frontier is open – Page 6

Paperback books and e-books; more on the dispute between Hachette and Amazon

Guess what? Lowering the price on something means you can sell more of it and make more money.

That applies to paperbacks when they first came out and it applies to e-books today. Well, it actually applies to practically everything.

Know what else? Anyone who wants to publish a book can do so. Anyone. For astoundingly low cost. The publishing frontier is wide open. Thank you Amazon.

In August, Amazon sent an e-mail to people using their Kindle Direct Publishing service. (By the way, if you aren’t already a best seller and want to ever get your book published, you really, really ought to go the e-book route with KDP. It is awesome.)

Back to the e-mail.

Since it went out to tens or hundreds of thousands of people, I will take the liberty to quote it.

Some history: Continue reading “Paperback books and e-books; more on the dispute between Hachette and Amazon”

More good stuff on the Bakken – 9/26

Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news that I won’t cover in a separate post: cost of Bakken wells going up, short-term production drop and long-term increase.

Cost of wells

9/20 – Million Dollar Way – Idle Chatter on Costs of Completed Wells in the Bakken –

Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – 9/26”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 8/15

Just like the wild west in the late 1800s, the frontiers of publishing, technology, and energy are wide open. Here’s a few of the articles that stretched my understanding of this amazing world we live in. Just a brief comment on each.

Downside of technology

Yes, there is a downside.

7/30 – Yahoo – Drone Carrying contraband crashes at SC prison – Drone carrying cell phones, marijuana, synthetic marijuana (huh? what is that?), and tobacco crashed outside the fence of a prison. Article mentions a successful effort to get contraband inside a Georgia prison last year.

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 8/15”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/6

Just like the wild west and homesteading days in the late 1800s, the frontiers of publishing, technology and space are wide open. Here’s a few of the articles that stretched my understanding of this amazing world we live in.

Publishing

6/5 – Daily Beast – Amazon is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World – Until now, I’ve not tried to sort out the spat between Amazon and Hachette. Who is Hachette, I hear you ask? They are one of the big publishing house. They are not an issue in my life because they would never, ever talk to a little bitty author with sub-microscopic level of sales like me.

The visible part of the dispute is Amazon posting a higher price on Hachette books, allegedly removing the ‘you can order weeks in advance’ button, shipping slower than arrive-first-thing-tomorrow-morning, and suggesting someone else on the ‘net may have a better price.

Article above explains Hachette wants you and me to pay more and Amazon wants you and me to pay less. What Amazon is doing as a negotiating strategy is offering books at the terms, availability, and prices Hachette wants.

The horrible, cruel, cut-throatedness of Amazon is amusingly described: Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/6”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/28

A few articles on technology, education, energy, and publishing that are worth a read. The frontier is wide open in those areas. Just a brief comment from me.

Innovation, inside the box

7/1/13 – Wharton – How LEGO Stopped Thinking Outside the Box and Innovated Inside the Brick – LEGO started losing money when their innovations needed a completely new set of parts for every innovation. They regained their 20%+ growth curve and 40% profit increase when they innovated new toys using existing pieces. Their outside-the-box innovation almost sank them. Staying inside the box returned them to growth and profits. Hat tip: Emproprise-BI: Structured innovation, via LEGO.

Lesson from my grad school classes: stay inside your competencies. LEGO makes bricks, not video games, TV shows, or bendable action figures. They thrive when they do what they do best.

Education

4/30 – Wall Street Journal – With Free Web Courses, Wharton Seeks Edge in Traditional Programs – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/28”

More good stuff on the open frontiers in space and technology – 5-5-14

More good stuff on the space and technology open frontiers – SpaceX trying to get some of the military launches, drones in agriculture, and criminals using tech to steal pot and poach rhinos.

Space

More good stuff on the open frontiers in energy & education – 4-29

It’s a wide open frontier in energy & education: why shale unlikely to boom elsewhere, U.S. getting greener because of shale, & one stat to show why higher education is in economic distress.

Energy

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers in energy & education – 4-29”

More good stuff on the open technology frontiers – 4-24

Have lots of articles on the open frontiers to comment on. Will break into several posts. Today, the amazing wide open frontier of publishing:

Publishing

3/25 – Amazon – Reaching for His Dream. At 40. – Mr. Barry Davis had a book in him but devoted himself to getting educated, working as an engineer and raising his children. At 40 he wrote his first book. Nobody in the industry would touch the book.

