your business, products, or services on the site. You need to have specific items for sale in your listing.

Hmm. I wonder what TradeMe thinks a sticker is if it is not a specific item. I can't believe that an auction that is titled "window sticker" gets pulled because the auction is not selling anything!!! I think these guys must be on some serious drugs at the TradeMe offices. Anyway, I started another auction- this one is selling computer stickers. Here's the link:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=73629071&ed=true

My new Trademe auction

2006-10-11T19:21:00.000+13:00

OK, I still haven't heard anything from Trademe regarding why they wont let me sell 50 words on their confused auction site.

So, I've listed my latest auction selling stickers instead. We'll see how this auction is treated by them. Considering there are other auctions selling t-shirts which have both "Jesus" and "porn" printed on them, it will be interesting to see what reasons they can come up with as to why selling my stickers is inappropriate.

Maybe, I should just give up on my website, and produce a new line in stickers! Anyway, you can check out my auction here http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=73582510 It will be finishing in 7 days time. It's hard to see this picture, but if you check the link to the auction it has a better resolution photo.

Catch up time (plus 50 words added !!!!!!)

2006-10-09T12:37:00.000+13:00

I'm just having a monday morning off to catch up with some stuff. I would have done it on the weekend, but I had to work a weekend shift at our research hatchery facility. In fact, I would have done it the last few weeks, but I haven't had time to fart.

Well I've finally got a few hours break, and have just tried to work out why a $200 refund from the tax department got turned into me owing them $1500 when I got my tax return back from them. I think I've sussed it, but it still needs to go through the process to get it rectified.

I think I might also take my van down to get it's road certificate today. If you remember, I've been really hesitant as I think it's going to need things fixed (which means $$ spent). I don't know how long I've been walking around, but I think it's been about 2 months! Fingers crossed.

I might also look into the PR stuff a bit today. I spoke with someone last week who gave me some great advice and a bit of direction as to what the whole thing is about and where to look to find someone appropriate for me.

I haven't yet heard back from TradeMe since I last wrote asking clarification as to their bullshit non-legitimate reasons for canceling my auctions. Nevermind, I've got a few ideas up my sleeve and will probably implement them in the next few days....keep watching to see where this goes.

And lastly.......the latest 50 Words has been uploaded to the Word Story. Enjoy. It seems to be a little departure, and gives opening for something new to happen...no prizes for guessing what internet address the author had initially incorporated into their entry!

Case 001: ANovelMillion vs Trademe

2006-10-07T20:49:00.000+13:00

What a bunch of absolute incredible wankers!

For those of you not in the know, Trademe is a pathetic New Zealand version of Ebay. It is actually something of a local success story in this country with mega-company Fairfax recently buying the website for $700million!!

Anyway, Trademe has it's wires crossed in so many ways....they are a true picture of disorganization and hypocrisy. Why am I angry? They have pulled about 4 of my auctions selling "50 words"- 3 of these being pulled in the last week.

Yes, that's right a supposed success story in New Zealand actually fails to embrace similar local entrepreneurial ideas.... and for reasons that are hypocritical, non-consistent and non-existent. I actually don't think they even know why they are canceling my auctions, they just have a "vague" feeling that they are inappropriate. They are not inappropriate and have actually been running on Ebay at the same time. In fact, Trademe are so disorganized that the email letters I receive to tell me that my auctions have been cancelled actually derive from a defunct email address. What this means is that when I reply to these letters to state my case and ask why my auction was cancelled I get the following:

The support@trademe.co.nz e-mail address is no longer used.

What a joke! Yes, you are entitled to sell a potato crisp shaped like a love-heart on this bullshit site, but not 50 words. The first reason it was pulled was apparently because I was promoting my website:

Your listing for 50 WORDS FOR SALE Listing no. 72715863 has been withdrawn.You may not be aware of this, but it is a breach of our terms and conditions to use a listing purely to promote your business, products, or services on the site. You need to have specific items for sale in your listing.

This reason was given to me and is in total contradiction to the fact that real estate companies use this website to sell their houses on, and also numerous other listings that give reference to "check out our website to see the rest of our catalogue".

Anyway, I toned back the auction description and made it more of a novelty auction selling "50 words". Basically whoever wins the auction is buying 50 words... simple. The next time my auction was pulled was apparently because I was selling something downloadable (let's try out another reason to cancel one of his auctions!)

Your listing for 50 WORDS FOR SALE Listing no. 72715027 has been withdrawn. I am sorry but we do not allow the sale of eBooks or downloadable media on the site. We classify an eBook to be any item or product that can be delivered electronically. This includes but is not limited to:
* Backup or copied software, CDRs or DVDRs
* Copies of software or programs that the buyer downloads or has acces to download from a website.
* Music and video files that you can deliver through file sharing software.
* Downloadable or electronically delivered eBooks.
* The sale of a URL or web address where are member can download or obtain copies of information.
* Electronic books (ebooks), or other information sourced from the Internet,produced in a printed version that is sold outside distribution or copyright laws.
* Electronic invites

To this bullshit reason I found my way through a maze of processes to be able to respond to them. I not-so-happily stated that I was not selling anything downloadable and I didn't think that this was a valid reason to pull my auctions. The last email I have received states that the "new real reason" that my auctions are pulled is because:

As the final product will be web based we will not allow the sale of your 'words'.

So the latest new reason is that Trademe doesn't allow sale of anything that they vaguely describe as "web based". Again, what a joke! They have a specific section selling website domain names, another with website businesses for sale, and then auctions I found with people selling internet orientated products. Trademe truly has no consistency or reason for canceling my auctions, and are a pathetic attempt at an internet auction site.

The silent treatment

2006-10-05T23:18:00.000+13:00

Can you all hack it? It's that classic psychological method used to manipulate others, and I'm not sure what I'm trying to manipulate, but I've seriously gone silent on the blog front recently.

It's just been one of those things; real life getting in the way of a good blog- you know what I mean! Do you? I'm not sure that I do. Just babbling shit again.

The biggest news (as far as the site is concerned) is that there is another 50 words on the way for the Million Word Story. I actually had the entry sent to me today but it had an internet address contained within it (which is against my rules for the stories.....if you've all read the Terms and Conditions page). Anyway, I've just replied to the author and it's a pretty minor thing to adjust, so it should hopefully be back to me and uploaded to the story in the next day. Yes!! It's been a long time coming.

I still haven't had a chance to speak to a PR person yet. I've had a few emails with one, but a phone conversation is needed as nothing much was exchanged in the letters. Hopefully I'll get some time to call tomorrow as I seriously haven't had a chance at all this week, and it's already thursday night- this week has just flown by at the slow pace of continuous hard working days. So much to do at the moment.

PCR work is fun. I like gel electrophoresis- it's like where science and art meets! Hmm, sounding a bit dorky at the moment, but compared to a bacterial loop and agar plate, there really is something slightly more satisfying in printing off a glossy photo.

Daylight savings

2006-10-01T20:03:00.000+13:00

I am still here, ticking and alive...although still trying to get back to normal after a really hectic couple of weeks at work. I've been running a few experiments at the same time; one of them required me to return to work late at night, while the other just ensured that my days were spent acting like a madman trying to finish everything. So all in all, not only were the days long, but they were pretty fast-paced. I'm pretty relieved that it's over and now I get to chuck in a bit of data to the computer and see what it all means!

Needless to say, I haven't written a blog for a while. But I'm back and will try to write a few in the near future. I'm thinking about looking into some PR help. I really don't have any experience in it, and it has been a bit of fun and learning during these first 3 months, but I really do need an expert to help get me out to the masses. I've been meaning to talk with someone about this for a while, but just haven't had the time. But this week, I'm going to get around to it.

I had also suggested that there was going to be a new entry in the Character story a week or so back. Obviously it's not uploaded yet, but I'm still trying to work out what's going on with it. Nothing definitive to add yet.

And today is the first day of daylight savings. I love daylight savings. It brings back memories of being young and hanging out down at the beach- you could muck around for ages and it was still only 10pm. Hi Fish.

???

2006-09-25T21:11:00.000+12:00

What an incredibly uneventful day. Worked all day yesterday and finished at 2am. Five hours sleep, worked all day with no breaks, will be back in at 11pm for another 2 hours. Learnt to use a PCR though.

Computers are fun

2006-09-19T23:44:00.000+12:00

aren't they?

you can sit in front of them for hours. A 10 minute email check generally turns into at least 30 minutes. If everything I did took me 3 times as long as estimated I wouldn't achieve anything. Yet, whenever I come away from the computer there is always something that I think I've done.

