Saturday 27 February 2010

A LAST LOOK INSIDE THE STEALTH TRAILER

HOLDING ON OR LETTING GO-----KODGER KING AT THE KROSSROADS---DECIDES TO SELL -----RESISTING THE HOARDING INSTINCT----PUTTING "STUFF" BACK IN CIRCULATION. Switching rigs has been agonizing for me---and revealing---part of me wants to hang on to it--still be perfect for long trips--like Alaska.----And what if I'm not happy with the larger rig?--I could hedge my bet by just putting it in storage. yadda---yadda---yadda. Finally, this morning, I gained clarity---a voice inside said:LET IT GO RANDY! Then I yammered about how much to ask-----A call to the dealer I bought it from (ph 888-657-4910) said it was worth $3,000 to $3,500 as a cargo trailer---so that's what I'll ask--never mind my work and the goodies inside. But I will only sell it to someone who wants to camp in it and with the understanding that they (at least yearly) tell me its travel story. I know I will miss it's splendid sufficiency and simplicity.
A buyer will have to come to Quartzsite, Az to get it. The following pictures show what is inside and on top. A few details may be helpful--Featherlite is considered by most as the premier trailer because it is far lighter than steel frame versions--a difference of 500 pounds. Empty, it weighs only 1200 pounds---fully loaded with my stuff, it weighed 2,500 pounds but can handle a thousand additional pounds---has torsion axels---6 foot headroom and 6 foot 3 inches inside-width.

These rear doors were my joy--they have opened on a world of wonder.


I've left two solar panels on it---removed the rest for my new rig. The ladders are hinged supports for additional panels. Note the two large hatches for light and ventilation (18x24 inches) Also left in place is the wiring. If you look carefully you can see the spring tension system which allows the hatches 360 degree opening.



My friends know that I carried 60 shirts in this closet---my new one can only handle 30.don't know what I'll do with the surplus.




This is the couch/bed in couch position---It is held couchlike by a chord which when released--






makes into this 3 foot wide bed. There is room for a 4 foot bed should you need it.







Here is the stove and sink--both stainless steel--work beautifully. Below are 4 large storage compartments containing cooking stuff, gray and white water tanks, Propane and room for 3 big batteries and a good inverter. The space beneath that seat contains water and food storage. All wiring has been left substantially intact.








Here's the potty---it is mounted atop a large holding tank. Below that platform is a mascerator--simply flip a switch to empty the tank via a (provided)garden hose.









A padded lid comes down to cover the potty and make a convenient seat.










Here's the 4 cu ft fridge---has served well. Thus ends the sales talk---I dearly hate selling things--so if it proves too much of a hassle, I will store it or try craigs list. Here are some final numbers about my 5 years living in it: Total cost of everything: $8,000--if sold for 3 then my cost of housing was about $5000 for 5 years---about $85 a month. It required no repairs at all--has only 2 moving parts---the wheels. (Never needed the extra wheel bearing set I carried.
Interested in carrying this experiment forward to new adventures--contact me by e-mail: randythepoet@yahoo.com or phone 602-402-9511.












Thursday 25 February 2010

How many Kindles have really been sold? (And other interesting tidbits about ebooks)

Although a lot of people are excited about ebooks, it's very difficult to get hard information on how the market for them is growing. We don't even know how many Kindles Amazon has sold, let alone more detailed specifics on the market.

So I was very happy Wednesday when the Book Industry Study Group (a publishing industry trade group) gave details from its recent survey of ebook adoption in the US. The survey was first revealed in January, but the press release was very sketchy and sometimes confusing. In its presentation at the Tools of Change conference, the BISG gave much more details on the results. My highlights from the presentation:

Ebook usage is growing fast, but it's still small. Roughly 2% of American book buyers over age 13 are active ebook users, meaning they obtained an ebook or a reader device in the last year. About half of those were first-time ebook buyers, so the usage of ebooks has probably roughly doubled in the last year. BISG is doing multiple waves in the survey, and says it found a 25% increase in ebook usage just over the holiday season, so it was a pretty good Christmas (and Hanukah) for ebooks.

