Citizenship Book in Progress + Possible Education

I mentioned this some time ago, but I'm still fond of writing books... for now.

The idea I threw about a book on acquiring citizenships and seeing where you could be a citizen, has begun. I have a feeling this will be the longest book I've ever written (the current record being 215 pages) as I've just finished the prologue and the first chapter (Afghanistan) and it's already taken me to 11 pages, if we're assuming every UN member country will be given an average of 3.5 pages; we'll be at 675 pages. I know. I'll be disappointed if it's not as much of a hit as hoped.

Another plan after writing books is to take maybe 3-4 years as a break just so I can do some part-time study, as I believe a creative writing degree would be a good idea to pass the time. I don't need or want a creative writing degree for any career, but because I'm already paying a student loan for a Level 4 qualification since 2019, I realistically won't have any chance of paying it back because of how the student loan system works in the UK, I may as well go for it.

Book Sale Ended

A huge message of thanks to everyone who bought copies of my books at the start of December up until now, the prices have gone back to their standard rates but I don't intend on unnecessarily raising the prices unless Amazon dictates that the price of production rises.

You Outperformed Yesterday!

You did, you outperformed the previous day's sales on Amazon for "500 Useless Facts", and we're now firmly in the Top 50,000 club!

Can't thank you guys enough.

I've Hit The Top 50,000 on Amazon! + Book Sale

Over the last week, I have noticed that a few of my books have sold in great numbers (most notably 500 Useless Facts) and on Saturday, I was casually browsing to notice that my book just fell outside the Top 50,000 on all of Amazon, for context; major book retailers will only generally stock books that are in the top 100,000; for this, I cannot thank you enough and this is the sort of news that inspires me to pursue my hobby/side hustle/career/dream of being an established writer among other things.

To say thank you and to help with the upcoming festive season and to encourage more sales during December, I have reduced the prices on all of my titles!

The new price list can be found on the "Books" page on this website, the prices listed are set by me on the official Amazon Marketplace so if you find anyone selling the same books for a more expensive price, you're being conned! (plus buying direct motivates me to write more books)

This sale will end on the 24th December when the original prices will come back as normal, I don't intend to put the prices up for a while unless either production costs rise or I'm forced to by Amazon itself; I'll try and give you notice ahead of time when I do that but for now, enjoy the sale and thank you for your continued support, it means a lot to me during this crucial time!

Follow-up with GreenSquareAccord

 A month ago, I had lodged an official complaint to the Housing Ombudsman about GreenSquareAccord, a housing association which took my holding deposit for a property which I pulled out from buying and delayed the refund for over 3 months...

Until on the night of the 27th November, I finally got my money back... All £250 of it. It should never have taken this long but I'm grateful for GreenSquareAccord acting promptly. Crisis averted.

Complaint to GreenSquareAccord

"In July 2023, my partner and I applied to buy a 2-bed shared ownership property, hard times and rising costs meant we decided to pull out of the sale. A signed agreement with GreenSquareAccord, states we are entitled to half of the holding deposit back if we decide not to go through with the sale. I also have a complete e-mail log with a representative of the association, stating that the refund was in the works since late August but has not been received as of 24 October 2023.

I lodged a formal complaint to the housing association via post on the 9th October but I still haven't received any correspondence whatsoever and as a result, I'd like to take this further."

This is the opening to my complaint to the Housing Ombudsman regarding a deposit I held with a housing association in good faith that has taken as of today, almost 3 months to refund, since that time while still looking for somewhat affordable property, my partner and I made the leap to rent a place to stay instead, but as my partner left their job and it hasn't been an immediate success to find work... It's not been great to find employment, because of the finances being tough, having a company try their luck to charge us for gas for which the house we rent is purely electric, bailiffs coming around to collect a debt in the previous tenants' name, and having a barrage of letters, fines, bills, invoices, etc... in the tenants and their company at our door hasn't been smooth for us. This is why I believe we should ask for some discretionary compensation for the inconvenience and for the fact we were told it would be refunded within 2-3 working days... back in September.

