It sometimes hurts to negotiate

March 22, 2015 jkkblog Leave a comment

“It never hurts to negotiate.”

A woman just said that to me about an antique dining chair, which needed new cane or other seating material, I was advertising for $10. And I think most people believe it. It goes on the list of “stupid things people have repeated so long and so often that they assume them to be true.”

To me, negotiation is for when the seller is not offering fair value. Suppose someone’s trying to sell some hummels (fine, long as they are sold to anyone but us; good god, but those things are useless). They are worth maybe $170. Someone lists them for $199. Fair enough: offer $150, end up paying $170-175, perfectly reasonable. Another example: car dealers are never offering fair value, because car dealers simply do not do that, ever. But when the seller is offering more than fair value, it can be counterproductive.

I knew that $20 would have been plenty fair for an antique chair frame that would be worth rather more with a little effort. I listed it for $10. Our conversation went:

“Will you take $5?”

“No. When I’m offering something that cheap, and someone tries to give me half of that cheap, I’d sooner throw it away than go along.” My face was smiling, but my brain was irritated.

She backpedaled a bit. “It’s okay, I have no problem paying $10. You know, it never hurts to negotiate.”

Still smiling: “Actually, sometimes it does.” She paid me, took the chair and left. It wasn’t about the $5 difference; it was about how ridiculous it is to dicker with someone at that level.

Most people don’t agree with me about that, which is yet another reason to have confidence in my viewpoint. Plus, it has worked for me many times in life.

Let’s take a couple more examples. I recently bought some collectibles from a fellow. His advertised price was more than fair; in fact, it was an excellent bargain. I could have negotiated, but it would have been stupid. I’d have conveyed to him that he always had to build in some bargaining room when dealing with me, and if we did future business, I’d have paid for it eventually. Or, since what he was asking was a great price, I could just pay it.

We went on to do more business, and for me, the second deal was the big test. If he tried to deliver less value for the price on the second go, then I’d have known it was time to negotiate–if the value was no longer fair. As it was, he was so delighted, the values kept getting better and better, and he kept throwing in other stuff that I would definitely want but he hadn’t promised. I ended up with ridiculous bargains and all our transactions were most cordial. If I’d put him on notice that he had to fight for every dollar when already offering fair value, I would have gotten only what was promised, and I’d have had to pay a lot more.

Here’s another. My wife and I are about to close on a home in Aloverton (unincorporated Washington County between Beaverton and Aloha, Oregon). The sellers wanted $282K. It so happened that my wife got to meet the sellers when she was looking at the home, and they hit it off very well. Our agent advised us that the value was excellent and likely to draw several offers within the day. She suggested a full price offer, more if we really wanted it.

Well, it was about at the ceiling of what we could afford and finance, but I gambled a bit on the seller’s class and relationship to my wife. Had they wanted maximum dollar, they’d have listed it $10K higher, and probably gotten it. It was evident, relative to the market, that they just wanted it sold. So I told our agent: “Let’s offer them a little over full price, just so that if they get more than one of those, we at least are in the club.” She agreed, and we offered $282,500.

The sellers countered with an acceptance subject to a few small conditions (all easy to accept), and conveyed to us that they would like to accept our offer, citing the relationship with Deb and the good feeling that obtained, but could we please respond quickly so that if the answer were “no,” that they could accept one of the other offers. I asked our agent if she thought the other offers were above full price. She said that if she had to guess, one had probably been about $284K and one perhaps as high as $287K. Of course, we jumped on it.

Then came the home inspection phase, an area where we had already had to bust a home purchase deal due to a dishonest homebrew maintenance seller. This house came back with about $1300 in legit repairs, an abnormally small amount on a house selling for $282,500: less than 0.5% of the value. Considering that our home inspector is an absolute stickler who views his work as educating the client about even the fussiest little issues, if he couldn’t find even 1% of the value, it was obvious the place was in fantastic shape. Even so, by reflex, our agent began preparing an addendum to ask the sellers for $1300. She actually didn’t consult us before she started to prepare this, though that’s not bad behavior on her part; as all such agreements say in bold capital letters, “time is of the essence in this agreement.” She was simply being alacritous, if a bit habitual. Considering what a lazy horse’s ass the listing agent had been by comparison, I wasn’t going to grouse on her over an error in the direction of timeliness. We did, however, need to have a meeting of the minds.

