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Thursday 28 November 2013

When Push Comes to Shove

I've fairly careful about what I subscribe to these days, if only to keep the junk email down to a manageable level.  I have a few sacrificial email accounts that I use when I'm really not sure I want to give out my main address and I'm generally selective anyway.  But inevitably most of the email I receive is junk, although it may come from sources I've provided my details to in the past.

Now I've noticed a bit of a trend starting up - it may have been around for years and maybe I never noticed, but I think this is recent.  When I open up my main emails account - bear in mind I'm on Windows 8 which is supposed to be pulling continuously, I notice that as soon as I start opening (or more likely deleting) the overnight emails certain emails start dropping in to my inbox.  At first I thought this could be a coincidence - or maybe my morning ablutions have become too predictable - but I've noticed that it's the same senders.  Groupon - who I generally delete without reading - seem to be the main culprits, but there are a few other tech orientated emails that also appear to drop in as soon as I start using my account.  I'm getting a whiff of Facebook and Amazon as well.

I can see the advantage of this for those trying to sell stuff.  If, when we wake up and browse our emails, we see an email drop in just as we start, before we lose our interest and start deleting everything that isn't actually important, then we may just read it.  It has a certain immediacy that the raft of spam that has built up overnight doesn't appear to have.  Wasted on me, as it happens, but I think marketers have written me off as a lost cause for years.

I don't know how this is being achieved - perhaps there's some collusion (for that read commercial agreement) between the sender and my email agent (Yahoo) or maybe there are cookies on my computer that detects when I start to interact with my email that sends a message out to Groupon HQ that Ray Sullivan is awake and interacting.  Cue klaxons, start bustle, send Sullivan the email offering pointless things he'll never buy - NOW.

But where will it all end?  Nobody in this commercial environment wants to be second in the sales race so I expect every man and his dog will be queuing up to jump on the band-wagon.  Then, when we get up in the morning our inboxes should be relatively clear - hooray - but as soon as we send the one email to aunt Mabel just brace - our collective inboxes will be hit with a deluge of spam that has been poised like the proverbial coiled spring all night just waiting, no- pleading - for us to wake up and open an email.  It's like the postman standing behind the gatepost with armfuls of letters, junk mail and parcels just waiting for the day we decide to open the front door to post a Christmas card (just the one from me this year, I'm afraid - the rest are e-cards).

And our response to a deluge of emails hitting us, spilling out of our inbox and into our cornflakes as we rush to get ready for work?  Mass delete on a grand scale.  Either that or we'll be too frightened to consider using email ever again.  Perhaps this is the Post Office having its revenge?  The sensible thing for marketers to do then would be to abandon the process and let their emails trickle in through the day and night, be seen in relative isolation and stand a chance of being opened and read.  Which is the only purpose they actually have.  But who will break ranks first?  That will be the question.  I'm guessing it won't be Groupon.

If you email me about this topic, or about any of my books, I will reply.  But if that reply drops in when you start using email, trust me, it's a coincidence.

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Thursday 21 November 2013

Read All About It

The demise of conventional printed newspapers is not in doubt.  This isn't just my opinion, it is mirrored in studies in the US and anecdotally by journalists on both sides of the Atlantic.  The main reasons would appear to be the difficulties in making conventional printed news pay - the empires of the past are proving more difficult to build than ever and most successful newspapers appear to be subsidised by electronic news media.

And lets face it, we live in an instantaneous news world where any event worth talking about breaks across the TV and radio channels immediately while those items that can wait are aired within an hour or two on the many news programmes that are scheduled.  Many of us have news alerts set up on our computers so that items that are likely to interest us are flagged for our attention as soon as the news breaks.

