Pros and Cons of Self Publishing

This article is based on my experience writing and self-publishing two titles to date. My research cuts across many sources: published books, online learning, social media groups, verbal sharing of experiences and lessons learned at the coal face. It is my intention to ‘tell it  how it is’ and of course this is my perception to date.

Pros:
1)      You have complete control

You can choose what you write, how you package, how you market. Everything. And you can retain all your rights, provided you are wise to not signing them away to a vanity publisher or service company along the way. You don’t need to, so don’t. Read every letter of every agreement and if it looks ‘bad’ for your interests find a better route to market. Self publishing means that you own all of your book rights, that’s the deal. If you decide to sell some of them, make sure you take legal advice and receive payment.

2)      You can sell your own product in the market

No one can stop you selling your works directly to the public. For example, if your ‘Memoirs of a Frog Prince’ is complete, you can publish pretty much everywhere via Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords etc. without anyone else approving your work. You can also publish for relatively little outlay in e-book and print. (But that does not mean you will necessarily sell many copies, most titles sell less than 100 ever).

3)      You can sell product to readers (almost) directly

It is possible to sell product from your own website, but you will probably reach a far greater audience via Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords etc. These platforms will take a cut, but that cut is far less than a traditional publisher would take if you were signed-up. (However, your book would be likely to reach far more sales outlets and territories in print with a good deal at a good traditional publisher).

4)      It is possible to succeed

If your work is good enough and you work hard enough to find your audience, you could succeed all by yourself. However, not all books will be good enough and not all reader audiences can be found online. The proportion of ‘winners’ in this game is relatively small. You will need luck, a strong sequence of products and a lot of hard work to succeed commercially.

Before you write I suggest studying BookBub’s advertising rate chart for several days. See it here: http://www.bookbub.com/advertise/pricing.php

I wish I had seen it a lot earlier. Basically, this is as close as you’ll get to understanding the real potential market for your books, pro-rata. Of course the total world market is bigger than this, but the proportions are valid and representative for the UK and US markets. For example, you may wish to compete in a more widely read e-book genre than ‘Teen and Young Adult’ if you are just starting out. (I wish I had).

5)      You can achieve commercial success without the gatekeepers

The definition of ‘success’ is probably a case by case matter by writer and genre. Certainly, there are (some) professional self-published writers who make a decent living from writing books. They tend to be writers of multiple books for adult genres. They tend to be very hard working and strong minded, as well as good, solid writers.

For many writers, self-published (or indeed traditionally published) books are likely to be an additional source of income rather than a primary source, at least for the early part of their careers. And this is not unusual historically. Many famous writers held substantial jobs while writing their major works. J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis being two notable examples.

Cons:

1)      It is all down to you

The flip-side of control is that you have to do it all yourself. Or you need to find people you can pay who can assist you. Editors, cover artists, e-book designers and print book designers being essential services you will need. Most of your competitors will be using professional help as well, so be aware. You are all competing for repeat readers!

You also need to learn as much about online book marketing and promotion as you do about how to write a quality book. Omit this step at your peril. If you hope to sell in volume, you need to know how to oil the gears of your own selling machine. And that learning continues for years…

2)      Big companies will block you

It is a fact of the world we live in that big businesses will block out smaller businesses until the start-ups somehow ‘breakthrough’. At which point, they will consider buying them out, if they can. Sorry to kill off the romance, but you are basically selling a product which the world does not  want to know about until it sells a lot of units. Yes, it is a catch-22. So to slay some more dreams in the bud while I’m on a roll:

• Chain stores will resist all attempts by you to stock your books in preference for their deals with established publishers and authors. (Independents are still an option.)
• Libraries will resist attempts by you to stock more than a handful of ‘local books’ in their county.
• Online libraries will refer you to their partner – probably Overdrive – who will refuse to deal with you directly and will refer you to an ‘aggregator’ such as Smashwords.
• Bookbub will refuse to take your advertising unless you meet their criteria or are very fortunate. (They won’t elaborate on why) This is because they have plenty of other paying customers for their advertising space and can afford to pick and choose their customers (lucky them).
• Agents will send you standard rejection letters (or emails) unless you are incredibly diligent and lucky. Because they have plenty of other books to sell. By the way ‘Not suitable for our list’ means ‘we don’t think we can (or want to) sell your book’ . It’s a sugar coated ‘no way’. (And many of them also rejected J.K. Rowling – so what do they know?)
• Publishing companies will likewise reject your work, unless you are incredibly diligent and lucky. Because they also have plenty of other books to sell. And they listen mostly to Agents.
• Publications will blank your attempts to request reviews in print or online. Because they have plenty of other published books to review and are (probably) paid in kind for such reviews. (It’s easily done in this world).
• If you have personal contacts in any of the above use them!!!!!!!  (And then share them with me please)
  

3)      You will have to give away and heavily discount your product

Because everyone else does. Therefore you will end up giving away hundreds or thousands of units in the hope of picking up ‘visibility’ on Amazon and climbing sales charts. The precise details of ‘why’ vary with the manner in which Amazon compile their sales charts. However, the premise is simple – your work is unknown and will remain so until it appears on some ‘best selling’ lists. If it is seen and reviewed well, people will buy it. To achieve that push you will need to give away some copies and discount some copies. (Ouch!)

You will also have to provide an incentive for people to subscribe to your newsletters. A discounted or free book being an appropriate ‘gift’.  Likewise to gain those illusive online reviews, readers and bloggers will expect free books in exchange for their time and (hopefully) their kind words.

4)      It is also possible to fail commercially

You may succeed in writing a great book, your best ever book etc. However, commercial failure is entirely possible. Even if you learn and work hard at marketing and promotion, it is not a certainty that enough people will buy your books to make you more than 100 sales. Life is not fair, there are no guarantees and it does hurt. Sorry, but that is the truth.

It is also possible that you may not be cut out to be a writer in a commercial sense. That is not to say that you have ‘failed’ as such. No. Simply, that you will need to have other income available to live on while you write for your own pleasure or for other goals. At some point, a competition win or a big name review could change your fortunes as an author, but until that time….

Consider this: A writer produces a quality book that is well presented and does not fit easily into an established genre. They try all the regular routes to self-publish and promote. However, what they may not realise (ever) is that their work might be an acquired taste or a niche work. That is not to say that their writing lacks merit. It simply means that – like the vast majority of books – it will sell in trickles rather than floods, because that book’s market is relatively difficult to find or is quite small.

Or this: A writer markets their work to the hilt and writes for a genre that sells well. They produce a few books, promote them well etc. What they may not realise (ever) is that their work basically ‘sucks’. It falls short of the standards their potential readers require to pass on a recommendation. This may be incredibly tough to accept, but it happens. And no one will tell you for fear of causing offence. (You may not believe them anyway). On the plus side you can always improve! And in time, you will recognise on reading back your own work how good it really is. Meantime, keep up the day job!

Luck, hard work and persistence remain key factors for any ‘overnight success’ and writing is no different. (I’m very much at this stage right now).

As an informed guess, you will need at least three titles to make a serious impact and probably four. The first will likely fail, but you will learn from it. The next two will be better quality and you will be better placed to promote them. By the third you have enough product to ‘sacrifice’ to giveaways and heavy discounts. And you will gain in cross-sales with your other titles. Plus, you will have built a name within your reader population. Blog followers, subscriber lists, twitter followers etc. all add up and provide better chances for you to directly promote your books to interested readers.

5)      You will still need to negotiate with ‘gatekeepers’

It would be great to think that ‘gatekeepers’ with approved ‘lists’ will go away when you self-publish. (Agents, Publishers and PR people run a ‘list’ of work they represent or are trying to sell for). Unfortunately the ‘gatekeepers’ won’t go away, instead they morph and change.