Our agent called me to let me know she had prepared the addendum for our signatures. “L,” I said, “we need to get on the same page. See it from the sellers’ viewpoint. We think it very likely they went out of their way to sell the house to us for anywhere from $2-5K less than someone else might have paid them, all for the sake of wanting us to have it. In their mind, in effect, they have already given us a $4-5K discount. They have been splendid throughout this whole deal, although I have no idea what would move them to use such an atrocious listing agent; maybe they are too unwilling to believe the worst of anyone. So here they are, having already given up $4-5K in their minds, and now–now that they are in contract, have declined the other offers, and would have to start all over again if they reject the addendum–the recipients of that value want another $1300? This will signal to them that we think it never hurts to negotiate. Well, it can.”

“I never thought of that,” she said.

I wasn’t done. (I was not angry, just making my points; it was a cordial-toned conversation.) “What’s worse, it has no teeth. Suppose we ask for that, and they say ‘forget it.’ Would we then bust the deal for $1300 in fairly straightforward repairs?”

“I can’t see you doing that.”

“You’re right. We wouldn’t, which means that we’d just be twisting their arms for a small gain. So if we do as you are suggesting, we will change the entire character of the transaction, and worse yet, we will be doing so at the point where we have less to lose than they do. It would be a tremendous inconvenience for them if the sale failed now, so they’d be almost forced to take it–but they’d be on notice that they’d misjudged our business style and approach to life. Or, given their conduct so far, they might simply refuse, preferring to endure the inconvenience rather than have their arms twisted over a trivial matter. I think we should believe our home inspector, waive the contingency without dickering, and move this whole thing forward.”

“Wow. This is very rare, but I see your point. If you’d like to waive it, that makes sense.”

We waived it. The sellers responded by offering us any furniture in the house. Any or all. While we didn’t expect any such thing, it confirmed that we’d read our people rightly.

On top of that, they’d previously offered us a desk and the bookshelves, made by the husband’s own hand before he became more frail. We had to come up with something, though, lest we seem to spurn their generosity, so we accepted the barstools. Not high value in resale, probably spendy to buy ourselves, and least likely to match wherever they were living.

We also learned, along the way, that the listing agent was not keeping his clients apprised of matters that would directly concern them such as the progress of our financing and appraisal process. If I were them, I’d have been nervous as hell about the possibility that either might blow up. So we took steps, quietly, to make sure the sellers knew immediately when each step had finished, including the point at which all was approved and we were all clear to close.

I find it a bit tragic that I, buying this house sight unseen, will never get to meet the sellers. They seem like the sort of people I’d want as neighbors.

And it would very much have hurt to negotiate.

Married life

A treatise on Boise: what I will and will not miss

March 13, 2015 jkkblog 6 Comments

This is a time when I am mostly unable to do a lot of blogging, but as I enter my final couple of months in Boise, I find myself reflective, and desiring to do the same sort of reflection I did when we left Washington for Idaho. Thus, the positive first:

I will miss:

The potato skins at Goodwood Barbecue. I’ve never even tried their barbecue. Once I had the skins, the rest of their menu officially no longer mattered to me.
The easy friendliness of the average Boisean.
The good people we met here, which was most of the total people we met here.
Basque food ranging from bar food to cloth-napkin restaurants.
A healthy distrust of our precious government.
Traffic insignificant by comparison to larger cities.
Surprisingly cool museums for a town its size.
A superb library.
The ‘Idaho stop.’ In Idaho, bicycles treat stop signs as yield signs, and red lights as stop signs, and it works very well. Since that’s what cyclists are going to do anyway, for the most part, making it legal is one less thing for the police to ticket people over.
Idaho characters. While characters can be obnoxious, Idaho tends to embrace them, and at heart, most are good folks.
Division I-A college football and a passionate fanbase for a team I at least can bear.
The Idaho Potato Drop at New Year’s. It’s hilarious, and best of all, it’s owning it.
The tremendous and diverse natural beauty of a state that I can’t believe anyone would willingly pollute.
A large number of ways to experience that outdoors, with plentiful hiking, fishing, camping, skiing, boating, hunting, and other ways to get out from behind a computer screen and live.
A high incidence of volunteerism and generosity.
The state liquor stores have a lot better selection than the Washington ones ever did.