So what is the purpose of newspapers, anyway?  To bring a version of the news is one purpose, but due to the production processes currently used the version we see while eating our cornflakes is necessarily out of date.  And when I say version, I'm referring to the intentional bias every newspaper - and news broadcaster for that matter - inevitably buffs the news up with.  Sometimes the bias is unintentional - when any of us repeat a news event we will impart a little of our own deep rooted beliefs and prejudices on it - and sometimes the bias if blatant.  I'm not going to have a pop at any specific newspaper here - I could, there are a few that make my blood boil by the blatant bias they impart at any opportunity - but I'm going to suggest that all 'proper' newspapers in democratic countries produce reports that are essentially true, but perhaps not containing all the truth.  So when your favourite rag states that such and such a disease has doubled in the last ten years it may be to point a finger at a failing health service, bad government funding decisions or perhaps the allegedly dubious activities of certain groups in society.  What it may not make obvious is sometimes the doubling - from ten occurrences in ten years to twenty, for example - may not be statistically significant. It may not even be a news item when viewed in this light.

All newspapers do this, to some degree.  Politics has a lot to do with it - left, right, centre, whatever - most newspapers align with a political angle along the way.  Of course, that is partly why some of their regular readership buy them, so that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Unfortunately some readers appear to swallow these biased views wholesale without challenge. Then there are the personal views of the editor - now that can be a random event that drives some newspapers to report very selectively.  Again, narrow views do seem to be favoured by some readers, of every persuasion.

What newspapers should be able to do above the instant news channels is provide depth to stories, to provide background and analysis to events. Apart from really big stories the major TV and radio news programmes have long moved on to the next news items before this analysis can be performed.  So there is a value in these opinionated rags after all, as long as you can detect the local bias and screen it out of your understanding of the story.  Sometimes easier said than done, I'm afraid.

And they provide cartoons, crosswords and Sudoku problems for the readers with time on their hands to solve.  Try getting that out of Sky/Fox/BBC news.

So how are the newspapers rising to the challenge of the electronic age? Well, some have clicked that there is a frisson of interest in tablet computing, and are offering their products electronically for a subscription. As far as I can tell they don't permit ad hoc purchases of individual copies, although they all seem to allow a free trial - usually for a month - to let you decide if it is the way forward for you. Of course you have to provide bank details, in case you decide not to cancel (or forget to cancel) your subscription. The cost of these subscriptions appear to be expensive to me, but I find newspapers expensive anyway. Some are encouraging subscriptions by throwing in a subsidised tablet computer. The tabloids are pitching at the low end and the broadsheets at the aspirational end. It matters not, they are banking on recouping the cost of the tablets fairly quickly through consumer inertia.

What are they missing? Well, many of us have tablets around the house, so view the imposition of a newspaper's choice of device as unwelcome. Those who don't have a tablet may find it a useful introduction but probably will overpay in the long run. It doesn't fit in with how newspapers are read in most households either. My wife and I used to buy the Sunday version of one of the broadsheets. We would split up the various sections that were specific to each other and would share the common sections over the course of a few days. Now if the newspaper was on my tablet then I'd have to pass my computer over to my wife to do the same thing, despite the fact that she has a perfectly good iPad of her own. Then there is the cost. I appreciate that journalists need paying and reportage can be expensive but those costs exist already. Okay, at the moment the newspapers are having to format news twice - once for print, once for electronic download - but hey, it's the newspapers that want us to adopt the e-versions. And anyway, there's minimal distribution and remaindered stock costs involved in the downloadable versions.

Finally there is this insistence that we lock into their newspaper that is a barrier, as mentioned above.

I want to start reading newspapers electronically but I'm held back by the above reasons. If newspapers want my custom then they need to look at the following: reduce subscription costs to make it attractive for me to buy in; allow me to sample occasional copies without obligation so I can decide if their rag is for me; provide a mechanism to allow me to share the newspaper across my household - Netflix manages this, why can't newspapers? - and finally provide a way for articles to be saved in a cloud. It could be a cloud service provided as part of the subscription that allows most users to archive a limited amount of articles for reference as part of the package but expandable at a cost for those who use newspapers for research.