Blah blah blah. It's late here, and I'm just on way way into work to inoculate some bacteria into broth to grow overnight. I'm thinking it's about time to put out another press release soon- my first 3 month report. Definitely a lot has happened and the stories are under way. They aren't flying along, but I haven't really got a huge marketing campaign or any PR people working for me, so the public reach is pretty good (I think). It's definitely the sort of site which could be around for a while and also keep expanding into new households everyday for years to come. So I'm realistic as to the timeframe and targets that should be expected for this new venture, and I think the first 3 months have been pretty good. Some people have put comparisons between my website and the Million Dollar Homepage, but I don't think they should be compared in terms of success rate at all. That site was a phenomenon making $1 million in 4 months based on a simple idea. I think it is an incredible model, but unrealistic for any new venture to match those records (unless they are very lucky or have a lot of money to put into advertising). It has also been said to me that if a business is still around after 3 years, that is a mark of it's success. So that's probably a better model to try to achieve.

One of these days, maybe, possibly

2006-09-17T23:46:00.000+12:00

After much world-wide anticipation it looks as though there is finally going to be some addition to the Character Story. You might recall that this is my pick to become the more popular story once they both get going better.

Anyway, I'm in talks with one of the previous authors who wants to add more to the story and give it a kick of adrenaline. He's submitted a draft entry, but there's going to be some modification in it to get it really smooth before being uploaded. This could be a few days away, but I just thought I'd give an early heads up so that you can all get ready for this colossal event!

Happy birthday to all those people born yesterday.

And tomorrow.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

2006-09-16T23:03:00.000+12:00

It seems like I haven't been writing as many blog entries of late, but I can assure you my time is well occupied by my own research. Actually, after a bit of mid-PhD gloom recently I had a pretty good week at work last week. A bit of renewed enthusiasm for my work.

Mentally, it's not the easiest thing in the world to be committing so much of my time (years in fact) and energy into the one project and I think a lot of science students actually drop out mid way through it due to the strain of it all. I think it requires either (or in combination) a good support network, a great inspirational teacher, or a big mental threshold. I'd have to say that I reckon I'm still here because of the last one, but my mentality has definitely been at the edge of it's limits a few times in the last few years. I don't think it would be so hard if I were actually doing my research in a University setting (seeing as I am still pretty young and a student), but I actually don't have any of that aspect as my University is located across the Tasman Sea in Sydney. I'm basically half way through it, but the next half does still seem a long way off.

Site wise, I guess the best thing is that I clocked over 100,000 hits within 3 months. I've had some nice comments from people who reckon its a good idea, but still waiting for the stories to get going a little faster. Fingers crossed.

All the exciting news

2006-09-12T22:30:00.000+12:00

That's a bit of a false title. Not much to report other than I'm bloody busy at work, Google Ads are expensive, my site has gone past 100,000 hits (in under 3 months), and I'm really tired. I've made a few changes to my site...the main one being I've cut out the splash page.

I'm currently walking everywhere as my van has run out of WOF (a road certificate) and I'm fearing that if I take it in to get another one it's going to need a lot of repairs that I can't afford. There's a few things that I'd been warned I'd need to get fixed before my next certificate the last time I got one (such as a bit of rust and fixing the door hinges). The door hinges, in particular, are supposed to be a finicky job. Anyway, it's giving me my daily exercise and I get to walk past the Mercedes car yard every day!....not that I'm hugely into cars but it's a bit of a case of two different world's- those that drive Mercedes and those that walk because they can't afford to put their cheap van on the road.

Addition to the Word Story

2006-09-06T23:30:00.000+12:00

Leaving the Character Story far behind in it's wake, the Word Story has taken another massive 112 word leap towards it's completion. Check out the new entry. I'm really enjoying watching this story evolve with every addition (even at it's current pace)- I hope you guys are enjoying it also.

And for all of those people who might scoff at the literary standard, loosen up. This is supposed to be fun as well a new way for people to advertise. I think the formula is there and also the first 2 1/2 pages are interesting to read- especially when you keep in mind that the passages were written by different people.

These here be times of high hits

2006-09-05T20:19:00.000+12:00

As far as hits goes, my site definitely is at the top of its 7 year property cycle. Following on from ca. 12,000 hits in the last week of last month, I have now started this month with over 16,000 hits in just over 4 days. It is by far the best extended high period I've had, and currently 42% of these viewers have put me on their favorites! I thought 30% was good!

Some of the interesting new countries to make a debut on my webstats are Kenya, Tanzania, Hungary.... and last month some new additions were Egypt, Macedonia, Cayman Islands, Ghana, Cyprus, Panama, Myanmar, Kuwait, Romania, Lithuania, Malta, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Of course there are also all the expected countries (30+). My favorite webstat has got to be seeing all these countries flags come up along with the hits. Stay tuned... looks to be another entry to the Word Story once I get the final words from the author.

The wonderful convenience of drive-through service

2006-09-02T22:26:00.000+12:00

Just my little observation for the day. It was yesterday actually, when I was walking home and through the carpark of a certain hamburger family restaurant. I just cannot really understand the whole drive-through appeal when there is a 10 car queue stretching around the corner of the building! It was pretty funny to see actually (bewildering is a little more appropriate). There were people sitting in their cars, engines running (in this time of ridiculous fuel prices), twiddling their thumbs while waiting to move forward to the speaker counter, and then doing the same before actually arriving at the counter to get their food. The cars were not even visibly moving forward as I walked through the carpark. It just amazes me that this is done in order to avoid the hassle of getting out of the car and walking 10 meters to the counter. Well, the whole food choice amazes me actually, but that's just personal preference.

Re. the website.....for the second time in one week I've bettered my 2nd best day for hits record. The best day I've had was when I received 5,500 hits (coinciding with a few newspaper articles, press releases etc in New Zealand), and yesterday I got just under 5,100. So this is obviously good to see.

For future reference....

2006-08-31T22:27:00.000+12:00

No I don't want to help in the recovery of $35 million from the African bank account of a deceased millionaire..... even if I do get half of it for my trouble....... I'm just far too busy at the moment.... but thanks for the many offers I have received of late.... I'm sure someone will be able to help out with this fantastic opportunity.

On the website front, I have received another 2,000 hits since yesterday. I have also attached a counter on the homepage of my website to allow others to see what I am seeing (a large amount of traffic to my site). I also included a word/character sold count on the homepage for quick reference to people who are entering my website via this page.

Alexa sucks balls..... Hmm, is that defamatory or just my honest opinion?...... anyone?...... Blogger?..... Mrs. (carrot up her ass) Strauss?

2006-08-30T21:43:00.000+12:00

I don't understand this program. Once upon a time I briefly made it into the top 100,000. This was near the beginning of this website's existence. Now, I have just had the busiest week this website has ever had (12,000 hits), followed by the second biggest day of hits yesterday (4,500 hits). Yet despite this Alexa seems to have ignored these figures and is not updating my status at all. It looks as though the hits are disappearing into nothing, but I have really just had my busiest week ever. It's totally retarded.

On the upside.....although Alexa seems to be a totally flawed system for website rankings, at least the world has been interested in my website more than ever before last week. As you can all probably imagine, it's totally annoying for me to see that there has been a lot of interest in my site, yet not a great deal of additions to the stories.......I'm still waiting........I do think that one of these days this thing will take off. It's only been online just over 2 months now, the press still have an interest, I'm still finding new ways to advertise and reach new people, and the website is still accumulating a good percentage of its visitors as bookmarkers. So these facts all bode well for a potential flow of words in the future.

My ebay auctions selling 50 words to the Word Story (follow this link to check them out) still haven't been viewed by a great number of people yet, and as such there hasn't been a great deal of bidding yet (in fact no bidding). Nevertheless, it is still a good way to get the message out there and there is still 6 days or so left.

Hello Europe

2006-08-29T22:58:00.000+12:00

I just wanted to say hi.

Possible changes???

2006-08-28T20:12:00.000+12:00

Hmmm....I've just come up with an idea in changing the Character Story into a collection of short stories.......say 20 short stories, each containing 50,000 characters (roughly 12 A4 pages per story).

My VIP author from the Character Story wrote to me today asking about starting the 2nd chapter as the first chapter seems to have stopped.......Well, the first chapter actually hasn't stopped (there's not enough in it to account for a complete chapter!) it's just that no-one has written in it for a while.