I filed the complaint via e-mail on the 25th of October 2023 and I shall be issuing the same complaint via post sometime later with photocopies of the contract.

I shall let you know of the progress of this affair.

Translating My Art Book

In order to potentially reach a bigger audience, I have a vision of translating my art book into another language; I don't have the intellect or budget to hire a professional to translate the book word for word; and as I write this I may even consider a crowd-funding idea.

If I translate a book, I'll most likely translate it into Spanish, because it's the other language I grew up with in school. It's the language I feel I'm most comfortable marketing to as it's widely spoken in North & South America so there's a nice geographical spread. I have some factual backing as it's the 5th most common language for a book to publish.

I'm deciding not to publish in Mandarin as it's only spoken mostly in the PRC, ROC, and Singapore; and I feel like since I can only use Amazon for my distribution, I don't feel like I can market as well to a Mandarin-speaking audience; even though Mandarin is the 2nd most common language for book publishing instead of English. The same story applies to translating my books into Russian, as Amazon hasn't got as good of an audience right now because of things in the news.

If the book is translated into Spanish or indeed another tongue, I may also consider changing the title to something more generic, such as: "My Portfolio", "A Compilation Of Bad Art", etc...

If anyone has any ideas for translation services or can give me ideas for other ways I can re-publish my book, please let me know.

Potential Book Ideas

 Every so often, this may or may not be a regularly occurring blog post due to my creativity levels.

Current fresh ideas for a potential future book or project include:

• Listing popular ranks of everything, via survey or polls. This is a similar model to Ranker.com where crowd-sourced polls compile results of opinions on almost everything whether it's pop culture, food, entertainment, you name it. Think of it as a book detailing the current court of popular opinion.
• Citizenships around the world, how easy or hard it is to gain citizenships of each country, this is something I've always wanted but sadly I have no other exotic ancestry, residency elsewhere, or a ton of money to buy a second passport. I would like to make an easy compilation to help people find citizenships they may be eligible for whether it's for ease of travel, taxation, or just because they qualify.

Google Adsense Sucks

After my Sandboarding blogging days, I have earned only about £1 per year from displaying ads on my website. Today, I received an email from Google Adsense, informing me that there are some issues I need to address before my website can be launched. Curious, I opened the email. It said I had a violation of the Adsense Program Policies. This is what Google said:

We do not allow Google-served ads on screens:

• without content or with low-value content,
• that are under construction.
• that are used for alerts, navigation or other behavioural purposes.

My website is no longer under construction and its functionality is not limited to alerts, navigation, or behavioural purposes. This suggests to me that Google perceives my website as having low-value content.

Hearing this news from a company I've worked with and used their software for the past 9 years is soul-destroying. I feel like Google Adsense is undervaluing all the effort I've put into my work. I want to make the most of my earnings from my investments in domain names, hosting, email addresses, and more.

If you feel this is an open complaint letter to Google Adsense, you're right. You cannot possibly fathom the extent of feeling invalidated and how deeply it hurts to attempt to express your creativity and establish a website to exhibit your endeavours in books, art, music, and more; all for a company to say you're not our time to have our advertising.

That's why, starting now, I have decided to stop displaying advertisements on this website. Despite the ongoing costs and expenses, which seem impossible to recover, my blogging adventures have always been driven by passion rather than profit. So, from this moment on, this website will remain free of any Google-based advertising.

How To Sell Paintings?

Some may know that the great Vincent Van Gogh didn't sell many of his paintings during his life. I feel like I would be the same, partly because like my writing, blogging, and other pursuits; I don't tend to do it for the money or any financial gain, but mostly because I consider myself to be shit.

Considering my artistic ability would be some "below standard", I also publish my works because of what I'd call personal prestige, honour, recognition, legacy, and personal achievement to name a few reasons.