I won’t miss:

Predatory law enforcement that has revenue generation as its obvious primary purpose, and thus is morally little better than when the Federales stop you in Mexico and you have to bribe them.
The perpetually flat coke at Goodwood Barbecue. How hard can it be to fix a pop machine?
Zoomtards. You don’t know what that means? Suppose there are two lanes before and after the light on your side, but anyone can see that the right lane will have to merge after the light. A zoomtard is a person who zooms past just to get ahead, rather than merge in at the safe and obvious place, and in Boise there seems to be one in every situation where it’s possible for one to exist.
Coal rollers. These are the jackasses who find it amusing to show their hatred for environmentalism by using their diesel trucks to produce a noxious cloud of ugly smoke when a Prius (or whatever fuel-economic vehicle) is behind them.
Deep ignorance and corruption entrenched in state government. It’s not your imagination; they really, truly, authentically are that ignorant and corrupt.
Lousy schools that produce subpar education.
‘Inversion.’ Since smog is for Californians, Boise is not supposed to have smog. However, it does, but it’s only a problem when an inversion traps it. Thus, people complain about ‘the inversion’ when the real problem is the smog, which is a naughty word. I find the euphemism more annoying than the air quality issues.
The idea that a potato mogul could be Very Important. Nothing against J.R. Simplot, but we don’t have to talk about his family name like they’re the House of Windsor.
Must surely be the world capital of pawnshops, payday/title loan places, and other vampiric business that, if it were up to me, I would crush without compensation or remorse.
Political incontinence. You can’t meet five random people in Idaho without one of them trying to work up a political hatefest. Politics, like defaecation, are bearable when done in the proper venue designed for the purpose. The random person who can’t shut up about politics while people are trying to do civilized things, I rank right down there with someone who gets up from the restaurant table and takes a dump in the aisle.
‘Murrica f*** yeah’: the macho mentality that in my opinion has caused so many of our national defects.
What must surely the the world’s largest concentration of native English-speaking call centers on earth, mostly so employers can take advantage of Idaho’s serious wealth disparity, rudimentary social services, and of course low minimum wage.
Having both a state sales tax and a state income tax.
The general halfassedness with which so much is done, from road maintenance to customer service.
Dogwhistle racism. As in eastern Washington, ‘rough area’ is code for ‘has Hispanics.’
Denial about racism. Here’s the denial standpoint: “in Idaho, racism was Brought From Outside by A Bunch of Neo-Nazis who Do Not Represent Idaho.” That is not 100% true, as comforting as moderate Idahoans may find it to be. A fairer statement: racism has long had a significant presence in Idaho, and while most Idahoans rejected the more extreme versions, there was a hefty minority who looked at the racists and more or less thought: “Well, they’re pretty nutty, but they’re right on at least some things.” And that’s fertile recruiting ground.

Human relations

Dealing with Liam

March 3, 2015 jkkblog 8 Comments

I’m going to try and convey something in as balanced a way as I can.

Imagine someone had a child, but not quite a normal child. Let’s name him Liam, since everyone else is.

Imagine Liam, aged about four, did the following:

Went about nude most times, urinating and defecating in full view–outdoors if possible, indoors if necessary.
Considered it fairly normal to step in his own feces.
Cleansed his posterior regions with his bare left hand, without washing afterward.
If not restrained, would leap on all adults, wiping his left hand on them with vigor.
Made a significant mess while eating or drinking.
Was prone to vomit what he ate or drank, with minimal preamble.
Stank, and left his odor on everyone and everything he touched, which was everywhere he could arrange.
Had a primitive enough understanding of sex that he attempted it with all other children, no matter how public the setting.
Had breath that could–if he got close enough–make an adult physically ill.
Consumed vomit and feces at times.
Carried a small spiked club in his right hand, knew how to use it, and threatened its use when frightened.
Demanded constant attention and companionship, acting out when he didn’t get it.
Could and would, without apology or thought, pump out astonishing clouds of intestinal gas.
At the slightest sense of excitement, began to yell full throat.
Spat upon people as a form of affection.
Destroyed random pieces of valuable property and considered it a fun game.
Was immune to physical discipline, as a child, by anyone but his parents, who would be moved to violence should anyone smack Liam.
Would not learn much from being smacked anyway, even if smacking a child weren’t on the ‘stuff we don’t do’ list.