We are marching towards the demise of printed newspapers, that's a given. It's whether there will be an electronic version waiting on the other side of the journey - that remains to be seen.

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Kindle Fire on Discount

Nobody can have failed to notice the impact the Kindle Fire has had in the last year or so.  It was a slow burner, almost rumour-ware with the US release of the original Fire later than expected and the UK release months later.

But a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and this side of the pond the Kindle Fire has become an accepted standard bearer for the tablet computing brigade.  There's been a few iterations on the way, partly so that Amazon can firm up its control over the heavily cloaked Android OS, partly to make sure that they deliver a market beating product.

And what a market that is turning out to be.  Google, owners of the Android system, have set themselves up as an almost premium retailer of tablets with the Nexus range.  I'd wholeheartedly support their position if it wasn't for the fragility of the screen and the cost of repairing it.  I'm not going to go into this here - I've written plenty of blog postings for you to read through about my experience of the Nexus 7 if you want to read about it - but just to warn potential users that the screen does break and replacements are more expensive than the whole device.

Then there's the Samsung Galaxy range of tablets - pricey compared to many but very popular.  They appear to be well made and robust.  I haven't heard of anyone needing to have the screen changed but have seen quotes and they are a fraction of the Nexus prices.  Let's not forget that Apple make a few tablets, too.  In fact Apple can claim to be the disruptor of the industry, effectively changing the course of computing with the introduction of the iPad. While the iPad didn't - and still doesn't - replace real computers for real computing tasks (most tablets don't), it has managed to crush PC sales year on year.  Part of that is because a PC that was adequate five years ago is still adequate, whereas historically after five years it should have been a candidate for recycling.

Of course Microsoft have been dragged into the tablet world, seemingly a little reluctantly, but are poised to either claim the tablet world for themselves or die in a ball of flames.  The jury is out at the moment but having used a Surface RT for about six months now I'm pretty impressed with the combination of tablet convenience coupled with access to real world computing software such as Microsoft Office.  Although the RT is as expensive as an iPad it is way more functional.  This blog has been typed on it as have about 50,000 words towards the two novels I'm working on.  So far there is no sign of wear or malfunction in the keyboard and my work-in-progress novels are nicely stored in the Microsoft cloud.  The main drawback for me, using RT, is the lack of third party apps - all software has to come via Microsoft and for the RT version it is still limited.  I've also tried the full fat version of the Surface, the Pro.  That is more flexible than the RT in terms of software but you have to buy the Office suite as an extra, it costs nearly twice as much as the RT anyway and is significantly heavier than the machine I'm using.  Bring down the cost and weight and slip Office on as a freebie and Microsoft might just tip the scales...

On top of all this is a plethora of cheap, no-name Android tablets that are probably worth considering if you don't want to pay a premium price to see what the fuss is all about, or if you want to get the kids a tablet that won't cause you sleepless nights because of the cost.

However the real tablet war is not based on productivity, it's based on convenience.  Which is why so many tablets are seven inches - it's such a perfect size for slipping in your jacket, bag or rucksack ready for whipping out and surfing the net or reading a book at a moments notice.  And that is one area Amazon have focussed on - with increasingly better versions of the Kindle Fire culminating in the release a little while ago of the new Kindle Fire HDX - better, clearer, faster than ever before. Or so Amazon say.  However anyone buying the predecessor Kindle Fire HD a few weeks ago wouldn't have been too disappointed - it's a well specified machine that has just been superseded.  A tad irritating if you've just bought one, I guess, but then again such is life.

But my view is that the HD version wasn't a bad device - in fact it was a very good device - and it seems that Amazon have a few left on their hands.  If you mosey on down to the Amazon website in the next few days you will find that they are selling the 'old' HD model for just £99 dead, £60 less than a few days ago. No catch, no tricks, just a good promo.  You'll have to pay £10 more if you don't want the ads popping up, but from what I've seen most people don't even register them. I don't know if Amazon are putting similar offers in their other regions, it may well be worth checking their local website. 