To succeed as a self-published author you will still need endorsements and acceptance for your work from a number of people. Not all of who will be as open minded to the merit of your work as you are. These include:

• Book bloggers – generally they want genre and quality consistent with their values and interests. (Vampire bloggers are not ‘into’ sci-fi for example)
• Book advertisers – ditto with their audience goals and their income models.
• Amazon – can (in theory) reject/take down works which have reader complaints against them. It may be rare, but it can happen.
• Customer book reviewers – need an angle to want to like your work. It is not a level playing field (sorry) An ‘okay read’ will not usually result in a review. A high profile book will attract far more sales and therefore far more reviews. Not all of them good I hasten to add.
• Your first readers – will obviously judge your work against their own likes and dislikes
• Your social media contacts – will generally want to associate more with ‘rising stars’ than ‘unknowns’
• Your potential ‘fans’ – by definition will like the work that ticks their boxes. If they are ‘your’  fans you will want to look after them. Nurture them. Hug them even.

In conclusion, while there is no one recipe for success in an ever-changing world of book publishing (thank goodness), there are some truisms:

• The winners take almost all of the cake – see the published book sales figures for any given year
• The harder you work, the luckier you will become
• Success breeds success – fiction books (like pop music) is a very polarised market with a very ‘long tail’ of low volume selling titles.
• Successful titles come from the most popular genres – which is de facto a statistical certainty and relates also to demographics.

Good luck and happy writing

David Jarrett

www.SeanYeager.com

Sean Yeager and the DNA Thief available now at Amazon, Kobo

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted. Available now at Amazon, Kobo etc

Star Trek Into Darkness – film review

Star Trek Into Darkness – Film Review

 

I recently watched the latest Star Trek episode and here is my review. There are a few minor and non-specific spoilers so please be aware if you wish to know nothing at all about the movie before viewing.

Into Darkness continues the re-imagining trend that Hollywood seems to love at the moment. Perhaps it is easier for the ‘money people’ to sign-off re-workings of existing branded film series? With the recent Batman and forthcoming Superman it seems to be a continuing fashion.

Q: Did you enjoy the film?
 Overall I enjoyed Into Darkness. I found it action packed and well delivered. It’s worth seeing if you liked the first of the re-makes. The action is pretty much non-stop and it plays out as solid and undemanding entertainment.

Q: What was good?
 I liked the strife and tensions which the crew of Enterprise experience. There are some clever touches in the execution. Most of the action is fun to watch and there are a number of surprises along the way. I say ‘most’ because some of the action is toe curlingly stupid.

Q: What was not so good?
 I watched the 3D version and I found it quite flat. It was like watching cereal box cut outs in many scenes. Three layers of flat with a few blurry arrows does not make it 3D.
Also, while the plot is well written, I found it very contrived. As in ridiculous. Yes of course we’re meant to suspend disbelief and ‘go with the flow’ – to an extent. However, they threw in the kitchen sink, tiles, foundations and sub-strata mantle to prove a point. What point? That Star Trek is action packed and fun to watch. Doh! Well I never? I think we sort of guessed that before we watched the film. So where was the clever writing? I suspect they retired or were fired.

Q: Explain?
There are plot flaws all over the place. While the production hides them and keeps the pace up, it is basically a highly implausible ‘deus ex-machina’ plot and a re-write of Undiscovered Country. Not once does ingenuity on Kirk’s behalf save the day. Nor for that matter does the enemy do anything clever. In a vaguely real world Kirk and co would be pushing up daisies at least three times.

