Idiotprogrammer Blog

Category: Consumerism

  • My FS&G Ebook Spree

    About 24 hours ago I stumbled upon a major ebook sale — and I have no one to tell it too!

    Actually now I am really busy. Been slaving away on a publishing project due in 48 hours.

    But I take occasional breaks and noticed the mention of an ebook sale on reddit. Through playing around with search terms on Amazon, I see that Farrar Strauss and Giroux (FSG) is discounting several of its ebooks to 99 cents. You can access the list here. I count about 50-100 titles if you subtract the story samplers and 10 page stories, etc. It’s owned by MacMillian so I went ahead and did searches of the other prestige publishers.

    If you do a search of different FSG imprints, other 99 cent sales pop up: Picador, North Point Press, FSG Original, Hill and Wang, Celadon Books, Henry Holt.

    Sometimes discounting will occur across a press or imprint; sometimes it will be limited to 2 or 3 authors. When I was mining stuff from Simon & Schuster, I found that it was rotating through lots of sales, to the point where a significant portion of its titles would eventually be discounted. Since that time, there is some global discounting — though it is nowhere on the scale that it was in 2018.

    I used to shout for joy at finding these things. Yes, there was some labor involved in scrolling through irrelevant books. But for a bibliophile, this is hardly an inconvenience; we want to be struck by books that normally might pass us by. But how do I let people know? I posted announcements on my social media accounts, but nobody “liked” it, so I’m not sure that people noticed it or even cared. Am I the only person in this world to get excited by these deals? I bought too many individual titles to list them here. (I’ll list them on my Robert Recommends column in a few days). Last March, I made a similar discovery about discounting from Mariner Books, Open Road Media, Soho Press, Grove Press and Europa editions. But when I hyped this sale up to friends and on social media, I don’t anyone responded. Am I the only one to get so excited?

    Someday — not today — I will write about every book-buying extravaganza I have lived through. Each event is seared in my brain — the hesitations, the joys, the incredible surprise. Yes, I will be the first to admit that I have not read a lot of these books, but now I know about them; now I am instilled with a desire to read things I never knew even existed.

    The last two days — probably the most inconvenient time to face such distractions — is now another milestone in my tireless ongoing quest to accumulate tons of books that no one has ever heard of.

  • New Web Address: Lennin Repizo Barber & Beauty Salon

    The new website for Lennin Repizo is at https://www.lenninrepizo.com/ Lennin Repizo is a hair stylist in Katy Texas. I should know — he is my barber!

    I noticed the other day that they changed their web address, but Google hasn’t figured it yet (even though Bing and Yahoo seem to have figured it out. The name of the company is Lennin Repizo Barber & Beauty Salon, but it also is known as Lennin Beauty Salon.

    For the record, Mr. Repizo is a gentleman from Venezuela who is a terrific hair stylist and always does a great job on my hair. (I have been using his service for 2 years). The hair salon usually has the appointment calendar so you know what times are free.

    Silly Google and Chrome, why can’t you figure out what the new address is? Google used to give a lot of SEO juice to blogs, but over time, that power has declined precipitously. But it probably already knows that my home page updates frequently, that the site has been around for more than 20 years and that it is not a purveyor of spam. So maybe this will hurry up the process; I will post updates.

    • 12 hours later. This page appears nowhere on Google, #7 on Bing, #6 on DuckDuckGo and #4 on yahoo (which is powered by bing). This blog link appears nowhere on Google, and the corrected domain appears at about the #30 search result (this comes from both when I’m logged into google and not). So apparently I wildly overestimated the influence of my blog on google.
    • 5 days later. Apparently Google has accepted my edit for the Google business name, but even when I type in the owner’s name, the lenninrepizo domain is still buried on page 3. Instead we have the previous domain and all sorts of catalogue sites and social media. This blog post is absolutely nowhere to be found. The results are much more interesting on Bing, where Lenninrepizo.com is on the top, and this post is positioned as #4. On duckduckgo, the results are even stranger. #1 is a random post on my blog unrelated to this post. #2 is the corrected revised domain (along with 3,4,5) while 6 goes to this post. Curiously, Bing and duckduckgo seem to take summary from random post sentences, while the blog excerpt seems to appear only on Google.

    One week later, it appears that BING provides the most accurate results, duckduckgo provides the 2nd most accurate and Google provides the least accurate — though to be fair, the Google business info now lists the correct domain after I made a suggested edit. Interestingly, I thought that manually adding an entry for the hair salon as a customer to yelp would improve search prominence, but apparently that doesn’t make a difference. Finally, it’s interesting that the public Instagram page for the hair stylist appears as the #1 result on Google search, followed by Facebook. I conclude that Google is giving a lot of Google juice to social networks — and in a way, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have to validate the identity of businesses, though not necessarily individuals.