So it follows that until the first chapter is complete, the second cannot be started.......so I was thinking of ways around this. One potential way it to make the Character Story a collection of short stories. That way new chapters/stories can be started right now, and there is also the benefit of being able to have co-running short stories being created at the same time......which might be a little more interesting than watching the current stasis of the Character Story.

I'd love to hear feedback from people to gauge what they think about this idea........It also follows that the (currently more popular) Word Story could also be turned into a collection of shorter stories......say 20 stories of 50,000 words (each story being basically 35 times longer than it is at the moment to complete one of the short stories).

Anyway, let me know what you think and I might implement these changes.

12,000 hits last week!!

2006-08-27T21:52:00.000+12:00

Yes, it's definitely been a high period for hits. In fact, the last week has been the best week for hits that I've ever had.....nice evidence that my site is still working and reaching new people.

I continue to promote the site locally and on the internet. I have also started some auctions in a range of different categories on ebay. Hopefully people will jump onto these auctions....they could potentially allow people to author in the stories for less than going through the site directly.

I was contacted by a journo from TV1 news last week. We failed to get in touch with each other on our respective attempts though, so hopefully next week I'll find out what's going on with a potential news story.

Surf was up this weekend in Nelson......it's funny because for a place that gets very little surf, an amazing amount of surfers come out of the woodwork when there's waves and make it pretty crowded in the water. Pretty bloody annoying actually.

Next week at work is going to be pretty busy. There is always so much to do everyday, even my break in Dunedin was busy......one day I'm going to just do nothing for a while.

Sold... 213 words

2006-08-24T01:42:00.000+12:00

First day back at work and it looks like I'm going to be really busy for the foreseeable future.

It's been a big day and I'm going to bed now.....pretty tired. But there is a 213 word addition to the Word Story (you can link to it here). Looks like William has a bit of an arty side! He really does do a lot.... I've been getting a lot of hits again recently.....looks like one of those upwelling wave periods ahead ....the old 7 year property cycle! (well hopefully anyway).

Good night.

Back home

2006-08-22T23:27:00.000+12:00

I arrived back in Nelson tonight after leaving Dunedin where it was snowing on the beach today. A big storm passed over the country today, and as per usual when this happens, Dunedin got snow. Apparently the schools were closed there. So I'm back at work tomorrow.

I only got out for the 2 surfs in Dunedin. I was a bit of a wimp, but I did have other things to do, and just looking at the water made me feel cold. I almost uploaded a new entry last night, but there are currently a few modifications being made to it....... so hopefully tomorrow will see some new words.....check back tomorrow.....I'm just waiting for the final entry to be emailed to me by the author of the words.

The hits on my site have picked up again recently. There was definitely a period that was slower than the initial 5-6 weeks of the website, but the last week has seen a spike in interest again. I was thinking about it while I was in Dunedin and walking around all the people on the streets there......it is not easy to get people to know about me and my website....there's a lot of people out there to reach......so it's going to take time and patience.... Time will obviously help the word spread, and I am still getting 30% of the visitors to my website place me on their favorites, so I know that the people who visit my site are interested in the concept.

Anyway, check back tomorrow, hopefully I'll have received the latest bit to the Word Story then.

I can confirm...

2006-08-19T14:16:00.000+12:00

the water is fucking freezing in Dunedin at the moment. I went out for a surf yesterday and also today, but couldn't last more than about 40 minutes each time. The surf has really been great, and it's kind of painful to have to come in because of coldness when there is no-one out and you've got a great wave to yourself. I'd have to say that due to coldness, my surfing ability also drops a lot, and it's also not nice to be out in good waves but surfing like a bit of a kook........but that's what happens when you try to surf in freezing water. If only the water was 10 degrees warmer!

We also went to see Pirates of the Caribbean last night. Everybody else has probably seen this by now, but we're a bit slack when it comes to going to the movies. Pretty entertaining, but the ending kind of felt a little like the tv series Lost....... I was like "is that the end?"

Stay tuned, it looks like my Dunedin promoting might have some fruit to bear in the form of story additions in the next day or so. It's a great day today....even though it's winter in Dunedin, it's the sort of day worth having a BBQ.....I'm pretty keen for it.

New entry to the Word Story

2006-08-17T21:24:00.000+12:00

Hi guys, there was a new entry to the Word Story uploaded yesterday......I just haven't had a chance to write another blog since then. You can access the story here (Word Story).

Hope you like it. I reckon it's a cool entry as the author has written true to the story and not been too sensationalistic......I hope you all check out his link!

I've now plastered flyers around the place, and could possibly be on the radio here in the next few days.....I'll let you know if this is happening. I got my board back yesterday from Quarra surf...great job at a very reasonable price....thanks guys..

I still haven't been for a surf yet though, hopefully tomorrow if it is good. I did get out for a skate today which was nice as I haven't had a skate for about 3 or 4 months. My break is ticking down and I'll be back at work again soon......can't wait!

Busy day of it

2006-08-15T22:46:00.000+12:00

Hello to all of those people around Otago Uni today. I spent the day putting flyers up on the billboard places around the Uni. I've still got a few spots to cover tomorrow. It's amazing how many places there are to stick things up here....there is seriously about 8 poles to do this in Nelson.........it's like there is nothing to advertise up there, or some kind of wannabe poster-less mission going on in the district council.

Yet, everywhere I look in Dunedin, not only in the University but everywhere around town, there is another place to put up flyers. It's a really cool city Dunedin, I really like it. I was waiting for today after some pretty cold days in the past, to do my flyer mission. I know the word is already out in Dunedin before I got here, but hopefully I can make a bit more of an impression while I am here. I'm going to finish off the flyers and then hand some info out to businesses direct tomorrow. It's all systems go.

I should get my board back tomorrow. The surf was pretty good (and big) today. Also looks like the addition to the Word Story should be in tomorrow. Based on the drafts I have been sent, it looks to be about another 100 words to the story. I'll get this uploaded as soon as I get the final words through. No, it's not that cold here.

Winter in Dunedin

2006-08-14T23:29:00.000+12:00

So, I'm now in Dunedin. I arrived here on Saturday. It's a beautiful place, but at his time of year can be bitterly cold. We had this yesterday, but it's supposed to be getting better for the next few days. The surf has been looking nice, but I haven't been too disappointed that my board is getting fixed at the moment...I get cold just looking at the water. Having said that, I should be getting my board back tomorrow, and will force myself into the chilly waters to test my courage.

Looks like there will be an addition to the Word Story tomorrow. I just got an email today from someone in the US, so hopefully I'll get the words and uploading done tomorrow. I'll keep you posted, but remember to check back. Today we also browsed a few second hand shops.....there's some great ones down here and I love checking them out.

About to take my PR campaign on the road

2006-08-11T22:04:00.000+12:00

Well sort of. I'm actually having a few days away down in sunny Dunedin. I'm really looking forward to it, and will hopefully get into the water for some icy cold waves once my board gets repaired.

It will be nice to have a break as I don't have them very often, and also see my girlfriend. I'm going to take my work down there to do some revisions to the journal article I am working on, but will also get into a bit of ground level publicity as well......basically sticking heaps of flyers around the place and hopefully getting onto the radio. I'm also really looking forward to doing some of those things that normal people do (but that I hardly ever do), such as going to the movies and out to dinner.

I know that a lot of Annika's friends have found out about my site and are interested in it (even before she told them....the press word spread quickly early on) , so hopefully with a bit of gentle persuation, I can force them into participating! We'll see, but keep your eyes on this site because I'm hoping this story will get a bit of a move along after my Tour de Force in Dunedin.

Yes, as per my last blog......

2006-08-09T23:34:00.000+12:00

.....I am still here.

Just waiting for authors/advertisers!

The month started a little slower in terms of hits than it has been for the previous weeks, but is has increased again recently.....So I'm still getting a lot of viewing interest, but this thing cannot progress without peoples input. I know there is a lot of you checking out the site and about 1/3 of your sticking me on your favorites.....yes, I can see you! So why not help get this story going a little better?..... it will likely suffer a slow and painful death without the input of my audience....and with your input, it will have the platform to increase it's audience and continue at hopefully a faster pace.

Apart from this....I got out for a surf this week. We don't get waves coming through here very often, as it needs pretty specific and unusual conditions for the swell to reach us. Anyway, I hit some rocks on my way in (not me, but my board), and I broke a fin off. This wouldn't have been too big a deal as these days fins are retractable and therefore can be replaced quite easily. However, closer inspection today shows that I have cracked the fin housing, and compressed my board in a weird way. It's a bit of a bummer, but this is a trusty board that I have actually had for 6 years and which has surfed in 4 countries with me...it has been close to irreparable before, but it's still going....you could say I'm pretty attached to this board.