The most-used device for reading an ebook is a personal computer (47%). Amazon Kindle is number two (32%), followed by Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch (21%).

Either there's something wrong with the numbers, or Amazon hasn't sold quite as many Kindles as some people think. More on that below.


What does it mean?

PC leadership is no surprise. There are so many PCs in the US that even a small percentage of PC users reading ebooks will swamp everything else. BISG said that the PC share of ebook reading is declining as other devices grow, also what I would have expected. I bet that in a year (or two at the most), a majority of ebook readers will be on non-PCs.

Apple is closer to Kindle than you might expect, but... A tidbit that jumped out at me was Apple's share of ebook usage. Kindle has gotten all the attention, but Apple has about 2/3 the share of Amazon in ebook usage without even trying. However, before we set off another round of "Apple uber alles" on the web, there are several big caveats:

--BISG didn't report on the number of books bought per platform. Based on my experience at Palm (which had an active e-reading community), I suspect that a lot of those iPhone book readers are pretty casual, buying a few books or publications to kill time when they are bored. I believe Kindle users are probably much more active readers.

(For comparison, about 4% of the Palm OS users in the US were reading ebooks at least occasionally in 2002. That total rose to about 8-10% if you included the Bible -- it was by far the most popular ebook. That amounts to about 1.5-2 million ebook users on Palm OS alone.)

--Apple and Kindle are also different demographically. After the presentation today, BISG told me that Kindle readers are older and more likely to be female compared to Apple readers. What we may be seeing is that if someone already carries an iPhone or iPod Touch, they're less likely to invest in yet another device just to read on it. Or maybe younger people just find it easier to read on a tiny screen. Either way, I think it's pleasant that Apple and Kindle are reaching somewhat different audiences rather than just stepping on each other.

--And of course the iPhone/iPod Touch installed base is a lot bigger than Kindle's. So as is the case with PCs, even relatively low ebook usage on the iPhone will add up to a lot of users.

How many Kindles are really in use? As far as I can tell, Amazon hasn't released any Kindle device sales figures, other than a quote referring to "millions" of users. Several analysts have jumped on the use of the plural as evidence that at least two million Kindles have been sold. But I think the BISG survey doesn't support that. Here's my math:

--About 2% of book buyers have ebooks and/or ebook devices.

--About a third of them have Kindles (that's 0.67% of active book buyers).

--If 0.67% of book buyers in the US is two million people, then there are 300 million active book buyers in the US. That is the entire US population, including infants and people who don't like books. I don't know what the base of active book buyers is in the US, but my guess is it's not over 200 million, meaning the installed base of Kindles would be about 1.3 million.

It's tricky to play with survey results when the percentages are this small -- the margins of error become very significant. But for now I think the BISG survey raises some questions, and I'm not willing to accept the two million figure for the Kindle installed base without some more rigorous evidence to support it.


Other tidbits

BISG is not going to release all of the information from the survey (that goes only to the companies that paid for it). So I took as many notes as I could during the presentation. Here's what I captured:

Ebooks are somewhat cheaper than hardcovers
On average, an ebook costs $6.25 less than a hardcover book. This is a huge issue to the book publishing industry, which worries that ebook sales will cannibalize hardcover book sales. My comment: Of course they do, get over it. The thing publishers should be looking at is the much higher margins they make per ebook sold. I don't know of many industries that resist moving to a higher-margin product, but publishing appears to be the grand exception. Of course, the thing worrying publishers is the decline of independent bookstores, and they're afraid ebooks will accelerate that. But the decline of the bookstore has almost nothing to do with ebooks -- it's being driven by online sales of paper books and predation by retail chains.

Demographics
-Ebook buyers are 51% men (compared to 58% women for paper books).
-Ebook buyers are higher income than paper book buyers. Not a lot, but significantly higher income. No surprise there -- most poor people can't afford several hundred dollars for an ebook reader. Betcha they don't buy a lot of hardcover books either.