  • Amazon, affiliate program, goodbye!

    To my surprise and chagrin, I see that Amazon cancelled my participation in the Amazon Affiliate program (which I started a month ago). The email announcing the cancellation did not mention the reason, but after reading the terms, I see something:

    z) You will not display on your Site, or otherwise use, any Program Content to advertise or promote any products that are offered on any site that is not an Amazon Site (e.g., products offered by other retailers). You will not display on your Site or otherwise use any data, images, text, or other information or content you may obtain from us that relates to Excluded Products.


    It might be obvious that I have affiliate ads for Smashwords ebooks. I totally get that a company can insist on exclusivity (and in fact I have written extensively about how a litblogger can run ads and affiliate programs ethically).

    Amazon has really crossed a line here. Do they really think literary bloggers are going to agree to exclusive arrangements on ebook ads?

    So to summarize: a multibillion dollar company with a near monopoly on ebook sales has demanded exclusivity for advertising on a personal blog of an impoverished writer linking to ebook pages of an store whose direct sales volume is probably less than 1 or 2 percent of Amazon’s.

    Aside from the fact that Amazon has more sales volume, I believe that Smashwords’ affiliate program is better, fairer and far more profitable to third party websites than Amazon’s own. By default, Smashwords gives a 11% payout on direct ebook sales while for Amazon, it’s 4% or less. If they choose, authors can choose to increase the affiliate payouts to a higher percent, something I have chosen to make SW authors aware of.

    As Smashwords CEO/flamethrower Mark Coker said in his end-of-year blogpost:


    The entire publishing community is now living in fear.

    Large traditional publishers are worried about making their next quarter’s numbers, and are terrified Amazon will take away their preorder buttons if they so much as look at Amazon cross eyed.  Indies are terrified of Amazon’s next price-matching email or KU nastygram, which reminds them that repeated offenses could lead to cancellation of their publishing privileges.  Indies are terrified of seeing their legit reviews disappearing without explanation or recourse. Or, like the NY Times bestseller who contacted me this morning, why should an author fear being kicked out of KU because Amazon might notice that a pirated version of her book was just listed for sale at another major retailer?

    What kind of life is this, living in fear that your business partner who’s supposed to have your back is browbeating you, and threatening to drop the axe on you at any moment?

    All too often, succumbing to Amazon’s offers of quick fixes like KDP Select can feel safer, but this decision can also lead to long term pain, bondage and servitude.
    …

    Exclusivity is a form of censorship.  It says you can express yourself here, but not there.

    Algorithms that give preference to exclusive books are a form of censorship too.  This struggle for free expression predates Amazon, and will continue long after Amazon is gone. ….

    The good news is that Amazon’s practices can’t last.  They’re unsustainable for the creators of books.  Like all forms of oppression, the people will eventually rise up and take back their independence.

    As I mentioned previously, even though I have always been uncomfortable with Amazon’s tactics, first and foremost I want to provide good information for consumers. I will continue to provide links to Amazon exclusive deals and ebooks from their imprints (Little A, Amazon Crossing), but generally I will prefer to link to the author’s personal website than the Amazon page. Also, I will continue running links and ads to Smashwords and other ebook stores. FYI, my next Robert’s Roundup will be on Tuesday March 5 ( 2 days after the annual Smashwords Read-an-Book week has started). I’ll be reporting on the great things I’ve found from that sale.

  • Beware the auto-renewal beast!

    Call me a procrastinator. I plead guilty. (I have also been very busy with a move and a job search).

    For a while I have been meaning to transfer my domain hosting from greengeeks to a slightly more powerful hosting service to accommodate future  web projects. I kept delaying the decision for 2 years (costing me an extra $50 a year), and then I just decided, no, I will just stick with greengeeks for a year (I have had no real complaints about them).

    A few months ago I decided that there was no special reason to stick with godaddy for 5 or 6 personal domains. The cost adds up, and godaddy has no real reason to stay competitive. Then, astonishingly they auto-renewed one of my domains for 3 years in advance! I understand that it’s easy to forget about auto-renewals, but no sane human would have authorized a 3 year renewal.

    I complained and then technical support said, “Sorry, there’s no backsies.” Well, maybe that’s true, but godaddy’s renewal reminder emails only mentioned a one year renewal price. There was absolutely no mention that renewals would be in 3 year increments.  I would have expected at least some kind of courtesy credit for future domain renewals.