Still here

2006-08-06T20:14:00.000+12:00

I haven't written for a few days now. The stories have slowed down a bit after a nice period of progression last week, but my other work (my PhD) has been keeping me nice and busy. I'm currently trying to get together an amended version of my literature review, to submit as a journal article. Hopefully I can get this together by the end of the month.

Being mid way through my research, it's only getting more intense. I'm also hoping to get another couple of articles together by the end of the year....and amid all this, my experiments continue to get more in depth. Things are looking good though.

I've made a few additions to the website...I'm now using Google AdSense, and also Google AdWords. Publicity is definitely something new to me, and I'm learning as I go along. It's a pretty vicious business, and proper PR people must have a hell of a job......however, having said that, it would be a lot easier to get attention and come up with fresh ways of getting the public's attention with a lot of money to put towards it......I was thinking about The Blair Witch Project yesterday, and think about how it was all initial PR work that gave the film so much hype....and that was possible because of a lot of movie money.

Anyway....this thing's still going...and although it was a little slow last week, the site has still only been online for about 6 weeks, so I'm not expecting any miracles to happen in this time.

surprise, surprise.....

2006-08-02T17:39:00.000+12:00

......It turns out that the producers liked the possibility of doing a story with me, and my potential for paying them $23,000 for a 5-8 minute segment!.....and the fact that I have said that I am not interested is, according to them, "a big mistake" on my behalf.

I actually emailed yesterday saying that I wasn't interested and to not consider me any further. However, this didn't stop a 2:30am wake-up call to let me know that they were disappointed as they liked my idea, and I was making big mistake!

I wasn't as accommodating on the phone this time around, and we didn't have another 20 minute conversation.

....an offer you can't refuse

2006-08-01T21:35:00.000+12:00

This morning I got a fantastic offer put to me. I had another 5am phone call, which apparently came from someone in Florida who was interested in a potential tv segment of about 6-8 minutes. We spoke for about 20 minutes, and it seemed like they wanted to do a brief run-down of myself as I was a potential story they were interested in, which was then to be passed by their superiors. There was no guarantee that my story would be accepted, but if I was lucky they would contact me again. It wasn't until the end of the call, that it became apparent that they wanted me to pay them $23,000 to make the story.

Geez, I hope I am lucky enough to get my story accepted, and then have the privilege of paying them $23,000!!!

A weekend off......

2006-07-30T18:57:00.000+12:00

It's been pretty quiet in terms of the stories moving forward this weekend. This has been nice for me, as I am in recovery mode from my last month's hectic work schedule and also with the website.

So I've just been vegging out, doing some domestic stuff, finishing off an experiment, and also a few minor additions to the website. These additions include a new "Press" page........ I hope you like it, and I will try to keep it up to date.

If you see anything of interest, please forward it to me and I'll update the section. The cool people at CJAD in Quebec sent me through an MPEG file of my 20 minute interview on their station, so there is also links to a couple of radio interviews I've been able to access files for......sorry, but these interviews take a little time to access! There are 3 other interviews, which unless you were listening, I wont be able to provide links to.....sorry.

This thing definitely seems to be going in surges at the moment.....and this is quite possibly the way it will continue (who knows at this stage?)......but there have been good periods of people writing words, and then other periods of stasis.

Anyway, it's an idea I came up with, and I'm in it for the long haul. Even if it does take a while for these stories to progress, it will still be a machine in opertaion whith me at the healm! I personally think that it is incredibly difficult for a concept like this to become completed in a short period of time......and I'm expecting these stories to become something of an online epic over the next few years. I think that it will be like this for a little while........periods of people writing a lot, and then a stasis period.

I guess now is a good time to stick in another pic I took in India...this one's from Varanasi

Quick update

2006-07-29T09:48:00.000+12:00

OK, it's Saturday here in NZ, and I'm about to head out to finish off an experiment and then do a few other things. I've now got my van back and it cost me a packet. It's now got a new alternator, battery, fan belts, and had a full tune-up......it wasn't cheap, and did some serious damage to my bank balance.

On the website front. There has been new additions to both stories, and they are moving along nicely. Check out the Million Word Story, and check out the Million Character Story

I guess it's now becoming evident about my initial "experiment" status of running the 2 stories alongside each other. While the Character Story has actually progressed further in terms of the final target of 1 Million characters/words in comparison to the Million Word Story, it is much shorter in length.....I think it will eventually get a lot of people interested in reading it (maybe more than the Word Story) and contributing to it. The entries seem much punchier and not waffling on too much. We'll see, but during these early stages it is following the trends that I thought it would.

Hello Again America!

2006-07-27T19:07:00.000+12:00

Hi......good to have you getting involved in the storyline once again. The first entry came from the US, and now the latest 50 words have also come from there.

And it didn't take long for a time machine to make it's way into the story! I have to admit that I personally thought it was only a matter of time. So it currently looks like the story is going to be one of those run-of-the-mill "espionage sci-fi" novels! Pretty common those are. But as the concept goes....you dictate the story, so by the next entry, the whole time-travel device could have just been a misunderstanding, dream, parallel dimension....you decide.

Also looks like another radio interview for tomorrow on a radio station in the capital of Oz, Canberra. I can't find any online streaming from this station, but for those of you in Canberra, you can listen to in at 4:10pm on 2CC.

Still haven't got my van back yet.

I am flat out......

2006-07-26T22:44:00.000+12:00

Hi guys. So much happening.....car breaking down/fixing up, heaps of lab work, putting out new press release, speaking on Canadian radio, writing letters, uploading additions...walking around everywhere!

Yes, I can honestly say there are not enough hours in the day at the moment. My interview tonight went really well. I hope some of you listened to it....a really nice radio presenter. Feels really cool talking on the radio in Canada from the other side of the world. Check out the Million Word Story (2 new additions). Also just waiting on someone for a new addition to the Character Story. Things seem to be going really well at the moment...the stories are picking up and are interesting so far....actually pretty amusing reading. I still have a great ratio of people who have book-marked me on their favorites (30%). Still a long way to go, but the interest is there.

On the car front, it's actually going to be fixed.....although it's going to cost me a lot of money. I first thought I was sweet when I got away with just the battery...but then when it didn't start, I got the tune up (very much needed) which fixed a lot of things, cost a lot of money, and also identified I need a new alternator.....so the car is still down at the mechanics and will get the alternator done tomorrow.

Words and characters sold. A little momentum

2006-07-25T23:20:00.000+12:00

Both stories have had a few additions over the last few days. Everything has been in the 100 word/character range. Looks like the Ozzies are getting slightly political across the Tasman. That Bush countdown is pretty funny stuff. I guess I had envisaged the links being more for peoples businesses/websites, but I guess if there's something you're into and want to promote then you may as well link to that also. The link for the latest addition is a little more along the lines of my initial imaginings (check the Character Story)

Anyway, it's good to see the Australians getting involved in the stories. Currently, they have been part-written in USA, NZ, England, Sth Korea, and Australia......4 continents sounds pretty nice to me.

I've also been contacted by another tv journo from a NZ tv channel (that's 2 channels now interested in potential stories.....hopefully they happen). And I'm going to be on a Canadian radio station tomorrow for a 20 minute slot! I'm looking forward to that.....and I don't want to sound too ignorant, cause I'm happy to do all interviews at this stage, but it's a late night talk show in Quebec (French province) so I'm not too sure how many will be listening....but I'm still stoked to be on the show....I had a little listen online today and the radio host sounds like a pretty cool guy. You can listen to that at 6:35 pm NZ time (2:35am Quebec time!) by visiting CJAD and locating the live stream.

My second press release is finally out, and should filter out over the next few days so hopefully that is good for the cause.

And just in case anyone is wondering what the status is with my van, I currently don't know. I actually had a brief glimmer of hope yesterday. It got fixed in only a few hours, they replaced some wires which look great and it cost me under $100. I thought I'd gotten out of it pretty well, until I went there after hours at night to retrieve it. It didn't start. So this morning I authorized them to do a full tune up, which is going to cost a few hundred dollars...but my van definitely deserves it. The last I have heard was a message from them asking me to contact them.....that doesn't sound good to me, as yesterday the only thing I heard from them was "your car is fixed, come and pick it up". I'm half expecting some bad news, and will check it out tomorrow. I'm chucking in a picture of the said van...another visit to the mechanics some years ago.