Cannibalization
Among ebook buyers, 11% no longer buy any paper books. 8% buy mostly ebooks, and about 30% prefer to buy ebooks. So about half of ebook users prefer ebooks to paper books. That's actually a lower percentage than I expected for something that is supposed to take over the world. But remember, half of ebook users are reading on PCs. What I really want to know is the percentage of Kindle users who prefer ebooks; that'll tell us how satisfied Kindle users are.

Preferred device used to read ebooks
-PC: 47%
-Kindle: 32% (and rising in later waves of the survey)
-iPhone: 11%
-iPod Touch: 10% Hmmmm! iPod Touch really is a PDA.
-Other smartphones (including Blackberry) 9%
-Netbooks 9%
-Sony Reader 8%
-Barnes & Noble Nook 8% (the BISG folks noted that Nook was just starting to sell at this point; they believe some users confused Barnes & Noble ebooks with the Nook device)

Genres of ebooks
-General fiction, 31%
-Mystery 28%
-How To 25% (but #1 over Christmas)
-Science Fiction
-Biography
-Business
I don't know where religion and travel went. I need to learn more about how this question was asked.

Saturday 20 February 2010

THE ULTIMATE REASON TO LEAVE A GOOD THING

KODGER KING TWEAKS HIS LIFESTYLE

I travel in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, who as an experiment, lived two years by Walden Pond where he wrote his classic book WALDEN POND and his world-changing essay ON CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE---drawing inspiration (not imitation) from him. In 1849 he tweaked his lifestyle, leaving Walden pond to do other things. Now, I am tweaking my lifestyle---changing rigs --to go adventuring in the 21 ft travel trailer pictured below. No doubt some will chide me as they did Thoreau: " If life by the pond (in the stealth trailer)was so good, why leave it. Thoreau's answer was a classic for the ages and I borrow it for my own: " I leave for as good a reason as I came: I HAVE MANY MORE LIVES TO LEAD AND COULD NOT SPARE ANY MORE TIME FOR THIS ONE, " I have lived 4 years and 11 months in the Stealth Trailer--perhaps the happiest years of my life; thus far . I leave it while I still love it, having seen the staleness from "staying too long at the fair." I dragged both trailers to Quartzsite, Az for the dreaded changeover. "Boondockers" changing rigs are in for much work, knowing as only they do, that new rigs are merely "starter kits". Vast changes must be made to equipt them for true off-the-grid, outside-the-campground, living. Power is the bedrock issue , which means solar panels, batteries, regulator. I removed my precious 3 pack of AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries and 3 of the 5 panels atop the stealth trailer. (leaving 2 of them for the next owner) It took me 3 days of intensive work and creativity to get just that done. The TV , cell phone and internet antennas took another.

A tablefull of tools---I carry thousands of screws, bolts and assorted hardware in addition to pieces of wood etc, so that I did not have to go to the hardware store but once for an odd bolt.


Here's a typical problem---the standard tv antenna reaches too far--the solution: shorten it's support rods by 6 inches.



Two panels installed. Note that they must be engineered to rise up for winter efficiency.




Four old friends drop by to encourage my efforts---I think they sang: "He's moving on up---to the east side---He finally got a piece of the pie" Seated from left to right: Brian, Ken, Gail, Paul and myself.





Three panels up--just in time. The rainbow blesses my transition.






My first trip--to Yuma--Paradise Casino--free parking--Now I start getting rid of stuff--first to go is that table--too big and heavy(40 pounds)--took it to a thrift store. Eventually I'll remove lots of unnecessary stuff--the awning(50? pounds) and the air conditioner (100 pounds of unnecessary weight). Only Buckminister Fuller seemed to understand what a house is: A living machine. Only he, asked the question--how much does your house weigh. Some Haitians are now asking that question. The Japanese are beginning to make houses out of foam---earthquake proof.







See that thing hovering above the stove? It was next to go. Removed it as well as a clumsy barbecue--takes up too much room.








My first solo boondock--at an abandoned air base near Dateland, Az. The new rig tows like a dream--weighs about 3500 pounds loaded---only 1000 pounds heavier than the stealth trailer--seems to get 1 mpg less.