Q: So what?
Indeed. And that is also what I came out of the cinema thinking. If you cheat in the plot then ‘so what?’ applies to the whole film. This for me is the big difference between a solid film and a classic. Into Darkness left me with a hollow saccharine feeling, as good as it was in execution. Dr Who may as well have popped up to save the day in his Tardis. Or an old wrinkly Spock in some future proofed illogical space time machine. (But hey they did that before).
By contrast, the sci-fi film Oblivion left me thinking about a whole load of things for several days. Mostly about humanity and what makes us tick. While it has some flaws it was a far better film than Into Darkness in my view.

Q: On balance?
Into Darkness is good, solid entertainment, but not a classic film. The makers over-reached on several levels and while it makes for an enjoyable film, it also cheapens the proposition. Part of the fun with the original TV series was that people failed and limped away with injuries quite often. Kirk used his ingenuity and arguments to win out. In this film he basically displays little intelligence, some blind courage and should have lost several times over. Is that a modern day hero now? Have a go at any costs?

Q: Worth watching?
Yes, it is an entertaining film. Just don’t apply too much thought to the plot or it will cave in. What Should Have Happened Next will have a field day with this one.

“But Captain, this plot is illogical. In a vaguely consistent universe we should all have been dead five times over by now.”
“Spock, stop thinking about it. We have a franchise to milk!”
“I find your logic flawed and illogical Captain, that’s what I’m here to do.”

And as a parting thought, if you do watch the movie (and I’m sure many will) consider this – who is Captain Kirk by the close? I refer to the key plot points and ‘solutions’

Suffice to say this film will be quickly digested and forgotten.
Next candy bar anyone?

Happy watching

David Jarrett
Sean Yeager

 

 

Ingredients for a hit novel

Recently I’ve been considering ‘what makes a hit novel’? And here are my thoughts:

1) Characters we care about

A hit novel contains a handful of great characters that you grow to love and want to follow. And there are many examples we can all call to mind: Darcy, Harry Potter, James Bond, Hannibal etc. If we care about the characters, we’ll want to know what happens next to them.  And if we don’t, we may well put the book back down.

2) Plenty of incident & twists

To keep us awake and stop us from skipping ahead or worse switching off. A hit novel contains plenty of action, regardless of the genre. Things happen, challenges are faced and our hero has to overcome stuff. Otherwise it can become ‘interesting’, but basically dull and uneventful. Spicing things up with events we can’t predict also helps a lot.

3) A quirk or three

People become bored with formula pretty quickly. Most hit novels contain at least a few grains of ‘uniqueness’. Whether it be: dark threats and scandal in Scandinavia; allegorical animals in a boat; an orphaned wunderkind wizard; dystopian gladiators on TV; or rich man, innocent girl and a heap of sexual experiments (or smut).

4) Ease of reading

You notice I did not highlight ‘elegant writing’. That may win prizes and be a worthy aim in itself, but readers want to be able to read easily. They want to be able to enjoy the story without reaching for a dictionary.

5) A place you want to visit in your head

In my view novels are escapism. Along the way we learn things about the world of our characters and ultimately ourselves. A hit book asks questions of the reader in a subtle way, such as ‘what would you do in this situation?’ It also takes the reader to a place they want to learn about and experience from the safety of their reading location.

6) Visibility

Of course none of the above would matter unless readers were talking about a book and recommending it to their friends. As with the Fifty Shades series, that recommendation may be more a viral ‘you need to read it to believe it’ kind of thing or a ‘but is it actually any good?’  In my view that particular series is written in an okay manner and is highly effective as titillation and for provoking interest. And clearly it is a massive hit.

That’s all for now

Happy reading

D.M. Jarrett

Sean Yeager and the DNA Thief Cover, available now at Amazon, Kobo

Oblivion – sci-fi film review

Hi,

I’m just back from watching the film ‘Oblivion’ on the big screen. There may be a few minor spoilers so please be aware. I’m going to structure this article as a Q & A, since we are ‘an effective team’ in these parts.

• Q: Is it worth watching?
• A: If you like cerebral sci-fi such as Bladerunner, Vanilla Sky and The Matrix – yes it is a must see. There are some memorable quotes in the movie  too.

