Pages

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

A Big Bestseller Weighs in on “Publishing Is A Lottery”

Yesterday, a big bestseller (really big) Barry and I know and respect emailed Barry in response to our post Publishing is a Lottery/Publishing is a Carny Game. The bestseller’s thoughts were so interesting we decided to post them here, anonymously, with our response. We hope the person in question will offer some additional comments, whether anonymously or otherwise, because this is exactly the kind of conversation we hoped our post would elicit. And we hope we’ll hear from many more people who can offer different perspectives based on different vantage points within the industry.

Big Bestseller: Barry, my friend, evidently the new world is already old enough to have grown zombie memes of its own.

Barry: Not just that, but many of them are already several years old!  In fact, Joe and I have been talking about doing a post of the Top Ten of them. We’ll let you know when it’s up.

Big Bestseller: You write, re publishing deals, "First, it’ll cost you your rights, which someone else will own for at least a very long time and in all probability forever ... " I have publishers in 98 countries and none of them own my rights. I own them all. You might say, come on, you know what I meant, or that it's a distinction without a difference, or that you were exaggerating for effect, or whatever—but be fair: you'd have ripped Turow for saying that. You'd have said, "A lawyer who doesn't know the difference between owned and licensed? Really?"

Barry: You’re right about the difference between own and control; I appreciate the correction and I have asked Joe to run a strikeout through the first and to add the second. You’re not right that I would have ripped Turow for the same mistake—precisely because I recognize that in this context it is indeed a distinction without any difference, and making a big deal of it would be pointless and petty (not only that, but I spend so much time addressing the egregious substance of Turow’s frequent mistakes of fact and logic that afterward I don’t have a lot of time left to nitpick him). That said, depending on my mood it’s possible I might have tweaked Turow for his harmless error, as you have me. A little tweak here and there can be good clean fun.

Now, if only Turow would crawl out from under his rock to engage his critics the way you and I are engaging each other…:)

Joe: I changed the word "own" to "control." But I'm okay with "own." You don't own a car you lease, but if you lease it for 70 years until it dies, you might as well have said you owned it. It isn't as if the owner is ever getting it returned, and possession is 9/10 of the law.

Big Bestseller: And earlier, that lame, tired, sad canard: "... hard work demonstrably does not guarantee success. If it did, then those hard-working publishers would produce nothing but massive bestsellers. After all, don’t they work hard on all their books?" That's like saying, "If the Yankees are such a great franchise, how come they don't win the World Series *every* year? How come they don't all bat a thousand?"

Barry: I know you’re fond of this analogy, and I suspect that fondness might be causing you to bring it up even when it’s not applicable. Here, it isn’t. One is an analysis of a lack of guarantees for purposes of arguing that a system functions as a lottery. The other is an analysis of whether something is good. These are not the same inquiries.

If what you’re trying to say instead is, “You can’t expect a guarantee from New York or from anywhere else, but you can expect the best possible odds, just like you can expect the best possible effort from a great team like the Yankees,” then although I wouldn’t entirely agree, I wouldn’t call it an incoherent argument, either. But I’m not sure if that’s what you’re trying to say.

Joe: Your comment that the Yankees can't be great unless every player bats 1000 and they never lose the World Series is (sort of) analogous to the Big 5 can't be great unless every book is a bestseller. That's not our point.

When legacy pundits refer to publishing as a true meritocracy, and they extol their ability to create bestsellers—much like you do later in this post—it is fair and approproiate to call them on that BS. How hard you work is no guarantee of success.

Baseball teams compete against one another, and statistics are carefully tracked and transparent. Book sales are not zero sum (authors don't compete with each other like baseball teams do), nor are book sales statistics known by the public. If I were to try out of the Yankees, my numbers would mean a lot, and everyone would be aware of them. The Big 5 doesn't release numbers, but I'm guessing not all their authors sell as well as you.

When Gottlieb gives examples of big publishing successes, he does so like a carny, pointing to the big stuffed Snoopy no one will ever win because the odds are so against it. And the thing is, the publisher will never tell anyone those odds. But I could find out exactly what numbers and odds I'd need to do to be a Yankee, and how well I'd have to perform to stay a Yankee.

All that aside, your analogy doesn't fit. Barry and I constantly talk about luck being a factor. Publishers can work hard, authors can work hard, or both can work hard, and none of it is any guarantee of success. But show me where publishers are admitting this.

