Photo © 2009 goXunuReviews CC BY 2.0

If you want to understand why I think eBooks should be almost free, let me start by telling you a little story (first related by Peter Drucker in his classic Innovation and Entrepreneurship on pp. 33 ff.):

Some decades ago, the chairman of Macy’s became disturbed by a trend he saw in his industry. Most customers had come into his store to buy clothes, but more and more, people were buying appliances instead. He didn’t know how to stop the rampant sale of appliances.

“Why do you want to stop them?” Peter Drucker asked. “Are you losing money on them?”

No. In fact, appliances had a bigger profit margin than clothing did. Furthermore, shoplifters rarely stole appliances, like they stole clothes. And appliance buyers rarely returned their purchases, like clothes shoppers did. Appliances were a money maker.

Yet he still wanted to stop selling them.

“Then, do the appliance customers keep the fashion customers away?”

Absolutely not. In fact, quite the reverse. People who came into the store to buy appliances often bought clothing as well, since they were there shopping anyway.

“But,” explained the chairman, “in this kind of store, it is normal and healthy for fashion to produce 70% of sales. Appliance sales have grown so fast that they now account for 60%, leaving only 40% for fashion. We’ve tried everything we know to make fashion sales grow as fast as appliances, but nothing works. So the only thing left is to push down appliance sales in order to restore the proper balance.”

Meanwhile, Bloomingdale’s, who was then a relatively small player in the industry, capitalized on the shift in the market. Building a new strategy around their housewares department, they used the opportunity to brand themselves as the “smart New York store,” and they grew to unseat other stores, such as Best, that were leaders in the 1950′s and have now disappeared.

Peter Drucker sums up his telling of the story thusly:

The Macy’s story will be called extreme. But the only uncommon aspect about it is that the chairman was aware of what he was doing. Though not conscious of their folly, far too many managements act the way Macy’s did.

Appliances and eBooks

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Amazon’s share of the eBook industry will likely decrease, because of competition from Apple’s iPad and others, citing a group of industry analysts.

“At the same time,” the article continues, “Amazon.com, seller of the Kindle e-book reading device, may boost digital book sales by 83 percent this year to $248 million from $135 million last year, the analysts said in a note today. By 2015, those sales should reach $775 million for a market share of 35 percent, they said.”

So, let me get this straight: Amazon’s eBook market share is shrinking, but their total eBook sales could grow by 83% this year?! All because the eBook market is exploding.

This is bound to disturb traditional publishers, who are used to selling paper books… And it does.

Last month, Amazon and Macmillian fought over eBook pricing. Macmillan wanted to raise the price to $15, instead of selling them for $9.99.

This is not about Macmillan. Rather, it’s about book publishers being faced with a market shift and not being able to cope.

Says News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch of Amazon’s practice of discounting eBooks to get them down to $9.99, “it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books.” (News Corp owns HarperCollins.)

He goes on to say, “There will be prices very much less than the printed copies of books but still will not be fixed in a way that Amazon has been doing it.”

It’s frequently not so blatant when a businessman is talking out of his ass, but $15 is not “very much less” than a printed book. $9.99 is not even “very much less” than a printed book. So unless I’ve completely misunderstood him, he’s full of B.S.

Or check out Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella—very much worth reading, from what I can tell. But not on the Kindle, as we’ll soon see. This book is published by The Dial Press, which is part of Random House. Right now, the hardcover is $17.16 at Amazon ($26 list price). The soon-to-be-available paperback Amazon sells for $10.12 ($15 list). The Kindle version is $14.30 ($26 list).

There’s only one conclusion I can draw, that the big publishers want to push back runaway sales of eBooks.

7 Reasons for Cheap eBooks

I should not need to point out how incredibly stupid this is, but I will, just for kicks:

1. eBooks have zero production cost, that is, printing cost, manufacturing cost, per-unit cost. Bits are just bits. All of the cost of the eBook is in development (e.g., paying the author) and sales and marketing (e.g., advertising and distribution). Because there’s no paper involved, no cardboard, no ink, no glue. Nothing even to hold in your hand. Customers know this, and they discount their perceived value of the eBook appropriately, especially for novels and memoirs.

2. Even with their discounted value, eBooks can make more money than paper books. That’s because—I’ll say it again—eBooks cost nothing to produce. Also eBook returns are less costly to process, if you accept returns on eBooks at all. (I do, but some companies don’t, interestingly enough.) Therefore, smart publishers are going to compete with each other for eBook sales, and those who don’t will be left in the dust.

