Month: March 2008

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Publishing

Angela Adair-Hoy, co-owner of Booklocker, has posted a number of links on her Writers Weekly blog, including an online petition as well as contacts for Amazon execs. If you want to register your protest about the demand to only print at BookSurge, or if you want to better understand the fallacies of such a move (from her perspective as publisher of some 1500 books, go and visit.

One of the things you’ll see: a public statement by PublishAmerica, which I excerpt here:

Quite some time ago, sir, long before you were born, American soldiers fought the Battle of the Bulge in Europe. When the 101st Airborne Division found itself surrounded by the enemy, the Germans presented U.S. general McAuliffe with a piece of paper that demanded his surrender.

McAuliffe looked at it, borrowed a soldier’s pen, wrote in caps, “NUTS!”, then proceeded to win the battle.

There’s our answer, sir. Couldn’t have said it any better.

Mind you, this is not an endorsement of PA. I am generally not a fan of PublishAmerica and have warned authors away from their standard contract. But on this, they are right on, and I salute them for being early and public and firm in their opposition.

My friend Marion Gropen posted to a discussion list that Amazon’s tactics remind her of Standard OIl; it’s a good analogy. Standard Oil’s monopolistic and bullying practices actually caused a years-long anti-trust action by the federal government.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, General Commentary, Publishing

Amazon wants to force publishers to use its wholly-owned printer, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reports. If it thinks this is a good idea, amazon.com needs its collective head examined. I think it’s one of the dumbest moves I’ve heard of in a loooong time.

Amazon gets a lot of its books through a company called LightningSource, Inc., or LSI–which is owned by Ingram, the 800-pound gorilla in the U.S. book wholesaling world. LSI prints digitally, which enables production of books as they’re ordered, in runs as small as a single book.

Thousands of publishers, from one-title solopreneurs up to the biggest names in the industry, use LSI for some or all of their printing–in part because it allows flexible inventory management, and in part because the connection with Ingram means any bookstore is automatically set up to special-order those titles.

LSI has many competitors, though it’s the only one to offer the Ingram connection. Amazon owns a competitor to LSI, called Booksurge/Createspace. And it’s going to force all publishers listing digitally printed books on its site to use this company.

The Journal reporter sees this move as rosy for Amazon:

The move will likely generate significant profit for Amazon, which has evolved into a fully vertical book publishing and retail operation.

Well, ummm, I don’t think so. This is what I see happening instead:

  • Publishers, not a bunch that can be bullied easily (what’s that old saying about never getting into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel?), will haul Amazon into court for restraint of trade
  • Publishers who control mailing lists totaling hundreds of thousands of names will tell their public about Amazon’s bullying, and encourage them to buy elsewhere (there’s already quite a bit of rumbling from publishers who say they themselves will shop elsewhere)–they may even get customers to write massive numbers of letters to Amazon saying if you want to keep my business, reverse this policy
  • Subsidy publishers, which print perhaps 50,000 titles per year by mostly unknown authors, have promised those authors to get them listed both with Ingram and with Amazon, and are in a position to orchestrate a massive rebellion
  • Publishers will withdraw book titles from Amazon, severely damaging its brand identity as “Earth’s largest selection”–on which they built their business
  • If Ingram sees Amazon as

    • an enemy, and Ingram is a very powerful company, it will not be pretty

    Of course, I may be wrong. Publishers may choose not to fight Amazon and to print non-exclusively with both LSI for Ingram and Booksurge for Amazon. Or they may simple knuckle under as if they’re John Kerry or Michael Dukakis attacked by Swift Boaters. But I’m betting this comes back to bite Amazon, hard.

    Anti-competitive measures have a way of backfiring. There’s already been some backlash against certain independent bookstores that are demanding authors who do events with them don’t include links to Amazon. Amazon joining the fray will be shooting itself in the foot. The Abundance mentality, which I write about regularly, says it’s smarter to network with your competitors and to build alliances with them than to try to cut their throats, and end up cutting your own.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

    Writing in Huffington Post, Hale “Bonddad” Stewart makes a compelling case that business practices need immediate attention–NOW.

    From contaminated meat to toxic toys, Stewart attacks multiple industries.

    And the subprime mortgage crisis, he says, could have been avoided easily if regulators had bothered to pay attention to numerous warnings over many years:

    Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford.

    But when Mr. Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman.

    In 2001, a senior Treasury official, Sheila C. Bair, tried to persuade subprime lenders to adopt a code of “best practices” and to let outside monitors verify their compliance. None of the lenders would agree to the monitors, and many rejected the code itself. Even those who did adopt those practices, Ms. Bair recalled recently, soon let them slip.

    And leaders of a housing advocacy group in California, meeting with Mr. Greenspan in 2004, warned that deception was increasing and unscrupulous practices were spreading.

    Let’s remember the business climate in 2001. A long period of economic growth had crested, business scandals were being exposed everywhere, the economy was heading downward–and plummeted later that year, in the aftermath of 9/11.