Now, suppose that Liam’s parents:

Adored him, thought he was the cutest thing, and did not know what they would do without Liam.
Talked baby talk to him, quite frequently, whether he understood it or not, in the middle of otherwise normal conversations with other adults.
Considered Liam an excellent judge of character, and disliked anyone who recoiled from him.
Told those who recoiled from Liam: “He just wants to love you.”
Let him frolic at random in public, heedless of his effect on random strangers.
Knew that Liam would never hurt anyone, ever–even when threatening someone with the spiked club.
Could not grasp why some people did not adore and embrace their wonderful Liam as they did.
Expected these people to adjust their inner feelings and desires to correct this failure to adore and embrace.
Carried out almost missionary-like efforts to teach them how they could learn to enjoy Liam, invalidating the true inner feelings of Liam’s non-enthusiasts.
Were incapable of grasping, on any level, the reality that the best thing for Liam was that he and anyone who did not enjoy him should not be caused to mingle without urgent need.
Without knowing or caring how many Liam-like children an individual had helped or been kind to in the past (in spite of the ick factor), condemned that individual simply for trying to avoid Liam and his smells and secretions.

Liam is a typical dog. The above is how this particular dog-phobe experiences him. Thus:

I grasp that you love your dog, and perhaps all dogs.
I grasp that s/he is a family member. I do not understand it, but I do not expect you to justify the logic. I accept it without debate, partly because I know it’s how you feel, and partly because I hope you will not reiterate it to me one more time. You do not need to. It is understood, not questioned.
I grasp that, to you, your dog is not dangerous, but is loving.
I grasp that you find failure to love dogs inconceivable.
I grasp that you think your dog is the special exception whose pure love and goodness can convert me.
I grasp that you think the cure is for me to change.
I grasp that you wish to help me change, so that I too can adore dogs.

Thing is:

I do not want to change how I feel.
It has gotten more pronounced over my lifetime.
I do not ask you to change how you feel, either.
The #1 thing that made it worse was uncomprehending dog owners who pushed dogs on me, or treated me unkindly, as if somehow my standpoint were fundamentally wrong and bad.
If that had never happened, so many times, who knows what might have happened to my perspective. But it did, over and over, adding conditioning and accumulated frustration to a fundamental aversion. It was cumulative.
Yes, my wife has dogs. I treat them humanely and endure them in my home. If you are absorbing this, you probably grasp that this is a supreme manifestation of my adoration for her.
I do not want your dog to suffer. If someone were harming your dog for no reason, I would stop them. If your dog got loose, and wandered onto my property, and I recognized it as your dog, I would make sure it was safe, and you got it back safe and sound.
I do not blame your dog for being a dog.
I am only trying to put distance between me and the dog.
I accept that this is not 100% possible.
When it is not possible, I try very hard to maintain.
Considering how I feel, that requires enormous discipline on my part.
If I am visibly uncomfortable, I would be grateful for your understanding and patience.
If I can maintain when I feel like most people would feel if someone threw a used diaper at them, I hope that you look on the positive side and see me as trying very, very hard to meet the situation more than halfway.
I accept that my aversion does not constitute urgency or requirement on your part.
I would value your kindness and understanding.
If I can humanely avoid your dog, and you can accept that I wish to without deciding to hate me, then we have a good understanding.

That’s all I want: the right to back away, to gently detour the dog with a foot, to avoid the feeling of being grossed out. And not to be judged a bad person, or someone in need of dog immersion therapy, which is the attitude that got me to this stage.

One dog owner once told me she felt very sorry for me, because there was a wondrous love and joy I’d never know. Fair enough, from her perspective. I love Stilton cheese, but if the fact that it smells like slippers worn too often with bare feet revolts you, also fair enough. I won’t pressure you to eat it.

After all, it smells like slippers worn too often with bare feet.

Adventures, Book reviews

Recent read: Irreverent Insider Guide: Portland, Oregon, by Steven McCall

February 23, 2015 jkkblog 4 Comments

Until Fred Armisen moved to the Pearl District and made a show about the place, the national consciousness didn’t much register Portland, and by extension Oregon. Maybe as Seattle/Washington’s younger sister, the one without a football or baseball team. If the nation heard about Oregon, it was in context of legalizing something that would be allowed in Alabama only under the fixed bayonets of an army of occupation, and even then, they’d fight a guerrilla war against it.

Well, for better or worse, now they know. Or so they might think.

