There’s been a bit of a fluff in the writer world about a Shatzkin file post suggesting that John Locke (self-pub, kindle phenom) would have been better off if he’d gone traditional. Dead Wesley Smith takes exception to the idea on the basis of the numbers. I think they both miss the point…and I’m tired of talking about 99 cents.
Looking at my photostream on flicker, it’s pretty astonishing how close to the same frame I get on these morning shots.
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“The final exam will happen after the class is over, & I won’t be grading it. Your students will.” This is a golden Nathan quote. Especially applicable for people in education; but could be extrapolated into almost any class … the true test of learning is in the application.
And yet… “They didn’t know that they knew it” worries me some. You’re not likely to use a tool if you don’t know you have it. And someone has to pay the price of that first screw-up when they go “Oh, THAT’S what he was talking about. That’s why this isn’t working.”
But then, I’ve ALWAYS had a problem with things being “implied” and not explicitly stated – too often, I seem to read some completely other implied statement. And often when I explain what I got out of it, the response is “Oh, I guess I can see where you got that – but nobody else would have.” I spent more than a few years studying SETI and UFOlogy trying to identify what planet I really came from, and why I was an alien trapped among all of these humans.
For example, that “at your earliest convenience” thing that’s supposed to translate to “Get your butt here now.” Problem for me has always been that sometimes, they actually Get your butt here NOW, and sometimes I’ve gotten chewed out for not stopping and making myself “presentable” after crawling through the mud, and sometimes, I’ve gotten chewed out for doing so.
Frankly, I’m not a telepath. If people would actually tell me what they want, I’d be able to give them what they want a lot more easily.
Tomorrow is another day (my dad said that all the time) and it is July 1st. No question, it really is.
Ok – fine, this guy is leaving a lot of money on the table. (John Locke? Really? Wonder if that’s a pseudonym…)
It’s his money to leave on the table. Obviously, if he sold for a higher price, he’s not going to have exactly the same number of sales – he might actually have had more sales, but most likely, he’s going to have fewer. So points about how he could have made X when all he made is Y are somewhat weakened. But ok, he likely could have made more. The decrease in number of sales would be offset by the higher return.
And yet, maybe his purpose isn’t to make as much money as possible, but to sell as many books as he can. That’s a whole different matter. If you think you have some critical point to make, and you’re distributing it as a parable, rather than a polemic piece, then the money, while good, is secondary.
The “How I Sold A Million E-books On Amazon”, at a higher price point, may simply have been written to get people off his back about how he should write such a book, and the price point would suggest that he doesn’t really care if others read it or not.
In some respects, he’s running a business – and it comes down to what you believe the point of a business is – to make money, or to make as much money as possible. The latter leads to corporations that have their liability limited by fiat, and so make decisions not on whether they are right or wrong morally, but whether the profit from the activity would result in a higher rate of return than other activities, even after the maximum fine is paid.
I think I like the former better, myself. Just as a business owner myself, you know – I like being able to look in the mirror in the morning.