So we're not likening the Big 5 working hard and making every book they release a bestseller to the Yankees working hard and batting 1000 and winning the World Series. The Yankees aren't claiming that will happen. They don’t suggest that if you become a Yankee, you’ll bat 1000 and win the World Series. The Big 5 are the ones being dishonest about a writer's chances.

Working hard does NOT mean you'll have a great batting average, become a Yankee, and win a ring (though hard work can affect your odds of getting lucky, which is one reason to work hard). Just like a big publisher working hard does NOT guarantee you'll sell like Nora Roberts or Dean Koontz.

Big Bestseller: You have to scale praise or criticism to what is possible, within the parameters of likelihood. And it's arithmetically impossible for every book to be a bestseller. The word "best", after all, has meaning.

Barry: Well, not arithmetically impossible (there are different ranks of bestsellers, after all—the New York Times even helpfully numbers them), but perhaps linguistically impossible. Beyond that, I don’t disagree. I just don’t see the applicability of your otherwise true statement to an analysis of systems as lotteries.

Big Bestseller: You betray your bias by blithely walking into it later, when you mention: "Amazon’s unmatched direct-to-consumer marketing power." To which I say, of course, "If Amazon's marketing power is so great, it would produce nothing but massive bestsellers." Right? See what I did there?

Joe: Actually, no.

Amazon does have unmatched direct-to-consumer marketing power, via its website and email lists. Publishers treat the bookstore as the customer, not the reader. Besides, Amazon isn't pointing to Barry, or me, or Hugh Howey, as something attainable, nor is it spouting BS about meritocracy or the importance of gatekeepers. Amazon is keeping mum for the most part, just like legacy publishers are keeping mum, about actual sales figures.

Amazon doesn't spout the BS or the ridiculous claims that legacy pundits have in the last dozen times we've fisked them. If Amazon did, I'd admonish Amazon—I've been critical of them before when they removed reviews, and Barry and I both don't like the amount of legacy legalese creeping into their current contracts. As we've said, this is a business, not an ideology.

My intent is for authors to be treated fairly. So far Amazon is much better for authors than legacy publishers on contract terms, royalties, control, and many things authors want... with the exception of paper book distribution. Legacy trumps Amazon on paper distribution. But I'm doing well enough that I don't need those paper distribution to make a nice living.

Big Bestseller: And seriously, it's a question worth examining. Why has no AP title ever even approached a million sales? Why has no KDP title?

Barry: This is a great point precisely because it leads to the kind of honest and productive conversation about payoffs, odds, and risks Joe and I hoped to elicit with our post. We could talk about what legacy publishing’s power is intended to achieve, what Amazon’s power is intended to achieve… things like that. We could talk about the ways these two lotteries differ, while being careful to scale our praise or criticism to what is possible, within the parameters of likelihood. This is useful.

So why hasn’t Amazon had a million-copy bestseller yet? My guess is it’s primarily because their strength isn’t in paper and because their digital editions are Amazon exclusives, unavailable in other retail channels. Their focus is on selling a lot of digital copies to Amazon customers, and at this they’re demonstrably great. For some people, this kind of lottery will be attractive (it’s working better for me than the legacy one ever did, both in terms of overall volume and because I make so much more per unit with Amazon in digital). For others, such as you, it likely wouldn’t make sense. The point is to understand the benefits, odds, and costs of all the available lotteries so we can make the choices that are best for ourselves.

Big Bestseller: Because a million is fairly routine for a BPH e-book. Even though BPHs have "virtually no such power at all ..."

Barry: A million copies of an ebook is “routine” for BPH? (I confess I’m not not familiar with the abbreviation BPH, but I’m guessing you mean Big Publishing House?) That sounds like a huge number to me, but perhaps that’s because we hobnob with what Donald Maass would call different classes of author?

Anyway, in the absence of verifiable data it’s hard to know for sure, but judging from my own experience and from that of the many other Amazon-published authors I know, Amazon is indeed using its unmatched direct-to-consumer marketing power to generate sales for its authors far larger than those their previous, legacy publishers were able to achieve. Sales as large as yours? Not even close, I imagine. But this brings us back to that interesting and productive conversation about benefits, odds, and costs, of the different natures of the different lotteries, about why some people would want to play one and some people another.

Joe:A million is fairly routine? No, it isn't. Not even close. Not even close to being close.