As promised

2006-07-23T21:56:00.000+12:00

I had said that I was going to list all the countries this website has been viewed in during it's first (just under) 4 weeks. I've been pretty busy this weekend, but here they are:

NZ, Australia, USA, Great Britain, Sth Korea, Unknown (?), Canada, Holland, New Caledonia, Hong Kong, EU (?), India, Argentina, Japan, China, UAE, Thailand, Sweden, Singapore, Germany, Taiwan, Denmark, Sth Africa, Philippines, Spain, Bahamas, Switzerland, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Norway, Finland, Turkey, France, Russian Fed, Ireland, Czech Rep, Italy, Cambodia, Slovenia, Jordan.

So that's officially 38, with a couple of questions marks left in the "Unknown" and "EU" area. I think it's fair to say that the site is fairly well traveled by now, and since I've been seeing the stats for the last few weeks I'm going to stop talking about this aspect of the site. It is the "world wide web" after all....but I do think my site has debuted pretty impressively.

Apart from that.....it is a sad day in the world of Nissan vans that just keep going. I tried to change the battery today, but a pretty important cable that could be hard to replace (I don't know as I'm not a mechanic) ended up breaking. It looks really hard to get to and I'll need to see about it tomorrow. The lucky thing for me is that not only did my car break down at a petrol station on a weekend (good to be able to park it hassle-free for a few days), but the place behind the station where I pushed it actually happens to be a Nissan mechanic! So I'll head down there early tomorrow and see what the status quo is. That van has given a lot.....has driven around New Zealand numerous times with myself and previous owners, and done some fairly gnarly hills and mountains in the process. I hope everything works out. Fingers crossed. I guess it's at the level where anything mid-priced in terms of repair costs might not be worth it.....you know the "old car what's it worth to fix" situation. Having said that, it's a great van with good memories, so I'll probably get it fixed regardless.

Another 133 words sold

2006-07-23T01:08:00.000+12:00

New entry for the word story....133 words sold.

Click here to read the latest.

Today was a nice lazy saturday spent running around like a madman setting up experiments. Looks like it's going to continue into tomorrow as well.

Also, my van broke down again today. This time it chose to do it very conveniently at the petrol station....it actually did it just before I got to the pump (about 5 metres before) so I had to push it to the pump. I thought it might have just been out of fuel, but when I put some in it still wouldn't go. So I then had to push it behind the petrol station where it is currently spending the night. Hopefully it's nothing major.... we'll see tomorrow. It seems to be doing funny things on a more regular basis these days.

81 Characters Sold!!!

2006-07-21T19:55:00.000+12:00

....It's been a little bit of a wait, but there is a new addition to one of the stories. It comes from my VIP author over in the UK. He has actually written on 3 separate occasions, with quite a few emails passing between us. It's nice to have a regular contributor........he is definitely a believer in my idea, and a great supporter thus far. I like the look of how this story is shaping up.....a lot of room for anything to occur in the future. In fact, with his new entry, that story is close to 1/10,000th complete! Still a long way to go, but considering the stories have been relatively slow to start it actually doesn't sound too silly to think this story will become finished.

You can read the latest on the Million Character Story here

There is also another addition to my website...maybe you noticed it. I am now adding flags alongside the author list so that it is easy to visualize how widespread this story is being authored. This is going to become (and already is) a globally created story.....probably the largest authored story in history, and this new addition is a great idea that somebody suggested yesterday.

You can check this new addition by clicking here

Apart from that, I am still formulating my next press release and working really hard with my research. It feels like I've been plating out bacteria 24-7 this week, and I'm about to set up a nice experiment this weekend.

Oh yeah, good to see more countries logging into my website. It's a big hello to Ireland and Norway for the first time. The site has now been viewed in 40 countries in under 4 weeks on the internet. I'll give a list of these tomorrow.

Beware the ides of march........

2006-07-20T21:46:00.000+12:00

I don't know why, but that has been rattling around in my head for a few days now.........proof that high school Shakespeare actually does register!

So what's been happening in the word of Aditya Kesarcodi-Watson? Well, quite a lot including a little correspondence with a group of uninteresting, bigoted, killjoy, supposed authors who appear to be down with the latest writing scams.......Yes a group of idiots who seem to think that not only is my idea dumb and a waste of peoples time, but should be considered alongside scams!.....can you believe it?.........there is so much shit on the internet, and in only 3 weeks 30% of the people who have visited my website have placed it in their favorites (that's a lot of people) .......I'm thinking this probably means that people are interested to see how my site progresses and also wanting to read the stories as they develop.

Not only can people get a truly original and creative way to advertise online, but they can participate in the creation of the largest authored story in history.....at the same time being given the opportunity to influence it how they please.........I'm not sure how I'm scamming anybody, as online advertising has been around since the internet started and that's essentially half of what my website offers. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, and I'm not offering anything I cannot deliver....In fact, I'm putting a creative spin on a regurgitated boring aspect of internet culture.......I'm simply putting a little idea I had into practice while they sit there rotating on their carrots (or broomsticks depending on personal preference).

I understand that some people will not understand my concept....but it is providing a service, and also creating literary history.......Anyway, I stopped writing to them a few days ago and decided to accept that there will be idiots out there, and I'm just going ignore them.....for every one of them, I'm sure there is a handful of more interesting people in the world.

Apart from that. I've been on the radio twice (NZ and Australia) and spoken to a journo in San Francisco (a nice 5am phone call!). There was also mention of a story on a NZ news program. It's still early days yet.........I'm not expecting to become a raving hit in a few weeks......My publicity is probably suffering from the fact that I am dealing with it myself, whilst also doing my research. However, from my web stats I can see that the word is still spreading all around the world. I've still only put one press release out, but the second should come out fairly soon, and that is bound to help my website grow.

Keep watching....as people have said to me in the last few weeks "it's still in the building process and is waiting to launch itself"

Fresh FM changed

2006-07-18T19:12:00.000+12:00

Just in case any of you were intending on listening to this live, the interview will now be at 7:50am tomorrow.

Fresh FM spot

2006-07-17T19:32:00.000+12:00

For some reason, Blogger doesn't like my photos, so I'll try again now. (Yes it worked!......that's the Taj by the way....pretty big eh?)

Anyway, the news for the day is that I'll be talking on the radio once more. This time it will be on Fresh FM (99.4, 95.4, 88.4). The spot is going to be Wednesday morning NZ time 7:15am. In case you cannot access this station and would like to hear it, I believe that the interview may be available afterwards to listen to online. I'll keep you posted and provide the links for this when it occurs.

Other than that...today was spent streaking bacterial isolates onto plates of MacConkey, TCBS and Ryans Aeromonas agar plates.....I'm in the process of trying to identify the bacteria I am working with.

no title

2006-07-16T21:25:00.000+12:00

I hope everyone had a good weekend. It was a slow one for word selling here in Nelson, so I decided to give myself a hair cut. Still pretty excited about Ben being a father now etc.

Still getting the hits, but it would be nice to start selling words on a regular basis. I actually read today on a few websites that the key to the success of The Million Dollar Homepage was not word-of-mouth, but the use of a publicist costing over $5000 per month. This is a little disheartening, however makes me feel like I’ve done a pretty good job just by myself.

I can positively confirm that I do not have a publicist and that my site is currently where it is at purely by my own efforts. Having said that, I guess that I now have a new view on how far word-of-mouth can take a good idea. I could definitely use more mouths! Please show and tell my site to as many people as you can ….or even better, contribute to the stories.

I still firmly believe that this website could become something of a cult site in the years to come…..people returning back to see where the stories are at, and also contributing to influence the story-line…….. it is early days in the history of this site, but it would be great to get the stories progressing faster.

Also, I’ve had a lot of comments regarding the black & white photograph on the title page. It’s a street book-stall and was taken in Mumbai (Bombay), India. I’m a bit of a wannabe photographer….in fact I think my dream job would probably be a photographer for National Geographic……but events didn’t allow for that…..actually just to elaborate on this a little (something I’ve always been a little bitter about!)…... During high school, photography became an elective subject in Year 11. If you had done it in Year 11, you could then do it in Year 12. To get into University for photography, you had to have done it in high school and also have a portfolio. Well, I wanted to do it in Year 11, but so did most of my fellow students…there wasn’t enough space and so somehow the “lucky” students were chosen, while the “unlucky” students missed out. I missed out, and effectively this one decision limited one of the things that I really wanted to do in the future.