    After doing a little bit of research and checking domcomp.com , I finally decided to go with namesilo. They didn’t appear to be that much better than godaddy, but there’s no reason to reward godaddy’s awful customer service.

    On another note, I have noted at how easily companies are adding auto-renewals to the terms of service. Microsoft helpfully auto-renewed my Office account at full price without reminding me it was about to expire. (To their credit, they reversed the charge immediately  after I complained). Since then, I have purchased an MS Office license at a reduced rate.

    It can be hard to keep track of renewals and expiration dates, and forgetting can have serious financial consequences. What if your 12 month no interest purchase is about to come due?

    Luckily, it is not hard to set up reminders. Google Calendar has some way to set up events and then set up reminders. Unfortunately to do so, you first have to go through the rigmarole of  setting up a full-fledged event and change the default notification to email. But it works….

    Update: One hour later, the domain transfer completed. Horray!

     

  • How to Choose a Texas Electric Provider the Wrong Way

     

    Recently I read an analysis by Dr. Dan Wallach on Chuck Kuffner’s blog about how to find the best deal on electricity in Texas. Some areas in Texas allow consumers to choose the provider of electricity to their homes. (But not all – some cities – notably San Antonio and Austin – allow residents to purchase electricity only through a municipal provider. The jury is still out about whether privatizing electricity utilities in Texas has resulted in lower prices.   Many analysts have concluded that privatizing actually brings higher prices – but I continue to have hope that privatizing will eventually bring lower prices – and if not, an electrical grid that is more in keeping what Texas citizens want.

    When you have to choose an electric provider yourself, you can make mistakes (as Dan Wallach explains). One mistake is trying to comparison-shop by comparing variable rates. When purchasing electricity using the Powertochoose.org website, they mix variable rates with fixed rates. Variable rates always start out low, but increase in price without ever seeming to go down. As a result, it becomes  practically impossible to compare these plans – and to do the diligence to monitor the plans actively enough to know when to switch again. Fixed rates are easier-to-compare, and I have found over the years I have found that fixed rate plans lasting 12 months tend to provide the best rates. 6 month rates are a little cheaper, and 24 months tend to be a lot more expensive (I think the 24 month plans factor in market uncertainty – a lot can change in 24 months!). The problem with these fixed rate plans is that after they expire, you are rolled onto a variable rate plan, with its ever-escalating rates. To this date, no electric provider has never sent me a reminder that my plan has expired or is about to expire; from the provider’s perspective, they benefit if you don’t notice that the fixed rate plan has expired, so why should they have to do your homework for you? (Fortunately, there is an easy solution—sign up for an email reminder service and instruct it to email you when the term is about to expire).

    I am amazed at how easy it is to make a bad decision about electric providers.  A college friend with a PhD in Economics chose an expensive coal-laden TXU plan because he had just moved back to Texas and wasn’t aware that you had the ability to choose your provider – he just went with whatever someone told him about. (In two minutes, I was able to find him a plan which was 10% cheaper and 100% green).  Various acquaintances have chosen plans for the most illogical of reasons. One chose “Reliant” because it sounded “reliable” (Reliant-reliable – get it? I guess getting your name on the downtown stadium was good for something).  Another signed up for the coal-dirty Reliant because it had balanced-billing – never mind that it was significantly more expensive than the other plans. A friend chose a plan simply because a friend of hers had recommended it – that was also more expensive. Another friend opted not to choose the “renewable” plan because she didn’t want to have to renew it each time the fixed rate expired.  There are other not-so-obvious problems. When I had Dynawatt (a company I don’t recommend),  I could not make head or tail of the bill (no matter how long I studied it). Everything on the printed bill contradicted what the terms of my contract were, and when I called telephone support several times, each agent quoted me a different rate on my current plan – something which didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

    4 Things You Need to Know about Choosing an Electric Provider in Texas

    This blogpost is going to ramble, so I’ll summarize for people who are in a hurry and need  fast tips.

    1. Texas consumes more fossil fuels than any other state in the US. If Texas were a nation, it would be the 7th largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Electric plants in Texas (population 25 million) emit as much CO2  as electric plants in the COMBINED states of   New York, California, Florida, Massachusetts and Oregon (population: 86 million)
    2. 1 year Fixed-rate plans for 100% green (renewable) energy plans are on average 5-10% higher than comparable coal/natural gas plans.
    3. Don’t choose an electric provider which has received too many complaints. (Check the complaint scorecards on the PUC site and also Yelp if you want).

    There is a fourth point, but let’s save that until the end.  First, let’s go over these three points.

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