Now that I can accomodate guest, I picked up a camera shy one at the airport and took them to America's lushest desert near Ajo Az. The finest Saguaro forest outside a park.

I challenge my readers--especially those settled too comfortably in some trailer park to consider whether they have been too long at the fair and need to move on to another life. I think even good relationships have a shelf life and need to be amiably dissolved so each can get on with the adventure of their life. Often We cramp each others style. I'm already pondering new and different things to do.

As for the Stealth Trailer---I've stashed it at Quartzsite, Az untill I sell it to an appropriate person--If you are interested---e-mail me: randythepoet@yahoo.com






Monday 1 February 2010

HOW MANY OF US REALLY NEED TO BE WORKING

KODGER KING KOGITATES THE KWESTION IN QUARTZSITE ARIZONA I'm camped 7 miles from town---150 of my friends have gone on to new adventures. I take a walk in the desert considering the comment made by Rob in the previous blog. He gently urged me to be mindful that the lifestyle we mobile citizens lead is made possible by the vast majority who work to produce the goods, services and infrastructure we consume and use. He's right of course---BUT IT NEED NOT BE THAT WAY. IT IS POSSIBLE, I'M CONVINCED, FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF US TO LIVE IN LEISURE WHILE ONLY A SMALL MINORITY WORK. WE HAVE FAILED TO ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. I SAY WITH BUCKMINISTER FULLER: "MACHINES OUGHT TO WORK---PEOPLE OUGHT TO THINK."
I BELIEVE OUR WORKING CAREERS NEED NOT BE MORE THAN TEN YEARS. (that's how long mine was and I never made a lucrative salary) I go walking in the desert considering how to make my point.
I encounter this little fellow---moving slow.

So slow that he lets me pick him up---I stroked him---seemed to like it--then gently let him walk away. Interesting---but unhelpful---I walk on.


BINGO----Here's part of the answer---an anthill--alive and functioning even after the recent fierce rainstorm. I'll back away a few steps so you can see it in the context I saw it:



It's located in a vast bare area of only rocks and dirt. What do they eat? Whatever it is ---is very sparce. And hidden underground are 500,000 termites (on average) surviving here. THEY THRIVE BY CONSUMING VERY LITTLE RESOURCES. AND SO DO I---AND SO CAN YOU! FRENETIC GREED AND WASTE IS WHAT KEEPS AMERICANS WORKING THEIR LIVES AWAY. The nearest human equivalent of this situation is the tribes of South Africa's Kalihari desert--who work much less than we do. Come with me---I think I will show you 100,000 people who are not working---who have chosen (more or less) to live in leisure---consuming little.




Here they are--in downtown Quartzsite, Az from a postcard taken one typical January. But this is only the downtown campers. Thousands more are camped a few miles north, south, east and west of here. Only a small fraction are working and the vast majority are camping free on BLM land(government owned)----Here's a fragment of a poem I wrote celebrating this wonderful 3 months long gathering-- suggesting that it is the wave of the future--- when more and more will renounce drudgery, live frugally, experience deep freedom, increasing their chances of "finding themselves." (poem title: Hi Jolly returns to Quartzsite)......
Something grand and dear is happening here,
Hi Jolly could not have expected
The mobile domicile and a new lifestyle
In Quartzsite are being perfected.
The sprouting seed of a brand-new breed
Living simple and light and lean,
Living happy and free as wild cherokee
In cozy little living machines.
A life that is bold, with oneself in control
and clusters of friends--in affection
re-inventing the tribe --- helping revive
Our long lost natural connection.
Choosing sunlight's glow over ice and snow;
Acceptance over sorrow;
Adventurous game over riches and fame;
and today---over iffy tomorrow.