3. Customers swap, share, give away, and resell paper books. Not so with eBooks. Partially, this is because eBooks have no established first sale doctrine. Once the publisher sells a paper book, it doesn’t belong to him anymore. Yes, he can claim copyright in the content of the book, but he has no rights in the physical book itself. This key legal principle has allowed libraries, book-swaps, and used-book sellers to flourish over the past 100 years. But with an eBook, the picture is less clear. When you buy an eBook, you’re not really buying the book; rather, you’re downloading its contents to your Kindle, and Amazon does not allow you to share or trade Kindle eBooks. This makes the eBooks more valuable to publishers and less valuable to readers.

4. 

   The more you tell, the more you sell. Evidence indicates that wide distribution of eBooks increases sale of paper books, because of the social-proof principle. (I know that various industries have denied this is true, but for the most part, they’re making it up.) If more people are reading Twilight, for example, all telling their friends about it and even buying copies for their friends, it doesn’t matter so much how good (or not) it actually is. The same thing happened, for example, when Seth Godin gave away 500,000 electronic copies of Unleashing the Ideavirus, propelling the paper version onto the Amazon best-seller list. That makes low-cost eBooks a form of advertising for publishers.

5. Because of the economy, more people are buying for the short-term, rather than for the long-term. In a recession or depression, people tend to buy things they will use (like food), not things they plan to keep (like books). Or if they buy books, they’ll buy them to read—Remember that? Actually reading books that you buy?—rather than to shelf them. And then they’ll be more likely, after they finish reading them, to resell or trade them for new books. This can decrease the value of eBooks even further, compared to paper books.

6. You can’t autograph an eBook. The fact is that cheap eBooks increase the value of paper books, especially limited editions or autographed copies, because it makes them more exclusive. This is called the contrast principle, that your mind naturally tends to exaggerate the differences it perceives between two different things. If you immerse your hand in ice water and then turn around and stick it in cool water, the cool water will feel hot. Next to a real book, an eBook seems even less substantial than it is, and next to an eBook, an autographed copy seems more. And that says nothing about what it does to the value of gifts, special editions, merchandise, and product bundles. (Star Trek fans may have noticed this in the way characters in that show look at books.)

7. And then there’s my favorite: You can’t soak in a hot bath with a Kindle. But you can with a mass-market paperback. For me personally, that means a lot.

Low eBook Prices

That’s why I’ve been releasing inexpensive electronic editions of my books, even giving them away for free in certain circumstances. You can get From the Ashes of Courage on the Kindle for 99¢. Ditto Love through the Eyes of an Idiot. You can get <$1 versions for MobiPocket Reader, Adobe Digital Editions, and in PDF. All DRM-free. Now, 99¢ could be too cheap, but it’s a common price. How much would you pay to read a book? Not to have a book, just to read it, with the option of rereading it as many times as you want. That’s essentially what you’re getting with an eBook.

You can also preview all my books in their entirety on Google Books. Reading my books online: Isn’t that stealing? This is something a friend asked me once. And I was actually shocked at the question. No! I’ve made these books available to be read. It’s my own, personal, digital library. Feel free to borrow that copy; just return it when you’re done. Why do I believe this is fair? Aside from all the reasons I listed above:

• If you actually sit in front of your computer and read through one of my stories, you’ve already paid for the privilege by giving me your time and support.
• If you want to pay me back, submit an honest review to Amazon, BarnesAndNoble.com, Goodreads.com, or some other site. A good many reviews are not honest or are not fan reviews, and honest fan reviews are one of the biggest thrills an author will ever experience.
• Or tell your friends about my books, refer them to my website, or do something else to help spread the Ideavirus (if I might rip off Seth Godin just for a moment).
• If you really want to pay me back, support this site by donating a gift or some cash, whatever you think the eBook was really worth. (99¢ seems about right.) Or use my Amazon Associates Program link the next time you order something from Amazon.

I believe cheap eBooks are the wave of the future, and big publishing conglomerates are shooting themselves in the foot by resisting it. Better to surf the wave than to stand against it. I am attempting the former. Wish me luck!

-TimK

P.S. If you’re disgusted with what Random House is doing to Sophie Kinsella, I sympathize. On the other hand, if you want a fun, romantic e-read, try From the Ashes of Courage. I won’t lie and tell you it’s just like Twenties Girl, because it isn’t. (And BTW, I managed to borrow a copy of Twenties Girl, and I’m loving it! Definitely worth reading.) From the Ashes of Courage is different, but I think it’s just as good, in its own way, because I write the kind of fiction I enjoy reading. Or in the words of one young woman who picked it up and began reading it, “This is really good!”

Remember when I used to post Friday Snippets here? I used to enjoy reading what other writers were writing. Unfortunately, the meme faded out of use. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still post a snippet here.

This is the opening scene in From the Ashes of Courage (my newly released novel, which you can download free for only 2 more days), where we meet Gail and Ann and their new venture.

