Posted: June 30th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: photography, portraits, yt | No Comments »
The time has come for me to “grow up” and get my first professional-looking photo for my LinkedIn profile. That gray default icon is just not doing it anymore. This may seem like a piece of cake: have a friend take a snapshot and edit it to death or go to one of many “photography by the numbers” shops and Just Get It Done. Alas, a few mental snags stand in my way.
The first is that I’m far more comfortable behind the camera. I’ve been snapping away for years. I’ll even admit that part of the reason I got into photography was because it’s one of the few acceptable ways to hide one’s face in public. That’s not why I keep at it, but it’s still a big plus.
The second is that I am finicky. Cheap studio portraits make me break out in hives. As soon as I see that mottled blue or gray background, I flinch. I get uncontrollable facial ticks. These prints are fine as evidence of one’s existence, but I’m not here for a police line-up. The purpose of a portrait is to reflect the subject’s personality, not just make sure their blind date will recognize them at Starbucks. For that matter, a portrait also reflects the photographer’s personality. It may become muted in post-production, but it’s there. It’s the interaction between the person behind the lens and the person in front of it that makes a great photo. I’m not sure how professional portrait photographers do it, to be honest. Maybe they’re more extraverted than I am.
If only there were two of me…oh, wait, the Earth would break apart. Never mind.
Posted: June 24th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, idea, publishing | No Comments »
I’ve heard a few of the “those who can’t…” chestnuts, and maybe mine should be: “Those who are too afraid to write should become publishers.” So I’ve been thinking about how I’d go about actually (gasp) making a living as a publisher.
First, it would involve mostly digital publishing, with some print-on-demand (POD).
Second, it would have a subscription model. Not quite magazine, not quite enovel, but a whole different beast.
How would this work?
- Start with longer short stories and novellas
- Create an ereader app with themes and easy paging and all that good stuff
- Charge a low monthly fee to read everything published that month
- At the end of the month, if there’s a story you liked, pay a small extra amount and keep it forever
- Most likely, there would be no agents involved. As a frustrated writer, I would do my best to make it fair to everyone
- Writers get an advance (either flat or a split of the monthly fee) and a significant percentage of sales of their own work
- If they get a full advance, they can’t sell their work elsewhere until the advance is earned out. After that, they can sell it through other venues
- The writer can choose to sell her or his work through other channels with a lower advance
- Writers can leave at any time after the advance is earned out; I would only retain the right to let people who already purchased re-download the work
- Let customers choose to get a POD copy of the work for extra fee
- Have separate “channels” for different genres, languages, etc, and special pricing for libraries
- No DRM. I admit it terrifies me to write that, and I have no idea how it would work. I suppose it would go under “trust people to do good” category.
Maybe I’m crazy. And, of course, I’ve no idea what hard work it would be. And I understand that wading through a slushpile is hell. And getting this rolling wouldn’t be easy.
But I can dream!
Posted: June 18th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: books, ebooks, publishing | No Comments »
What started this post was a tweet from @SmartBitches: “#unteth Reidy not in favor of bundling ebook & paper bc confuses the consumer and royalty calc is too hard.”
Especially when it comes to non-fiction, I love to have both paper and digital versions.”Royalty calculation is too hard” sounds like a cop-out to me. A publisher’s job is not to get the customer to buy whatever the heck the publisher puts out, but to find out what the customer needs and wants and FULFILL THAT.
There are logistical problems with bundling:
- the paper version can be lent out or resold, so it’s impossible to keep them bundled -> this is a Good Thing for publishers because people who want both will buy new or pay upgrade price to get the digital version.
- paying royalties to the author -> I’m not an accountant, and I’m not sure even many accountants can understand the byzantine publisher statements; however, I think this one is solvable. Most digital-only contracts don’t have advances, so additional advances are not an issue. The issue is royalties on sold books; since the prices will be different for paper, paper+digital, and digital only, the author should get different royalties for each portion. If the digital version is a free download from the publisher, then unfortunately the author will not get additional royalties for this sale, but the result will be additional sales and there may be additional revenue when a used paper book buyer wants to get the digital version.
A couple of years ago, I tried out Amazon’s upgrade service (now defunct, as far as I can tell). When I purchased a paper copy of a non-fiction book, Amazon offered to add a digital version. I paid an extra few dollars and I still have the books, both paper and digital. The downside of that particular bundle was that I could only access the digital version on Amazon’s website.