They could always buy a travel guide, of course. But one should know that some big-name travel guides are assembled to target the itches visitors seek to scratch, often by ‘lancers who don’t know the place that well. Travel guides must also cover a very broad spectrum, requiring some fishing around to find what you want.

You aren’t going to read a 400-page book for a weeklong visit to Portland, are you? Well, you might. But what if a 48-pager could cover the most important parts from a native’s level of knowledge? You might get the 400-pager, but you’ll read the 48-pager.

I know Steve McCall, which is why I can vouch for this book. Steve lived half a century in Portland. His travel writing at Epinions was some of the funniest stuff there. He’s a wine connoisseur who will enjoy your rednecky cheese bread. He knows what’s overrated, what’s pretentious, and what’s excellent. The only reason he’s not a professional tour guide in Portland is because he has other priorities at the moment, but there would be none better. It only takes him forty-eight pages to address the hipster/granola/lumberjack/pothead/etc. stereotypes, tell you where it’s worth your money to eat, suggest places worth exploring, and double your fun in his hometown. For less than the price of a decent coffee in Portland, in less than one hour, and with wit.

There is something so very Portland about that.

In everything I do, I try like hell to find a high density of information. I follow the home inspector around the property, taking notes. If I can’t find out CenturyLink’s catchment area in Portland, I finally cheat and call a guy in marketing whose number I’m not supposed to have or call, briefly explain that I cheated, ask my question, thank him, and get out of his hair. I like Rick Steves because his travel guides really get to the point. They say more in a para than some guides say in a page.

The same is true of Irreverent Insider Guide: Portland, Oregon, only more so.

Homeownership, Married life

Real estate protip: identify stupidity early, and back away

February 19, 2015 jkkblog Leave a comment

Deb and I are in the process of looking for a hovel, hut, or well-appointed army tent in the Portland area. Those cost $250K and up.

San Franciscans can laugh all they want, because I’m laughing at the idea that anyone anywhere thinks any dwelling is worth $750K unless one is so rich one doesn’t care what houses cost, or is an investor. So there.

We made an offer on a house in a Portland suburb, and we saw what we should have realized was a combination of listing agent stupidity/apathy and seller loopiness. The way this works is that the seller either accepts the offer or counters with another. In this case, the seller came back with a weird counter offering two options: raise the price and get a credit at closing, or accept our price but refuse to perform repairs. Well, you don’t want the seller to do the repairs anyway. Better to just negotiate a price reduction and hire the repairs done right than have the seller pick the lowest bid that will satisfy the obligation. However, the counter was too weird, so we rejected it and just reiterated our original offer. They accepted, and quickly.

We should have seen that goofy counter as the first serious trouble sign, and not gotten too hyped up. That’s the message of this blog post.

Then the fun began. First, our highly capable agent began to worm details out of her inept counterpart. The gist: she wasn’t paying her clients much attention, her clients were cash-poor with the wife pregnant and them needing a new place, and the seller fancied himself a Master of Home Repair/Improvement Space and Time. We hired the necessary inspections and awaited the results.

Sadly, the seller had neglected the roof for years. Portland is a very wet climate where all conscientious homeowners must look very carefully at roofs, the weather side of houses, and drainage. The seller had done a remarkably poor job caulking the weather siding, had permitted a lot of moss to grow on the roof, and was unaware (or did not disclose) that he had water and rodent turds in his crawl space. There were other issues, with added potential for mistakes on his part that might be behind walls or bathtubs or sinks he had installed without benefit of professional guidance.

After estimating that it would cost us $12K to bring the property up to basic standards of good weather resistance, we sent the seller two offers: either fix a list of problems himself, or give us $6K off the price and we’d handle the repairs on our own. Lenders won’t lend on worn-out roofs, so we were sure he would just sign the one with the discount. If he wasn’t very careful (or if his agent was a moron), the evil word ‘roof’ would become part of his necessary disclosures should he choose to sell. We sent selected inspection pages to show the problems.

Incredibly, he put into writing that he rejected both our offers (thus making the one with ‘roof’ part of the record, because he acknowledged that one’s existence) and reiterated his price. His agent over-revealed, complaining that he had so little equity he couldn’t lower his proceeds. (However, he did have a very nice boat in his garage, and had wanted a long closing date, because he and his wife had a big vacation planned.)

I cyberstalked him a bit and found out that he worked in accounts payable. Accounts defaultable is more like it.