• Q: How good is it?
• A: I found it visually stunning and very stylised. I felt that the sci-fi ideas and twists were intriguing and the plot was well structured. For me it was thought provoking and for that reason alone worth watching.

• Q: What are it’s strengths and weaknesses?
• A: The landscape visuals are great. It is essentially a post-apocalyptic vision with utopian and dystopian strands. There are some good action sequences and a meditative quality in the memory sections. Initially I was not bowled over by the acting style of the main leads, but it makes sense when you think it over at the end. There are some plot holes – as is often the case – the old perennials being: how do they eat / drink / survive. And strangely I found myself questioning the entire premise for the couple being in the rather penthouse tower in the first place. While it is the core of the story, I wondered why it was necessary to ‘Sally’. 

• Q: Why should someone pass on the movie?
• A: If you like straight action shoot-ups and non-stop drama then it’s probably fair to say you’re better off watching other films. If on the other hand you enjoy films like Vanilla Sky then go and watch Oblivion.

• Q: Do you agree with Mark Kermode’s review?
• A: I can see where he’s coming from, but no I don’t see Oblivion that way. I liked the place the film took my mind and I was prepared to go with it. I am also aware of some generic weaknesses which seem to come with the territory – and many of which are also present in films such as Avatar. Compared to ‘super hero’ movies Oblivion is high end sci-fi. I thought it raised some interesting thoughts about the nature of humanity and who we are. I liked it.

• Q: But is it original?
• A: You could say that Oblivion is a composite of ideas from many sources and I can see that argument. However, for me Oblivion has enough originality to stand up on it’s own merits. Also I find that we tend to become picky about sci-fi films, but in the trailers was yet another batch of generic films: a wedding comedy; a super-hero saves the world; a bunch of cartoon goodies and baddies etc. If we applied the same yardstick to those genres we would equally fill a book with comparisons – and far more predictable endings.

• Q: Was there anything you really disliked about the movie?
• A: I was disappointed we did not see the Tet better conceived. I felt it could have been done better and in a more original way.

• Q: What were the highlights?
• A: I liked the question of ‘what is love anyway?’ that popped into my mind in the key act. And i liked the panoramic views they created for the dragonfly ship to skip around.

• Q: And in conclusion?
• A: I recommend watching it and enjoying the strengths. I would like to see it again.

That’s all for now folks…..

D.M. Jarrett
Author of Sean Yeager Adventures.

Earth. Two alien races. A secret war.
Can Sean Yeager survive long enough to find his father?
www.SeanYeager.com

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted

Self publishers – how to reach your future readers…… tips and learnings

Hi,

I thought I would share a few learnings before I start taking what I have picked up for granted. After many hours I’ve learned one thing more than anything – authors need to keep learning and connecting with their readers and peers. Because self-publishing is a constantly evolving enterprise and world.

How to reach an audience online? Partly it’s about luck, mostly it is about toil and being interesting for your audience.

Here in no set order are some tips. I hope you find them useful.

1) Set-up your own website with your own branding and content relevant to your books. Cross-link your online presence in all directions with your website as the hub. Brand your website and link to reviews, sales points, samples and everything else you can think of.

2) Make absolutely certain that your books are as good as you think they are AND as good as they can be. Find some critical readers and correct ALL the typos, mistakes and rubbish parts. Polish, polish, polish. IF the feedback is poor or ‘iffy’ STOP. Re-write your book until it shines under all lights. If you cringe when you read back a section, it is because it is not good enough, YET.  Or it might need to be cut out completely……

NOTE: Omit this step at your peril. Bad reviews can not be deleted later when you attract a level of interest. If your book(s) suck paying customers really will tell you so….. and in so doing tell the whole world. Plus you could spend a lot of hours promoting yourself and your work with a relatively poor product to sell. And that will ultimately prove painful.

