Month: July 2013

By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , ,

Utilities are beginning to push back on solar, according to the New York Times article, “On Rooftops, a Rival for Utilities.” They claim costs to non-solar users will go up as the fixed costs of the distribution grid are spread over progressively fewer customers. And they want to curb “net metering,” in which solar homeowners get to sell power back to the company at a decent price.

Well, they’ve had 40 years to figure out that solar is coming—and that the market will enjoy the idea of a power source that doesn’t have to be purchased over and over again, and isn’t tied to the sharply rising prices of oil, coal, gas (currently enjoying lower prices), or nuclear with its high capital costs, abysmal safety record, and potential for catastrophic accident.

Yet many utilities actively promote solar—because it reduces the demand for new powerplants, which are not only extremely expensive to build, but also face massive citizen opposition and extensive regulation. Plus, distributed solar—generating the power at the point of use—eliminates the huge friction losses of transmitting power over vast distances. Transmission losses are one of the utility industry’s dirty little secrets, and one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of massive solar or wind farms. It is absurd to me that we squander 7 percent of the energy we generate, just moving it around.

I suspect that most solar construction is on-grid, where the solar system supplies power to the utility when it’s sunny, and draws power back out at night or during extended cloudy periods. The utility grid serves as a giant battery.

Utilities need to reinvent their business model, which is based on a percentage return of capital investment (a rather high return, at that). Surely there are other ways to maintain a power grid.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , ,

Environmental groups have been saying for years that fracking for natural gas or oil puts our water supplies at risk. Yesterday, the Washington Post quoted an internal memo from an unnamed employee, corroborating that the methane gas showing up in the water in Dimock, Pennsylvania is fracking-related:

The previously unreleased document from an employee at the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office found that drilling or fracking, in which water, sand and chemicals are shot underground to free trapped gas, caused methane to leak into domestic water wells in Dimock, Pa. The findings contradict Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., which drilled in the town and said the explosive methane gas was naturally occurring.

Dimock’s evil, explosive water is featured in the movie, “Gasland.”

Future generations might forgive us for squandering our oil and gas, especially once we have moved, planet-wide, away from dirty fossil-fuel and nuclear energy sources. But they will NOT forgive us for squandering and polluting our precious water.

It is time for us to say, “enough.”

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability Tagged with

An op-ed in today’s New York Times, “Gangplank to a Warm Future,” is important to read not only because of its compelling environmental arguments against natural gas fracking, but also because of who is writing it: Cornell professor Anthony R. Ingraffea is one of the scientists who helped develop the fracking industry.

Let’s hope that Professor Ingraffea will use his considerable intelligence now to help develop cleaner, safer alternatives.

Read the article!

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business-general, Copywriting, Entrepreneurship, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , , , ,

Some things should always be left to professionals. You don’t ever want to trust me to do any carpentry for you…or even have me paint a room. and the older I get, the more I move from a D-I-Y (do-it-yourselfer) to a have-it-done.

Writing your own press release is something most people should not tackle. Here’s a comment I just made on a self-publishing discussion list in response to an advocate of D-I-Y press releases:

When I write a press release for a client, I spend significant time with the book. Sometimes I read the whole thing. Sometimes I read sections I’ve asked the author to flag, plus the beginning, end, and some random sections. Plus a synopsis, for fiction, and a thorough look at the TOC and Index for nonfiction. And always I read the author questionnaire I send, and the supporting materials I always request (such as press coverage of the author)…I read enough to thoroughly immerse myself in the project. And my press releases for clients have been picked up by the New York Times, among many other places.

Yes, the author has far more subject knowledge than I do. But *I* have the expertise in crafting a message that the media, and the public, will find exciting. Most authors don’t, and believe me, I’ve seen their attempts.

One of the *problems* is the formulaic approach F___ recommends. Those formulas yield terrible press releases straight out of the 1970s. I don’t follow the formulas. I write press releases with the idea that the reader says “Wow! I want more of this.” Writing a standard reverse-pyramid 5Ws press release (who, what, where, when, why)–the most common formula–doesn’t accomplish that.