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt about the place. Who knew what troubles lurked? I had visions of having to pay tens of thousands to rip off an entire mold-filled house side. Plus, he was being a general pill. He had under-disclosed the condition (a polite way to say that he lied), and was now being an ass when caught in his under-disclosure. Deb and I talked it over and decided to trigger the inspection contingency. Back to the search.

Fortunately, the guy will get his just rewards. Now he must disclose the conditions. If he refuses, his agent will dump him. If she doesn’t, she could be in major trouble. In any case, he has to hope for a sucker to come along, a sucker of such magnitude that said sucker will box him/herself into accepting a home with enormous potential downside. He needs a first-time home buyer represented by a lamentable agent. And even then, when the roof is inspected, he’ll have to either fork out himself or convince a buyer to do that–before closing. In the end, if he’s that strapped, he’ll have to keep the house, because he evidently can’t afford to fix it and won’t compensate a buyer for doing so.

And that’s hoping that after the sale, no one happens to send his buyer a copy of the previous inspection report, proving that the seller knew of the problems and failed to disclose.

I really, really don’t like dishonesty in business transactions. Maneuvering is fine; negotiating is expected; compromise is necessary. Lying is punishable.

Editing/writing life

A fallen ‘Lancer: Richard N. Côté, 1945-2015

February 11, 2015 jkkblog 6 Comments

Today I learned of the sudden passing of a good friend and fellow traveler in the writing world: Dick Côté. Evidently he fell on some steep steps at his home office, hit his head, and suffered major brain trauma. When brain death was determined, those close to him let him pass in peace, as he would have wished.

I first came to know Dick through my Amazon reviews, perhaps ten years ago, perhaps longer. I believe he sent me a review solicitation, and I accepted. I found him a highly competent social historian, and continued to review his books out of my interest in the subjects. We became friends, and I can remember many of what I fondly called Chardonnay conversations. He was a tremendous source of knowledge about writing and publishing, and I listened more than I talked. He always called me “my fine young friend,” which I found bemusing up to my early fifties.

Dick had an interesting life. A Connecticutian of French descent, by the time I knew him, he was living in South Carolina. His views were not largely mainstream in Charleston, but Dick was the sort of man who looks past such differences and inspires others to do the same. We have too few of his kind today. After college, he served in the Air Force in Vietnam, a role that troubled him all his days. He was a freelance writer who ghosted a great many books during the days when one could make better money doing that. The most notable might be Safe House, the autobiography of defector Edward Lee Howard. He flew to Moscow and spent several weeks mining Howard’s memories, then set forth to turn those plus Howard’s notes into a credible book. He later learned that it had all been a setup (unsuccessful) to lure Howard back to US custody. Dick was forgetful, so he retold me the story during nearly every phone call, which is why I remember it so well.

His last really major book project nearly broke him: In Search of Gentle Death. This was his social history of the global right-to-die movement, spurred in part by friends of his who were active in it, and in part by his memories of his mother’s unpleasant passing due to ALS. It was a first-class job of writing and research, and an absolute money sink from day one. I had the privilege of serving as proofreader, which was exhausting, invigorating, and fun. That’s how it was when one rode with Dick, those three adjectives. A man of perpetual good humor, no matter what the hour of the day, he always advised me to take the rest of the day off. A passionate hard worker, I know he understood the comedy inherent in that good wish.

Dick was a fairly outspoken atheist, so he did not believe that he is still with us in any spiritual form. (Think about the oddity of those verb tenses.) I, however, am not an atheist. I know this: I have lost a good friend, a fundamentally decent and caring fellow, and a source of wisdom about our line of work. I also know that if Dick was wrong, and is in fact eating crow watching us from an afterlife, he’s laughing at himself. He is also, in that case, breathing an enormous sigh of relief that he never had to face the question of how to end incurable earthly suffering, nor were his loved ones confronted with Schiavoian agony.

He has a Wikipedia page under “Richard N. Côté.” I am not sure the accents will work with a link, and I admit that I am not exactly in the frame of mind to twiddle with technical details. You can find it easily enough.

Dick, my fine old friend, take the rest of the day off.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life, Sports

No one who refuses to read this book should ask me for book marketing tips any more

February 8, 2015 jkkblog 1 Comment

The book in question is the autobiography of Bill Veeck, Veeck as in Wreck.

