Small Press Blog

The Amazon Smack-Down

This was rather predictable. The State of California needs money. They decided to get some of that money from online sales by attempting to tax folks. In particular, they were looking at Amazon. Governor Brown signed legislation that allowed for this.

Amazon, of course, retaliated by shutting down the accounts of all of the California-based affiliates. This is in the neighborhood of 100,000 companies, charities, and individuals.

I do get California's point. They need money and local businesses can't compete with online sales (in part because what makes the online sales cheaper is the lack of sales tax). That being said, Amazon was very specific about what they were going to do if the legislation passed.

As it happens, I am one of those Amazon affiliates and my account has indeed been shut down. In my case, it was a relatively small amount of money per quarter. Still, every little bit helps. However, I know of a number of businesses that are predicated solely on being Amazon affiliates and selling books as an affiliate. I can only imagine what this will do to their ventures.

If it were me, I would be considering a relocation to Nevada. Perhaps ten feet across the border!

Choosing a Partner

I have recently written an article for the Virtual Earner website about how to select a partner for creating your web presence. One thing I mention over there is that it is about more than web development skills.

I encourage you to go take a look at:

Choosing a partner to develop your web presence

Can I write a book in one month?

I have a book that I was working on for a while, but other things have intervened. I now actually have some time and some desire to finish this book. Most of it is still to be written and that includes a significant amount of text to be inserted into my database.

All that being said, I have time this month, a significant amount of time, and it works on a number of levels, so I am going to do it. Really all it takes for me is time and the strength to write every day. This is my fifth book, so I have some sense for how this all works.

I hope to report here periodically on my efforts as I work toward publication. I will probably start my putting in some time tomorrow. That is the hard part.

Why is that hard? Because I have to see if my memory of how much has been done matches the reality of what has actually been accomplished. I expect that I have a lot to do.