My favorite press release out of the probably thousands I’ve written was for a book on electronic privacy. If I followed the 5Ws formula, my release would have had a headline like “Electronic Privacy Expert Releases New Book.” How fast is the reporter going to hit delete on a big-snore headline like that? My headline was “It’s 10 O’Clock. Do You Know Where Your Credit History Is?” Following a lead about the credit history “vacationing” in databanks of big corporations, the book finally showed up in the third paragraph.

I refer to this type of press release as “the-story-behind-the-story,” and other than my own books, I don’t know a lot of books that teach how to do this… My book, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, does give that context, and gives a lot of book-specific examples, including a wildly successful press release by listmate Ruth Houston that violates all the rules–proving that F___ is right that *some* authors can do their own press releases very effectively.

Some can do their own layout, too. I have discovered after laying out two books in my early publishing years, that I’m someone who should not ever lay out my own book. And most authors should not ever write their own press release.

In an earlier post in the same discussion, responding to a post that called professional publicity services a waste of money, I describe the advantages of a third alternative between do-it-yourself and pricy full-service publicists:

R___’s point is well-taken. With any expenditure, you want to be sure the results justify the expense.

And she’s right that most book publicists who are any good are frightfully expensive. Typically, you can expect to pay between $2000-$10,000 a month, with a 6-month commitment required. It takes a lot of sales to justify a $12-60K expenditure.

However, it’s not an either-or. There is a third alternative between doing it all yourself and spending $60K on a professional full-service publicist.

That alternative is hiring a la carte: use a professional writer to create a get-noticed media release that is likely to wildly outperform anything you do on your own, and then either hire one of the publicists who is willing to work a la carte and just do the distribution/follow-up, or use a wire service, or do it yourself with a list compiled by a media list specialist (such as our own Paul Krupin of Direct Contact PR).

As an example, I charge $325 to write but not distribute a news release on a book. I refer out to others for the other pieces for a few hundred more, and the total cost is under $1K. So if you did, say, six releases in a year, you’d still pay less than for one month of a high-end publicist.

Oh, and regarding the likelihood of better results: I had one client do a comparison test. He sent my release to half his media list, and one he’d written to the other half. He became a fan and a steady customer when mine got 6 times as many media responses.

One further lesson: these two posts demonstrate examples of promoting my own services on a discussion group while not making enemies—because the self-promotion is in the context of—and directly relevant to—a discussion already underway.

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, poverty Tagged with , , , , ,

I’ve always enjoyed Bruce Springsteen’s work: his hard-driving melodies, brilliant working-class lyrics, sense of justice, and enormous passion.

And last night, seeing the amazing movie “Springsteen & I,” I’ll add—he has a huge heart. 40+ years into his career, he clearly remembers his roots, and he’s willing to get down with ordinary folks. He has not let stardom go to his head.

And it was really nice to see a celebrity musician movie that was not all about a slow decline due to drugs and/or alcohol. This movie, much of it shot by amateurs—fans giving tribute to The Boss and remembering special moments or personal encounters—is a tribute not only to the passion his fans have for him, but also for the passion he has for his fans. He comes across as very human, very likable, and a hell of a performer. And it says a lot about his character that several of the musicians in the concert footage from the 1970s are still in his band.

Watching this working-class hero in action, I remembered the 1984 attempt by President Ronald Reagan and columnist George Will to co-opt Springsteen for the right wing, and Springsteen would have none of it. The big flag on the cover of “Born in the USA” fooled them.

The song, of course, is a Vietnam veteran’s lament about his bleak economic prospects in the age of Reagan—with this lyric, among others:

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says “Son if it was up to me”

Click here for full lyrics to “Born in the USA”, along with a nice write-up of the kerfluffle.

