Silent as the Grave

This blog has been intentionally silent. I've been more busy than ever. I leave work, come home and work on book stuff until I go to bed. It's tiring, but fun. Give me a few weeks, and I promise the blog posts will increase with more interesting stuff. I'm excited to share more of my journey with you.

Hello, are you still with me?

So, I've been neglecting my blog, but it's not on purpose...Okay, it is, but for good reason. I've been very busy, and something may be afoot in Marysvale. By the way, there really is a place called Marysvale and yes, I've been there. It's a dinky, dusty, little town with two motels, two restaurants, and a few gift shops. It's really just a staging point for ATV's to go exploring. Someone once told me that the mountains above Marysvale are beautiful. I would have argued otherwise, that is, until last week. I finally took the drive from Beaver UT over the mountains to Marysvale, and I must say...Awesome! No, I really mean it. It's my new favorite place. The mountains up there, once you get past the dry desert, are gorgeous. They look like the mountains of Colorado. Pines, aspens, elk, lot's of lakes, open fields and meadows full of boulders. I highly recommend taking that drive. I should warn you, once you go past the ski resort, yes there is a ski resort above Beaver, who knew? Anyway, once you go past it, the roads turn to dirt. It's well maintained and passable in the summer by just about any normal vehicle. The last few miles has wash boards. So, it's probably best to leave the Maserati at home.

Oh, I'm way off topic again. So, something may be afoot in Marysvale, and once that something is final, as in official, too late to back out, and after I've had that "Oh crap! What have I gotten myself into?" moment, I'll let you know what it is. The one thing I've learned in business, is, that until something is done, it's never to late to fall apart. Besides, at this point it may just be wishful thinking, and in the book world it takes forever for anything to happen. I think world peace may be achieved before some agents make up their mind.

A consumer's advice to the publishing industry.

I’ve been thinking about the much bemoaning going on regarding the state of the publishing business. In fact, there is so much gloom on some agent’s blogs that I don’t bother following them anymore. I don’t know all the ins and outs of their complaints, but in a nutshell, there is concern over the future of the business. There’s concern about what eBooks and free books will do. They want everyone to buy hardcopy books and that’s it. And they want to keep charging the same prices as always, featuring the same authors as always. Or, if they do sell eBooks, they want to charge the same price as hardcopies.

The market is changing, and some want to hang onto the way things are. The story of Blockbuster illustrates the downfall to this stick-in-the-mud business model. Blockbuster comes in and drives almost all the small video shops out of business. They were the king, the 900 lb. gorilla. Now they’re just a chimp. What happened? For one, they didn't embrace the changing market. They fought hard to hang onto the existing business models. They squeezed every penny possible out of the customer. Along comes Netflix, and what did Blockbuster do? They laughed, ridiculed, and continued on with the business of charging way too much for a movie, and hitting us with late fees. Netflix, on the other hand, grew until Blockbuster grew scared. They tried some lame, half-hearted attempt to compete, but were finally forced, kicking and screaming, to adopt the Netflix model... a little too late. Now all the gadgets are steaming ahead with Netflix streaming, not Blockbuster movie rentals. This story plays out over and over again-- such as your local mega phone company losing customers to cell phones, Skype, Google voice, Ooma, Magic Jack, etc. And what do the phone companies do? Business as usual. You can see my Ooma post for more about the phone companies. Big video and big phone had the market. They could have developed these innovative solutions themselves and retained market share; but instead, they hung onto the norm.

From my perspective, there are many interesting similarities between the movie business and the publishing business. Corner bookstores gave way to large chains, large chains are now challenged by online retailers, online retailers are seeing the beginning challenges in free books from Google and the likes. Small publishers gave way to large ones; large ones, although still kings, are seeing the seeds of another challenger: self publishing and, again, Google.

For the record, I, for one, welcome our Google overlords and the great, free products they’ve addicted me to. Off the record, I get a bit nervous about Google: their lack of privacy, how much information they have access to, and control of the information we see.

Back on topic... So what does all this change mean? Well, it means I’m excited. I see opportunity in change, even if that change is scary. I think there are golden opportunities for forward thinkers in the industry. I don’t know how all this will shake out and who will win; but as a consumer, I have some ideas about what I’d like to see. People want more for less, or if they pay full retail, then they want something more thrown in. Maybe do like some movie studios are doing with the DVD, where you can just purchase the basic, cheap DVD or, for a little more, you can get the DVD, Blue ray, and a digital copy for your mobile movie player. For books, why not do the same? Use basic eBooks for low cost, or even give away free eBooks with supported advertising embedded. With the full priced book, you could give the interactive eBook with interviews from the writers. How about links in the text, where you click and it takes you to what the author was thinking when he wrote that section, or what inspired him to write that. Perhaps even photographs, or links to Google street view, where the reader can see the locations written about. For a few bucks more, give them the audio book too. Yes, I know these things cost money to produce, but figure out a way to develop them cheaply. Quit paying for high priced actors for the audio book, and get some talented college theater students to read the book. Some of them would probably do the whole project, including production, for a few thousand dollars and name recognition. And for heaven sake, quit getting one reader for all the parts! Men do not read in convincing women’s voices and vice versa. At the very least, it should be a man to read the male parts, and a woman to read the female parts.