3) Join a group or two of like minded self-publishers. I recommend the Alliance of Independent Authors. This will help you to stay in touch with developments, meet helpful people and ultimately keep you relatively sane. And contribute what you can in return as well – it’s good for the soul.

4) Set-up and use Twitter, being authentic, interesting and book / fiction centric in the main. Your aim is to connect with people who can help you, read your work and people you can help in return – by entertaining them with great books or sharing learnings.

If you use Twitter automation tools be aware that Twitter could suspend your account. So be careful and as low key initially as you can be. I do not recommend buying followers or for that matter book reviews.

5) Set-up and use Facebook. Create a Facebook page for your books. Upload interesting content and cross link to everywhere. Friend authors, readers, book clubs and anyone you reasonably ‘know’ or share an interest with. Avoid complete strangers and people peddling non-book stuff.

6) Set-up and use Goodreads. Become an author and ‘claim’ your books. Use the groups to make connections. If you have print copies, create ‘giveaways’ over a 2 to 3 month period. Use a ‘pull’ model to attract and invite interest. Do not chase or hassle on Goodreads, they don’t like it! They could bar you.

7) Set-up and use Librarything. Load your books etc. Use your Bio (that you created way back for your website) and run e-book or print giveaways.

8) Set-up and start writing a blog. Use it as your own lessons learned log and a way of talking about your journey. It’s your blog so experiment with the style you prefer. Do you want to be a book / writing tips consultant? Or maybe a reviewer / blogger? Or perhaps a commentator on a particle genre of media that ties in with your books? Your blog. Your call.

9) Keep writing your books. All the above is pretty much useless until you have written your next and subsequent books. Why? Because it will take you time to do and you need multiple titles to cross-sell to your audience. Satisfied customers will ask – ‘when can I read the next one?’

10) Commercials matter. Price appropriately and DO NOT give away too many books. You are a business and you do not want to promote yourself as a ‘free writer’ who values their work as only good enough to give away. Possibly run promos for limited periods across titles, possibly have a sacrificial promo title that will always be free. Remember basic maths – making one thousand bucks is a whole lot easier if you are charging 2.99 than if you are charging nothing or 99 pennies. Remember, the big indie authors usually have lots of titles and a huge audience. You don’t. Yet.

11) Monitor your SEO and presence online by regular Google and Bing searches. Check what sites are moving up the rankings and promoting your work. Your work will still have to sell itself ultimately, but your page rankings matter if you want to attract browsers. You will also have to take a realistic look at your book market and Google Adwords analysis of terms ‘searched for’ can be a sobering exercise. Are people really looking for funny books about duodenal ulcers and the family consequences? That’s not a dig, but you do need to be realistic about your market expectations. Not every genre sells and that’s a reality.

12) Treat all your online contacts (messages, posts, responses, emails) in a consistently jovial and constructive manner. Never enter a slanging match EVER online. Because it will not go away, it will be recorded for a long, long time. Ignore bad reviews; block inappropriate followers and comments; delete what you have control over if it is plain abusive. HOWEVER – leave constructive comments alone and learn from them.

13) Write this out and repeat it daily. ‘I will learn more from a constructive and harsh critic of my work than I ever will from my friends’.

It’s true. You will. It will hurt initially, but you have to learn how to open your mind to the reality that no one’s work is perfect. Everyone can improve how they write, how they plot, what they write about etc etc. Even the pros. Check out any successful book’s reviews on Amazon to see the array of thoughts if you don’t believe me.

And of course you can select which parts of the feedback to action. Often people will give conflicting suggestions, so look for the patterns. Consider whether they have a point. (That is after you’ve (privately and offline) fumed and vented your initial reaction).

14) Last and by no means least – be yourself across all sites, media and in the real world. Have fun and consider all the new skills you’re learning as positives. In theory, you could now promote almost anything online. You will also have to learn firm time management and how to stay healthy – another time perhaps for those topics.