Of course, if you were one of those who paid £160 a couple of weeks ago for a HD, the price drop will just rub salt in your wounds. I sympathise, but that's the problem with technology and the pace of change. On top of all that the Christmas tablet war hasn't even started! It's become an annual mantra that this is going to be the year of the tablet, I think we're to the right of that point now.

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Sunday 17 November 2013

Post Office Investors Wary of Photoframes

The Post Office in the UK is rightly proud of the fact that it was the world's first public postal service.  It made the logical link early on that once you have a postal network established then in essence it doesn't cost a penny more to send a letter to the other side of the country than it does to send it to the next street.  To be fair, it only works with volume and the Post Office has had its fair share of that over the years.

But all postal services have become squeezed over the last few years, largely because of the impact of the internet.  Sure, the likes of eBay and Amazon have boosted parcel delivery services, but the Post Office doesn't have a monopoly on them, far from it.  What it does have a monopoly on is the delivery of letters to the door and the advent of universal email has more or less made that uneconomical. In fact, with the exception of postal box to postal box commercial deliveries such as DX in the UK there is no competition at all for domestic mail.

Now the Post Office has just been floated on the London Stock Exchange and the Government has come under fire for listing the shares too low. Unlike Twitter, which was floated at about the same time, the price didn't rise then plummet but just rose and stabilised. Now I'm no investment genius - I wouldn't be writing Sci-Fi thrillers, comedic novels and the occasional blog post as well as working full-time if I was - but I resisted the urge to invest in the Post Office for fairly rational reasons.

First, the Post Office lost the plot several years ago. In fact it was recovering from the most pointless rebranding exercise in history - some idiot managed to persuade the Post Office to ditch the most recognisable brand name in the world for the obscure name of Consignia. Thankfully that was reversed and hopefully the fools responsible for the rebranding exercise were sacked without compensation, although I doubt it. But having made the bold reversal move they then introduced Postage in Proportion, a system where consumers have to calculate both the size and the weight of a letter.  Get it wrong and the recipient has to pay the missing postage plus a penalty. Worse, they have to make a decision regarding paying this money without knowing who it is from or what it may contain. Sure, over the near term they may have fleeced a fair bit of profit out of normal customers but those people are now increasingly willing to consider alternatives, such as email.

On top of all that there is a very real proposition of industrial action taking place. The postal unions are vocally upset over the sale and strikes are a very real likelihood.

So why did intelligent investors not only snap up the Post Office Shares, but boost their value? Well, not all the investors were professionals, they were Joe Average, the man in the street. The government ring-fenced a big chunk of the shares for ordinary taxpaying UK residents who may not have dabbled in stocks and shares before. Some will know a lot about trading, many will not. My guess is that those who do know what is going on are banking on the only time we can guarantee that the Post Office is likely to be really busy with delivering letters, specifically Christmas cards. Once the volume has peaked I expect a selling frenzy to take place with the resultant drop in value.

But I'm going to suggest an idea that may impact on the seasonal rush of cards. Most of us will have the seven inch photo frames that sold well a few years ago, before everyone carried their photo albums on their mobile phones and tablet computers. Many are languishing in drawers now, the fad having passed by. How about dusting them off and encouraging friends and family to send their greetings electronically in JPEG format? Buy 1 Christmas card, one you really like, scan it and send the image to all your friends. Add a nice personal message to each in your finest hand - or use a script font in Word if your handwriting is like mine - and scan that in too. The recipients then load the JPEGs onto their photo frames and place them on the mantelpiece in pride of place. Your cards will cycle through continuously along with the messages. If anyone gives or sends you a real card, scan it in yourself.

If this idea takes off then we'll all save a fortune on postage this Christmas, admittedly at the cost of losing the Post Office. That organisation is doomed already, it's just a matter of when, not if. It will hurt the professional investors who are going to fleece the amateur players no matter what happens. If you are one of those amateurs and the share price is showing you a profit then consider taking that profit now. And if you don't have an electronic photo frame in a drawer, consider using some of the profit to buy one. If this idea works for you, why not sense a Christmas card. Electronically of course.

