Technically Speaking

Many of you know that Christina and I started an online book club last year. We suffered through a drought at the end of 2005, but we’re excited to announce the next book for the club: 1776 by David McCullough.

I noticed this book not long after it was published last year, and thought it would be interesting to read, but it wasn’t until last week that I considered 1776 as book club material.

In September 1995, Mr. McCullough addressed a BYU forum in the Marriott Center without any notes. A condensed version of his speech was published in BYU Magazine, and can be read here. As I’m no longer a student at BYU, I didn’t attend the forum where Mr. McCullough spoke, but I loved the condensed version of his speech given in the magazine.

I liked the speech so much I read it aloud to Christina, and it made both of us want to read the book. Christina suggested the book as a book club item, and here we are.

If you haven’t joined our book club, I encourage you to do so. We’re small, but we have had a good time discussing the books we’ve read. Your opinions are welcomed and we love diversity. So please join us and share your thoughts about the books we’re currently reading, or share some thoughts about a book we’ve read previously. We’re online at:

http://bookclub.pehrsonfamily.net

The benefit of an online book club is that you get to read and contribute at your own pace. You can read whenever you want and finish whenever you want. When you have time, you can log into the club and contribute to the discussion. We’d love to have you join us, and we encourage you to invite your friends as well.

You can get 1776 at a local book store, or you can order it online from Amazon. It sells at Amazon for $18.51 new; they have used starting at under $5.

If you have any questions, you can e-mail me or leave a comment on this post.

I finally figured out what to do with the useless air miles I keep accumulating at Delta. I don’t fly enough to earn enough miles to get a free flight. But I have this SkyMiles account that gradually is getting bigger.

Last month I got a letter from some company that said I could get magazine subscriptions, and all I had to pay was my Delta SkyMiles. This is a perfect solution for me. We got a subscription to Newsweek and another to Wired. (I keep hoping that I’ll see my former roommate Dante Baker on the cover of Wired. It is one of his life goals, you know.) And we got a couple of others, I think. We’ll see when they come.

All of it free! You know they say that their ain’t no free lunch. But there are free magazines if you don’t mind giving up the SkyMiles that you’d never use anyway.

Today I issue a call to screenwriters and movie producers everywhere. It is time for a true adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s Jane of Lantern Hill.

Last week, Christina and I hunted down the only copy of the 1990 made-for-TV movie Lantern Hill, and I have to admit, we were sorely disappointed.

The original book, by the author of the Anne of Green Gables series is a fantastic novel. If you liked Anne, you will love Jane of Lantern Hill. Published in 1937, Jane is the story of a girl whose lived the first 10 years of her life with her mother, all the while believing that her father is dead. Jane learns that her father is still living (where? on Prince Edward Island, of course!), and about a year later, her father requests that she come spend a summer with him. Jane is an adorable coming-of-age tale. As one Amazon.com reviewer writes, “This book is … about the how understanding and love can transform an introverted, unhappy child into a confident, intelligent girl.”

On the other hand the movie Lantern Hill takes the same characters (with the totally random addition of Colleen Dewhurst (think: Marilla Cuthbert) as Hepzibah–a totally non-existent character in the novel) and transforms the story into something of a ghost story, where Hepzibah (who is portrayed as some mystical character–maybe a witch?) tries to get Jane to reunite her parents, and where Jane is being haunted in her dreams by the ghost of a woman who some townsfolk accuse Jane’s father of killing.

While the acting in Lantern Hill is pretty good, the screen writers murdered the classic beauty of Montgomery’s tale. (It wasn’t Evelyn that was murdered! It was the storyline!) Frankly its amazing to me that the same director and writer that did such a great job adapting Anne of Green Gables could destroy Jane of Lantern Hill so completely.

Now I’m ready for a really good Pride-and-Prejudice-like version of this story. A version that is true to the characters, theme, and tone of the novel with superb acting and a great score. I’m thinking of something written by Andrew Davies. Alone. No writing-by-committee is allowed for this movie!

Yesterday I ranted a bit about Amazon.com’s marketplace. Today I have two more examples that I’d like to share with you, demonstrating some flaws in the Amazon marketplace.

First, consider another book that we sold today. This book sold for $2.50 cents. This time the buyer choose expedited shipping. When a buyer chooses expedited shipping, the variable closing fee changes to only $.44 cents. Amazon’s commission is still 15% (in this case, $.38), and the just-because-we-can fee of $.99 is still assessed. Amazon’s total commission for this sale then was $1.81. Since the buyer chose expedited shipping, Amazon added $5.49 for shipping. Add those totals up: Buyer paid $7.99, Amazon took $1.81; I ended up with a deposit of $6.18 cents, from which I have to pay for packaging and shipping.

Since I’m sending the package out Priority Mail (after all, the buyer paid for expedited shipping, right?), I don’t have to pay for packaging. The post office covers that for you. However, because the book weighs 2.5 pounds, Priority Mail shipping is $6.40. Take that out of the $6.18 that I got paid, and I end up $.22 cents in the hole for having sold this book.

Amazon knows the shipping weight of the book. It is plainly listed in the item’s description. Why can’t they charge the customer enough money to cover shipping? How can Amazon tell a customer that the order will go out priority mail, and only charge $5.49 for shipping, when Amazon KNOWS that the item can’t ship for less than $6.40? Amazon needs to adjust their shipping prices accordingly such that shipping credits more accurately reflect actual postage prices.