Good luck

David Jarrett

Sean Yeager Adventures

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted

Why do corporate acquisitions often fail?

Hi

As a complete departure from recent posts I was moved to apply some thought to why successful companies acquire instead of growing organically.

Recently we have seen news that Amazon is buying another company, this time Goodreads. This is in addition to acquisitions of Lovefilm, IMDb, Shelfari and many more – see: History of Amazon Acquisitions

While I am not in a position to comment on or measure the success or otherwise of Amazon’s purchases, it is a well known and quantified fact that the majority of corporate acquisitions fail. One of the most high profile failures being AOL and Time Warner’s ‘merger’. (In reality mergers are takeovers and power is never shared.)

Acquisitions most certainly lead to change, but not all change is that great. For each penicillin we have examples such as over population. (More people survive, more people breed, more people equals more land pressure, a failed harvest can then lead to a worse situation than before).

So what contributes to the failure of these acquisitions?  A quick piece of research will tell you the following – to which I have added my personal experience, having been on the buyer and bought side several times as an underling employee.

Flawed business logic

The buyer assumes sales increases, cost savings and growth of the customer base. They tend to believe what is pitched to them. They also tend to overlook – the cost of acquiring and merging; internal competition for the same business; culture differences; and loss of confidence from the customer base. Plus the wars of attrition internally for control of the ‘purchased’ business – department by department, decision by decision.

Result – the synergies and growth plans that were sold or believed to be ‘achievable’ quite often turn out to be falsely based or hollow. Seriously though – why should a ‘get richer quick scheme’ work anyhow? If the underlying business was so great, how come the original owners sold up?

Flawed understanding of the new business

Buyers rarely ‘get’ the ethos and ‘reason for being’ or ‘USP’ of the company they acquire. In effect they kill the patient with ‘the cures’ of being ‘right sized’, ‘synergised’ and ‘integrated’. The prevalent corporate culture (accountants and lawyers) is not on the same planet as that of entrepreneurs. The quick witted, smart people who worked without a pile of paperwork become bogged down by the buyers’ demands and controlling disposition. Good stuff stops happening and eventually employees ‘check out’ mentally. The brand usually suffers.

Flawed deal management

The buyers often pay a premium and can pay far too much for the underlying value of the company they acquire. In time this leads to all manner of problems as pressure is applied to ‘make a return’ from the acquisition. Common problems being starving the acquisition of funding and treating it like an underling at senior management level.

It should also be remembered that quite often the cost of the purchase is ‘chicken feed’ to the purchaser. This leads to disdain or even moth balling of the purchased company. An asset and brand strip can become the buyers’ strategy because it is easier and quickly mitigates the cost of acquisition to appease critics. Extraordinary write-offs being the order of the day to save on the parent company’s  tax payments.

Flawed corporate development

Hardly anyone on the face of the planet really knows how to integrate businesses. Because businesses contain senior employees with huge egos and ambitions to match. In other words – it is hellishly difficult to build chemistry having run a takeover which not everyone  wanted or benefited from in the first place.

The usual pattern is to force out / negotiate out the acquired Directors with pay-offs and streamline the acquisition. This literally removes the knowledge that built the ‘value’ that was purchased in the first place.

It then becomes Dumb and Dumber – because those put in charge of the acquisition do not have a clue what they are running or how to make it work. By which I am referring to managing the acquisitions’ operational and financial strengths and weaknesses. It can take a year to 18 months for newbies (however highly regarded) to become effective leaders of the purchased company. And often they never get it or worse they simply try and turn the acquired into the parent’s offspring. (Hardly diversification is it?)

In addition, most of the main talent in the acquisition will walk for good reasons. Uncertainty, change of culture, planned redundancies and being treated like ‘the losers’ because their company was bought out. Bear in mind that the acquired Directors almost certainly have an ‘exit strategy’ lined up and will ship out with plenty of money.

So why do big corporations feel the need to buy out other companies?