Clients ask me for marketing tips all the time. Of course, a cynic might think: “If he were that good at marketing, he’d probably be writing and pushing his own books.” Most authors hate marketing and think it’s icky; they just want to write, publish, and let their work rise on its merits. Well, it is icky. It’s like picking up after your dog icky. However, if you do not pick up after your dog, your back yard is not a fun place.

Other than how to approach Amazon reviewers, there is not a lot of useful stuff I can tell people about marketing books. The cynic above? S/he is quite correct about me.

The author who refuses to embrace marketing, and who insists that it’s a commercial rather than a vanity book, should be writing fantasy. That’s because that stance is indicative of a very active and fertile imagination, an ability to suspend disbelief in the face of obvious evidence. This should enable him or her to come up with some amazing alternate realities.

I believe that all projects should begin with a fundamental mindset. Winston Churchill knew it. His six-volume WWII memoirs, which are some of my favorite reading, began with a Moral of the Work:

“In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.”

One may debate the moral, its applicability to the telling of history, or whether Churchill lived up to it in life. He did establish a mindset, and one supposes it guided him. Thus it is with writing, or the marketing of writing. If the mindset toward marketing is that it’s icky, I see a high probability that the result will reflect the mindset. That means the author doesn’t sell very many books, and perhaps even takes a net loss after all the initial expenses are considered.

So; mindset before all. And that’s why authors seeking marketing tips must read Veeck’s book.

It is about growing up around and operating baseball teams.
It is about breaking attendance records, even with lousy teams.
It is about one’s approach to the public.
It is about just enough chicanery.
It is about an unconventional mentality.
It is about marketing without fear, shame, or guilt.
It is about how to treat those with whom one works.
It is about having fun, and plenty of laughter, while practicing all of the above.

If authors let some healthy portion of Veeck’s rollicking, fun-loving, generous, brass-balled, loyalty-building, establishment-defying, disability-defying, fiscally savvy, opportunistic mindset sink into their marketing approach, there is further point in discussing strategies. They will have a mindset, a guiding attitude, and will thus be able to carry out those strategies without feeling like they are picking up dog turds.

If they decline to read it, or read it and decide that marketing is still icky and they just want to write, I will be delighted to serve as their editor and will not bother them any more about reading Veeck’s book. However, they should know that I’ve already given them my best marketing advice, from my limited storehouse of same, and that I may not have much else of use to tell them about how to get people to buy books.

*I can’t finish a discussion of a book written with Ed Linn without a shoutout to his efforts as co-author. I have read several sports books written ‘with Ed Linn.’ Mr. Linn has passed on in recent years, but he happens to be one of my best examples of voice. All of Veeck’s books with Mr. Linn sound consistently Veecky. Others, with other autobiographists, sound like those persons. When I edit multiple POV first person fiction, I remind myself that those voices must, must, must differ, must match to the developed characters, and must further the speaker’s development.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

New release: Second Chance Love, by Shawn Inmon

February 5, 2015 jkkblog Leave a comment

This novel, originally released as five serial short stories, is now available in a compilation volume. At various points, I was substantive and/or developmental editor.

If you never had a look at any of the individual stories, and you like romance, you’re in for something good. Shawn likes romance and isn’t afraid to present it with a gender-balanced point of view. He also isn’t afraid to bust stuff up. I had not known, until this series developed, just how willing he was to knock a storyline onto its side with a major event. This is someone who could and would kill off a major character. I love that.

I’d always figured Shawn would eventually compile the parts into a whole, and it made sense, because Shawn did a good job of developing interesting characters throughout the work. Layers kept coming away as familiar characters gained more nuance. Even the arch-villain, in the end, was revealed in part as a pitiable figure.

If you bought some of the stories and didn’t get around to others, Shawn often runs deals. At this writing, it’s $1 for Kindle. For 244 pages, that’s a lot of reading for your buck.

Adventures

Vegemite on pizza

February 3, 2015 jkkblog Leave a comment

Most Americans not of Commonwealth origin rarely utter this sentence: “Damn, I have way too much Vegemite and Marmite laying around. I had better figure out a good way to eat some of it.”

About half the time, my daily meal is a frozen pizza. I buy whatever’s cheapest that isn’t too lousy, which means no more of Albertson’s house brand. A big shout-out, though, to Albertson’s for getting rid of the self-checkout and hiring actual new employees for new express lanes.

