faet

He went on a ride along with them. But, they basically went around the block and it was fairly smooth. He said the AC vent was more noticeable at highway speeds, but they didn't want to go on the highway as they had their "own route".

Additionally, the screen was working when they were there.

>Tesla’s should be better if anything due to the simpler drivetrain and lack of maintenance

Eh, their reliability is much worse than other brands, even luxury brands.

https://www.truedelta.com/car-reliability-by-brand?min=2016&...

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...

If it "works" it's great. But, once out of warranty it can be expensive and delayed before you can get your car fixed. On my S, I had to replace 3 door handles, drive unit, screen, TPS, passenger mirror was replaced, and a few other things. This was ~3 years of ownership and < 30k miles. Many of these things had a long delay before they could get fixed. I was in a loaner for over 3 weeks while they fixed the drive unit.

My father had an X that got bought back due to never being able to fix the rear door sensor. It would open a foot and freeze. He also had a handful of other issues. This was in less than a year of ownership.

My neighbor with the 3 got into an accident. It's ~6-8 months for them to fix their rear bumper. Additionally, one of the seatbelt adjusters and one of the AC vents rattle. So he stuck a piece of foam in there. His charging port has frozen and needed a manual release. And he says the screen sometimes doesn't come on. The nearest dealership is 100 miles away. He got an appointment, drove, got a loaner, drove home. They were 'Unable to reproduce' the rattles/screen issue. So he had to drive back and pick up his car with nothing getting fixed.

Generally, MSRP. It depends on the bookstore's agreement with the publisher. But, most are based on cover price.

So, if a store sells the book for $5. The author still gets $3.50

This generally doesn't apply if the publisher reduces the price for a 'sale period' though.

Macmillan is probably withholding taxes for him. If he publishes directly on amazon, they would withhold 30% and send it to the IRS.

"Making decent money" doesn't mean crap it's about risk, expected value, and opportunity cost.

If you've got a million dollars and put it into an index fund you'll make ~$100k/year. If you day trade and make "Decent money" of say $70k/year you're still at a loss vs if you took the less 'risky' approach. Even if you made $150k (50% over the index) it's still a loss due to lost opportunity cost. As the $100k index + a job at McDonalds making $30k/year still puts you ahead due to long term vs short term capital taxes. And if you've got the knowledge to day trade and earn more than 50% over an index you can probably command a better job than fast food.

If you don't have a million in capital it becomes harder and harder the less money you have.

Your friends would need to consistently beat the market by a percentage of their capital for it to be considered a 'win' imo.

It is very typical.

Assuming Print on Demand w/ amazon. He's not doing that but we'll just assume to keep it easy. And list price of $24

Amazon takes $5 to print Amazon takes $9.60 royalty

That leaves $9.40 or 40% available.

Of that Macmillan takes their cut to cover editing, covers, advertising, etc.

And what is left is probably $2.40 for each sale.

For Self published folks (going eBooks this time). Assuming you list for $10 and get a 70% royalty from amazon.

You'll earn $7 for each sale.

But, then once you factor in advertising (on amazon which goes to amazon), your earnings for each book drop to maybe a 5-30% royalty range. And that assumes you can sell your book for $10, which most self published cannot.

I have friends who sell $10k worth of eBooks/mo who make $2k/mo. So 80% goes to amazon and 20% goes to them.

Yes. Most publishers want 25-40% of the book's cover price.

ACX/Audible pays 40% for exclusive royalties. So your $30 audiobook will get you $12 in royalties. Amazon makes $3 from your subscription or $18 if someone buys it straight up.

Even at a 25% royalty structure you're still looking at $7.50/audiobook which doesn't work well with an all you can listen/netflix style program as 2-3 books puts the store in the red. Some companies will offer 'all you can listen' but will cut you off if you listen too much.

To get it to work publishers would need to agree to a flat fee for unlimited listens for a period of time. Which doesn't seem likely at this point.

I've got smart bulbs and they're great. We recently did a reno and wanted dimmable leds. The cost to properly rewire the existing circuitry to support low voltage dimming exceeded the cost of the smart bulbs. "Normal" leds with a traditional dimmable switch would have worked, but flickered. Additionally, the cost difference was minimal. So we swapped everything to smart bulbs (2), under-cabinet lights (2), and cans (5).

My dumb switches works fine. I can turn it off when I leave the kitchen. When I return and flick it on it sets it to a default brightness/color. If I am entertaining I can have it pulse with the music or set the mood with a specific brightness/color. When guests visit/stay they have no idea it's a 'smart bulb' and it works as a normal light switch to them.