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Sunday 10 November 2013

Spooked by Technology

There's been a lot of controversy in the intelligence world lately.  There's no doubt about the challenges facing intelligence agencies the world over - terrorism is global, the impact of terrorist attacks dreadful.  Those of us who live in democracies have to accept that there is a balancing act that needs to be squared - do we stamp all over everybody's liberties or do we risk letting the bad guys go by acknowledging the freedoms that democracy stands for?

It's a difficult enough situation when looked at from a pure intelligence perspective; add the egos of politicians and the arrogance of journalists into the mix and the man in the street is hard pushed to know what is reasonable and what isn't.

I personally didn't bat an eyelid at the 'revelation' a few months ago that revealed that UK emails were being routinely scanned for keywords that might indicate a terrorist attack.  There were two reasons for this.  First, it seems to be a sensible thing to do - there are millions of emails floating across the UK, let alone internationally, every day and some of these will refer to illegal activities.  Most won't.  Most will be thanking friends and family for attending the surprise party for Aunt Mable, many will be general chit chat, some will be business related.  The same can be said for the many Facebook entries, the Tweets, the text messages and the myriad other ways we communicate with each other. MI6, MI5 and GCHQ have finite resources so although technically every message can be scanned and read electronically, in reality only a small fraction can be physically read by a real person.  These guys are busy, so unless you're a terrorist or some other criminal you shouldn't be too concerned.

The other reason I didn't go eyelid batting is that I thought we all knew this anyway.  Then I remembered that I had dealt with people on the periphery of this technology in the early part of the Century - perhaps I'd learned something that was on the secret list and forgotten that it was a secret.  It doesn't matter now - the cat's well and truly out of the bag and I never mentioned it because - well - I thought everybody knew.

But now, following the revelations by Edward Snowden, the American who passed loads of classified documents to the press, the intelligence community says it is in turmoil.  Even worse than that, the heads of the three agencies mentioned above have been summoned to a Select Committee of MPs to be grilled on their actions.  Apart from the obvious point that we have to just accept that the three guys who turned up today - and unlike our energy providers they didn't shun parliament - are the people that they say they are.  They're the intelligence community, for goodness sake!  Deception is their stock in trade.

So British TV has been treated to a spectacle of a group of people professionally trained to lie while constructing a world of smoke and mirrors interviewing the heads of the intelligence services.

Accountability is an important part of democracy, as is freedom.  These three guys and the people who work for them are working flat out to keep us as safe as can be managed without trampling on too many civil liberties.  Perhaps sitting in front of the MPs and answering searching questions is an opportunity to explain this but hopefully not at the expense of running their organisations. 

I don't know if Snowden's actions can be justified or whether they have caused real harm or not to the intelligence community (we'll never know, because this level of subterfuge is their day job), but I'm OK with them reading my emails.  I think most people shouldn't be too bothered about their Facebook or twitter feeds being intercepted.  Perhaps what is needed is a level of honesty - just state that a certain amount of electronic traffic is going to be scanned, make it a part of day-to-day internet usage.  After all, anyone who walks down a British high street is being recorded on CCTV from all angles for myriad reasons - security, safety, enforcement - and those images are often used by the law enforcement agencies, including the three mentioned above, to identify where specific people have been and when.  We don't throw our hands up and stamp our feet, apart from when the camera catches us speeding.

If it was accepted that effectively MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, plus the NSA, FBI and CIA (and if this post doesn't get intercepted after writing down that lot, then nothing on the internet tonight will) effectively follow us on Twitter and are clandestine Friends on Facebook then there wouldn't be any need for the likes of Snowden to sneak information out of the office and pass it to the press.  Sure, we wouldn't know the details of how many of our blog posts, FB threads, Twitter feeds etc had been read (unless the intelligence community gets behind liking them), but really, does it matter?