Anyway, enough of the sob stories. Since I’ve had some comments on my title page photo, I thought I’d also include a photo of mine every now and then in my blog. It might also help reduce the monotony of me speaking!

Ben, Kumara and Alex (Adi).......

2006-07-14T23:10:00.000+12:00

Today is definitely a special day.

I have just had an email from one of my best mates, Ben. V., living and teaching over in Bali (he's the principal actually). His wife, Kumara, has just delivered their first child, a baby boy, and they have named him Alex Aditya Kumara Vizec. Firstly, a very large congratulations is sent out to all of them, and I wish I could be there…I haven’t seen Ben since 2000…he really is among my closest friends. Great news!

Secondly, in case you had forgotten, my name is Aditya! What does this mean…..well it means that right now I am totally humbled and excited that they would choose to use the same name as mine for their son’s middle name. Hands up all those people who have had children named after them…..yes, it doesn’t happen every day, and I’m quietly excited by the whole thing. Ben……you’re a legend, and hopefully it won’t be too long before we see each other again, and I can meet your wife and little boy. In case anyone was wondering, it is an Indian name meaning The Sun God. Good luck guys, and you’ve just made me one happy little camper!

SOLD!!..... 730 characters....... 420 words

2006-07-13T23:16:00.000+12:00

Yes folks, both stories have now got nice beginnings. I also think that both stories are pretty imaginative and funny to date. Good to see the authors thinking a little bit in what they write.

Click here to read the Million Word Story
Click here to read the Million Character Story

There has been some minor editing required before I have uploaded some entries, and I suspect that this will continue......don't worry if you need help, or think that your English is not very good. I can help anyone with this as I have a pretty good grasp on writing and the English language....(everything has to pass me before being uploaded anyway, so I will correct any mistakes you have made).

I decided to pull the Free Speech section. Not much interest on that since I started it, and I thought I'd just let the stories take the focus of peoples attention.

IMPORTANT….. EVERYONE PLEASE READ

2006-07-11T23:24:00.000+12:00

Do you want to maximize the hits you get from a link on my website to your own website? Please read my philosophy on doing this. It is noted here, and also on Q.4 of the FAQ webpage on my site. Please, please, please read below….I am certain it is the best way to maximize your hits.

I was thinking about it today and, for some reason, I remembered something my mum told me once upon a time (hi mum!). I think we were talking about a job I was going for when I was a teenager…..I think I might have been applying for 2 separate jobs at the same time. Basically she said “Don’t tell them that you are going for another job….just tell them what you have to…..make sure you get both jobs, or at least one…..and then you have the choice to decide what you want to do”.

So, what am I talking about, and how is this relevant? Well basically, if you blatantly refer to yourself in your entry, people will already know what is behind your link and you will probably lose a lot of potential hits.

I think if you want a lot of people to hit your link it is probably best to not give away too much about your site in what you write…......it is not needed as everything is already on your website, and that is where you really want people to go. For example, if you were to say something like “the best online gamine site was just around the corner”, or …..“I’d heard that smoking patches were good, but I couldn’t believe how good x-brand were”…or anything that is blatant reference to yourself…. people will already know what is behind the link and most people will choose not to hit or follow your link.

I really think the best idea is to try to get people interested in what has been written. I would personally do this by just trying to contribute to making the story more interesting: either writing very well (something that actually fits really well into the story), being amusing, being creative, being funny…...basically, if you write something that is clever and interesting, that is what will make people want to follow your link to see where it came from!

Just another non-related point…..if it doesn’t look like the stories have been updated on your computer, you should try hitting the “refresh/reload” button. Sometimes this is needed to over-ride the memory/cache on certain computers.

Oh yeah...and yesterday was officially my busiest day yet....over 5,500 hits!

Million Character Story started!!!

2006-07-11T19:10:00.000+12:00

Yes, my pen-pal from the UK (we've been writing for about 1 week in the prospect of him starting the Character Story!), has got his contribution to me and the Character Story is away. Nice beginning too.......very mysterious. I hope you enjoy....and I hope this story develops nicely. Click here to see the first entry

Should be another addition or two to the Word Story tonight (just waiting for the authors to send me their stuff).

Getting a lot of hits

2006-07-10T21:07:00.000+12:00

Tonight has been fairly big in the amounts of hits I am getting: 2,500 and it's only 5am (according to the clock I follow which records my hits).

You may have also noticed an addition to the Word story......check it out (nice to see it linking to a good cause).

Well, I thought that it would be a good time to remind people that last week (in the hope of helping get these stories started) I decided to let the first 20 people buy words/characters for 50 cents each (you still need to buy a minimum of 50 words/characters, but they will cost half what they are normally). So far there has been 3 people, I am awaiting email entry from a 4th, and it looks like there is possibly a 5th coming out of Wellington. Just letting people know......

You will be placed in a queue the same as you email me, and I will contact you when it is your turn to write something. This means you might have to wait a day or so after you contact me to be the next person to write words.

to save on time here's one I prepared earlier.....

2006-07-10T17:46:00.000+12:00

Yes, I know that most of you were probably tuned in to the internet to hear my radio interview on National Radio at 2:20 today. However, I realize that some of you may have missed it. Nevermind, if you really want to hear it, it is currently archived on their website. It will only be there for the next 7 days though. Just follow this link (click here to listen to my interview) and find the interview for Monday 10th July at 14:20 called "Evolving Novel". I generally don't get too nervous with stuff like this, but I've got to say that I did today. There were certain things in my head which didn't come out quite right, sentences left half finished before I started on the next one..... Overall, it wasn't too bad though.

The other big news is that I finally finished the experiment that required my return to work in the middle of the night for the last 7 days. Last night at 12am was the conclusion, so tonight I can rest easy.

I think that there was another article in a newspaper today (The Dominion Post) but I am going to check that out in a few minutes. I've also climbed Alexa's ranking a whopping 7,000 places to be sitting at 82,000th most popular site (well it sounds pretty good to me!).

It also looks like I might have a beginning for the Million Character Story, so watch out for that. I'm currently just waiting for the entry to be emailed to me, and I'll upload it ASAP.

****Important Note**** I just want everyone to be aware of a change to the wording in the terms and conditions page that is beneficial to the authors. Before it might have sounded like I had copyright over peoples individual contributions, but that is not the case. People who contribute to my story will still own their own work for their own personal use.....so please don't think otherwise. In the future, you can always use what you have written and that is 100% OK. However, I own the total story which is produced from the contributions of multiple people......the evolving stories (although authors do get potential royalties, so this rule is really just protecting from non-authors trying to profit from the story). This is now noted in the Terms and conditions webpage, so it is documented.

Alexa top 100,000

2006-07-08T18:54:00.000+12:00

Still getting a lot of hits. Today also saw the first time anyone from the United Arab Emirates, and also Czech Republic had a look. I'm really enjoying watching this figure. It shows nice little flags of different countries, and how many times they have looked. In the last 2 weeks it has been viewed in 30 countries: NZ, US, UK, EU, Aust, Can, Germ, Spain, Hong Kong, Denm, Russia, Turkey, Sing., Jap., Philippines, Jordan, Italy, Greece, Sth Africa, Israel, Sweden, Sth Korea, New Caledonia, India, China, Thail., Holland, UAE, Czech Rep. Lets hope they keep coming back, and help write these stories

Today also saw me crack into the top 100,000 sites on the internet according to Alexa (89, 068 to be exact) http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=www.anovelmillion.com&url=www.anovelmillion.com

So this traffic really is happening people....I'm not just making it up. I'd say for the traffic you'll recieve and also the ability to participate in the creation of these historic literary compilations, an investment of $50 has got to be worth it. Hopefully people will jump on board soon.

Big day for hits

2006-07-07T23:05:00.000+12:00

Today/yesterday was the biggest day i've had in terms of hits.....just over 4,000. I think that's a good number of people looking at the site, and also good news for people who decide to buy words. Today looks like it is going to be just as big. Also a few new countries popping up...Singapore, Thailand, India

So Cathrin moved to NZ to grow organic lettuce and raise chickens eh? She sounds like my kind of woman! It's great to get the story moving forward again, and I thought the last bit was pretty funny myself.