Here’s another idea. Self publishing is growing whether you like it or not. It’s too easy for anyone to do in this technological age; and you’re leaving money and a valuable service on the table. I see opportunity for a reputable publisher, or agent house, to be innovative. You don’t have to completely sell your soul and publish any crap thing that comes across your desk. But why not create a product line where you accept things that are relatively well written, with solid plots, regardless if they tickle your fancy or not? Offer them a pay service where it will be professionally polished, packaged, and distributed through online resources. You could do different levels of that service, from basic to advanced. For promising books, where you may not pick them up for normal publishing, you could offer a discounted service (and thereby limit out-of-pocket expenses) and, in turn, take a small percentage of sales.

Some of these ideas may or may not be worth much. My point isn’t necessarily to sell these particular ideas, but for agents and publishers to stop whining and get creative. Business is tough…period. The dynamic innovators will take the gold, the ho-hums will stay in business, and the lethargic will dwindle into irrelevance. One last note. Why isn’t the publishing industry advertising its products as a whole more? Reading has to be one of the best values in the dollar per hour of entertainment equation. A movie for me and my wife, in admission alone, is the price of a book, and all I get is about an hour and a half of entertainment. A book will cost the same price, but gives us roughly six to eight hours of entertainment. Four hours of skiing with my daughter will cost me about $175 for lift tickets, equipment rental, transportation, etc. Do you get my point? In a recession, people are trying to get the best value for their money. What better value is there than a book? Why not drive the market for it?

This is still on.

Okay, I really do have things I want to write about. I even have a real post almost written...Honest! It's just, with spring in the air and all, the hills are alive with the sound of Yamaha. On not an entirely unrelated topic, my butt is sooo sore. That WR450 seat is such a cruel mistress. (Just to tide you over until I can post a real post. Why yes, I do count my last posts as real posts.) Anyway, you can cruise on over to my website www.jaredsouthwick.com and read chapter one of Marysvale. There's a link to it at the bottom of the Marysvale tab. I know, you never would have found it without that little bit of info. No need to thank me.

Ooma Follow Up

Please excuse my current tech kick, but I've had quite a few people ask me more about Ooma phone service.

Life three weeks after installing Ooma is good. Though, not perfect. I've had a few issues. One, I purchased the Ooma handset, and a few times it lost communication with the Telo base station. All of my normal cordless phones would ring, but not the handset. When I pick up the handset to dial out, it seemed fine. The second issue I've had is changing how long Ooma rings before the answering service picks up. I've tried changing it to two rings, even one. No matter what I choose, it rings a little over 4 rings. Maybe it's a premium feature?

Overall, the quality of service is good, though not quite as good as a normal land line. My subjective opinion says it's about 90% as good, but not any worse than a cell phone. For those who use Google voice, it works good. The only issue I have is it shows my Ooma number on caller ID, not my Google number. I think that, too, may be remedied with a premier subscription. http://www.ooma.com/media/press-releases/ooma-adds-features-enhance-google-voice™-experience

In all, for $11 a year, it's worth it. If you can live with the quality issues of a cell phone, then you shouldn't have any problems with this device.

Ooma

How would you like to pay $12 a year for your home phone service, including long distance? You’re thinking, “Yeah right I’ve heard that before. I’ll have to use my computer as my phone. Right?” Nope, you don’t. “Then I have to plug my phone into my computer, install software, and pray it all works.” Wrong again. So, what is it? It’s called Ooma. “Did you just cuss at me in Portuguese?” No, I have no idea what Ooma stands for. Ooma is a VOIP phone (Voice over IP). In other words, it uses your internet connection to make calls. “See, you lied to me! I told you I had to use a computer in some way.” Now calm down, don’t let the blinking lights and electronics scare you. If you already have an internet connection, then this is easy to do.

Let me backtrack. I’ve been looking at a way to politely tell Qwest to go away. It’s been coming for a long time. I have the most basic phone service imaginable. Caller ID is the only thing I have. No voice mail, no call waiting, no long distance. On top of that, I had to pay extra for them to do nothing! That is, not to print my name in their phonebook. With modern times and technology, in my opinion, they charge way too much.

It’s taken me a while to switch because I haven’t been impressed with the competition. Vonage’s price wasn’t low enough for me to make the switch. Magic Jack is cheap, but I have to plug it into my computer. And from those who do have it, it doesn’t seem very reliable. It probably isn’t Magic Jack’s fault, but it does rely on the stability of your computer. Your kids could get on and mess it up; it may get stuck on a patch; someone may accidentally turn it off. You see the problems.

