Playing games instead of solving problems

We have satellite TV and recently experienced problems receiving local television channels. After repeated calls to customer service, they finally determined a tech needed to be sent to our house. Even though the issue is in their equipment, they wanted to charge a hundred dollars for the service call. I complained and they immediately cut the price in half. Rather than agree I told them I’d get back to them later. 

Filling my mailbox daily are offers from companies like AT&T U-verse and Charter Communications among others. Each is asking for my business and are giving special pricing. All, actually, are playing a zero-sum game. This is because each company at any time has dissatisfied customers. They know that if their offer hits my mailbox at the precise moment I’m having problems, chances are I’ll call. 

Before getting back to the satellite company I called another provider. During that call it occurred to me that my satellite service would rather lose me as a customer than give a “read deal.” Instead, they save their best for new prospective customers. They are, in fact, playing a zero-sum game of attrition where they have accepted the loss of customers, and rather than provide truly exceptional customer service use marketing to pull in the dissatisfied customers of their competitors. 

While their approach makes no common sense, it is how they have chosen to conduct business. 

As a result, I called my satellite company and told them “no thanks” and that I was taking my business elsewhere. 

Immediately they switched me to their “customer retention” department where I was offered tech service at no charge. 

But I declined telling the representative that I will await a new marketing program from them once the special rate with my new service expires. After all, it is how they themselves have determined they want to “play the game.”

But isn’t it sad that we as consumers have to play such games. Long gone are the days when companies wanted to keep their existing customers satisfied and, as a result, have longterm business relationships. 

It is now all about what we get in terms of a deal rather than the quality of the services we receive. 

Rather than now going into a commercial minute about how good the services are that Principia offers, I challenge you to think about any service you’ve had has been exceptional. No matter if it is the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker. Whose service have you experienced lately that was over the top exceptional? And what happened that made it so good?

By Dirk Wierenga, Principia Director of Publishing

In Publishing, many of the worst roads traveled lead to Bloomington, Indiana

An author friend called recently to say she had just received a call from West Bow Press which, she informed me, was a division of Thomas Nelson (a Christian publishing unit of HarperCollins Publishers which itself is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media empire). She went on to say that even though West Bow is a self-publishing company, Thomas Nelson regularly chooses books published by them for traditional royalty contracts. 

For those in the publishing world the mere mention of West Bow, or one of the other affiliates of Bloomington, Indiana based Author Solutions, brings shudders. While there are many successful stories involving self-publishing over the past several hundred years, big companies like Author Solutions imply, through their marketing, that the odds of success are much higher (and the tasks easier) than they really are. 

Having been involved in the publishing of hundreds of books, it is my experience that it takes something special to make a book a success. By something special I mean that the book has to command a niche or be seen as an essential tool by prospective readers. Sadly, books do not sell on their own. Simply floating a book out there into the marketplace will not yield positive results.

Often I look at a book much as I would an investment into a business startup. To find success see how well can you answer the following questions: 

Who exactly is going to buy your book? 

Saying a book will appeal to anyone age eight to eighty shopping in conventional bookstores is not a good answer. 

How will your book find its intended customer? 

A nonfiction book that has a distinct market niche that is easily googled often works. In fiction and memoir, because the genres are not search engine friendly, the ability of an author to hand-sell their book at events is paramount.  

Is your book content professionally edited and designed? 

For a book to have any chance of success the fundamentals of having a world-class cover design and top notch editing are essential.

Do you have the wherewithal to engage the marketplace?

Good publicity and promotion are costly endeavors if done by professionals and time-consuming if done by the author.

Is there an experienced team assembled to properly produce and market your book?

Having a publisher with a knowledgeable team that is experienced in all aspects of publishing cannot be overstated. 

One issue (among many) I have with large corporations like Author Solutions are that their support team generally has no real-world experience publishing successful books. One salesperson from Author Solutions’ imprint Author House once admitted he had worked at a fast-food restaurant just prior to being hired a month earlier. 

As a prospective author, you have worked very hard to research and write your manuscript. You only will have one opportunity to successfully release your book. Mistakes and poor design cannot be assuaged by attempting to use “brute force” to push a book onto an unsuspecting public. Readers today are far too sophisticated to purchase something that appears second rate. 

Whether you publish with us or with another publisher, be sure you are dealing with people who are straight shooters who explain all potential publishing options available to you. If a publishing program offers so-called packages, be wary. In my many years of experience I have yet to see a one-size-fits-all program that serves the author well. At Principia, when we evaluate an author proposal we use the same process as top New York City publishing houses. After all, doesn’t your book deserve the very best?