I was supposed to go on National Radio today, but it got postponed until monday. If anyone wants to put a voice to the face they can lisetn to me over the internet (radio broadcasts go onto the net). It is supposed to be on monday 10th at 2:15 pm NZ time. However, it got changed twice today because there was some crazy flooding in NZ that obviously took priority in discussions........ so I can't confirm that this is definitely when I will be on. If people want to try to listen follow this link http://www.radionz.co.nz/nr/home# , click the Audio button on the top left of the screen, then click Nationalk Radio live audio stream.

Anyway, people are interested, the press are getting involved, and the story is funny so far....so in that respect things look encouraging....just need to get a few more word sales. Hopefully people will get more involved soon.

Website additions

2006-07-07T04:06:00.000+12:00

Back from another mission in the lab!

OK, you asked for it so I have added another part to the website....... It's called Free Speech (although words cost $1!). Some people thought that my concept for creating a story with different authors was a little hard to understand, and also restrictive to what they wanted to write.

I personally like my concept of creating a novel this way, as the end product will be a readable piece of literature to stand for a piece of history, and it might also make some money out of being published as a book.

Free Speech Story allows people to write whatever they want (although it needs to contain at least 50 words). This means that what you write does not need to flow-on from what was written by the person before you. It can be a totally free-standing comment, individual to itself (poetry, political analysis, thought for the day, even a short story.....absolutely anything). You have no time limit to compose your entry.....just email me the words and submit payment when ready. Of course, you will still get a link to your own website, and royalties if this thing gets published as a book (although I think this is far less likely than with the 2 original stories I devised). There are no rules to what you can write, so write whatever. I have just changed the website and put in these changes, however it doesn't look like all the changes went through. I'll check again tomorrow.....I'm off to bed

Watch this space

2006-07-06T23:34:00.000+12:00

Yes!!!!! finally, after 1 week sitting on only 100 words sold, I have sold some more. Looks to be in the region of another 60 words (based on what the person has actually pre-paid.....yes he has words in credit at the moment!). The words are still being formulated, and so hopefully by the time I wake tomorrow I'll have them and can upload them to the site. By the way....they are coming from our little friend in Sth Korea!

Just what did the note from Cathrin say to William?

Front Page

2006-07-06T18:29:00.000+12:00

Just in case some of you didn't believe me.....here it is. I'm pretty surprised myself. I sent out a press release only 2 days ago, and didn't hear back from this newspaper until 4pm last night, and now...... "bam" next day front page stuff.

Kia Ora from New Zealand

2006-07-06T16:55:00.000+12:00

Just wanted to quickly say hi to those viewers in New Calendonia. So HI! It seems like I've got a regular little group of viewers over there......I wonder who you are?

And also a big "hello" goes out to those people in Sth Korea.......it's the first time anybody from Sth Korea has looked at the site.

Well today was pretty good. I made the front page of The Nelson Mail newspaper. There might be an electronic link tomorrow, so I'll let you all know about that. Hopefully this leads to a few more word sales! I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens when the Dom Post article comes out (possibly early next week).

I've had a few good enquiries re. selling words, so I think there might be a bit of a progression to the stories in the offing. Keep watching!

Another Article

2006-07-05T17:49:00.000+12:00

Today I was in contact with another press journalist. It looks like there are now 2 articles in the pipeworks about my website. For people who are newly looking at the site, don't forget to check out my ebay and trademe auctions, they are ending fairly soon

ebay auction
tradme auction

Still getting a lot of hits, and by Alexa's rankings my site was about 150,000th most popular in its first week (last week). I reckon that's pretty good, especially since the site hasn't really taken off yet. Just need to translate that interest into words. Hmmm!

Anyway. I'm currently on a bit of a work bender. Needing to take samples every 10 hours, with the occasional 5 hour interval (it's a bit of a timetable for the week). This started on monday and has seen me in at work at 4:30 am, 12:30 midnight, tonight 11:30 pm, and 6:30am. It's going to be like this for the next few days, but isn't so bad. The really inconvenient part is my car (a super reliable Vanette) decided to stop working on Monday. So I'm walking back and forth to work (about 15-20mins) in the wee hours of the night in the middle of winter. It's actually kind of interesting walking at those ghostly hours with no-one around, but I wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

I thought I'd stick in a picture of me doing some serious work in the lab seeing as that is what I do.

Hello to all the people in Holland! Is that you Alex?....... it must be summer over there now

Strap yourself in, sit back, and relax........

2006-07-04T18:27:00.000+12:00

Yes it looks like this one might take a little time to get going. All up, I had just under 9,000 hits in my first week, so there' definitely people checking the site out......... a lot of people!

But people have yet to step up to the plate in a big way. I'm not sure why, as there is definitely access to reach many others through advertising on my site (as well as participate in the creation of something new, and readable)

It looks as though there may be an article in the the biggest newspaper coming out of NZ's capital, Wellington, at the start of next week. I sent a press release out to a few places today, and I had a phone call back from one of them. Hopefully I'll take NZ by storm!

Anyway, I would imagine that there will be a lot of people in NZ looking at my site early next week, so if you want them to see you, you've got a little time left to buy some words. Remember that it might take time for the people before you to decide what they want to write (people are given 12 hours), so if you want to get in before next week, it would be good to contact me early.

Modified website

2006-07-02T21:48:00.000+12:00

I have now changed the site a little bit to allow it to work in Firefox. Not too difficult. If anyone else has some suggestions re. changes to the site I'd love to hear them.

Thanks to eveyone for the nice comments. Good to get encouragement in these slow times for word selling!

It has been suggested by a visitor from Hong Kong, and also someone at work, to have a reduced price on words at the beginning to help get the stories started. I reckon it's a pretty good idea, so I am allowing the first 20 people to have 50 cent words for their entries. Hopefully this will help get the stories started, as that is the most important thing at this stage.

So spread the word around......5o cent words for sale ! (for a limied time only)

You can't get much of a better offer than that in something that could potentially reach millions.

Next week I am going to send out a few press releases and see what is the outcome of that.

Apologies

2006-06-30T18:52:00.000+12:00

I have to say a big apology to people using Firefox and other browsers which may not be displaying my site correctly. It works fine in IE, but there are slight aspects which are not working in the other browsers. The site is still quite easy to use, and functions all the important things OK. I am in the process of getting this sorted out, so please bare with me.

Another quiet day for word selling, but still getting a lot of traffic.

2 days in and my initial joy is on hold

2006-06-29T17:21:00.000+12:00

Yes, despite watching my visitor numbers increase rapidly, I have not sold any words since the intial entry. It was all a bit of an anti-climax, the "burst onto the scene" thing.

So just updating the final figures from my second day. I think I must have got about 170 unique visitors today (as I now have 251 total). I reckon that's not too bad for my second day.

Also each unique is quite possibly more than 1 person. Each unique represents just the IP address for a computer, or set of network computers. What this means is, for example, that although at my work there were probably over 50 people on separate computers looking at my site, they would have only been recorded as 1 unique. So who knows how many people have actually seen my site.....

Hopefully things start to kick off soon................... I think the word must still be spreading!

More nice stats......

2006-06-29T10:53:00.000+12:00

I guess being a scientist I have a natural "love" for statistics, but the data you get to follow your own website is pretty impressive. Here's some of the breakdown only 2 days into it:

day 1: 80 unique visitors, 1,200 hits to view it

day 2: (and the official "stats" time is now only 7pm, so there's still another 5 hours left)

230 unique visitors, 6323 hits

That's 150 new visitors alone in the 2nd day, as well as 5,000 hits just in the 2nd day. It should be interesting to see what the total figures are by the end of today. I think another interesting stat is how far this has travelled in under 48hours. There are people looking at the site in NZ, Autralia, Canada, USA, England, Europe (all which you might expect), but then there are also people in Japan, Hong Kong, Sweden, Israel, Russian Federation, Spain, Germany!! Mind-boggling stuff. Let's hope the spread continues.

I still haven't got very good keywords listed in search engines yet (only anovelmillion.com and www.anovelmillion.com), so once that happens it should also help me a lot.

The stats say that approximately 20% (that's a lot) of people have actually added the site to their favourites!

Also the average time that people are taking to look at the site keeps increasing. Yesterday it was approximately 3 minutes average. Now it is 6 mins average! I like that stat, it means people are really interested in what is on the site.

I haven't heard back from William today, the first person to buy words, but I'm assuming he's experiencing a really good advertising effect at the moment......I'll let you know when I hear from him.

As for the word selling, I haven't sold any more words/characters since the first "quick sale" I had. I hope this trend doesn't last too long.........it's great that people are looking at the site, but I definitely have doubts when no words are being sold. I'm a little surprised that no-one has bought characters to start off the Million Character Story...............that's prime real estate right there. Hopefully that will get a beginning soon.