    If ever there was a time when it made sense to look at risky lending practices and a baseless assumption of permanent housing price spirals, that would have been the time.

    So why did Greenspan ignore all the warnings?

    –> In my writing, and particularly my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I repeatedly demonstrate that business ethics is more profitable. Don’t know why this lesson is so hard for some of the “mainstream” players to learn. Wouldn’t it be nice if they all had a conversion and started signing (and taking seriously) the Business Ethics Pledge, in droves?

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    By Posted on Posted in Copywriting

    Specifically, the emotion of empathy.

    I’ve been urging my clients for years to do what they can to be seen as the caring humans they are, and not some faceless corporate monstrosity/bureaucracy.

    Chris Haddad gives some very powerful examples, including the wonderful idea of the “maybe bullet”:

    What’s a “maybe bullet?”

    A “Maybe” bullet is a short statement that “paces” the feelings and emotions that your customer are going through and shows them that you UNDERSTAND them.

    He also gives two specific examples of empathic copy. Go read it.

    In my own copywriting, I often use “perhaps” rather than “maybe.” It does the same thing but sometimes seems more personal–and sometimes I alternate.

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    By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics, Politics

    A lot of people have been dumping on Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, for his remarks about 9-11, his endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, and various other things.

    Obama has consistently publicly and thoroughly distanced himself from Wright’s positions–a clear repudiation even of a close personal friend. Obama also immediately got rid of the key staffer who called Hillary Clinton a “monster.”

    Meanwhile, it looks like a lot of those shaking their fists in the air about this have some reluctance to criticize others who surround themselves with extremists and questionable characters–or, in some cases, are guilty of this behavior themselves.

    You want examples?

  • First of all, Fox (big surprise) took Wright’s remarks wildly out of context, according to Alternet. Wright was quoting someone else, Edward Peck–the white former Ambassador to Iraq (under Jimmy Carter) who might be expected to actually know about such things. And Fox’s camp-followers and parrots in the mainstream media (I don’t consider Fox to be mainstream in spite of its large viewership–it’s politics are extremist, its columnists act as attack dogs who use hate and intimidation, and its journalistic style seeks not the truth but the discrediting of those who disagree) didn’t question this, and repeated the accusation.
  • Clinton herself seemed remarkably unwilling to part company with Geraldine Ferraro, despite Ferraro’s crude racist remarks about Obama.
  • The ever-loathsome Sean Hannity, says Huffington Post, has ties to a neo-Nazi, Hal Turner.
  • And last but certainly not least, John McCain actively went after his endorsement by pastor John Hagee, an open homophobe and right-wing demagogue who is at least as extremist as Wright, and to my mind quite a bit farther out–and why isn’t the mainstream media, or Fox, jumping on McCain for this?
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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Politics

    David Patterson, New York’s new governor will never need to stand, ashen-faced, and admit that he cheated on his wife–as his predecessor, Elliot Spitzer did.

    Why? Because, knowing that skeleton was in his closet, Patterson pre-empted it with an act of transparency. He openly admitted, at a time, place, and manner of his own choosing–actually on the very day he was sworn in as governor–hat he and his wife had both had affairs during a difficult time in their relationship. He maintained control of the discourse, and the admission can never be used as a weapon to destroy him, as it would very much do if he’d been suddenly, unexpectedly, “outed.” As Spitzer found out very quickly.

    For all we know, the Pattersons may have even had an agreement that theirs was an open relationship–in which case, the word “cheating” wouldn’t even apply. It’s not cheating if you have permission from the cheatee.

    Transparency is a good strategy whenever there’s an ethics issue. It means you can’t be blackmailed. It means you minimize the hurt to other people. And you stay in control of the situation.

    Almost four years ago, I wrote about a utility company that handled a gas explosion with rare good sense. Like Johnson & Johnson’s handling of the Tylenol poisoning scare years earlier, this company was both transparent and extremely customer-centric, and thus enhanced rather than destroyed its reputation.

    Gay and lesbian activists have understood this for almost 40 years, since the 1969 Stonewall riots. The closest thing to a rational reason for keeping gays out of sensitive jobs (say, those that expose the employee to highly sensitive information) is the fear of blackmail. But when the gay employee is already out of the closet, that weapon fizzles away.

    I’d say that transparency, combined with Nelson Mandela-style reconciliation, creates powerful momentum in favor of the person making the confession, whether in business or politics. Plus, as the Catholics with their confession ritual have understood for centuries, there’s tremendous personal release in not bottling up secrets.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    The other day, I got invited to help promote an Internet marketing report. Since I don’t endorse anything I haven’t seen (unless I make it very clear that it’s a favor to a friend, etc., and I haven’t personally evaluated), I asked for a copy–and boy, was I appalled.

    The model these folks were pushing was to steal content, intersperse enough meaningless blather so Google doesn’t think it’s a duplicate page, and build traffic/ad revenues.