Why? No audience. Nobody will buy it.

Until….

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open technology frontiers – 4-24”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 3-20-14

A few articles on technology, energy, and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment. Reusable first stages of rockets, several updates on Yutu (Chinese lunar rover), commercial drones, lightly armed drones, and another shale field with big potential.

Education

3/4 – The Feed – Home-Schooling for Higher Ed – Mentioned this idea before. How ‘bout hiring a college professor to privately tutor you for your first year of college. Read the article and think about it a few minutes. Intriguing idea, huh?

Space

3/13 – Technology Review – SpaceX Set to Launch the World’s First Reusable Booster – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 3-20-14”

Increased density of drilling in Bakken

Million Dollar Way has a complex post describing the increasing density of wells on each portion of land being drilled in North Dakota. Think 14 or 28 wells on 4 square miles. I’ll try to pull a few key ideas out of An Example of “Ears Pinned Back” — As CLR Calls It – In The Bakken.

Density in 2007

In ancient days, say about 2007, the concept was one well on a section. That according to the article.

Density in 2011

Continue reading “Increased density of drilling in Bakken”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 3-3-14

More good stuff on the open frontiers: energy, space, education, publishing. Good info but only time to summarize in a paragraph:

Education

2-9 – Grumpy Economist – Mooconomics – Superb article assessing current state of MOOCs from a professor who actually taught one. Most of the technology looks like it is still very much version 1.0. Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 3-3-14”

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”

That’s a quote attributed to Seneca in a post at Philosiblog with the same title.

The immediate implication of the phrase is that one should get ready in advance of the opportunities appearing. Get yourself prepared!

Great advice, for many situations.

The other part is to watch for and jump at opportunities.

The post at Philosiblog spends most of the discussion on the part that is missing from the saying, which is the action necessary to apply preparation to opportunity.

That missing connection is the best part of the quote.

Continue reading ““Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity””

That brand new news organization is up and running – check out First Look Media

Mentioned a while back that Pierre Omidyar, the founder of E-Bay, was starting a news organization from scratch. It will be designed for the digital era.

Well, it is up and running.

Check out The Intercept. It is the first ‘magazine’ of the First Look Media organization.

Continue reading “That brand new news organization is up and running – check out First Look Media”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2-7-14

More good stuff on the open frontiers of energy, space, education, and publishing. Good info but only time to summarize in a paragraph. A few tidbits:

Study claiming fracking causes cancer is totally bogus
Ambulance drones?
Primer on MOOCs
The 1st amendment applies to everyone, even bloggers

Publishing

1-17 – AP – Court: Bloggers have first amendment protections – I don’t understand the case, but the point appears to be that bloggers are recognized as having constitutional protection when addressing public issues or public persons. Very cool.

But then since I’m writing on a blog to discuss this article I obviously have a dog in this fight.

1-17 – The Volokh Conspiracy – Bloggers = Media for First Amendment Libel Law Purposes – That’s the headline from the attorney who represented the defendant. Here’s a quote from the court’s ruling: Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2-7-14”

More good stuff on the open frontiers, energy edition – 1-16-14

Amazing things going on around us. Here is my latest list of a few articles about energy that help me make sense of the radical change taking place. Tomorrow, tidbits of the other newly open frontiers.

Energy

1-6 – CNS News – Saudi Billionaire Prince: Fracking Competitively Threatens ‘Any Oil Producing Country in the World’ – Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is pushing the Saudi government to diversify the country’s economy. Currently 92% of government revenue is derived from oil, he says. The rapid expansion in output caused by combining horizontal drilling with staged hydraulic fracturing presents a serious threat to any country that is reliant on oil. Big news. Bigger issue.

A delightful “problem” to have – 1-7 – Bismarck Tribune from the New York Times – Oil glut stirs up political brew – The surging production of crude is opening a discussion of whether to allow more exports of crude. Seems we have so much unrefined light, sweet crude we don’t know what to do with it all. As a result, the politicians are getting involved. I wish we as a country and planet had another half-dozen “problems” like this.

(By the way, what Peak Oil?)

More downside to the Bakken boom – 1-10 – The Dickinson Press – Criminal defendants in fed court up 31 percent in western N.D. in 2013 – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers, energy edition – 1-16-14”