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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: For self publishing authors on AmazonKDP, Scott Adams Says
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2024 13:37:53 -0400
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Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Oct 2024 11:56:32 +0100, Robert Carnegie
> <rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 05/10/2024 03:49, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>> In article <vdq2r4$f307$1@dont-email.me>,
>>> Cryptoengineer  <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 10/4/2024 2:53 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>>>> In article <vdpbq4$anou$1@dont-email.me>,
>>>>> William Hyde  <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Paul S Person wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thu, 3 Oct 2024 15:22:40 -0500, Lynn McGuire
>>>>>>> <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Scott Adams Says:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> “AmazonKDP reverses their disapproval”
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> “I had trouble with AmazonKDP (where independent publishers upload their
>>>>>>>> books to Amazon) because they kept rejecting the versions of Win Bigly
>>>>>>>> (2nd edition) in softcover and Kindle. No reasons given, canned
>>>>>>>> messages, no way to reach a human.”
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> “So I lit them up on X.”
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> “Problem solved.”
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> “My suggestion for all of you having trouble with tech support is to
>>>>>>>> first get a million followers on X. I'm not aware of any other solution
>>>>>>>> path.”
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That is not a good production model.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But pretty main-stream: my phone company not only has automated
>>>>>>> screeners on both its help line and its chat sessions, both of which
>>>>>>> are very good at not paying any attention at all to any problem they
>>>>>>> were not programmed to recognize, but the phone system, the last time
>>>>>>> I tried it, actually offered me the abilitiy to /text/ an assistor,
>>>>>>> but not to /speak/ with one.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When the phone company installed a defective modem, I spent a total of
>>>>>> eleven hours over three days  on chat with various human agents.  They
>>>>>> passed my case from one to another, and all tried to repeat the failed
>>>>>> attempts of the previous agent.  Whatever I said.   Each night an
>>>>>> appointment was finally made for someone to drop by and look at the
>>>>>> modem.  Three days in  row, nobody showed up.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Finally someone arrived on the fourth day, and he happened to have the
>>>>>> required modem in his truck.   Fixed the problem in 20 minutes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was offered two days off my bill.  When I mentioned that I'd saved the
>>>>>> chat logs and was prepared to post them I was offered a lot more.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But at least it was capitalism!  If that was a government operation,
>>>>>> surely I would have been shot and then sent to a concentration camp.  Or
>>>>>> so I have been assured.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> William Hyde
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I recall an essay on corruption in Italy to the effect that yes, of course,
>>>>> you had to pay a bribe to the state telephone company to get your phone
>>>>> installed, but you *would* get your phone installed.  In the US no govt
>>>>> official would ever ask for a bribe, but conversely, your problem would
>>>>> never be solved..
>>>>
>>>> That's odd. This book
>>>>
>>>> https://www.amazon.com/Ciao-America-Italian-Discovers-U-S-ebook/dp/B000RH0DU8
>>>>
>>>> 'Ciao America!" byu Beppe Severgnini (2002), written by an Italian
>>>> who spent a year in the US, has the exact opposite story - getting
>>>> a phone connected in Italy took month or years with the government
>>>> telco, while it blew him away that in the US, it was done in hours
>>>> by the non-government telephone company.
>>>>
>>>> I grew up in Europe in the 60s and 70s. The sheer competency of the
>>>> Bell System was a wonder by comparison.
>>>>
>>>> pt
>>>
>>> Actually I found the essay, and it turns out the guy was talking about
>>> the UK (which I have no experience with):
>>>
>>> 	https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-uses-of-corruption
>>
>> I see the article is from 2001, when telephones
>> and most other services in the UK except for
>> medicine were purely private by then.
>>
>> In 2024, private public drains are somehow
>> removing great quantities of money from us,
>> and what they are supposed to remove, not
>> so much.
> 
> Perhaps an investigation of who's cousin got the contract would be in
> order.

The great investor Peter Lynch, who ran the Magellan fund  for over a 
decade with a 22% average annual return, had a saying:

"If the Queen's selling, I'm buying".

The public assets sold under Thatcher were vastly under-priced.  Most of 
the water company stocks doubled in a year, far too short a time for 
"efficient" private sector management to increase value to such a degree.

Thus the companies tended to attract those keen on share appreciation, 
which is not always the same thing as running the company well. 
"Financial Engineering" can damage a company while temporarily inflating 
the stock price.  Dividends are a wonderful thing, if paid responsibly, 
if not they can bring disaster as happened, for example, to Tuscon 
electric power circa 1990 or Sears Canada more recently.

"Thames Water", one of the companies Robert is referring to above, was 
debt free when it went private.  It is now one of the most indebted 
companies in the UK, and is asking for a 40% price increase to remain 
solvent.

The company maintains that this debt was acquired in the process of 
upgrading services, but the paper trail argues otherwise.

And my contacts in Thames Valley's area of service are unanimous in 
saying they haven't seen any improvements in the company's performance, 
rather the reverse.


William Hyde