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Sunday 3 November 2013

Running Hot and Cold

Energy is very much in the news these days.  Despite only a 1.5% increase in the cost of energy on the world markets many of the energy providers in the UK have raised their prices to consumers by an average of 9%.  Understandably many of those consumers are not very happy.  Neither was Parliament, which is why it summoned the heads of the six big energy providers to explain their rationale for raising prices so high.

Only one of the six turned up, perhaps to try and prove they're not running a cartel over here.  Or maybe he just didn't get the email.  All have offered reasons for the unaccounted for 7.5% which includes Government imposed green taxes, although nobody has explained why those taxes hadn't been felt in the price before this hike.  Given the rate that energy prices have risen over the last few years it seems unlikely that the big six have been absorbing these taxes, especially as they seem to trot them out as an excuse every winter anyway.  The other reason provided is based on the wholesale prices they are charged by their suppliers.  Which might seem plausible until you realise that each of the big six are owned by the six suppliers that they each buy from.  They are their own suppliers.

There is a real suspicion that the big six might be skewing the prices by letting their parent companies charge whatever they want and then just passing the extra costs onto the consumer.  There's been a lot of hot air generated over this topic over the last few weeks, which appears to be a bit of a waste given that we are experiencing unseasonably warm weather.  Perhaps it would have been better left until the cold snap.

There is, predictably, a lot of advice on how consumers can reduce their energy bills in their homes from well meaning know-all's who hate to see a drop of energy wasted.  But enough about me.  The single best advice provided, by a Minister no less, was to put another woolly pullover on when the temperature drops.  Given the availability of cheap clothing these days, that's not an unreasonable idea.  In essence it's taking the problem of heating the house away and replacing it with the problem of heating the person.

There is, however, another way of looking at this problem, and it comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a place I had the pleasure of visiting the other week.  Actually the visitors' centre was a little disappointing but at least the tee shirts were inspired.  One stated that what happens in the black hole, stays in the black hole.  Another asserted that if it ain't broke then an engineer will take it apart and fix it.  But apart from commissioning cool tee shirt designs the bright guys and gals at MIT have been tackling the energy problem from the personal perspective.

You see, we aren't actually that good at judging the temperature.  There's obviously some well developed systems that have evolved over the millennia that keeps our core at the correct temperature most of the time, but it seems that it can be a bit flaky generally.  Which is why people can find themselves walking into hypothermia some times, heatstroke others.  One of the observations the researchers from MIT have made is that generally we tend to wear clothes based on our opinion of what the temperature should be.  I've observed this, noting that as soon as October arrives some people start wearing heavy coats and scarves, regardless of the actual temperature outside.  Me, I wear tee shirts until someone observes my arms have turned blue, then I roll the sleeves down.

The MIT researchers have developed a prototype electronic device that somehow interferes with our perception of temperature and sends signals through our nervous system that modifies how we perceive it.  It's early days yet and the prototype looks like an eighties calculator strapped to a wrist, but they think that they can develop a workable device that will allow everybody to tolerate lower temperatures without harming their bodies.  That will allow us all to turn our thermostats down a notch or two.

After that, throw in a woolly pullover and we can defer putting the heating on until mid January.  Then listen to the howls of anguish from the big six as we stubbornly choose not to use their energy.  And if that isn't enough, layer up even further with tee shirts as well, but make sure they're not too cool.

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Not Counting on Amazon

There's been a number of real initiatives in the eBook world lately, mainly from Smashwords the distributor of eBooks that supplies Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony and, when they're feeling receptive, Kobo.  To be fair to Kobo, it appears they've gotten over the issue with the revelation the other week from a British tabloid that some of their catalogue contains erotica.  Or more specifically they've worked out that my books don't contain erotica as they're all listed again after a brief hiatus.  WH Smith, the British book retailer, is still being a bit sniffy about it all though.  I guess I won't be selling many through them this side of Christmas.