Well in many cases it is to control assets such as oil reserves, mines and patents which are self-evidently valuable in their own right. And these acquisitions are probably far easier to succeed with because of their tangible nature. Sometimes it is to ‘stop someone else’ from buying those assets.

As for the ‘intangible’ and ‘service’ acquisitions, I suspect it has to do with choosing an easier path than organic growth and has a lot to do with egos. We must never forget that Directors seek to increase their own wealth first and foremost. If they can make a case for being paid more because they ‘successfully acquired’ another business, they will. And who will sense check their decisions anyhow? The shareholders once a year? It’s far too late by then.

So no, I’m not clapping my hands with glee now that Amazon has acquired another business.

That’s all from this soap box…..

Happy reading

D.M. Jarrett

Author of Sean Yeager Adventures

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted

 

Website page read stats – what can you trust?

Hello and welcome,

When not writing the highly entertaining Sean Yeager adventures series, I do what I can to spread the word. A phenomenon I’ve come across recently is a massive disparity between website page read stats from different sources. And by massive I mean 1000% inaccuracies.

So what do we mean by a page read?  Simply – how many times did someone open (and hopefully read) a page of your content? (Or more precisely – the number of discrete page impression per browser session / IP combinations by a human being in a given time frame).

(Definitions – IP meaning IP address which can identify a single machine or at least a service provider’s bundle of active connections to the internet. Session being a period of active use of a given website before a log-off / period of inactivity. )

Now that may seem like a very straightforward concept. And it is. However, consider this:

1. A website site counter showing 2000 reads with peaks of 100+ per day for a rolling month
2. Google Analytics stats reporting 50 reads with peaks of 4 per day for a rolling month

And that’s for the same website and for the same month.

And on Scribd for related content:

1. Scribd document counter showing 3000+ reads for a given period
2. Scribd user map counter showing 12 users who have ever read the content for the same content and period

So what’s going on here and how can we interpret these conflicting web stats?

Firstly, they are all strictly incorrect as a measure of real people, because that is impossible to measure unless everyone logs in and/or saves cookies for the whole month, while using the same device / log-in. The reason being that no website can recognise and verify the person browsing the content unless they choose to positively identify themselves. (Consider a shared public or home computer or multiple log-in Ids per person or multiple devices per person).

Also, if people have Javascript or some session hiding software active that can also distort the stats. Sure, you see a trend. However it does not answer the question – ‘how many people read my content?’ It leads to an approximation, which is as good as you can reasonably expect.

In addition, we have to eliminate web crawling software, malware and robots that trawl for content from our numbers. This should be easy given that their sessions on any given page will be very short and their IPs repeat. However, many counters do not look at such information. Which means that …..

We can only gauge ‘real people’ responses based on comments, subscriptions, purchases and log-ins. Otherwise we are left with vague ‘ball parks’ and trend indicators and that is all.

From my experience Google Analytics under-counts and unfiltered website counters over-count. (I base my Google assertion on tests that bypass Google search results and use JScript =Off with cache clearing each time).

Incidentally, there are no apparent patterns that I’ve noticed to correlate between the two sets of figures either. One might expect a busy day to show up as spikes using either measuring method, but in my experience they don’t. I’ve had a spike on Google and nothing unusual on the website stats and vice-versa. I often have spikes on the website counter and next to nothing reported on Google. Which is frustrating and perplexing.

Bottom line – if you really need to know your traffic stats, you need to find a website SEO tool that is impartial and well integrated with your site / blog. Unfortunately, you can not rely on free tools and counters if you need accuracy. And you’ll need a webserver log analytics analyser to see what is really happening – but that is for the big commercial sites only. For the rest of us we simply need to make do with the free or cheap alternatives.

Hope you found that useful. That’s all for now.

Happy reading

D.M. Jarrett

Author of Sean Yeager books

DNA Thief and Hunters Hunted

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted