Both the uproar/exodus, and some of the overblown reactionary comments in this thread are great examples of why I stopped contributing posts here quite a while ago, but I did want to drop a note for the mod team to say that you do great work here, even if it's not always recognized. I've spent time on a lot of different forums over the last 20 years, and the Writers' Cafe is run very respectfully and productively. Kudos!

I'll continue lurking wherever people are discussing Amazon, but given the consistent overreactions to relatively minor events, I don't see myself ever trying to join the conversation again. The odd post like this aside, I've been enjoying the internet a lot more since I set permissions to Read Only.

Admittedly, I know nothing about blockchain, but I did see this the other day...

Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain
Everyone says the blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, is going to change EVERYTHING. And yet, after years of tireless effort and billions of dollars invested, nobody has actually come up with a use for the blockchain - besides currency speculation and illegal transactions.

Article: https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100

Why are you even bringing this up? Why are you saying anything to anyone about this? Do you have some street guilty desire to confess? Are you hoping to be "outed" so you're forced to change genres or what?

Why is it so hard for people on the internet to be nice to each other?

I misread the release email and thought I'd have to buy the full version again even though I'd just purchased an unlimited license at the beginning of this year.

Unlimited upgrade is very reasonable! Stoked to get print books out now.

I'm going to have pen name. I'm glad you said something about not opening another account because it was something I had considered. Can you tell me why this is a bad thing? And what about Goodreads?

It's a breach of the KDP Terms of Service. Amazon will terminate both accounts.

Has anyone done this? I've got three books on amazon under my own name right now, but I've been thinking about the future of my personal brand and considering moving these off to a pseudonym. It means rejigging my website and social media presence a bit, but I'm wondering if there are any unforeseen difficulties in changing the author name on already published titles?

I'm not worried about moving to a wholly anonymous pseudonym, so not worried about the fact that Goodreads will probably always show old versions of the books with my full name on them. I may even just switch to a first and middle initial with same last name to separate them from future work I'd like to have under my main name.

Those poor, deprived folks out there in the East, eh?? 

NY is Shake Shack country. They don't care for your wishy-washy hippy surf bro In-N-Out.

Glad it was a relatively simple fix

What's your Canva output size? If you're putting a high-res photo into Canva only to export it at 900 x 900, you're losing all that original source photo resolution.

I use both. ProWritingAid premium for the first run on my Scrivener file, then an annoying chapter by chapter Grammarly (free account) check.

Both return a lot of false results, but they also each pick up things the other doesn't. Example: PWA will tell me to take the comma out of "Neither app is better than an editor, though." and Grammarly will tell me to put the comma in if it's not there.

You really need to have a solid grasp on what to ignore for any grammar app to work.

This is tough to troubleshoot without screenshots and more information, but let me try. Also, in the future, always share your computer operating system and app version when asking for help like this. There are often big differences between Mac and Windows or between versions that are only a couple of years apart. Not giving this information makes it incredibly difficult for people to help you.

1. As mentioned, check your blend mode on the layer is set to Normal. Probably not the case, since the image would display in a noticeably different fashion regardless of layer mask.


2. Make sure your foreground and background colors are set to the default of black and white. You can do this by clicking the mini pallete icon above or below your two colors in the left toolbar depending on the version of PS you're using. On a Mac, you can also just hit the D key to return to default.


3. Check your gradient type. You probably want to see a black to white gradient with the linear option selected. The mode here should also be set to Normal.


4. If you don't see something that looks like the previous screenshot, click the gradient preset in the top bar and select one of the first two options. Foreground to background, or foreground to transparent.


5. If you're sure you have your gradient and colors set up properly, Alt/Option click the layer mask (as CABarrett mentioned) and use your gradient tool now. Option click the mask again to revert to normal view.


Reinstalling software is a last resort fix. I've been using Photoshop for over a decade, and I've never once had to reinstall because something went wrong with the software. Photoshop has a million and one keyboard shortcuts. Hitting the wrong button at the wrong time will change your blend mode of your tool instead of your layer, or change your brush preset, or do some other wonky thing. If you're having problems with something, first step is to make sure that every tool option is set to the default settings (or the settings you've applied) before restarting and not seeing any effect.

This is fantastic. My Book Report data has been out of whack on my computer, but now it's synched up with accurate numbers on all machines. Really great job, Liam!

They use Amazon's API to auto-generate their announcement. I ran a promo with them on Monday, and the process chopped my book description in a way that it no longer made sense. They offered to rerun the promo the next day with a manually corrected version of the description, but I don't know that it made a difference. The first day, I was 42 places down the list of books. The second day I was 37th down the list. This was for a $0.99 book, and I didn't see a single sale. I'd also paid the extra $5 for inclusion in the newsletter.