But Smashwords has been doing some backroom deals lately, all reported in some depth on this blog in recent weeks.  One such improvement is the ability to set up pre-orders on books before they are launched.  That is something I'll be testing on my next release.  Another initiative is the link up with Oyster, the eBook subscription service that aims to be the Netflix of eBooks.  I've got some reservations about the business model, but then again Netflix probably shouldn't be able to keep going but it does. 

Critically the Oyster hook-up is challenging Amazon's KDP Select, a service that is aimed at depriving other eBook retailers of access to titles by tying them up in exclusive deals in return for a pot of cash shared out each month.  The benefit for certain Amazon customers is that they have a library of eBooks to dip into at will as part of their Prime package - there are limits, but it is consumer friendly in that respect.  The downside is the insistence that authors offer their books only through Amazon.  They're American, haven't they heard of free economy?  It isn't my favourite part of Amazon and I'm still resisting joining.  Sure, I'll probably end my days an impoverished jobbing author but at least I'll have my pride.  Of course the Oyster deal, and others that Smashwords are working on, will help hopefully persuade other authors not to succumb to Amazon's bribes.

Actually Amazon haven't been too innovative recently, apart from the KDP Select programme.  They had the majority of the eBook market a few years ago, but a lot has changed since then.  Apple books are a force to be reckoned with, as are Barnes and Noble.  Kobo has the backing of a major company, Rakuten, and Sony - well Sony should have been the market leader all along but somehow lost its way, however it still has a large and loyal customer base.

So it is with real interest that I see Amazon have actually seem to have produced an innovation.  An email dropped in my inbox from the big A the other day that said I could set time limited promotions on one or more of my books.  Crucially the deal allows authors to retain the 70% royalty rate even if the promotion rate drops below the $2.99 threshold limit that normally takes you down to 35%.  This royalty rate is one of my biggest bugbears with Amazon.  Any books you sell that fall below $2.99 only attract a 35% royalty.  All other major retailers give the author 60% regardless of selling price.  I think $2.99 is a lot to pay for an unknown writer in an unregulated market.  Sure, you may have read his or her blog ranting on about technology or eBooks, or even dipped into a serialised book or two and decided that you don't mind trying the whole novel on your eReader, but might bulk at the price of a pint of beer.

Amazon call this the countdown programme and have even set up a dedicated we page where customers can browse books currently on promo.  So it has the double benefit of all the above and a window for discovery.  Amazon coming of age, or at least acting like a responsible teenager (I know, that's an oxymoron).

Anyway, reading the blurb it seemed that Amazon had seen the light, had felt the pressure from Smashwords.  However, when I opened my dashboard to set a cheeky discount promotion to support this blog entry it transpires that Amazon only offer this facility to KDP Select enrolled books.  It took a bit of working out, I thrashed around the dashboard for about ten minutes, went back to the email and checked it for the details. Back at the dashboard it became obvious that I'd have to register any book I wanted to set a promo on in KDP Select, delisting them from Apple, B & N, Kobo, Sony et al first.  The only thing Amazon wanted to countdown was the other retailers.

Now it's not like Amazon are doing badly out of eBooks.  They have a preponderance of the dedicated eReader market with their Kindle range,  which naturally drives customers to their books, they have freely distributed software that lets their customers read their eBooks on their phone, laptops and tablets, including Apple and Android.  To try an squash all competition out of the market is not going to be a good thing for the consumer long term, it never is.

So if Amazon is counting on me to join countdown, it can count me out.  I'll continue promoting my books using other retailers, where I sell my books for the correct price, not the Amazon price.  It means I sell a lot less books through Amazon and to be fair I feel the odd pang of guilt when I do sell through them, wishing I could nudge my readers to Smashwords, where Kindle compatible versions are available at least a dollar less, two dollars for my shorter but funnier comedic novels.

While I urge all readers of eBooks to look at the Amazon countdown page for offers - we all like a bargain after all - I urge all self published authors to consider giving it the big E as a service.

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