Spontaneity is the Soul of Joy

Since I never heard the axiom, “ Spontaneity is the Soul of Joy” before I uttered it, I will take credit for it. It has been my mantra for most of my adult life, or so I thought. Spontaneity in children is taken for granted, and often adults suffer its results.

Then something happens. With maturity, spontaneity fades into consideration. Into concern. To caution. Thence to calculation, carefulness, and finally withers into stagnation and vegetation.

There are real restraints on spontaneity that must be considered. Some, but not all, include money, health, and both social and political pressure. Credit cards were designed to solve the money problem. Health is direr but many have spontaneously opted out of treatments to prolong life in favor of having a little fun before the end. If we let social and political correctness rule our lives, then we need to consider deeply this treatis, lest we become moribund and hopeless.

Recent events proved how easily spontaneity fades like mist in sunshine. My Barista at the coffeehouse I frequent asked last week, “Why do you always order the same thing: Vente, skinny, half-caff, sugar free vanilla, latte.”

“That’s what I like.”

“Try something different. You might like it more.”

By this time he had finished my beverages of choice, and I was left to ponder his question while I sipped my drab old favorite.

Recently, I went into the first ice cream parlor I’ve visited in a decade to find that they featured two refrigerated marble slabs on which they would fold in various combinations of condiments. There were sixteen basic flavors of ice cream and by actual count, thirty-two different jars held things with which one could defile vanilla ice cream. I ordered a two-dip waffle cone (they didn’t have a real cone).

“What flavor?’

“Vanilla, of course.”

“Both dips?”

“Of course both dips, why would I mix flavors?”

“What do you want in the vanilla?”

“Why, vanilla I suppose.”

“I mean condiments.” He gestured toward the jars before him.”

“Why would I want to add something to vanilla ice cream?”

“To add excitement – to kick it up a notch.”

Serious reflection followed these two encounters. The vague restlessness that plagues my waking hours came into focus and intensified. The realization that I was about as spontaneous as a fence post swept over me. So that’s where the joy went.

Yesterday, I was sitting in a different coffeehouse drinking a chai tea wearing a beret and an ascot, when a beautiful woman came in dressed to the nines. Even through all that fashion I could see her beauty came from that indefinable huggable-femininity. The line for ordering put her immediately next to my table. I couldn’t resist. I stood and hugged her saying, “Please excuse me, but I just have to do this.”

It seems the designer of her fashionable purse felt that brass tabs on its corners would make it more lethal. After receiving the blow, I was a little stunned and bleeding from a cut on my face. She immediately regretted her overreaction and pulled out a package of tissue from that bludgeon of a purse.

“I’m so sorry,” she said while swabbing my face. “It’s just that you surprised me. Please, there is an emergency clinic down the street. Let me drive you down there so they can look at this cut.”

I of course agreed. The whole episode hurt a little, but, God it was fun.

We’re meeting again today for a Chai, except I think I’ll try something different.

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Recovering the $50 Trillion Global Loss

A recent report on the Internet placed the Global Financial Loss during the past year at over $50 Trillion dollars. My question is who lost it and where did it go?

All of the earth’s undeveloped real estate is still in place.
All of the developed real estate is still here.
Earth’s manufacturing facilities, capability, and inventory have not disappeared.
The agriculture industry/production potential has not decreased.
The global educational system still functions.
The entire infrastructure to support cities, states, and nations has not changed
Transportation in all forms stands ready as always.
Most financial institutions are still there.
All of the global raw materials are still in place.
The labor force remains the same and stands ready.
Personal property and assets my have changed ownership but are still somewhere.
Power production remains the same.

Nothing has evaporated into space, leaving us $50 Trillion dollars short. So what’s different, and where did the $50 Trillion go?

The only thing changed is our perception of the value of all these assets. Last year we thought they were worth $50 Trillion more than we think they are worth today.

Governments regularly revalue their currency when they feel it will solve a problem. Why can’t governments revalue assets as well? With the stroke of a pen, governments could recover the $50 Trillion.

Once the numbers are crunched to get the correct multiplier, the problem is solved. Say, a $1,000.00 asset would now be worth $1,766.56. Christ! I just made $766.56 overnight. I’m rolling in dough.

A bank that's struggling to stay in business because it's asset balance is down to say $1 billion, now has an asset balance of $1,766,560,000.00. Hurray, they're saved.