Second, here is one book I have for sale: It’s listed at $.01. When this book sells, Amazon will get no commission, but they will still get the $1.23 closing fee and the $.99 just-because-we-can fee. That is $2.22 that goes into their lump “commission.” That means that the buyer will pay $3.50 with shipping, Amazon takes their $2.22 cut, and I end up with $1.28, from which I pay shipping and packaging. Mail rates start at $1.59, sans packaging. (Unless I can send the item first-class, which is cheaper if the book is quite light.) I’m realizing that I’ve got to raise the price of my book!

Amazon should not be allowed to take a commission larger than the amount of the sale price of the book. The commission in this example is equal to 2220% of the book’s sale price. How is that fair? It would be fair if Amazon would restrict their commission to a maximum of 100% of the item’s sale price. Then at least I could maybe afford to ship the item to the customer. At least I could get rid of the book without having to pay somebody to take it.

Third, Amazon’s shipping charges are different for marketplace orders than for Amazon.com orders. In the Marketplace, Amazon.com only collets $3.49 for standard shipping and $5.49 for 2-day shipping. Amazon however realizes that this isn’t enough money to ship items. Note that when THEY ship books from Amazon.com’s own stock, they collect $3.99 for standard shipping and $9.48 for 2-day shipping. Marketplace users get $.50 less for standard shipping and $4.00 less on 2-day shipping than Amazon charges their own customers! Why does Amazon think it costs them more money to ship an item than it will cost a Marketplace seller?

Ah well. In the end selling with Amazon marketplace is a choice. The trick is to only list books that you can sell for a profit. If you are considering selling on Amazon’s marketplace, beware of Amazon’s fees! Make sure you know in advance how much money you’ll make for a book’s sale, and then make sure that it is at least enough to ship the book wherever it needs to go.

Maybe its time to do as Dave suggested and check out eBay. Hey, maybe I’ll at least try it and see what happens. It can’t be worse than Amazon, can it? (Famous last words, I know!)

A week ago today I decided that the best way to get rich would be to list a bunch of books for sale on the Amazon.com marketplace. Those who helped us move a while back will remember that we had something like 25 boxes of books from our bookshelf. These boxes were the first ones into the moving van (while everybody was still feeling strong!), but they were thus the last ones out of the van when we arrived at our new place (when almost everybody but Jonathan and Keith had abandoned us). We decided it was time to get rid of some of the books, even if it is just so the Elder’s Quorum doesn’t have to move as many boxes of books down the road.

Selling our own books on Amazon, however, turned out not to be the way to make it rich quickly.

The first book we sold happened within 30 minutes of placing the books for sale on Amazon’s website. The book was listed for sale at $4.50. Amazon added $3.49 to cover shipping, so the buyer paid $7.99 for the book. How much do you think I ended up with? Just over $3.00. Where did the five dollars go? Well Amazon took a commission of almost three dollars, and it cost me another 2 dollars to buy packaging for and pay for postage on the book.

I was surprised that Amazon got a three dollar commission on a book that sold for $4.50. Sounds a little steep doesn’t it? Well, turns out that Amazon’s selling fees for books are as follows: (1) 15% of purchase price of book for Amazon’s commission. (2) $1.23 closing fee (this isn’t a house. Why are there closing costs?). And (3) a $.99 fee that I call the “Just because we can” fee. Amazon calls this a “per-transaction fee.” This is a fee that Amazon charges to sellers who aren’t registered for the “professional merchant” program. You see, for $39.99 a month you can become a “Professional Merchant” and can avoid the “just because we can” fee. If you sell more than 40 books in a given month, you save money. If you sell less than 40 bucks, you’re better-off paying the “just because we can” fee.

How does the fee structure break down in real-life selling situations? Here are some examples.

1. Our first sale was for $4.50. The shipping added was $3.49, so the buyer paid $7.99. Amazon’s 15% commission was $.68 (15% of $4.50), the closing fee was $1.23, and the just-because-we-can fee was $.99. That means Amazon got $2.90 of the total price, bringing our cash income to $5.09. From that, we had to pay for packaging ($.50) and postage ($1.50), so our net gain on the book was $3.09. (However, our friendly buyer, after the book shipped, decided that she really didn’t want this book, so she is going to return it. Amazon requires that merchants offer returns, so now she gets to return the book to us, but we get no compensation for the packaging or the shipping. We’re out two dollars on the purchase just because she decided that she didn’t want the book anymore.)
2. Our next book had hundreds of books in the marketplace, so we priced it kind of low. We sold it for $.50. With shipping, the buyer paid $3.99 for the book. Amazon got a $.09 commission, plus the $1.23 closing fee, plus the .99 just-because-we-can fee, bringing our cash income to $1.69. From that, we had to pay for packaging ($.50) and postage ($1.12), so our net gain on the book was a paltry $.07. Amazon’s fees on a $.50 book were $2.31. You can’t even justify the time involved for seven cents.
3. Another book sold for $3.75. With shipping, the buyer paid $7.74. Amazon’s commission, closing fee, and just-because-we-can fee added up to $2.78. Our cash income was $4.46, but this book was heavier. Packaging cost $.50, and postage was $2.00. We ended up with $1.96.
4. Our highest-price sale to date was for $15.50, so the buyer paid $18.99 with shipping. Amazon’s total commission, closing fee, and just-because-we-can fee totaled $4.55, leaving us with $14.44 cash income. Packaging and postage cost us $2.50, and we ended up with $11.94.

The way to make money from Amazon’s marketplace program is to be a high-volume seller, and join their merchant pro program, so you can pay them $40 a month, but not pay the just-because-we-can fee. Then you make a lot of sales, so that the little amounts you make on each book add up in the end. It helps if you can find books that people are willing to buy for more than $.50. Helps a lot actually.

The Amazon marketplace probably isn’t the place for the average low-volume user to make a ton of money on the books sitting in their bookcase. It turns out that the old saying really is true: there just ain’t no free lunch.