While I'm Thinking About It

While I'm Thinking About It

A Test, Part Deux

Upon submitting my unique identifying information to Wowio.com, the site came back with a message that the domain I provided needed to be reviewed before I could be approved. Translation: they didn't recognize it as AOL or MSN or some other ISP, and they need to make sure it's not some ultra-obscure free email site, like Yahoo or something. I don't blame them for that. After all, I'm having to install various mods to my bright, shiny new message board to keep the spam and the filth at bay. Newsflash, scum: not only is my readership so small that it's not worth your time to even register, but the fans I do have are smart enough to ignore your filthy links of questionable legality.

But that was just a brief delay, and before I knew it I was able to "add to cart" and "checkout" and download a couple of titles. I went with Marry Me Volume One (wonderful artwork by Remy Mokhtar, and a great, sweet story thus far from the former hyperactive ferret known as Bobby Crosby--go read it!) and a random how-to-draw landscapes book I've seen at the Barnes and Noble under their own publishing label. Once downloaded, I discovered they were sponsored front and back (by Verizon Wireless, which makes sense but they'll never be able to beat the deal I currently have), and officially licensed to me for my own personal use only. I get the feeling they would frown on my printing the webcomic out to show other people how great it is, and don't even try loading the landscape book on my laptop for reference when I go out to sketch. Which I generally don't do. Plus, there's the general annoyance of reading PDFs onscreen. I've yet to find a PDF reader that does it as smoothly as it should, and I just flat-out don't like reading large chunks of text online.

Now for the nitty-gritty: the personal demographic information they asked for was of a fairly generic sort, similar to what I remember being asked for at Yahoo or Hotmail or the like. And again, I can understand the requirement completely; the folks at Wowio need to let their sponsors know what kind of people their ads are reaching. So far, I've received three emails from the site: "Welcome to Wowio," "Activate Your Account," and "Here's the Link to Download Your Books." Nothing unexpected, nothing out of the ordinary.