As I reported in Tuesday’s blog, All American Direct, the company that has been providing distant network service (DNS) to Dish Network customers who want to get the east and west coast feeds, is going out of business and it looked like Dish was not going to do anything to help. As with most calls to Customer Service, the folks at Dish didn’t seem to offer any solutions. The result has been a lot of RVers threatening to switch to DirecTV, which does offer DNS.
But there may be hope for Dish customers after all. When I called as a Dish customer I got the usual canned response from minimum wage drones who read the answers off a card. But when I made called again and made an inquiry as the Gypsy Journal RV newspaper, somebody at Dish media relations (as opposed to customer relations), had a different story. According to Cindy and her supervisor, Bob, Dish is in negotiation with several companies to provide DNS service to qualifying Dish customers. They could not give me an estimate as to when that will happen, if it does happen, but Bob said it is a priority because they are already losing customers. I asked what makes one a “qualified” customer and he said if you met the criteria under All American Direct for DNS you are qualified. Bob said to tell our readers not to jump ship, they are working on it. So, will something happen? All I know is what I’ve told you. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out
Yesterday we had a nice dinner with John and Kathy Huggins from Living the RV Dream and then came back to our motorhome, where they interviewed me for this week’s podcast, which will be out on Friday. We always have a good time with John and Kathy and like always, the hours seemed to fly and it was nearly 11 when we called it a night.
I am scheduled to present four seminars at the upcoming Escapees RV Club Escapade rally in Goshen, Indiana in May. They will be Highway History & Back Road Mystery, The Frugal RVer, Boondocking, and The Reluctant RVer. Since I’m not a morning person, I told Escapade director Bob Pinner not to start any of them too early. Yesterday on the rally’s Facebook page, Bob said “Nick, you have so much great information, we plan to start yours at 7:30 a.m.” I told him to call me about 9 and let me know how I did.
So far 97 people have entered this week’s Free Drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake, my first novel and the first book in my Big Lake mystery series, which made the New York Times Kindle Bestseller list in December, 2011. All you have to do is click on the Free Drawing link and enter your name in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.
Several people have complained that they have entered the drawing but their name doesn’t show up on the list. If you don’t see your name, it’s possibly because you are entering on the regular blog page (here) and not following the link to the drawing page. I have no way to move it there for you and it gets automatically deleted from this page.
People keep asking me when the next Big Lake mystery will be out. I’m working on it, but it takes a while to research and write a book. I wish I could write the stories as fast as the voices in my head tell them to me.
Thought For The Day – If you stumble, make it part of the dance.
Check Out Nick’s E-Books In Our E-Book Store
Click Here For Back Issues Of The Gypsy Journal
Click Here To Subscribe To The Gypsy Journal
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Thanks Nick on the news of Dish maybe re-thinking there policy of DNS. It took your newspaper having an impact to hear that they are in fact doing something about it. What I don’t understand is why they don’t tell there reps to tell people they are looking into it so they don’t lose customers so quickly. That to me is just a huge communication problem in Dish. But then again I’m not telling anyone reading this something new. There customer service leaves a lot to be desired. Thanks once again.
The other day a reader suggested that you use the dictation software on your Mac to format your book. Obviously that won’t work for the voices in your head, but maybe you can get some of your techy friends to invent a device that can read the voices in your head and connect to your Mac. The books would come much faster and you two would have to get a newer and bigger RV. Or am I just dreaming? Thanks for your thoughts and your blog.