If I forget to turn it off at night I can turn off the bulbs from my phone. If I'm not in the kitchen and the light switch is off, yeah I can't turn it on, but who cares? A normal switch would be off anyway. When I actually go into the kitchen I just flip it on and it returns to a pre-set brightness/color.

Additionally, the Hues in particular support a wide temperature range. So if I want 'warm' or 'cool' light I can set it. With a normal LED I'd have to pick at the time of purchase.

>World of Warcraft and Diablo and Starcraft required a lot of thought and theory crafting to feel like I knew how to be elite at them

Outside of PVP WoW doesn't require much thought for the majority of players. Rotations can be automated through things like TellMeWhen and other addons. Then there are addons to tell you what gear is better, when to move, etc. Simming for the most part is a 'solved problem'. And that is only if you want to raid. If you have no interest in raiding you'd be able to do everything by just pressing 2 buttons.

Diablo, you'd be in the top 1% if you just google builds and grind your way there. It's mostly a time thing. And when they had the Ah you could "buy you way to the top".

Starcraft is a pure pvp game so it's slightly different. Skill requirements are probably similar to something like Clash Royal. Although CR can pay to advance (cards). It still requires some general strategy and has a meta.

Textile manufacturing is coming back to South Carolina, USA as it's cheaper to produce in SC than in China. Along with favorable trade agreements they're able to access/use South American markets for cheaper as well.

There are fewer jobs than in the past in part due to automation.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article91482...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/04/why-i...

Nah, I meant when I got that view with safari there wasn't anything I could do to actually read the text. I was stuck with that view for all the pages. With Chrome I can scroll around to read even with the off-view.

Access to fetch at 'https://ft-polyfill-service.herokuapp.com/v2/polyfill.min.js... from origin 'https://bubblin.io' has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. If an opaque response serves your needs, set the request's mode to 'no-cors' to fetch the resource with CORS disabled. serviceworker.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Failed to fetch Promise.then (async) (anonymous) @ serviceworker.js:1 serviceworker.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Failed to fetch (anonymous) @ serviceworker.js:1 serviceworker.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Failed to fetch

Above is latest Chrome on osx.

https://i.imgur.com/veYtCUV.png Iphone xs safari. Unable to scroll/pinch/etc. Closing tab fixes.

For me it is less about the format and more about the ecosystem.

With no way to make a backup I'm reliant on them being always on and still around 10+ years later if and when I want to read it again.

But, the format also leaves much to be desired. The superbooks' "features" seem more like limitations. I cannot adjust text font or size, which is a feature! Something I've been able to do with every other ereader. I've also run into instances where the preview has text cut off even at 100% zoom. https://i.imgur.com/z8OldNU.png

"Real Output" is misleading as capital inputs/investing can greatly change it. Multifactor productivity vs Compensation is pretty equal.

http://i.imgur.com/5mOQARo.png

Will this be opened up for all stripe customers or will it remain invite only? If so, is there a planned date?

Marqeta has a iirc ~$10k setup fee. I'm hoping that this is much more reasonable.

I've had a few novels ghostwritten so these are my feelings.

Pros:

It'll get done faster than you doing it. The last novel I had ghostwritten was probably 10k words/week. When I write I churn out 500-1k/day and I don't write 5 days a week.

It'll probably be cheaper. Writing a 100k word book would take me ~100 hours. Getting one written is probably $~2k. On the high end that's $20/hr, which I can easily out earn via freelancing or time spent marketing existing books.

Cons:

It'll be close to your idea but it won't hit all the marks. I've got a grand world building idea. No matter what I present they'll probably miss some of it. Chances are I can go back and re-write/tweak some of it.

If you do a sequel the voice can change. The previous ghostwriter may not be available.

They can bail mid project. I've paid money to one for a book. They start and send a chapter or two. Then I never hear from them again. I can usually get a refund if it's an incomplete submission. But, it's a pain overall.

Quality is hit or miss. I've found some good ghostwriters for a good rate. I've found some terrible ones for 5x the price. Even if you get a sample it could be fake/from someone else. Or they could outsource it even further. I know someone who "Does ghostwriting" for 3-5c/word and they outsource everything to someone doing it for 1c/word. He runs it through one of the automated grammar checkers and passes it along.

I think it depends on the reason for the startup and how close to success you got.

I have friends who started a startup, got VC money, and ultimately shut it down after 2-3 years. They didn't have any issue getting another job as they had a product to show and they worked with a standard team. It was essentially a 'business that failed' and they were able to show the successes they did have (fundraising/launching/hiring/etc).