By Dirk Wierenga, Principia Media Director of Publishing and owner of Fox River Press

The strange journey of Pastor Jeremiah Steepek and his so-called flock of 10,000

Perhaps you’ve received the following in your Facebook page. “Pastor Jeremiah Steepek (pictured below) transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service, only 3 people out of the 7-10,000 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food - NO ONE in the church gave him change. He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was asked by the ushers if he would please sit n the back. He greeted people to be greeted back with stares and dirty looks, with people looking down on him and judging him.

“As he sat in the back of the church, he listened to the church announcements and such. When all that was done, the elders went up and were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation. "We would like to introduce to you Pastor Jeremiah Steepek." The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle. The clapping stopped with ALL eyes on him. He walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment then he recited, 

‘“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“'The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“After he recited this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning. Many began to cry and many heads were bowed in shame. He then said, ‘"Today I see a gathering of people, not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples. When will YOU decide to become disciples?’

“He then dismissed service until next week.

“Being a Christian is more than something you claim. It's something you live by and share with others.

Being a skeptic I Googled the pastor’s name and found the story had been totally made up and then disseminated over the Internet by many well-meaning people. 

When I posted it as a hoax on my own page, several people defended the story saying it was indicative of the behavior of many “church people.” 

While that may be true, my problem is the idea of planting a hoax story to get people to think (or feel badly). In my opinion, many Christians feel they “need” to evangelize and if it means making others feel guilty, so be it. But that is the same type of behavior many outside the church so dislike about overtly evangelical Christians. 

If, in fact, there is a God how dare we think that we can wrap our tiny human minds around a spirit so powerful. I figure if we follow the example of Jesus we are walking in tall cotton. 

What do you think of the hoax story about Jeremiah Steepek? Is it okay to broadcast an untrue story as truth to make a point? 

Dirk Wierenga, Principia Media Director of Publishing and owner of Fox River Press

Content is King

As an Apple person, who has exclusively used a Mac since the mid 1980s, I'm not a big Microsoft fan. However, back in 1996, Bill Gates famously predicted how the Internet would change our lives and, in doing so, uttered his quote, "Content is king." Below is the complete article. For those not interested in reading the article's thousand words, the first few paragraphs are telling. I am posting the article to affirm the importance of all the writers who create the content many often take fore-granted.

Courtesy: Forbes Magazine

Content Is King – Bill Gates (1/3/1996)

Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.

The television revolution that began half a century ago spawned a number of industries, including the manufacturing of TV sets, but the long-term winners were those who used the medium to deliver information and entertainment.

When it comes to an interactive network such as the Internet, the definition of “content” becomes very wide. For example, computer software is a form of content-an extremely important one, and the one that for Microsoft will remain by far the most important.

But the broad opportunities for most companies involve supplying information or entertainment. No company is too small to participate.

One of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone with a PC and a modem can publish whatever content they can create. In a sense, the Internet is the multimedia equivalent of the photocopier. It allows material to be duplicated at low cost, no matter the size of the audience.

The Internet also allows information to be distributed worldwide at basically zero marginal cost to the publisher. Opportunities are remarkable, and many companies are laying plans to create content for the Internet.

For example, the television network NBC and Microsoft recently agreed to enter the interactive news business together. Our companies will jointly own a cable news network, MSNBC, and an interactive news service on the Internet. NBC will maintain editorial control over the joint venture.

I expect societies will see intense competition-and ample failure as well as success-in all categories of popular content-not just software and news, but also games, entertainment, sports programming, directories, classified advertising, and on-line communities devoted to major interests.

Printed magazines have readerships that share common interests. It’s easy to imagine these communities being served by electronic online editions.

But to be successful online, a magazine can’t just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm. There isn’t enough depth or interactivity in print content to overcome the drawbacks of the online medium.

If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines.

A question on many minds is how often the same company that serves an interest group in print will succeed in serving it online. Even the very future of certain printed magazines is called into question by the Internet.

For example, the Internet is already revolutionizing the exchange of specialized scientific information. Printed scientific journals tend to have small circulations, making them high-priced. University libraries are a big part of the market. It’s been an awkward, slow, expensive way to distribute information to a specialized audience, but there hasn’t been an alternative.

Now some researchers are beginning to use the Internet to publish scientific findings. The practice challenges the future of some venerable printed journals.