Then I doctor it up.

My typical doctoring involves adding smoked oysters or anchovies, extra pepperoni, a lot of grated cheese, and lately a sprinkling of feta. The culinary challenge with doctoring frozen pizza is to avoid putting on so much cheese that the heat can’t penetrate through the top. Since I eat pizza with a fork (and no, I don’t care if that’s a party foul, communistic, or the moral equivalent of a terror attack on Naples), the whole thing is going on a very large plate. Lately I’ve taken to sprinkling some of the grated cheese on the plate, drizzling it with a little olive oil (because you should always think of heart health), and slipping it into the microwave long enough to melt. Also, since I keep the house at 64º F during the winter, that means the plate doesn’t suck all the heat out of the pizza when it comes out.

So how was I going to get Vegemite onto the pizza? It’s not that easy. Vegemite is thick stuff with the consistency of creamy peanut butter, very salty with an odd odor (but not a revolting one, like cooked broccoli). It goes best with cheese and bread, or in ramen noodles. It is easy to overdo, which creates an overly salty effect. Also, one doesn’t want a food contamination situation, so one must find a solid part of the pizza from which no pieces will come loose and stick to the knife. I finally settled upon smearing it on the pepperoni slices, which were frozen solid to the pizza. By not getting too aggressive with it, I was able to avoid touching the pepperoni with the knife, and I laid a smear of Vegemite on each pepperoni piece. Including the extra ones I added to cover voids where the Il Cipo pizza manufacturer neglected to put a pepperoni.

The flavor surprised me. Vegemite doesn’t melt at 400º F for eighteen minutes (Marmite melts with a quick shot in the microwave). It may get milder. Whatever the reason, the saltiness wasn’t overwhelming. A delicious flavor to combine with the cheese, pepperoni and crust. If you put it on cheese pizza, the salty taste would probably be more in evidence, but that again would raise the question of where to put it. Highly recommended.

I’m told that a pizza chain did a stuffed crust with Vegemite in the cheese roll around the edge for Australia Day. Sounds good to me. However, I am not holding my breath waiting for the chain to test market that in the United States.

Editing/writing life

Why didn’t you notice that before?

January 31, 2015 jkkblog Leave a comment

Not that I’ve ever been asked the question, but some clients may have thought it. Picture this:

You, welcomed reader, bring me your literary pride and joy for developmental editing. I examine it, see fairly early on that it has major issues to address, load it down with comments explaining those issues, and send it back to you with the recommendation that you fix them. I explain that it will cost a lot less, and be more reflective of your creativity, if you take a stab at fixing them. I had you at ‘cost a lot less,’ so you then demonstrate to me what a superb and coachable client you are by addressing them. In most cases, you ‘get it.’ Beaming, you ship me the modified ms. I edit it this time, and I include a bunch of comments about stuff I didn’t point out in the first pass (but dealt with this time). And perhaps here you wonder: how’d he miss that stuff the first time?

Let’s use an analogy to a flipper house. The carpet needs replacement. The color scheme chosen was Crazy Cat Lady Provincial. The rose bushes are out of control. The crushed rock isn’t strangling the weeds. The hot water heater has a failing thermostat, there isn’t enough insulation, and some imbecile fixed numerous nail and molly bolt holes in the wall without bothering to sand the filler. The bathroom fan is about to chuck a bearing, and so on. Oh, and no one raked leaves last year, so half the yard is dead. Except for plenty of thistles, dandelions, and morning glories.

If we’re going to turn that house into the cozy, attractive property that it could become, we are going to begin by taking care of the big stuff so that it no longer obscures the small stuff. We restrain the roses and discover that the squirrels planted a walnut sapling at their base. We pull off the baseboards and find evidence that something in the wall has leaked. We rip up the carpet and find that the previous imbecile covered up battered but beautiful hardwood. We pull out the range and learn that someone had a chronic problem with stuff boiling over and running down the sides, rotting out the subfloor.

While we are doing all that, we are not really seeing the smaller but important stuff, because the big stuff obscures it. It’s not that we are incompetent; it’s that we will notice the miniature burro in the room only when the elephant has been herded out of it.

That’s how it is, editing books. Fix the big stuff so that the small stuff can stand out, then fix that, and you have a good book. Because you don’t retexture drywall that you know you will be replacing anyway.

The Editorial Maverick