Of course, the marketer in me is always alert when I interact with popular culture. And wearing that hat, let me note that yes, Bruce is a man of the people, but he’s also a very smart marketer. Springsteen has fully documented his own career, making it easy for the producers of this movie to find footage of the exact moment a fan is talking about—whether inviting up a show-hogging Elvis impersonator or jamming on the street with a local busker.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Green Business, People Helping People Tagged with , , , , ,

A friend sent me a link to a very interesting article, “A Locavore’s Dilemma: On the Fantasy of Urban Farming” by Will Boisvert

According to Mr. Boisvert (whose name, ironically, translates as “green woods”), we would all do more for the planet to buy big-agro chemiculture food from thousands of miles away than to develop food sources in or close to urban areas.

I’ve heard this argument before. And I do think it’s important to do our research and know the numbers; it’s important to make a business case for local food sustainability, whether urban or rural.

But I’d say Mr. Boisvert totally misses the point.

He says the most sustainable thing we can do in NYC is build more housing, to avoid further stress on the exurbs and suburbs, which are very UNsustainable. But I don’t see why it has to be housing vs. food. Build that 600-person apartment building he wants, and THEN use add urban agriculture and solar arrays to harness the roof for food and energy.

And his attack on COmmunity Supported Agriculture farms (CSAs) is just bizarre. I don’t think our annual membership fee for the organic CSA we belong to here in Massachusetts would even cover the same amount of factory food at our local supermarket, and it’s far cheaper than buying the nonindustrial stuff at Whole Foods, a pricy organic grocery, or the farmers markets.

We do need to look at the economics/carbon impact of urban agriculture and the urban food movement, and often, they’re not pretty. But no uglier than mass-scale farming.

He writes:

Hauling each spud from upstate thus requires as much fuel as moving it 585 miles by corporate semi or 2,340 miles by rail. I don’t know the numbers, but I think truck is a lot more common than rail.

If that’s true, then even with the much-reduced efficiency per mile, the number of miles is so much fewer that local food, especialy urban agriculture, comes out way ahead. If the potatoes go 127 miles at 28 ton-miles/gallon vs. 2500 miles from Arizona at 120 tm/g, the Catskills come out way ahead: 4.5 gallons vs. 20.8 for the far-shipped chemiculture ones. And his analysis doesn’t recognize that the efficiencies of big trucking disappear rapidly when that huge truck is running 4 mph stop-and-go in NYC traffic, while those of urban farming increase.

As he notes, a neighborhood urban farm might use one gallon to transport to multiple sites across the city, in a small van. And if we’re really talking hyperlocal, your neighborhood rooftop or small-lot urban farm could efficiently deliver in a five-mile radius with a bicycle (more efficient in time as well as fuel, in NYC’s traffic-choked streets)—which can offset the fuel costs of hauling the soil up to the roof by crane. Equipped with a handlebar box, a rear rack, and maybe even a small trailer, bicycles can carry quite a bit. Even back in the 1960s when I was a kid in the Bronx, a lot of local merchants offered bicycle delivery (using massive one-speed bikes with huge handlebar boxes).

Even if it’s trucked in a van, the fuel cost of a three-block delivery is pretty close to zero.

And unlike Mr. Boisvert, I don’t discount the many other benefits. Better quality food, community-building, job skills training for those interns and volunteers, and an understanding of the food cycle. My own first garden was in Brooklyn, in fact, and the thrill of growing my own food in my mini-urban farm definitely helped push me to the locavore mindset. I discovered a new crop: radish seed cones; the young ones are terrific in salads. And that was also around the time that I started advocating using flat roofs as food and energy resources.

I do have some concerns, and would like to see research, on how urban agriculture can avoid pollution-borne contamination of the food. But he doesn’t talk about that.

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By Posted on Posted in Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

With the recent dustup over the sovereignty and airspace route of Bolivian President Evo Morales’ airplane, I found myself wishing that Mario Benedetti were still alive to write a poem about it.