It perhaps is fairly routine that a paper book that sells a million will sell a million ebooks, but even then I'd balk at the word "routine". A million is a lot of books, and very few titles sell that many. I'd posit those that do are bolstered by the omnipresent paper distribution, which we'll get into shortly...

Big Bestseller: Problem is, you're viewing Amazon's marketing in a solipsistic way. An Amazon blast might indeed be a wonder to behold, compared to anything else you've seen in *book* marketing, or not, but consumers are just regular folk, not especially interested in books - and, crucially, they're all getting somewhere between thirty and forty e-mail offers every day. Not technically "spam", as defined by their ISP's spam filters, but certainly spam as defined by their frontal lobes. They pay less and less attention. Delete, delete, delete. Direct-to-consumer marketing is a losing proposition now. It usually takes the public the best part of twenty years to wake up to something, and now folks are beginning to understand: the Internet is all about selling them something, and they're starting to build resistance.

Joe: Based on... what sources? If you look at what Amazon does to sell books, compared to what the legacy industry has done (big ads, book tours, coop to booksellers) I'd say people are more apt to buy books based on an email than a billboard. My numbers, both via Amazon campaigns and BookBub, show that visibility through email can increase sales for a title by 3000%, and that those effects last for a bit after the promo has ended.

Moreover, all A-Pub authors get this treatment. Which is why there is a disproportionately high percentage of A-Pub authors in Hugh's data

Barry: Direct-to-consumer marketing involves a lot more than just email campaigns. For example, there’s also merchandising on the Amazon website and ads on the home pages of Kindles, both of which are also exceptionally powerful sales tools. True, legacy publishers can indirectly achieve something similar by buying coop, whether in brick-and-mortar stores on the Amazon website. But legacy publishers have virtually no contact with, and therefore very little knowledge of the behavior of, end-user customers. They have less ability to tailor such campaigns to make them as effective as possible.

Also, I’m pretty sure it’s a mistake to dismiss all direct-to-consumer marketing as “a losing proposition now.” That’s an awfully broad statement when you consider how much it must encompass, now and historically.

I’ve seen amazing results from Amazon’s campaigns so far, but it’s certainly not logically impossible that direct-to-consumer marketing could lose its mojo. The key question, I think, is how much of what Amazon does akin to what Seth Godin calls “permission marketing,” and how much of it is akin to spam? People like permission marketing (“You want fries with that burger?”). They hate spam. I think if Amazon continues to do the former, they’ll stay strong. If they drift off into the latter, agreed, they’ll get tuned out. Either way, it’s probably a bit early to make across-the-board pronouncements about the death of direct marketing.

Much of this comes down to the question of, “What do you primarily want from your publisher?” Which can be rephrased as, “What are you primarily paying your publisher to do?” In a paper universe, I think the answer is “distribution.” In a digital universe, I think the answer is “marketing.” Now, as the consumption of books becomes increasingly digital, if you’re right about direct-to-consumer marketing being dead already and right about New York being the best marketing game in town, New York will be fine, and authors will continue to be happy paying New York 75% of their digital royalties in exchange for all that great marketing. I don’t see things shaking out that way, but I’m not clairvoyant and I could be wrong. Regardless, as long as authors are asking themselves these questions (“What do I want from my publisher? How likely is it my publisher will provide it? What will it cost me?”), I’m happy. How individuals decide is their own business.

Joe:One of the things I'm keenly aware of, and caution others against, is believing that because something worked for me, it must work for others.

It certainly can work for others. I've been thanked hundreds (thousands?) of times by authors who gave self-pubbing a try because of my blog, or after seeing me speak. Just like there are more authors on the bestseller lists than just you, BB. But we have to figure out odd, payoffs, and costs in order to make informed decisions.

Big Bestseller: I have absolutely no beef with Amazon—I make a fortune from them, many times more than any AP or KDP author. They're definitely one of my Top 10 trading partners around the world. But I believe the desire to buy my books comes from third-party recommendation, either a trusted voice inside the national conversation, or a trusted friend. Or chance browsing. Not direct-to-consumer marketing by the seller.