    Eeeeeeew!

    I let it simmer for a couple of days, until I could respond with enough politeness to get read, and until I could find a way to talk to the part of these people that wants to be better (with a tip of the hat to my friend Bob Burg, who taught me how to do that), and then responded this morning, thusly:

    “Let me know what you think, good or bad. I appreciate your opinion.”

    OK, you asked. I read it over the weekend.

    I’m sure you have good intentions, but frankly, I find your business model unethical. It is one very small step above splogging; the only difference is you’re adding meaningless content around someone else’s words instead of just presenting someone else’s hard work.

    It devalues the Internet as a useful information medium; I’d hate to see search results be as useless as e-mail, but if people follow your model, they contribute to poor search results.

    And then there’s the matter of making a buck on other people’s hard-earned intellectual property without compensating them in any way, or even asking permission, and doing so in a way that most definitely violates the Fair Use provisions of the copyright law.

    I think with the intelligence and understanding of the Internet that underlies your black hat approach, you could come up with a business model that would be just as profitable and a whole lot more palatable. Come talk to me when you’ve done so.

    Postscript: I got a response, quickly, that basically said, “well, that’s fine, but I disagree.” Needless to say, I won’t become her affiliate any time soon.

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    By Posted on Posted in Peace and War

    I love this article! Starting with the debate on whether, after five years, the Iraq debacle can be called a success or failure he goes on to explore other arguments that really only have one side, such as did Gandhi have his assassination coming to him? Was Lee Harvey Oswald merely keeping the powerful on their toes when he shot JFK?

    And then he comes back to Iraq:

    Ah, yes, but things are so much better for women in Iraq now. Try walking down the main drag in Basra in a short skirt and lippy, sunshine, then report back on that one.

    If we remove this desire to acknowledge both sides of a moot argument, other issues become clearer, too. Barack Obama voted against the invasion of Iraq. Hillary Clinton did not. On the most important judgment call of the early 21st century, he was right and she was wrong. Any small changes in her stance have come now the calamity has unfolded, meaning that her shifting positions could be exploited by the Republicans as evidence of opportunism, a problem Obama would not have. See how it all falls into place?

    You want a debate, though, we’ll have a debate. Is the region safer? No. Is the world safer? No. Is the West safer? No. Are the Iraqi people safer? No. Have we made a bad situation worse? Yes. Has our international standing improved? No. Did we find any weapons? No. Did we find Osama bin Laden? No. Will it be over soon? No. Is it a recruitment poster for al-Qaeda? Yes. Did we at least get some cheap petrol out of it? No. Well, I think that about wraps it up for this one, folks. Read my lips. Worst. Decision. Ever. Now here’s Jim with the travel.

    Whew! The whole article is that sharp. Highly recommended.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary

    We celebrate a huge victory against special interests this week in my town of Hadley, Massachusetts: a retail development that was waaaay out of scale for the town, and would be illegal under current zoning, has been withdrawn.

    Let me give some background. I’ve had some involvement with land and resource use/planning issues all the way back to 1972, when I was tangentially involved in opposing a nuclear power plant proposed two miles from New York City (where I was living at the time). Two years later, when I researched the safety of nuclear power for a school project, I realized just how dumb an idea that had been. Later, that was the subject of my first book.

    Over time, I’ve been involved in a number of efforts around sensible development, including founding and serving as publicity chair for Save the Mountain, a group that successfully blocked a very inappropriate mountaintop development (bringing it from 40 houses going up the ridgeline to two at the bottom, and getting the remaining land protected forever).

    This project, a Super Wal-Mart, would have added 6000 cars an hour, many of them crossing a very popular bike path with no traffic control. One of the streets is two lanes. The other becomes two lanes about a mile in either direction. And that corner is already facing two other large retail projects plus a large housing development. This in a rural town with a population under 5000 that already has a non-super Wal-Mart just a few hundred yards from the proposed new one–and when that was built in 1998 the company promised it would not be back for a larger one.

    Wal-Mart pulled out because “Hadley [our town] had become too difficult” a place to build.

    I translate that as the citizen opposition group, Hadley Neighbors for Sensible Development (in which I’m a proud participant), made it clear that this project would be opposed at every turn.

    This development is dead, but the actual applicant was not Wal-Mart but Pyramid, a mall developer. It is unclear whether the developer can exercise the remaining four years of its grandfathering under the previous zoning with a different tenant.

    I’m hoping that if Pyramid does come back with a different plan, that it is, in fact, a sensible development, in keeping with the nature of the town.

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government

    Well, what’ya know–Nancy Pelosi actually showed some leadership and got the House to pass a somewhat weak measure establishing a special office of ethics, as many states have had for years. And against strenuous opposition (WHO are these people?) from both parties. The New York Times headline says it all:

    Kicking and Screaming Toward Reform

    If you want to thank her, visit MassPIRG’s page set up for the purpose, here. If you have autofill in your browser, it takes under 30 seconds.

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