Here's downtown this morning---from the eastern overpass.






and panning right. But I've not done the place Justice for better coverage of this phenomenon see Diana's last 2 or three blogs: http://www.lifeontheopenroad.blogspot.com/
A final thought: Thoreau, long ago, proved that a person can win freedom with frugality. A miserable life doing work you don't like is not necessary. Read the first chapter of WALDEN and be convinced. I did so 38 years ago and am living proof of its truth. His grand experiment was to see how little a man could work and still live satisfactorily---his answer: 6 weeks in a year. He spent the rest of the year enjoying himself---like I do. To those who cannot handle freedom, Thoreau said they should keep on working till they pay for themselves.
Obama should say this to Americans: There are millions of you who have worked long enough and you should consider retiring---downscaling your lifestyle if necessary---to make room in the workforce for others. This is the smart way to create jobs.
And when you do get a job---live smart--save money--let us end the stupidity of spending all we earn. Learn from German workers---who save more than 50% of their earnings.







I'm speaking about ebooks in New York this month

I'm giving a talk on the ebook business at a publishing industry conference in New York in late February. I should have some spare time between sessions. If you're in New York and would like to chat during that week, please contact me here.

My talk is about the many ways the ebook industry has failed in the past, but my real focus is on how to avoid those problems in the future. As you know if you've read this blog for a while, you know I am pretty passionate on this subject (link). With all the recent goings-on between Apple, Amazon, Macmillan, etc, we have a lot to discuss.

Here's a synopsis of my talk. If you have any other ebook questions you'd like to see me cover in it, post a comment here.


Check Out My Scars: Seven Lessons from the Failure of Ebooks in 2000, and What They Mean to the Future of Electronic Publishing
1:40pm Tuesday, 02/23/2010
O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing (link)

The tech industry has a long history of celebrating its successes and forgetting its failures. We honor the IBM PC but forget the DEC Rainbow and Kaypro II. We put the iPhone and BlackBerry on a pedestal but sweep the Qualcomm PDQ and Ericsson R380 under the rug.

That selective memory is often helpful in the development of a new technology, as it prevents companies from being held back by other companies’ failures. But it also makes tech companies prone to repeating the same mistakes over and over again. So it’s useful to look back at previous efforts to make ebooks successful, both as standalone reader products and as software for other mobile devices.

When you do that, there are seven lessons that emerge for today’s e-publishers:

1. Beware the chicken and the egg. Purchasing a dedicated e-book reader is a major decision for most users. Even though reader devices aren’t all that expensive, they cost a lot more than a couple of books, and so the user needs to have a fairly high motivation before they’ll buy. But the most enthusiastic readers – the people most likely to pay for an ebook reader – are also the people who care the about having a wide selection of ebooks available before they buy the device.

Meanwhile, publishers look at the uncertainties and expenses of preparing an ebook edition, and are reluctant to convert their entire catalogs unless they’re convinced that a huge installed base of reader devices will be available.

This creates a classic chicken-and-egg situation in which the publishers won’t jump on board until there are a lot of reader devices, and users won’t buy the devices until there are a lot of books available. This was the root cause of the failure of ebook devices in 2000.

Amazon and Sony, to their credit, have been trying to power through the chicken and egg situation through very aggressive marketing and price subsidies. They have made progress, but the reader market is not yet self-supporting, in part because of issue #2:

2. Ebook customers are cheap. It would be much easier for book publishers to embrace the ebook market if they could charge more for an electronic edition than they get for a hardcover book. That way they wouldn’t worry about cannibalizing their traditional channels. The reality is just the opposite—consumers generally view an electronic edition as less valuable than a hardcover. Even though an ebook is easier to carry, it’s viewed as evanescent, without the seriousness and tactile quality of a hardcover. As a result, many people are reluctant to pay more than paperback prices for ebooks.

But the book enthusiasts who are likely to be interested in ebook devices are the sort of people who want to read the latest releases, rather than waiting for a paperback edition. They want hardcover content at paperback prices. So Amazon and Sony have been forced to subsidize the sales of ebooks, paying hardcover prices to publishers but collecting lower revenue from their customers.