I have friends who tried consulting/solo startup and gave up after a year of no traction. They had a harder time getting a job afterwards because people felt they were just going to leave after they got another idea for a startup. "Less likely to put up with work politics" or they felt they "just took a year off" because they didn't have much to show for it.

I've started startups/businesses as side projects and I've found that it has only helped me. Most people are curious about them, gives me something to talk about, and I get to discuss pain points and things I've learned. But, they don't see it as a threat as I present it as a way to "learn" and keep my skills up to date.

Usually it costs me around $1000 for a ghost written book. Book is around 35k words (3c/word). Editing is 1.5c/word or flat rate depending who I get to do it. Covers are usually $250 for ebook or double if I get physical.

I use vellum to format ($250 one time). Requires a mac. The company I use will sometimes do this for me for free.

Marketing beyond email list is then either book bub if I can get in or amazon ads.

Mailchimp/digitalocean for email list/Wordpress site hosting. Google Apps for email. Those are my reoccurring costs.

Break even is usually 800-1k copies sold @ $2.99 list (I earn 70% of that). Plus whatever I spent on marketing. Anything outside 2.99-9.99 Amazon will only pay 30% royalties. I earn roughly a dollar per book read via kindle unlimited.

The first few books will take a while to earn back. Building your following/email list is the most important thing. I use it for engagement. “New book coming soon! Giving away 25 advance reader copies enter here”. Then before release “pre order now. Here is the feedback from those that won a free copy.” The surge of reviews/early sales helps boost Amazon ranking (new readers) as well as to quickly earn back what I spent producing it.

100% Amazon. Kindle unlimited locks you in. But, worth it for what I publish. Physical/print on demand book margins are pretty bad. I have some physical books. But most are ebook. All of my bought/rereleased are ebook.

I don't have any formal documentation around.

For ghostwriting I focus on a couple different niches. I work with a company to get the books written. I write for the audience rather than what interests me. If vampires are hot one month I put that out. If it's billionaires the next I do those. I have a couple different "authors" that I write under that stick to each genre (One only writes LGBT Romances for instance). A large part was building up the email lists of readers and managing some social network profiles. Once you build up your following it gets much easier. I know some authors that churn out a book every 2 weeks and people will spend the $2.99 (or read it on kindle unlimited) every time. My release schedule is a lot slower, but I'm trying to find more reliable ghostwriters to speed it up.

Regarding the buying of book rights. I have a publishing company I run that looks for books that are not 'successful' and I make an offer. I'll clean up the book and re-release it under a different author name and do a little marketing. These I aim to cover costs before end of the first year.

~$5k/mo.

I aim for quantity over quality. I pay to have books ghostwritten for a particular market/niche. I also acquire rights to other self published books and re-release them. Self publishing is all about the marketing.

Muni/Public broadband has already been limited in 20 states.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-al...

> I get zero books from the Kindle store because of DRM

This is an option up to the author.

https://i.imgur.com/J8oBLl2.png

Compensation has kept pace with productivity.

Source: http://i.imgur.com/5mOQARo.png

Real compensation has been growing. It's just now a larger portion of 'compensation' is benefits rather than just wages.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB

edit:

in the 60s/70s wages were 80% of compensation.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/cwc/compensation-in-the-1970s.p...

wages are now 70% of compensation and 63% for public employees.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf

Much of it depends on what I am looking to publish. I mostly focus on popular romance niches.

For instance I publish a lot of LGBT erotica/romances. I write up about 1-2 paragraphs of what I want the story to be and pass it to the ghostwriter. I have a few different pen names and each stick with one genre. Example: "Mary Sue" only publishes BDSM Gay Romances. That way if you find one of my books and like gay bdsm romance, you're more likely to buy the others or subscribe to learn when new books come out.

I have a simple wordpress site for each author with an email list. I provide 1 book free for signing up.

I've used the same ghostwriting service for ~2 years so they're pretty consistent.

I'm currently working on a nonfiction politics book. I basically provided a word doc of research (news articles/etc), and a theme. I only specified 2 chapters and a word count. The other chapters are up to them.

Much of it depends how public it is. For instance something like whisper needs to remove nudity/hate speech else they'll be kicked off iOS/playstore. But, you can still send it directly without issue.

I have a friend who took a 1099 job over a W2 job because "they offered more money". I tried to explain that because he is now paying a higher payroll tax he's earning less per hour than the other job.

He doesn't get it though. "The other company was offering X. This one is offering 5% more."

He also doesn't have PTO, 401k, or medical insurance.

I pay people to ghostwrite books for me. I then list them on Amazon and market them. I started 2 years ago and have been putting out about 1 book/mo.

Last month I made ~$4.5k