Ooma is different enough to get me to switch. The only possible drawback is the $249 price to buy the equipment. Best Buy had it on sale for $199 at the time I wrote this article. There are two Ooma devices to choose from: the Hub and the Telo. The Telo is the newer of the two, but also the least proven. I went with the new one because of the future updates, such a Google voice integration. The hub will probably go away soon, and there probably won’t be any future updates for it. If you’re into product packaging, the box was nice looking and had a high quality feel. There aren’t a lot of components, basically the device itself, a power cord, phone cord, and Ethernet cord to plug into your internet connection. The instructions are easy to understand; they use diagrams and large print. The set up was easy, basically register your device online, plug everything in as per the instructions, and off you go.

They’ve put a lot of thought into making it easy. All the phone updates and new features happen automatically. No downloading new firmware or software and installing it; it does it all on its own. No messing with Ip addresses to manage the device. You simply sign onto your My Ooma web account to manage it. You don’t even have to do that if you don’t feel like it. However, in there it gives you options, like changing how many times it rings before the answering machine picks up, and the ability to add a phone number to forward calls to if the device goes off line, such as an internet outage or power failure. You can always buy a UPS battery power supply to keep the device up in case of power failure. There are some advanced features you get if you sign up for a premier account, which will cost you $9.99 a month, or $119.99 a year. You get a choice between a free handset or free call porting of your old phone number, both are roughly a $50 value. With the premier service, you get call forwarding and a second phone line, so your spouse or teenager can’t tie up the phone, unless of course they both use it at the same time. There are even black lists. Ooma will block telemarketers for you; they call it a community black list. There is a separate, personal black list you can individually add numbers to. Both lists allow you to choose one of four options: Send to voice mail, Call blocked message, Number disconnected message, or continuous ring--they hear nothing but ringing, you simply hear nothing. The last free feature of note is HD voice when calling to another Ooma device. Not sure what that really buys in practicality, I mean it’s not like your voice is going to magically get more seductive, or change from monotone to stereo.

This is totally awesome!

Every once in a while, a product comes along that is life moving. I’m not talking about products that are only just cool, like my newly deceased Zune HD. FYI, leaving any device on top of your car usually doesn’t end well. Yes, I will be replacing it because it’s the best media player I’ve used--even over the Ipod. The Ipod is superior in many aspects, but not in the music and video quality department. And don’t even get me going on the Zune pass, which is sooo cool!

Okay, back on topic. There are many products that are cool, and then there are those that are love at first sight, life moving, no going back once you’ve tried them. Like a large LCD/plasma HDTV. Once you’ve owned one, life isn’t worth living without it. So what product am I excited about? It’s called Sugarsync.

Sugarsync is software that syncs data between multiple computers and phones. It will sync your documents, music, photos, and most any data between all the computers and phones you want. Not so different then some other products, like Mesh and Dropbox. However, those products fall under the just “cool” category. They are cool products, but come short of that life moving status. I can give them up without really missing them. Like Dropbox, Sugarsync has two gigs of free space, Mesh comes with five gigs. If you want more storage, then you have to pay.

Here’s what separates the men from the boys, the simply cool from the life moving. Mesh only syncs between pc’s and Mac’s. No smart phones. Supposedly Windows Mobile support is coming, but they’ve promised that for a year, and it’s still in Beta. Mesh is really only good for five gigs of free online backup space. I’ve had problems syncing two machines, and wouldn’t recommend it. My affair with Dropbox was short lived. It will sync between Mac’s, Pc’s, and Iphones. Dropbox’s cool feature is document revisions. If you make a change to a document, it will keep past revisions, just in case you want to refer back to a previous version.

Sugarsync, however, can do document revisions and it will sync between Mac, PC, Iphone, Windows Mobile, Android, and Blackberry. Yep, you read that right, all of them. You can share files with friends, and there is facebook integration. You can even stream your music collection from your pc to your phone, and you can access your files from any computer with and internet connection. There is one drawback with Windows Mobile, it will only sync documents one way. Meaning, you can get your word documents on your phone, but if you try to edit them, Sugarsync won’t sync the changes back. You’ll have to do that manually.

The Android side of my phone doesn’t have the same one way sync issue, but like the Iphone there is no native editing of Word Documents. I believe you can purchase documents to go for both Iphone and Google Android that will add that ability, but without a slide out physical key board, why bother?

I’m always looking for products that make writing easier. I’m living under the delusion that if I buy enough technology, my second book will write itself. B’lue tells me there is no substitute for just sitting down and writing, but I’m not convinced.

Use this link to sign up and receive an additional 250 megs of storage. https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=e5i53teghcz3c