This doesn’t bode well for the economics of the reader device market. Instead, a lot of people are hoping that other reader devices will emerge, like smartphones. That brings us to the third lesson…

3. Mobile usage patterns are hostile to most publishing. Most print publishing is built around the idea of an extended reading session – the customer settles down with a book or a newspaper and reads through it cover to cover. Mobile devices have a completely different usage pattern. People use them on the go – they pull out the device when they have a minute free, use it briefly, and then put it away.

The usage pattern is more like eating bon-bons than sitting down to a meal.

That means there are strong, natural limits on the amount of text content that many people will consume on a smartphone or other small mobile device. If you’re publishing a joke book, a mobile device may be the perfect distribution medium for you. But unless you are publishing in a country where most people commute by mass transit for long distances (Japan, Korea), extended reading on mobiles is likely to remain a niche for a long time.

4. Periodicals are promising. Combine points 2 and 3 and they indicate an interesting possibility for e-publishing: Magazines. Other than National Geographic, most magazines are viewed as disposable after they’re read. And many of them are read in short sessions rather than all at once. So there is not as much customer resistance to paying the full list price for an e-magazine, and the format is more compatible with a mobile device. Plus, an e-magazine can be delivered faster than a print version, giving the e-edition an advantage.

The challenge for magazines is that the ad-heavy format of a traditional print magazine does not translate well to an electronic device. On an electronic device, people expect to jump straight to content rather than thumbing past ads they way they do in a print magazine. That’s why software products that replicate a print magazine on screen haven’t taken off. The usage pattern is just different.

So the challenge for magazine publishers is to remake their business models, balancing much lower printing and distribution costs against reduced (or different) ad revenue. No one has perfected that balance yet.

5. How do you get a better experience than paper? Here are the first two sentences of Sony’s online pitch for its Pocket Reader: “Carry hundreds of books in your pocket. The Reader Pocket Edition lets you access up to 350 of your favorite books from anywhere.” The problem with this reasoning is that almost no one wants or needs to carry 350 books at once; you can only read one at a time. So Sony’s touting an advantage that’s not actually advantageous.

If they want to win over users, ebook companies need to offer a product that’s actually superior to paper. Amazon’s instant download of books is a good start, but another promising opportunity is the backlist. Even popular authors routinely go out of print on their less well-known titles, and once an author dies their work can virtually vanish from the marketplace.

For example, in science fiction the late Robert Heinlein is considered a giant in the field, but about half of his titles listed on Amazon.com are out of print.

The enthusiastic readers who make up the core market for ebook devices would respond very well to a device that made large numbers of out of print books available, but the process of getting them available has been very slow. This is another area where Amazon is making some progress through the application of money.

6. Beware the tipping point. For book publishers, there is an economic cliff lurking somewhere on the horizon. Once ebook reader devices do take off, there is a point where it will make economic success for a successful author to completely bypass print publishing and self-publish electronically.

The economics work like this: An author typically gets about 15% of revenue as royalties. But a self-published e-author could retain a much larger cut—up to 70% if e-book stores come to resemble the iPhone app store. At that royalty rate, an author would make more money as soon as about 20% of the book-buying public has e-readers.

The actual location of the tipping point will vary for different types of books, and the situation is quite different for new authors who can’t generate demand for themselves. But in general, e-publishing changes the economic balance between authors and publishers, and it would be healthy for publishers to get ahead of that transition rather than waiting for it the way the music business has done.

(In the session I’ll flesh out this analysis more, with pointers to help publishers identify where the tipping point is and what it’ll mean.)

7. Be careful what you wish for. Beyond the financial tipping point, there’s another trend that will likely affect publishing: the rise of free. In both music and consumer software, prices have been inexorably trending toward zero. On the Apple App Store, for example, ASPs are steadily declining. Authors and publishers both should be thinking now about how they’ll maintain the perceived value of written content, and what other models they might use to monetize it.

(In the session we’ll discuss what some of those models might be, based on what’s happening in other types of content.)

================

A couple of unrelated links:

--We've posted the Rubicon "Competitive Idea Book," a collection of famous competitive strategies designed to help companies think about their businesses creatively (link).

--Thanks to WAP Review for including my post about the iPad in the latest Carnival of the Mobilists.