Gail Bishop eased open the door and basked in the newness as it washed over her. She had visited the suite only once before, when she and Ann had set it up last week, every last piece of furniture in place. Very little in the room, in fact, they had bought new. New paint, and the air still smelled of it. New, colorful posters lined the walls. A new telephone, new stapler, new office supplies. But the desks, file cabinets, office partitions they had purchased on the used market—complete with scratches in the paint and nicks on the corners—from among the many poor businesses that had been going under. The computers they had gotten off eBay and craigslist. Even in the diagnostic meeting room, set off with a closed door for privacy, their nasometer, the children’s picture books they used there, and the other specialized diagnostic equipment, almost all of it they managed to find pre-owned.

But it all felt new to Gail. And that’s what she had told Ann, but Ann didn’t seem to understand.

She had started a business only once before, and at the time it excited and sickened her. Excited her, because she had known she was accomplishing something that mattered, because she would make a happy difference for untold hundreds of children. Sickened her, because she had known she could fail.

That was then, this was now. This time the newness almost felt familiar, comfortable. But despite the fact that her future did not hold the uncertainty, it still excited her beyond mere words. Because even though she knew where to look, there was still the seeking. And in the seeking, there lived her passion.

When she had told Ann this, the sweet, sensitive blonde replied with a vacant smile, that “I know what you’re saying is a profound revelation to you, but I just don’t get it” expression. Gail appreciated her fortune in landing her as a business partner. That was new, too: Gail had never had a business partner before. Ann’s unmitigated kindness and infinite patience made her an excellent SLP, though a novice businesswoman. But Gail had confidence that she would soon get it.

“You going in? Or you just gonna stand there and admire the place?”

Gail recognized Ann’s voice from behind her. She turned and beamed at her new business partner.

“You look happy,” Ann said, smiling back politely.

She and Gail stood opposite each other like black and white, literally as well as figuratively. Gail’s curly, raven hair was always poufing out in the wrong direction; Ann’s straight, blonde hair seemed to trickle like water over her shoulders. Gail stayed inside out of the sun, because otherwise her ghost-like skin would fry up like a strip of bacon; but Ann always looked tanned. Gail looked out from behind brown eyes, and her eyebrows, though well-defined, were too straight and flat, almost like a man’s; meanwhile, Ann’s blue eyes stuck out, the most dazzling feature on her flawless face, because of the arch of her pale brows. Gail always watched calories, because they always turned her thighs into lamb shanks; Ann’s super-model figure never wavered, no matter how much or what she ate. Gail had barreled her way through school through single-mindedness and hard work, and as a result she rarely dated; in school, Ann had always had a thing going with some guy or other, and she almost never studied. And after Ann graduated with honors and passed her certification on the first try, she married a simple but genuinely attractive man, worked for a couple years, then had kids and dropped out of the workforce. Now she was looking to get started again. Gail couldn’t even imagine living a life like that.

Despite their differences, the two women had become fast friends from the moment they met in a graduate course on voice disorders. Gail didn’t understand why or how it had happened. They had said “Hello” one day, began chatting, started spending time together. And no matter how much distance came between them, physical or emotional, they remained fast friends.

So when Gail’s business in Worcester started to bore her, and she began looking for a change, she turned operations over to Clarice, her friend and manager there, and she moved back East, to team up with Ann in a new venture.

“I love this!” Gail gushed. “It’s like— Like you’re finally free.”

Ann nodded politely.

“Like nothing can hold you back. You know what I mean?”

“I know,” Ann said. “You said that before.” She was smiling, half with joy, Gail was sure, but half from how silly Gail must have seemed to her. Gail knew, because she had been there before.

Ann continued. “You looked lonely for a long time, every time I saw you. It’s good to see you this way again, like the person I remember from back in college. It’s the first time you’ve seemed happy since you moved back. You should go out more,” Ann said. “Go out and meet new people—”

Gail interrupted. “I don’t think we’ll have time for much going out, Ann. There’s too much work to do.”

Ann sighed. “Yeah, I get that. But just one night, after work. I mean, we’re not going to be working all the time, are we?”

“Pretty much,” Gail said, “at first.”

“You can’t spare time for just one date? Come on. Bob has a friend who’d love to meet you.”

Suddenly, it struck Gail what was going on. A blind date. She shook her head. “Ann,” she said. “I don’t go on blind dates. You know I don’t go on blind dates. I’ve never gone on blind dates.”

“You never go on any dates,” Ann said. “And I know you. You can make time to take a night off.”

“I don’t need a guy in my life right now,” Gail said.

“This isn’t about a relationship. It’s about having fun once in a while, so you don’t implode.”

“Well, I don’t need any fun, either.”

“He’s a nice guy.”

“Not interested,” Gail sang, walking toward her desk.