Among Latin America’s most famous 20th-century poets, Benedetti was a South American patriot from Uruguay—that is, an enemy of the repressive government that ruled the country for decades—and a great one for skewering the halls of power, especially when they were allied with reactionary governments. He would no doubt have had some trenchant commentary on the US and its allies, and the interference they put up during Morales’ journey home from Moscow, as he did about his own difficulties, as a known friend to Castro’s Cuba, in getting a visa to speaking the US.

I was introduced to his work in a meaningful way by the very accessible translations of Benedetti by my friend and client Louise B. Popkin, of Arlington, Mass. She was a personal friend of Benedetti and worked closely with him to translate a large selection of Benedetti’s poetry, available in a critically acclaimed bilingual edition, Witness: The Selected Poems of Mario Benedetti.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Business-general, Publishing Tagged with , , , , , ,

Book buyers: looks like the party’s winding down. Amazon’s once-generous discounts are slowly going away, as this article in the New York Times reports.

I’ve been expecting this for years. Now that Amazon has kicked so many competitors to the ground through ruthless discounting, the laws of the market decree rising prices. This is what happens when a company gains a market share bordering on monopoly—while establishing a tech and logistics infrastructure that would be very difficult for a new competitor to match, so the likelihood of being undercut on a mass scale as they did to others is slim. Amazon has also, for many years been utterly ruthless in its dealings with other segments of the market (particularly small independent publishers, where years ago it started extracting a 55 percent discount in an industry where the normal bookstore discount had been 40 percent).

Amazon’s history is full of stuff that looks a lot like bullying. I always expected predatory pricing—coming in willing to take a short-term loss through lower prices, in order to drive competitors out of business, and then raising the prices when consumers no longer have alternatives—was part of the strategy. What made it work for them, as the Times article points out, is that…

In its 16 years as a public company, Amazon has received unique permission from Wall Street to concentrate on expanding its infrastructure, increasing revenue at the expense of profit. Stockholders have pushed Amazon shares up to a record level, even though the company makes only pocket change. Profits were always promised tomorrow.

Small publishers wonder if tomorrow is finally here, and they are the ones who will pay for it.

 

 

Publishers accepted the higher discount because:

  • They had no choice
  • Amazon does provide some services that used to require a wholesaler (and wholesalers traditionally buy at 55 percent off)
  • AND the higher discount did translate into a reader benefit: reduced prices

Now that the third reason is being eroded, it will be interesting to see if publishers rebel. However, now it’s probably too late. Amazon is the only mass retail channel that routinely deals with tiny publishers. Barnes & Noble, the last remaining competing megachannel, prefers to buy from wholesalers (yes, I know, there are exceptions). If you say goodbye to Amazon, you’d better have some non-bookstore channels in place.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Innovation Tagged with , , ,

This morning, I chanced across Green Inventions: 10 Hot Eco-Innovations That Could Change The Planet on Huffington Post Green. It’s a good list, including such modern wonders as LED lighting, industrial-scale composting, and LEED green building certification. However, it’s far from complete.

At the end of the article, readers were offered a chance to add to the list. Here’s what I wrote:

There are so many wonderful innovations: Zero Waste, passive solar design, urban rooftop farming (something I’ve been advocating since about 1980), small-space vertical gardens for apartment dwellers, lower-impact adaptive technology like using a tiny wheelchair hatchback instead of a big galumphing gas-guzzling wheelchair van (the hatchback door becomes a ramp–no hydraulics needed), solar chargers, the Stretch building code…the list goes on and on.

It’s an exciting time, and I am optimistic. Yes, it would have been easier to make all the sweeping changes 30 years ago–and we already knew how. I know of a house deep in the Colorado Rockies near Aspen (think snow, cold winters) that was designed so well–in 1983–that not only doesn’t it need a furnace, it has banana trees in the sunroom. But we can still get it together and reverse the damage to the planet while creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. All we need is the will.

I realize I didn’t even mention the money we save when we do these things, though I did get one of the economic arguments in (jobs).

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