Over time, the breadth of information on the Internet will be enormous, which will make it compelling. Although the gold rush atmosphere today is primarily confined to the United States, I expect it to sweep the world as communications costs come down and a critical mass of localized content becomes available in different countries.

For the Internet to thrive, content providers must be paid for their work. The long-term prospects are good, but I expect a lot of disappointment in the short-term as content companies struggle to make money through advertising or subscriptions. It isn’t working yet, and it may not for some time.

So far, at least, most of the money and effort put into interactive publishing is little more than a labor of love, or an effort to help promote products sold in the non-electronic world. Often these efforts are based on the belief that over time someone will figure out how to get revenue.

In the long run, advertising is promising. An advantage of interactive advertising is that an initial message needs only to attract attention rather than convey much information. A user can click on the ad to get additional information-and an advertiser can measure whether people are doing so.

But today the amount of subscription revenue or advertising revenue realized on the Internet is near zero-maybe $20 million or $30 million in total. Advertisers are always a little reluctant about a new medium, and the Internet is certainly new and different.

Some reluctance on the part of advertisers may be justified, because many Internet users are less-than-thrilled about seeing advertising. One reason is that many advertisers use big images that take a long time to download across a telephone dial-up connection. A magazine ad takes up space too, but a reader can flip a printed page rapidly.

As connections to the Internet get faster, the annoyance of waiting for an advertisement to load will diminish and then disappear. But that’s a few years off.

Some content companies are experimenting with subscriptions, often with the lure of some free content. It’s tricky, though, because as soon as an electronic community charges a subscription, the number of people who visit the site drops dramatically, reducing the value proposition to advertisers.

A major reason paying for content doesn’t work very well yet is that it’s not practical to charge small amounts. The cost and hassle of electronic transactions makes it impractical to charge less than a fairly high subscription rate.

But within a year the mechanisms will be in place that allow content providers to charge just a cent or a few cents for information. If you decide to visit a page that costs a nickel, you won’t be writing a check or getting a bill in the mail for a nickel. You’ll just click on what you want, knowing you’ll be charged a nickel on an aggregated basis.

This technology will liberate publishers to charge small amounts of money, in the hope of attracting wide audiences.

Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products-a marketplace of content.

Given the predictions made by Bill Gates before Google existed and a decade before Facebook launched, how has the Internet changed your life? What changes have helped, which have hurt? 

Dirk Wierenga, Principia Director of Publishing and owner of Fox River Press

Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet undercut iPad but come with trade-offs

Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet undercut iPad but come with trade-offs

Paying for the newspaper on the Internet: The Gray Lady has pulled it off

A couple years ago I made the prediction that newspapers like The New York Times would soon be charging for their content. That prediction came to pass this year when it put up its paywall. Now if you want to read anything but the latest headlines in The Gray Lady (as The Times has historically been called by those who both love and hate it) you have to pay a subscription. Since The Times is seen as an industry bell weather, as more people opt to pay for its content, other newspapers and magazines are following its lead.

Gradually, over the next few years, the amount of reliable information for free over the Internet will diminish.

While this may be seen as bad news for the average online browser, it is actually a good thing. For the past decade, newspapers and periodicals have seen their profits erode as more and more people canceled paid subscriptions in favor of accessing information online for free. Yet, newspaper and magazine reporters, editors and photographers still expected to be paid.

Initially news and feature publications thought advertising would pay their overhead. But that didn't work because display and pay-per-click ads never generated anywhere near the amount required to keep them in business.

So now, as we travel back to the past, we will need to once again start choosing which publications we are willing to pay to access.

Personally if the choice is between paying to read my favorite newspapers and periodicals or to see them go out of business, I'll choose to pay.

The same is true for books. On occasion I may choose to download an ebook or audio book over a printed version, but I do expect to pay for the books I read.

Once all the best content is locked behind a paywall, what will be left on the Internet? Shopping, blogs, websites, email, etc. All manner of items people are willing to share for free. The Internet will remain free. Just don't expect authors, writers reporters and photographers to work for free. What we once willingly paid for we should once again support. Do we actually think that content should be free? If someone comes to our home to fix the plumbing we expect to pay. Same as when we go to the theater, see a concert or visit the zoo. When we receive a service we compensate those who provide it. Same for books, newspapers and periodicals.

When someone provides us with a service we reciprocate by paying. As the old saying goes, "ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

Don't Be Afraid to Fail

This short motivational video provides an important lesson for all us humans who sometimes fail.