Ann followed. “His name’s Eddie. He’s good-looking, easy-going, fun to be with, and he won’t try any funny stuff, I guarantee it.”

“How do you know?” Gail asked, facing her friend across the desk.

“Well,” Ann reconsidered, “not unless you want him to.”

“This is ridiculous!” Gail was reaching the end of her patience. She sat and turned her attention to some papers on the desk. She didn’t care which papers, as long as they served as a distraction from Ann’s hassling.

“Okay, so he likes to date,” Ann said, “a lot. But he’s a gentle guy, and he won’t take advantage of you. Not unless you want to, anyhow.”

Gail leered at her.

“Sweetie,” Ann said, “you have to loosen up a little!”

Gail returned to her fake paperwork.

Ann sat on the edge of Gail’s guest chair. “I’m going to keep badgering you,” she said, grinning, “until you give in. So you might as well agree right now and save us both a lot of annoyance.”

“Why do you do this to me?” Gail said. “You did it in college—”

“I never did it while you were married,” Ann corrected her.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Gail said. “And you’ve done it every time I’ve visited since then.”

“It’s in my nature, and you’re my friend, and I’m tired of seeing you lonely all the time.”

“You want me to have sex with a stranger.”

“I just want you to meet someone, who’s fun to be with. And he is. Have a good time. The rest is up to you.”

Gail said nothing.

“I promise,” Ann added.

Still silence.

“Please?” Ann put on a pouty expression.

Gail took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Okay. Just one date. But then will you leave me alone and let me work?”

“Yes!” Ann beamed from ear to ear.

“But,” Gail added, “I won’t promise to have fun.”

I’m actually finding myself disagreeing with some of Leo’s points. For example:

1. There has never been a “news monopoly.” (But his use of the term makes me feel a little better about some of the language snafus I’ve made in the past.) Even before the Internet there were thousands of newspapers, numerous news sources available almost everywhere, and even AP and Reuters to compete with each other.

2. Small is better? Tell that to b5media, eh? Small has always been an option, especially for a new company in a new niche. But small isn’t fundamentally better or worse than big, not even on the Internet. We only see a lot of small companies on the Internet, because (1) the Internet is still relatively new, in the grand scale, and (2) there have always been a lot of small companies (media companies, too!), and the Internet gives us access to them.

3. There are plenty of companies who charge for online content. They provide premium content, highly valued in a well-defined niche. Or they provide some added value, such as vetting and organizing content for its customers. Or they’ve otherwise adjusted their business strategy to make charging money work in an Internet market.

4. When faced with economic difficulty, the answer is not always to cut costs. Sometimes, the answer is to expand operations. The answer actually may be to charge more, if you can deliver additional value. And just because your first attempt at expanding operations fails, that doesn’t mean that you should give up. You can expect to fail, and you should use what you discovered from that failure to help you chart your course.

What’s been happening to news media is analogous to what happened to auto manufacturing around 1960 (as Peter Drucker describes it). Auto manufacturing had suddenly become global, and national automakers suddenly had new foreign competitors. Car manufacturers needed to change, and change they did.

• Toyota decided to export, failed, redesigned their strategy, and eventually succeeded.
• Ford decided to compete in Europe and was a major contender there by the 1970′s.
• Fiat also decided to become a European car, while retaining its primacy in Italy.
• GM decided to increase its profits in North America, then moved into Europe, and then into the whole world.
• Mercedes pursued and dominated several niche markets worldwide: luxury cars, taxicabs, and buses.

Though all different, all of these strategies worked, because they all took into account the new global nature of the auto market. The only automakers that failed (or needed to be bailed out) were those who stubbornly refused to admit that anything had changed.

The problem with pre-Internet media is simply that the market has changed. So you’lll only sink if you delude yourself that you can continue doing business the same way that you did before. But beyond that, there are numerous possible ways to make media work in the 21^st century, and the small, free, personal blog full of short, concise articles and lots of bulleted lists, that’s just one possible strategy. I have noticed successful exceptions to every one (and all) of those characteristics.

-TimK

Door to Nowhere, by "purplemattfish" on Flickr; © 2009 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

This morning, after I dropped the Missus off at work, I headed down Washington Street toward Mishawum Road, where I needed to make a left turn in order to get to the highway.

Now, this particular intersection has two left-turn lanes. That is, if you want to make a left turn, you can either get into the left-most lane or into the one next to it. Or in other words… You can see what I mean in the picture below, from Google Maps.

As i approached the intersection, I noticed several cars lined up in the left-most turn lane. Meanwhile, the other turn lane was completely empty. And I thought, Let’s see… I could pull up behind all those cars in the left-most lane, or I could go to the front of the line by using the other lane. Hmm. Which should I do?

And I almost pulled up behind the line of cars at my left.

This is a well-known human impulse, doing what everybody else does, the herd mentality, following the well-worn path. Our minds and bodies automatically tend this way, because when we have insufficient first-hand knowledge to make an informed choice, we have to rely on instinct. If you’re a gazelle, and you’re grazing with all your gazelle friends, and suddenly everyone starts running, you instinctively know that a lion or something is chasing you, and you run with the others, away from that lion. That’s a key instinct for survival. And as in the wild, the instinct normally leads us right, because if everyone is choosing a certain way, then probably that’s the safe way to choose.

But occasionally, this instinct can lead you astray. Such as when two cars on the highway just arbitrarily happen to change lanes at the same time. And then the driver behind them assumes that there’s an obstruction up ahead, and so he changes lanes, too. And then the driver behind them sees that three cars are getting out of this lane, and so she gathers that something is going on up ahead that she can’t see, and she changes lanes, too. And before you know it, you have a traffic jam.

That’s why, for this Wishcasting Wednesday, when Jamie Ridler asks, “What door do you wish to open?” my answer is “The door to destiny.” Because as human beings, we need to expand ourselves, to do what we haven’t done before, even what no one has done. Because that’s the only way to find fulfillment.

But it’s also risky, and it’s dangerous. Most of the time, when you go to open that door, it will be frozen, rusted shut from disuse. And after you finally pry it open, you’ll find that it opens onto a brick wall. And you’ll feel let down, dejected, exhausted from the work, and with nothing to show for it. Some of the time, though, you’ll find that opening that door in fact releases a man-eating lion, or a hoard of giant rats, or a grue.

Once in a blue moon, behind the door never before opened, you’ll discover something marvelous and wondrous, something that fulfills you and which you can share with everyone around you. And that’s what makes you a human and not a gazelle.

It took me 10 years of loneliness, heartbreak, and failures, before I found my Love and my Happily Ever After. Through that time, that learning experience, I first avoided those doors, then knocked on them, then pried them open and broke my nose running into the brick wall behind. I finally succeeded in releasing the grue of my own affections, which chewed up my heart, and I thought I would never love again.

What if I had given up? What if no one had come to encourage me to try something else, to open another door? I would still today be miserable in love, that’s what.

So as I approached Mishawum Road, I noticed what all the other drivers were doing, but I decided to pull up into the lane no one else thought was right for them. I felt a little funny, being the only one in that lane, with cars backed up in my rear-view mirror. But it all worked out in the end, because it was my destiny.

-TimK

Long story short: Paul Keigan started out as a Canadian immigrant 48 years ago, with $96 and the American dream. He got into sales at a car dealership, and immediately he started making friends and repeat customers. Then, 20 years ago, he bought a failing dealership in Franklin, which was to become Keigan Chevrolet.

This year, however, GM, in the midst of its own baptism of fire, has pulled the plug.

“Nobody wants to go out this way,” he explained. “And I’m just one of thousands going through it. Honestly, I’m not bitter for me; where else could a guy like me have gotten a shot like this? I’m bitter about the good people this is hurting, like the people on my staff who performed so well.

“They had nothing to do with GM’s bankruptcy, yet they’re the ones paying for the greed that caused it.

“If we had run our business into the ground, fine. But to have done the job the way we did, only to have someone tell you, ‘Hey, buddy, you’re all done,’ it’s awful.

“Who’d have thought that could have happened in America?”

Now, my very old friend tells me, from personal knowledge, that Paul Keigan is the nicest man you’d ever want to meet. And I believe it, because if he’s as good a salesman as they make him out to be, catching the American dream using nothing more than his personality and wits, then he’s gotta be a nice guy. We picture the salesman as a sleazy type, hair slicked back, hand out ready to shake and pickpocket at the same time. But in reality, the best salesmen are personable and downright likable, because they have to be, because in the real world, that’s how you get people to like you enough for them to buy stuff from you.

So if Paul Keigan is the nicest man you’d ever want to meet, that’s going to make me the asshole, because I am definitely not feeling like a salesman right now.

Because if Keigan really cared about his employees, and if he’s really that great a salesman, he’d start a business selling something else. It’s not like there’s nothing to sell. Hell! He could probably even still sell cars. (I understand people are still driving them.) He started Keigan Chevrolet in the middle of a recession 20 years ago, and he could do the same thing again, if he wanted to.

But he doesn’t want to, and I can respect that, too. He’s 68, and he wants to retire. I can understand that… except for one thing… he’s “bitter”—his word, not mine. That sticks in my gut, makes me feel uneasy, like I’ve been emotionally violated.

I have a real hard time working up sympathy for a man who complains instead of doing something to fix what’s bothering him. Now, maybe it was just the reporter who made him seem like a bitter, old man, because playing the victim goes over really big nowadays politically. Or maybe the reporter did not misrepresent him; maybe he needs to be bitter so that he can blame someone else, rather than just admitting that he could do something for his employees, but he just doesn’t want to, because he wants to retire.

However the rhetoric falls out, one fact is clear. We have all had to adjust. I am looking for work again, even though I don’t really want to. Many people are looking for new jobs or starting new businesses. Many businesses need to find new industries or new markets—and not just during a recession, either. Every time Google changes their policy, thousands of online businesses need to adjust or go under. When Amazon some months ago seemed to be discriminating against print-on-demand books, many indie authors freaked out, because they depended on Amazon for almost all their revenue.

And you know something else? I couldn’t work up any sympathy for them, either. Because if you build your business on someone else’s, you accept that you’ll go down with them. You accept their risks. If you depend on Google, you should expect to fail as soon as your business is no longer useful to Google, because that’s the risk you accepted by depending 100% on Google. If you don’t want to accept that risk, you must diversify, only depending a little on Google, and a little each on many other sources of web traffic. That’s the smart thing to do, anyway. And I have a real hard time working up sympathy for these online businesses who don’t do the smart thing and then complain and get bitter when Google changes their policy. See this? It’s the world’s smallest violin…

So their chosen ski rope broke, or maybe their boat ran out of gas, and they sank into the water. So get up and try again already! Because that’s what the American dream is all about! What makes Paul Keigan, his industry, his business, his employees so special that they deserve a pity party instead?

What makes any of us so special that we deserve a pity party?

Remember Will Smith’s character in The Pursuit of Happyness? Even at the lowest of lows, he was still a sympathetic character. With all the mistakes he seemingly had made, we still sympathized with him. Because he never asked us to pity him. Rather, he took his destiny into his own hands and pursued his American dream.

Likewise, the American dream is only dead if we stop pursuing it.

-TimK

The beautiful Jessia Hime in a particularly down moment; © 2008 Jessia Hime; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I’ve been updating my software-development résumé, trying some different things in hopes of finding a reasonably productive SD gig. Along the way, I think I may rub a few people wrong, but I think it’s for the best. Because it’s the only way I know to ultimately accomplish my goals.

There’s something about the truly great accomplishments in my life that sets them apart from all the others: they were preceded by devastatingly tough times. One such accomplishment, of course, was meeting my wife Margaret. Before that, I dated girls who were bound to cause me heartbreak; I pursued girls that were bound to make me miserable; when I did meet a nice girl who could make me happy, I was sure to sabotage it (or ignore her). I spent 10 years in heartache after heartache, depression after depression.

But as many times as I swore off girls forever, I continued to play the sucker for the next pretty face that came along. Why? Because there’s an instinctive drive, deep in the heart of a man, that compels him to love a woman. Time and again, that drive forced me on and kept me trying again and again, until I found something that worked.

When the answer finally came, it was so simple, I wondered why I hadn’t discovered it before.

I have a feeling life is like that. You have to fail a few times, or a few dozen times, before you find the simple formula that works.

I was a software developer when I met Margaret in 1992, and I’ve been developing software for most of the years we’ve been together. After 20-something years of experience, the software-development industry has earned in me a certain amount of disgust. So the prospect of working as a software developer again rightly makes me wretch.

But the truth is that designing software is an enjoyable and creative endeavor, and one that I do damn well. I spent 14 years with a very special company, who developed electronic musical instruments, and I designed embedded software therefor. They were special, because so much of what the software industry does so wrong, they did right. It was fun to work there, as though we were a family. It was the fairy-tale job of TV-show heroes. It was like working for Captain Picard’s crew, or for Cage & Fish. I loved it there.

And after the company got bought out and laid off most of the staff, the crash of reality. I’ve never completely recovered.

Actually, I did spend many numerous hours, a couple years ago, working with a virtual team, as subcontractors for a large company. That was an enjoyable project to work on, not because of the project or the technology or the code or the company, but because of the people I was working with. We actually proved, through success, that it is possible to make a virtual software development team work, and what is needed to make it work.

But that was the exception that proves the rule. Why should I want to go back to full-time software development, when my colleagues assault me on every side with their own stories of horror?

And yet, because of the money situation, I fear I may have to pick up a software-development gig, even for just a few months, because it pays so much better than writing does for me right now. And if I pick up the wrong SD gig, it may kill me. (Whether or not that is hyperbole I will leave to your interpretation.)

This is the feeling of utter hopelessness that accompanies a severe depression. The feeling of being backed up into a corner, your life falling apart around you, no options, just misery, and the longing to curl up in bed at night and quietly never to wake up again.

And yet I know that the hopelessness is temporary, because 16 years ago, I found the secret of love, and I got Margaret.

And so I know if I try something a little different, maybe I’ll find that perfect software-development gig. Or maybe I’ll find the secret to making my writing profitable enough. I’m a good enough writer, because I’ve already overcome that hurdle; I’m sure of it. But as always, the challenge is the Big M: marketing.

Even as I write now, I continue to learn more and more about marketing, and specifically the kind of marketing that will help me, both in writing and in software development. If I try enough different tacks, I’ll finally hit on one that will sell my books. And probably quickly and easily. I know that if I try enough different résumé and interview tactics, that I’ll finally find one that will land me the right SD gig. Whatever the goal, wherever the hopelessness, I know that if I persist, I will succeed. And that, friend, is hope.

Here’s to hope…
-TimK

Seth Godin has a better quip about these make-money-fast schemes: “If no skill or effort is required, then why doesn’t the promoter just hire a bunch of people at minimum wage and keep the profits?”

Clearly, it can’t be that easy, or else everyone on the planet would either be a millionaire or would work for a millionaire who uses such a system. The truth is that even a simple business requires know-how, determination, and a success mindset. That’s why being self-employed isn’t for everyone.

-TimK

What caught my eye about Long’s article was his claim that in a genuinely free market, businesses would be significantly smaller than they are today. He points out that large, hierarchical businesses are subject to many of the same inefficiencies that plague government bureaucracies. The executives of the largest corporations cannot possibly have enough knowledge to make good decisions about the thousands of different projects various parts of their companies are undertaking, and so it’s inevitable that large companies will suffer from inefficiencies greater than those that afflict smaller firms.

For example… the Internet’s success depends on the fact that it isn’t owned or managed by any single entity. Back in the 1990s, when the Internet was competing with proprietary online services like AOL and Compuserve, the Internet’s lack of centralized control turned out to be its most important strength. The hierarchical decision-making processes of the AOL and Compuserve companies simply couldn’t keep up with the spontaneous order of millions of Internet users acting without central direction.

Lee goes on to partly agree and partly disagree. On the one hand, you have Microsoft, who started as a small, entrepreneurial, innovatively disruptive company and has grown up into a struggling, bumbling behemoth. (My words, not his.) On the other hand, you have Google: “The reason Google is so profitable, in a nutshell, is network effects. Google sits at the center of a vast network of users, website operators, and advertisers who are locked in a virtuous circle.”

Fascinating topic, and one that I haven’t yet thought much about in those terms.

-TimK

A small acting bank would never have invested in tens of thousands of loans that they hadn’t looked at. And a small acting startup wouldn’t hire dozens of people before they had a business model… and then have to lay off a third of them just because their VC firm showed them a scary PowerPoint.

As we enter a maybe-recession (and maybe worse), several wise businessmen–unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly whom–have pointed out that small businesses are also mostly likely to succeed in the uncertain economy, because small businesses can adjust to new situations and capitalize on them.

Encouraging.

-TimK

P.S. More recently, Seth also wrote that productivity is what generates wealth. (Trading stocks doesn’t. Government action doesn’t. Tightening one’s belt doesn’t.) And it reminded me of a lesson: find the things you can do better than others in your field; you can charge as much as they do, and yet spend less, because you’re more productive.

I’ve moved this blog to a new domain, blog.JTimothyKing.com. (That’s not how I’ve been an idiot.) And I’m changing the focus, because the focus of my life has been changing. The fact that it has been changing for the past 2 years but I haven’t acted on it– That’s how I’ve been an idiot.

Actually, I did act on it… kinda. But I didn’t really have a vision for where I wanted to go. Or more accurately, I didn’t truly believe my vision was possible. And so I let my efforts get confused. On the one hand, I was doing what I believed I should be doing to get ahead. On the other hand, I was doing what I really enjoyed. And while I truly believed the two could be integrated, I never acted to integrate them. Because I didn’t truly believe what I wanted was possible… I’m babbling. Let me clarify.

The story begins in November of 2005, almost 2 years ago. That’s when I started a storytelling blog, called Be the Story, to begin exploring that shift. Here’s how I described it in a private e-mail to a group of my friends:

About this time in a software developer’s career, he must decide whether to keep developing software, go into management, or do something else. Early in November, this really hit me. I felt that if I remained a staff software engineer, my life would stagnate. Most of what we do in this industry isn’t engineering, anyhow, and that grates on me…

At the time, I was reading The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. It inspired me. I made a list of the things I’m passionate about, what I believe in. I also listed the kinds of things I’d been good at in the past. Then I brainstormed about possible industries I might want to work in and the roles I might want to have.

That exercise definitely pointed me toward a more creative career than software development has become. So I started bethestory.com, a blog and podcast celebrating stories and those who tell them. The art of story is the thin strip of land on which a writer meets his audience…

I’m not quite sure where I’m going to end up. I may become a writing consultant or coach or maybe a story-game developer. One of the items on my brainstorming list was creative director in video games, but I thought that was too silly. (Whoever heard of a “creative director”?)… Then I played Psychonauts and saw Tim Schafer, the genius behind the game, at the top of the credit sheet listed as “creative director.” Tim Schafer is my hero.

Okay, here’s the thing…

I didn’t try any of those. There were other things high on my list that I would love to do, too. For example, I would love to be a novelist. Except that there’s no money in writing novels, unless you’re Stephen King. So why not change my name to “Stephen”? Seriously. Not literally, of course. But why not try writing fiction, selling it, making some money, and enjoying it? It wasn’t until recently that I started seriously writing online fiction, a serial drama called The Conscience of Abe’s Turn, and one of the characters is a software developer. (Of all the characters, she’s the one who has the most in common with me personally.) But all the characters have come alive to me. That’s probably because they’re inspired by the storytelling style of Gilmore Girls, whose fans have argued interminably and passionately about its characters. For me, personally, this is an incredibly enjoyable and exciting project.

All told, I’ve spent a lot of time and effort on things that supposedly can’t make me any money. And because they supposedly can’t make me money, I haven’t constructed a vision around them. Yet, these projects are the most enjoyable part of what I do with my time. The thing is, I have never actually tried to make money doing what I enjoy. In the email I quoted above, I mentioned being a writing consultant. What I specifically had in mind was to consult with writers on their stories. I concluded, however, that there would be no money in it. But would you believe that I never even offered my services as a paid story consultant? Never. Never even constructed an offer. Much less tried to persuade someone to hire me.

Yet many have applauded the stories I myself have written. A filmmaker friend of mine was so excited by what he read that he decided we had to work on a project together. Sure, why not? I reviewed his latest script, we got on the phone, and within a couple of hours, he was seeing a whole new exciting vision for his film. There were several Aha! moments in that discussion. And he actually took my advice. My point is, I certainly have something to offer fiction writers as a story consultant. How do I know they wouldn’t pay me, unless I try to offer it to them?

Meanwhile, I’ve been maintaining the fiction that this blog, about my life, is supposedly a software-development or technology blog. How can that be when my life isn’t about technology? When my life hasn’t been about technology for the past 23 months at least? I’ve maintained the fiction that I can write about technology and entrepreneurship, because I’m still a damn good software developer, and because I’ve been doing web development and marketing. Yeah, that involves a lot of writing. And there is money in it. And it’s fun, too. But…

I’m like one of my fictional characters.

A good fictional character might say one thing, but then he thinks and feels and does something else. That’s a very powerful way to describe a fictional character. Because character is what’s inside. It’s what you do when no one’s looking, as Holly Lisle puts it. And when a character says one thing but does another, that tells you that he really doesn’t believe what he himself says. That tells you he’s a hypocrite. And moreover, that there’s a conflict inside him. Good writers do that with their characters all the time. I do it with myself.

No matter how much I’ve held on to being part software guy, most of what I’ve done of late has been related to writing. Truthfully, I’m no longer a software developer. There, I said it. (The first step, as they say, is admitting you have a problem.) I’m a writer. I love to write. So why not just bring my efforts in line with what I really want? Why not construct an outwardly coherent vision for my life? Rather than saying one thing and doing another?

To that end, here’s what I’m doing:

1. I’ve moved this blog to blog.JTimothyKing.com. Any links to JTSE.com/blog will be redirected to the new location, so no fears.
2. In these pages, I’m going to talk more about what I’ve been doing as a writer, not just as a software guy. And I’ll post some of my fiction from time to time as well. That should result in more posts.
3. I plan to re-theme BeTheStory.com, and make it a companion blog. That should result in more posts there.
4. I’m actually going to sell my fiction. Not just one book. But book after book after book. And I’m starting with Abe’s Turn. (Updated.)
5. I’m going to offer a series of writing resources and storytelling kits, one of which I’ve already mostly finished. (Why did I let it stall? It was fun and exciting to work on, and it’s valuable to writers.)
6. I’m also going to offer website design services to writers and filmmakers, via my Lucrative Web Design site. (I’ll probably end up moving to a better domain for that, though.)

I don’t know what I’m going to do with JTSE.com or with regard to software development. But I’m clearly fading out of the business, whether I want to or not. I use software development for cash, as much as I can find time to earn, but at rates that sometimes don’t seem worth the effort. Software development for me is a commodity. Yes, I know, there are ways to make software development a specialty, by giving seminars, consulting on processes and technologies, and so forth. But none of that really excites me anymore. I might as well admit it. To do otherwise would be to continue to be an idiot.

-TimK