I guess people who might be thinking about it could look at The Million Word Story, and see the advertising going on there. That only cost the advertiser $100, which really is not a lot of money for how much benefit he will now get out of it. Additionally, he may even get that $100 back if these stories ever get published! So I'd say "it's a deal never to be repeated"............or at least for the next 999,900 words and 1,000,000 characters!

Don't forget to have a look at the auctions I set up:

Click here for ebay

Click here for Trademe

More quick figures

2006-06-28T19:28:00.000+12:00

Just a break from my emailing. I've cracked the 100 unique visitor barrier. I don't know how hard this is, but I reckon it's not bad for 24 hours.........I know my first blog was a few days ago, but there was a few days where I was working things out with the site and didn't let anybody know about it. So officially the site has really on been "online" for 24 hours

One day into it:

unique visitors: 100
number of hits: 4300

Quick update

2006-06-28T18:13:00.000+12:00

It's slowly getting going.

I've had about 90 unique visitors in the first day. William, the first person to buy words, has had 26 visitors to his site traced back to me. I'm sure he's going to do well out of it, and you could too. Considering it's just the first day I'm sure thousands, if not millions, of people will now visit William's site in the next 5 years! What's more William now stands to get 1/10,000th of any royalties that may come out of publishing this story. May not sound like much, but it could easily be his $100 back, and possibly much more! That's a fairly good deal I'd say.......so get involved!

Anyway, I've started an auction on both ebay and a local auction site in New Zealand. I did this to get a bit of publicity. I'm not expecting anything silly to happen there as words can be bought easily through me on the site......but you never know.

Here's link to both auctions, check them out

ebay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pixels-now-cliche-buy-words-to-a-novel-internet-site_W0QQitemZ120002576126QQihZ002QQcategoryZ46689QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

NZ Tradme auction:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Software/Other/auction-61513276.htm

Still sending out some emails. Back later.............................

First words sold.....that was fast

2006-06-27T23:11:00.000+12:00

It's underway......... I sold my first 100 words today ($100), and it only took a few hours! I was really surprised how fast it happened, and am still really excited.

Not only that, but it was written by a published poet....has a nice ring to it. And he was quick too, had the whole thing sorted out in an hour or so (much less than the maximum 12 hours I am allowing, thanks William). So go to my site and check out how the story has begun. William thought of the title. I was just going to leave it as Million Word Story, but I am toying with the idea of having the first author choose a start title, and the end author an end fragment to kind of show how the story may have changed.

It has been an absolute mission to get my computer sorted out, but finally I got it working and uploading OK. I had a plan to get these emails out, but I wasn't able to get out what I wanted. I sent one to all the people I personally know, and then a few other people as well. I still feel like the site is a bit of a ghost in the machine. There really has been less than 20 hours since I let people know about it, and also under 40 unique hits. It's really encouraging that words have already been bought, and I'm hoping that the word gets around in the next few days given a few more emails.

Still available is the beginning to the Million Character Story..........but I reckon someone's going to have to be quick to grab that spot also. So the site now has a running countdown of words bought.....check it out .

It feels like it is all set up and ready for uploading now. ........ "words, words, get your words here"!

can I become a millionaire selling words?

2006-06-26T23:36:00.000+12:00

Two days on, and I'm still getting settled into it.

I've spent a bit of time playing around with the site, now that it's on the net. It takes a little getting familiar with when you haven't done it before........not to mention my computer is having mild panic attacks. It has been doing some funny things, and so I've spent a few hours tonight totally reformatting the hard drive back to it's factory settings. It seems to have done the trick, and it hasn't had a spasm since. Having said that, if I do make millions from my new site, I think a new computer may be in order.

So I was planning on getting a lot of emails out there to let people know about my site, but I honsetly haven't had a chance to in the last couple of days with all the fiddling on the computer. It is definitely the next thing I need to do, and should happen in the next day or so. Once that happens it will be interesting to see what the reaction is like.......I kind of feel like my site is a ghost in the machine at the moment........it's there if you know about it but cannot be found easily on the search engines (unless you type in anovelmillion.com), and people don't know about it yet anyway............please tell people about this crazy guy who is trying to sell words to become a millionaire.....I need to generate a bit of interest in the site.

Go the socceroos!! Round of 16 match at 6:30am my time

First post. A new blog, website, concept.......

2006-06-24T22:07:00.000+12:00

Hi internet people,

how exciting.........I've just put together my first site, and have now got a blog to go with it. I've just spent the last couple of hours trying to get everything uploaded and working, which I'm sure a lot of you will appreciate from your own "first website" experiences. But it seems to be functioning OK. Anyway, my name's Aditya and I'm expecting this blog thing to be a bit of a regular occurrence from now on.

So what's it all about. We'll if you've come to this blog from my website you probably have half an idea, but if you've stumbled upon my blog via other means please check out my website (www.anovelmillion.com).

It's a valiant effort on my behalf to make a lot of money using only a simple, yet original and quirky concept. In fact, it's an attempt to make 1 million dollars with this concept......the idea.......selling words. Yes, why didn't you think of it first!!

Along the lines of another recent website that I'm sure you all know (themilliondollarhomepage), I have devised a concept to sell 1 million words for $1 each. It's a little idea I had a few months ago when I first heard about the pixel selling site.

There are interesting aspects of this idea. Basically, people buy words, I get money, they get a new way to advertise, and in the process a novel will be created. There are a lot more details to what it offers, along with potential book royalties for all "word-buyers", but since it is all on my website I wont go into it now.

So who know's, this may be the start of a fortune (here's hoping). There's a lot of money out there, and I reckon this idea is a pretty good reason for me to be able to get some of it!! I've got a bit of a strategy for making this happen, but I guess the first thing I need is to sell a few words and get the stories started.

I might just add, that the person who buys words to start each story (there are 2 variations.....details on my site).....that is the 1st person to buy words.....will automatically have at least 48 hours to get their stuff together, in the attempt to create a good beginning to each story.

I don't know how this will be received by the internet community, but it could be a bit of a journey, so please keep checking my blog and website.........and also spread the word to your friends about this "crazy" website which is selling.......well words.

As this is my first website I welcome any suggestions that anyone has to improving it. Just contact me here

So what are you waiting for? Splash out and buy some words!

A Novel Million Blog

Three years on... where are things at?

D.I.A.H.

Hello people

ou est mon tete?

Arrgh

Still ticking in Nelson

1672 characters sold!!!

BACK

what a huge last few weeks....

Words Sold!!- New addition to the Word Story

Underneath the radar

Heliphonts

Slow loading under tones

Back into it

Hit the break key, hit the break key

Ezza

Late notice

2nd Brisbane radio interview

Another public spurt

Orange

Unseasonably cold

Bonjour mon petite copaines

TradeMe hypocrites

Fun for the 3 hours it lasted

My new Trademe auction

Catch up time (plus 50 words added !!!!!!)

Case 001: ANovelMillion vs Trademe

The silent treatment

Daylight savings

???

Computers are fun

One of these days, maybe, possibly

Saturday, September 16, 2006

All the exciting news

Addition to the Word Story

These here be times of high hits

The wonderful convenience of drive-through service

For future reference....

Alexa sucks balls..... Hmm, is that defamatory or just my honest opinion?...... anyone?...... Blogger?..... Mrs. (carrot up her ass) Strauss?

Hello Europe

Possible changes???

12,000 hits last week!!

Sold... 213 words

Back home

I can confirm...

New entry to the Word Story

Busy day of it

Winter in Dunedin

About to take my PR campaign on the road

Yes, as per my last blog......

Still here

surprise, surprise.....

....an offer you can't refuse

A weekend off......

Quick update

Hello Again America!

I am flat out......

Words and characters sold. A little momentum

As promised

Another 133 words sold

81 Characters Sold!!!

Beware the ides of march........

Fresh FM changed

Fresh FM spot

no title

Ben, Kumara and Alex (Adi).......

SOLD!!..... 730 characters....... 420 words

***IMPORTANT….. EVERYONE PLEASE READ***

Million Character Story started!!!

Getting a lot of hits

to save on time here's one I prepared earlier.....

Alexa top 100,000

Big day for hits

Website additions

Watch this space

Front Page

Kia Ora from New Zealand

Another Article

Strap yourself in, sit back, and relax........

IMPORTANT….. EVERYONE PLEASE READ