At some point during the weekend, I suddenly realised that if I published the Innerscape Omnibus to Amazon first, people without Kindles wouldn’t be able to download it at all, for three months. -sigh- I know, I’m fast like that. So this is the revised plan:
I publish the Omnibus as a free PDF first,
Then I publish the epub for free with non Amazon distributors, for 2 weeks?
Then I unpublish both the PDF and the epub so I can offer the Omnibus on Amazon for free.
-rolls eyes-
So here’s where I need some help. I’ve created the PDF, I’ve uploaded it to sync.com, and I have a link for downloading it from sync.com, but I’d kill for some volunteers to test the process. According to sync.com, you don’t need to register or do anything except click on the link and then ‘download’, but the file is over 4 MG, and I’ve grown distrustful in my old age.
So, how about it? Pretty please with sprinkles? 🙂
If you would like to test the process out for me, click the following link and …follow instructions!
And please let me know if I need to do anything to make the process easier. Oh! And remember, you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to actually read the PDF version of the books.
Is there such a thing as minus one? -grinds teeth-
In a nutshell, the ATO [Australian Taxation Office] website functioned quite well, and by that I mean the way the computer side of things worked. If you are familiar with the general workings of a complex website, you should be able to follow the logic fairly well. The problems arise from the content, in particular the terminology.
Any teacher will tell you that the single biggest hurdle to learning is new terminology. Not only does the student have to learn new terms specific to the subject matter, they often have to learn new meanings for familiar words and phrases used to describe very unfamiliar concepts.
The best software programs deal with the problem of terminology by having context sensitive lookups. For example, if a question is about ‘Sole Traders’, there will be a little [?] at the end that can be clicked. Clicking that lookup displays a short definition of the term.
Lookups are a great idea…if they’re executed properly, and that’s where assumptions come in. Experts have so much knowledge of their areas that they cannot put themselves in the shoes of someone who knows nothing. So many basic terms do not have lookups because… “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Duh no, it isn’t obvious. Not unless you’re a tax accountant.
I’m not a tax accountant. That’s why it took me well over two hours to lodge a couple of years’ worth of returns. The first was relatively easy because I was doing it as a normal person. The second was much harder because I was doing it as a ‘Sole Trader’. Basically, Sole Traders are people who work for themselves with a company name and an ABN [Australian Business Number]. Casual tutors like me often work as Sole Traders.
But all Sole Traders are not equal. Working out what variety of Sole Trader I was involved yet more terms I didn’t understand. I used every lookup, accessed Help, tried the so-called online chat help [basically just an algorithm] and even tried DuckduckGo. Despite all that, however, some of my answers were the better of two bad choices. In other words, pretty much guess work.
Surely there’s a better way?
Yes, there is. It’s called paying for a professional tax accountant.
Decades ago when I could afford the money, I actually had a tax accountant. These days I have to DIY and hope for the best.
I can’t be the only person having issues with the ATO’s myTax software because there is a real live group of volunteers who have been trained to ‘help’ with myTax! Whether they just help with the website side of things or the actual tax side I don’t know. What I do know is that myTax is a major disincentive to retirees thinking of working for themselves.
One exhausted retiree signing off.
Meeks
p.s. While I’m in a venting mood, here’s one for the Guttenberg developers – it’s really annoying when you go back to edit a paragraph and the floating toolbar covers up part of what you’ve written. This seems to happen when the paragraph is at the top of the screen area:
Meeka's Mind 