Digital and paper both have their place, and I want to have the choice. Now if they could just come up with a way to sync the bookmarks…
References:
Untethered 2010 Conference
Original tweet
Posted: June 13th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, customer experience, jeers, kudos, shopping | No Comments »
A couple of days ago, I read about the pricing engine programming snafu at 6PM, a sister site to Zappos.com that sells discounted brand name merchandise. The problem lasted for several hours and resulted in nearly all merchandise being priced at or below $49.95. By the time the dust had cleared, the mis-priced orders totaled $1.6 million. Although 6pm’s terms of use specify that they can cancel the orders, the company decided to honor them. For this, they have received priceless and well-deserved publicity.
A few weeks ago, I finally got fed up with the treadmill that has been sitting in a corner for a little over 2 years. It hasn’t been used for a number of reasons (aside from laziness): the house has a very open floor plan and there are children constantly wandering around trying to climb onto the darn thing, and when said children are asleep I can’t use it because of the loud beeps that I can’t disable and the horrible squeak I have no desire to troubleshoot.
The treadmill was purchased from Costco, home of the beloved “No questions asked” return policy. Since I bought it through their web site and have no way to wrestle the thing over to the local store, I requested that they pick it up. Here’s the email that I received after some back and forth:
Thank you for your e-mail to Costco Wholesale.
I have sent this request over to our returns department for evaluation. All returns over 2 years old go through them and are up to the discretion of them to see if this is something that we will still be able to return. Please allow 1-3 business days for us to have an update on the return status of this. Have a great weekend!
Whoa, there. Sure, I feel weird about returning something after such a long period, and maybe you think I’m somehow trying to game the system by returning it rather than reselling it. But the reason I bought this and many other items from them is not just the price: I could have paid less money for the same item if I bought it online. I had been a loyal Costco customer in large part because of the return policy that does not require me to do complex math to figure out if we’re still in the right phase of the moon for me to return something.
Where am I going with this? I have made a number of purchases at 6pm, and even though I do not care for the selection or the shipping costs, I will undoubtedly shop there again. And if my beloved Vibram Five Fingers wear out, you bet I’ll be looking to Zappos first. Heck, I might even buy Tony Hsieh’s book.
Why? Because they clearly understand that going above the expectations is the key to having happy customers – ones that return over and over again and enthusiastically recommend the site to everyone around.
And Costco? They’re about to lose a loyal customer. I might renew my membership (albeit at the cheapest rather than Executive level), but I will be doing the absolute minimum of my shopping there and will be selling whatever shares of theirs that I own. They might be saving a few dollars in the short term with this behavior, but will lose a lot more in the long run.
References:
6pm terms of use
Pricing mistake
Costco.com returns policy
Zappos’ CEO’s book
Posted: June 9th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, customer experience, kvetch, shopping, ux | No Comments »
I have a love-hate relationship with Costco. For the most part, it’s love: the returns policy, the prices, the returns policy, the quality of the items. Sometimes, there are near-misses: I tried to buy some engineered fire logs just before the last cold snap of the winter and found out that they no longer stocked it, presumably because their calendar insisted it should be warm. Rarely, there are super-misses: I found ground glass in a can of Kirkland salmon once.
But there is one thing that always put a dampener on my experience: The Last Hurrah, aka The Gauntlet. I’ve paid and everything is stashed in the bags or cooler. I pass the food court and just as I’m ready to gather speed and cruise out on my cart into the sunset, I am forced to come to a screeching halt.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait while the line inches toward the one or two granite-faced gatekeepers who snatch the receipt out of my hand, paw through every bag and cooler, leaving no item unturned, and finally return my receipt – with a smiley face splashed on it with a hot pink highlighter. This single repeated experience forces me to question each time why I bother to renew my membership. Sure, the membership form that I signed specifies that they can “inspect” any items, but in reality, is the “loss prevention” really worth the damage to my goodwill, especially when this humiliation is conducted under a sign that is clearly a bald-faced lie (does anyone believe that they do it for the customer’s benefit?)
What is my point? Simply that: although the cliche holds that first impressions are the longest-lasting, it’s actually the finale that will decide whether the customer will return. What are my make-or-break Web shopping requirements?
- close with a Thank You
- immediately send me a confirmation email
- don’t redirect me to third-party rating or “bonus” websites
- while we’re at it, don’t give me “bonus magazine subscriptions”
- update me with order status at every step, without requiring me to log in
- if there’s any delay, notify me and apologize abjectly
- ASK whether I want to be added to your mailing list
I’m sure there are more pet peeves that are escaping me just now, and I will be adding them in the near future.
Posted: June 1st, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, funny, idea | No Comments »
Combine an auto repair shop and cafe. One might say aimed at yuppies, but let’s be honest, does anyone actually enjoy sitting in those dreary ‘lounges’ waiting for their oil to get changed?
Possible name: The Wheel Well.