Wait a minute. My home I’m about to sell for $200,000.00 Is now worth $353,312.00. Ya! Hooo! Let’s go celebrate.

We just made our $50 Trillion bucks back.

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Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of the current politicizing of "torture" is just stultifying to any rational person. If we had in custody an enemy-of-the-state with the information to forestall the eminent explosion of dirty bombs already in place in every major city in the US, and said bombs would murder millions of citizens and render all these cities uninhabitable for decades, the plain truth? Anyone of us would personally do whatever it took, including making mince meat, bit by bit, out of this person, until he or she gave up the necessary information to prevent this annihilation of our country and its people.

It's very much like the story attributed to Winston Churchill, who supposedly asked a fine lady if she would bed him for $1,000,000. She demurely agreed. He asked her if she would bed him for $5.00. She replied, "What kind of person do you think I am?" He replied, "We've established what kind of person you are, we now are just negotiating the price."

If we're willing to do the one, let’s cut out the hypocrisy, and quit standing around pontificating about water boarding a couple of dozen folks, all of whom survived with lives and limbs intact. Said water boarding (should the reports be released) produced some very positive results, including preventing an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge.

One of the fundamentals of warfare is “Never arm your enemy.” The release of reports and photos of interrogation techniques does just that. It arms our enemies while weakening our position.

Let’s just admit that we, like every other culture in the world, will do whatever it takes to save ourselves – including the use of nuclear weapons, a somewhat more strident approach than water boarding.

Once we understand this, we can get past all the politics and pontificating and on to the real problems that face us: Economic Recovery, Energy Self-Sufficiency, Our Health Care System, National Security, Closing our Borders, and Fiscal Responsibility.

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Calculating Book Sales from Amazon’s Sales Rank

In the article “Using the Amazon Sales Rank” we discussed how to use Amazon’s search engine and the Amazon Sales Rank (ASR) to compile a bibliography of books for use in the “Competing Books” segment of your nonfiction proposal or for a “Comparative Book Survey” to accompany your fiction manuscript submission.

Reporting actual copies sold of the selected books provides maximum impact for your submissions. Even though “copies sold” data is difficult to find, you can calculate a useable number with the ASR.

Can accurate “copies sold” data be calculated from the ASR? The simple answer is, “No!” But thanks to Morris Rosenthal of Foner Books, reasonable estimates can be made. These caveats must be understood before discussing how this is done:
1)An ASR is for one edition (ISBN number) of an author’s title and does not reflect previous releases in other editions. Obviously the commercial viability of that title needs to reflect the sum of retail sales from all editions – hardcover, trade paperback, mass-market paperback, and special editions. The total sales computation formula compensates somewhat for this.
2)An average of two month’s ASR’s taken at least three times weekly will give a much more accurate ASR, particularly for recent releases.
3)There are large variations between retail sales computed using the ASR and actual retail sales from A. C. Nielsen BookScan in those few instances where this data is available.

Morris Rosenthal developed the Book Sales vs. ASR Graphs shown in www.fonerbooks.com. The first graph plots Books Sold Daily vs. ASR 1- 1,000. The second graph plots Books Sold Weekly vs. ASR 1,000 – 100,000.

Since Amazon reports only on its own sales, a method must be developed to determine total sales through all retail sellers. Rosenthal estimates that the $16.8 billion estimated by the US Census Bureau for 2007 retail book sales is a good $10 billion lower than total book sales estimates from various industry surveys. Therefore:
Total U. S. Book Sales ($26.8 billion) / Amazon 2007 Book Sales ($4.63 billion) = 5.79
Amazon book sales from the graphs x 5.79 = (approx.) Total Retail Sales/Year

Amazon factors sales figures for the five previous years into the ASR, so Total Retail Sales/Year x 5 = Total Potential Sales.

Total Copies Sold From Graph #1:
Sales/day x 365 days x 5.79 Total Sales Ratio x 5 years = (approx.) Total Copies Sold.

Total Copies Sold From Graph #2
Sales/week x 52 weeks x 5.79 Total Sales Ratio x 5 years = (approx.) Total Copies Sold

“Total Copies Sold” computed with this method always produces a lower number than A.C. Neilsen BookScan figures, sometimes by a factor of over two. Therefore anyone using these formulas to compute “Total Copies Sold” can rely on the fact that the number, when used for planning or for comparison, is always conservative.