Right now under the stairs of my new house that I've only very recently moved into, I have all but 4 of my paintings in that place. "Particles #2" still stands in my mum's house, "Self-Portrait #1" is above the stairs in my place, "Particles #4" is in my living room, and "Ode To Piet" belongs to my best friend, Louise. Over the last couple of weeks after publishing "Jack Soley's Art Book", I want to try and offload my works to you, the great people of the internet and the world. My journey of selling art hasn't been great, here's why:

Car Boot Sale:

I tried to sell my works at a car boot sale last week, to no avail; I had interest and lookers but no takers, the most interesting painting was "This Art Is Worthless" and it was most likely due to those looking to take off the banknotes as they could see it was more than what it was worth rather than appreciate the work for its artistic merit.

eBay:

I then took the works to eBay, with low prices on the smaller prints and more appropriate prices on the larger prints including postage fees, still needed a bite.

Instagram:

I then decided to post my paintings on Instagram to garner social media interest, there was a gentleman who I'll call out by his Instagram name @bankroll_drooo who I thought was legitimate because of his decent number of both posts and followers. I won't give you the rigmarole of what happened but I have screenshots of our conversation for context, this came about after he left a comment saying he liked my painting and was interested in looking to buy. To avoid potential legal complications, I have blurred his "address" as much as I don't want to.

Facebook Marketplace:

Selling online, especially on Facebook takes us back to the trouble with value, yes it's free and people will fall down the rabbit hole of browsing and may find something that looks good; but the odds of someone buying a painting like mine are absurdly low, in my opinion. The beauty is I can renew the adverts once every so often and it might generate new interest.

Possible Charity Shop Donation and Solutions:

Call this a potential but last resort solution, even though I don't want to do art for money, there is a thought present at the back of my mind wanting to donate, especially the large paintings to charity shops and smaller shops to see if they can try and make some cash for the charity, and so I can free up some space.

Yes, I could keep the paintings at my mum's house in the attic, but if they weather away and/or lay forgotten, I would have wasted all that time whereas if my paintings were donated and someone had a slim chance of buying the works of mine, then I would feel reassured and chuffed knowing that the works were being viewed and admired rather than laying to rot and wither away in a loft below a tin roof.

All of my paintings come with a certificate of authenticity and I printed individual certificates that were homemade and stapled onto the frame; I also bought tamperproof stickers with numbers that correlated with the picture and the certificate, to make it look more reputable. A lot like my blogging back in the day, I'll most likely never make money with the paintings, but if it makes me happy, I'm all for it.

Inspirational Message #4

I assure you that this message is my own creation. It is based on the saying "You can't put a price on sanity." -Anon. My painting was finished on August 7, 2023. I finished painting in just one hour. The paint was still wet when I placed it on my scooter's footplate while riding home. The roundels feature an unmistakable resemblance to the influential artwork of Kandinsky, with their combination of seemingly mismatched yet harmonious colours. Although my creativity knows no bounds, unfortunately, my painting has come to a temporary halt.

Complete commentary on my artworks can be found in "Jack Soley's Art Book", available exclusively on Amazon. You can find information about this book on the "Books" page of this website.

The Ending

My last painting had a messy mixture of colours. I made use of leftover spray paints from previous projects, including painting my car wheels. The expansive canvas was delicately adorned with a vibrant spray of green and pink. Used various techniques to add different paints (red, green, yellow, blue, bronze, and white) to the painting, like spit painting, drip painting, and squeezing the bottle. I believed that this painting would be my final creation, but I was mistaken.

Monologue On Wood

View this as an expansive motto, a lengthened proverb, or a contemplative passage meant to provide a subtle reminder that directs my choices and judgments. It reminds me that expecting perfection from myself and others is unrealistic. A moral compass guides us through life's complexities. In challenging moments, when life is dull and obstacles arise, circumstances overwhelm, and societal pressures weigh, the environment feels suffocating. Take comfort, for you are never alone on this journey. Embrace your true self and all that you stand for.