Rosenthal’s graphs are easy to pick up from the website and to enlarge for easier reading.

Ironically the Nielsen BookScan data is available at most Publishers, but editors seldom do the research. Now you can produce reasonable sales data for them to use when evaluating your book proposal or manuscript.

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Using The Amazon Sales Rank

Amazon’s Sales Rank (ASR) is a powerful tool when searching for competitive books for your nonfiction book proposal or for a survey to accompany a fiction manuscript submission.

Amazon has a very comprehensive search engine for finding similar books, but the ASR puts legs under your selections by allowing you to calculate actual sales by copy to show the competing book’s commercial success. Refer to my last article “What You Need to Know About the Amazon Sales Rank” to get a better understanding of the ASR.

Step One in surveying for competitive books is to spend time determining the search keywords and phrases to use in Amazons’ search engine that define your nonfiction thesis and makes it unique.

For your fiction manuscript develop keywords and phrases based on venue, characters, plot, genre, and themes within your work to find commercially viable competing novels significantly similar to yours. Once you have your bibliography, then you can cull out unsuccessful books using the ASR.

The first thing you need to know about the ASR for books is where to find it. Bookmark this URL 100 Bestselling Books to get the bestsellers on Amazon. The easiest way to find a specific book’s ASR not in the top 100 is to click the Amazon Search dropdown menu and click “Books.” Bring up the book’s webpage by typing in the title and clicking the “Go” button. Searching by author will require that you click on a particular book to bring up its webpage.

Scroll down the webpage to the section entitled “Product Details” Here is an example using James Lee Burke’s new novel, Swan Peak.

Product Details
· Hardcover: 416 pages
· Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 8, 2008)
· Language: English
· ISBN-10: 1416548521
· ISBN-13: 978-1416548522
· Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
· Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
· Amazon.com Sales Rank: #65 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#1 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( B ) > Burke, James Lee
#2 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals
#2 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Hard-Boiled
You see that the ASR is #65 in Books. You also see rankings in various other categories, genres, subcategories, and subgenres. These illustrate the myriad of possibilities available for keyword searches when you are looking for books similar to your manuscript.

Determining what books to select as examples of successful competing titles requires not only that they are similar in some distinctive way, but also that parameters be established to define that success. Competing books need to be comtemporary – probably released within the last six or seven years. Books with higher than 100,000 ASR are not deemed very successful.

I will explain how to calculate reasonably accurate copy sales for the competitive books you selected in my next article.

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What You Should Know About the Amazon Sales Rank
originally posted: July 17, 2008

The Amazon Sales Rank (ASR) is a powerful tool. It determines the commercial viability of any book you might wish to use in the “Competition” segment of your nonfiction book proposal, or for a "Comparative Book Survey" to accompany a fiction manuscript submission. Not only can the ASR indicate how a book ranks in sales to other books, but it can be used to approximate actual copies sold. [Most of the information in this article concerning the ASR was researched using Rampant TechPress and Foner Books.

What Is the Amazon Sales Rank?

Amazon’s Sales Rank establishes a book’s relative number of copies sold to all the other books sold by Amazon. The ASR is a unique number that is constantly recalculated. For example if a book has an ASR of 100,000, then 99,999 other books sold more copies and approximately 4,900,000 books sold fewer copies at that particular time. The ASR is calculated as a rolling figure, and is based on sales over the last 90 days. It is, however, weighted by sales over the last five years to compensate for long-term big sellers after their sharp sales peaks have leveled out.

Rankings can spike due to large corporate purchases or heavy marketing
promotions and are accurate only for the exact time they are calculated. All ASR’s are recalculated hourly. To get a more accurate ASR requires that the ranking be averaged over at least a six to eight week period with two to three ASR’s taken per week.

Does ASR Cover all the Sales of an Author’s Title?

The ASR is based on a single ISBN (edition), not the book title. Therefore, the ASR for a title released as a mass-market paperback ISBN does not reflect the sales of that title as a hardcover edition, trade paperback edition, or special edition. Getting the ASR of all editions for a book title is difficult because out of print editions are not reported.

Does ASR Reflect Total Retail Sales?

The ASR refers only to sales by Amazon. In a later article I will show how to calculate total retail sales from the ASR.

What Is a Good ASR for a Book?

Obviously, the lower the ASR the better, but here are some parameters explained by Morris Rosenthal of Foner Books:
“An average rank of 1,000 (or lower) means you have a seriously successful title; an average rank of 10,000 means you’re doing pretty good for a book that’s no bestseller; an average rank over 100,000 means it’s (your book is) not going to contribute significantly to your income.”

A recent article here, “Create a Market Survey for Your Fiction Manuscript,” explained the benefits of breaking from tradition and including a “Comparative Book Survey” along with your fiction manuscript submission, showing the commercial viability of similar novels.

In subsequent articles I will explain how to compile a bibliography and to compute the number of copies these comparable books sold.

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Create a Market Survey for Your Fiction Manuscript
originally posted: May 18, 2008

OK, here’s the problem. You are an unpublished author, and an editor has requested a complete manuscript of your novel. They read the manuscript, and they “just love it,” BUT they’re not sure of the market for the book. There is something a little quirky in the book that the editor likes because of its originality, but will it sell? So they take a pass rather than assume the risk on your work.

Why not head this problem off by including two additional items with the manuscript: a "Comparative Book Survey" and a “Market Survey.”

Nonfiction book proposals have traditionally included a "Competition" segment, but Fiction submissions have never included "Marketing Plans" or "Comparative Book Survey.". Here’s the difference. In nonfiction book proposals the “Competition” segment includes examples of books similar to the submission, but shows there’s nothing out there that addresses your thesis as completely and accurately. The fiction “Comparative Book Survey” is an in-depth study showing that there are a large number of readers that purchased novels with similar style and content to your manuscript.

My agent and I have developed a thesis that if a debut author accompanies a manuscript with a "Comparative Book Survey" showing that a list of authors with similar writing styles and content sold "X" number of books over "Y" time period (This being hard data), an editor can make a more informed decision concerning a manuscript. He or she can take the "Comparative Book Survey" to the Editorial Board along with the manuscript to support their belief in the project. The base problem is that editors do not have time to do this survey themselves, even though most publishers have the necessary data available.

What I can tell you from personal experience is that developing hard data on book sales is quite difficult for those outside the publishing houses. After a lot of time and effort I now am beginning to get the feel for computing book sales from Amazon.com Book Rankings. I’ve been told that A. C Nielsen BookScan is the best source for this data, but it is only available to publishers.

The second approach is attaching a “Market Survey” for your novel. To create the Market Survey requires that you get a sizeable demographically diverse population of readers to read your manuscript and to complete a “Market Survey Form.” Getting some of your friends to tackle your manuscript and then to report on it in glowing terms will not get it done. You will need some bookstore owners, librarians, the educated and the less educated, old and young, professional and trades people, writers and editors, and most of them should not be your friends.

I currently am running such a survey for my novel Vamonos!, and I’ve gone through the process of building an email list of potential readers. I belong to several writing oriented blogs and sites so I’ve posted a call for readers to help me by reading my manuscript. Sites like Book Marketing Network, Book Place, and here at Publishers Marketplace all have readers that are interested enough in the concept to join in the fun. I want about one hundred readers, and I’m not there yet, so here I go:

¡VÁMONOS!
The hilarious adventures of two underachieving Texan C&W musicians who,
in the tradition of Don Quixote & Sancho Panza, strap on their guitars and ride their Harleys into the Mexican Desert on a journey of redemption for sins of the flesh

Want More Information on Conducting a Market Survey?
Email billstephens@satx.rr.com with your name and email address.
You will receive complete information on the Vamonos! Market Survey.

Post a Comment and I will get back to you.

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During the last twenty years Bill Stephens has written over 1,000 weekly columns and features on wine, food, travel, and outdoors for Murdoch, Harte Hanks, and Hearst newspapers. His features and contributions have appeared in national periodicals like Chef, Wine Spectator, Wine News, Wine Enthusiast, Field & Stream, and Food & Wine. He has published two short stories “The Decanter, A Christmas Story” and “Toby Tire and His Erratic Curve Ball”

At one point during his three-decade food service career, he concurrently owned and operated a leading white tablecloth restaurant, three airline in-flight kitchens, three employee feeding facilities, catered a dinner train, and his company was third largest full service off-premise caterer in South Texas.

Stephen’s catering clients included Texas governors, presidential candidates, the family of the King of Saudi Arabia, The Prince of Wales, Pope John Paul II, Tom Jones, Neal Diamond, Willie Nelson, and many other notables.