Barry: I doubt it’s either/or. And you’re arguing as though New York has some ability to market indirectly that Amazon and others intrinsically lack. What New York has that no one else does is potentially massive paper distribution. If legacy distribution results in no more than your being spine-out in every third B&N, it’s just distribution and gains you little visibility. But if it means you’re in every big box store, every front table of every B&N, every airport kiosk, every drugstore, then distribution becomes its own form of marketing, and agreed, no one can do this the way New York can. But how many people get that treatment? And how many of your sales do you expect to be in paper vs how many in digital? And how long will the paper party rock on? These are precisely the kinds of questions authors need to ask when deciding whether the legacy lottery is right for themselves.

That said, I agree that the best advertising is "third-party recommendation, either a trusted voice inside the national conversation, or a trusted friend." But I think you might be confusing the match and the kindling, on the one hand, with the long-term fuel, on the other. The question is, how do the flames get fanned? Presumably you wouldn’t argue that advertising is useless, coop is useless, blurbs are useless, etc, for purposes of igniting and fanning a national conversation. None of these efforts is either/or.

No book can get beyond a certain point without going viral. But there are various tools that can help in that enterprise. If your response to this would be, “Yes, Barry, but direct-to-consumer marketing isn’t one of those tools,” I’ll respectfully disagree.

Joe: BB, your diehard fans benefit from direct-to-consumer marketing, because they're looking for your next book. But I'd argue that chance browsing is the real factor behind many NYT bestsellers, because their books are available everywhere. If there is a selection of 15 titles in a CVS or an airport kiosk, and one is yours, those looking for that kind of book are limited in their choice by what is available.
In other words, you sell a lot because you're everywhere. That isn't taking anything away from your ability as a storyteller. It's simple numbers. The more places a book is for sale, the more copies it will sell.

Amazon sells books on Amazon. It is one location. And its location is closer to an even playing field than authors have ever had. It is also a location with no barriers to entry, is a relatively even playing field, and is a place where authors have a measure of control.

When I was legacy pubbed, I had no say in distribution, marketing, coop, or discounting. Your books all have incredible distribution, marketing, coop, and discounting. Mine never did. And it isn't a quality issue. Some of my titles have more, and higher, Amazon ratings than some of your titles, even though you outsell me by an astronomical amount.

Big Bestseller: Again, no beef. Your main argument seemed to be that it's relatively a little easier to earn decent money through AP or KDP, and I don't disagree. Hugh Howey's guesses—while hilarious in their earnestness—back that up, because I believe them to be accurate in broad substance. But the "Stephen King!" response is also valid, I think. Why not shoot for the big win? So timid not to.

Barry: Now who’s being solipsistic? (And I want you to know, I find your earnestness is endearing, too. ;)). Someone prefers to play in a lottery that’s different from the one you prefer, and that means she’s timid?

How about if we play a nice game of Russian roulette. Five chambers in the cylinder, one loaded, a million bucks if you win. An eighty percent chance of winning a million dollars!  What, you won’t play? When did you get so timid, my friend?

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with swinging for the fences. Nor is there anything wrong with just going for a solid base hit. All I’m concerned about is that people understand the odds and the risks of each so they can make decisions that are best for themselves. Which, as I’m sure you know, won’t always be the same as the decisions you feel are best for you.

Joe:  The “Stephen King” meme is not valid. You're quite literally one in a million. And, as Barry's post correctly pointed out, the cost for taking that shot is high compared to the chance of it happening.
It is a fallacy to believe we got where we are because we deserve it. A whole lot of stars had to align to just reach my small level of success. But for a JK Rowling to happen, the odds are astronomical (for more, I recommend Leonard Miodinow’s The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives). To advocate that approach to authors is unfair, and harmful. It's okay to sign an unconscionable deal with shitty royalty rates and no chance of ever getting your rights back for the 1/1000000 chance of selling as well as you do? No thanks. Especially because I'm pretty sure, once B&N collapses, most NYT bestsellers will see lower sales than ever before.

I can't match Patterson's sales in the paperback racks, because he's in all of them and I'm in none. I'm not a giant bestseller who releases 25 titles a year and has movies and TV shows based on my work. I'm not a regular guest CBS and NPR and have full page newspaper ads and television commercials and radio spots. But from time to time, my ebook titles can outsell his.

Again, everyone's mileage may vary, just as everyone's goals vary. Writers should understand the odds, payoffs, and costs. If they want to sell as much as King, Koontz, Roberts, Child, Clancy, Cussler, Rowling, Steel, Patterson, Grisham, etc. then the only way to currently do that is by signing with a BPH and hoping for the star treatment. Nothing wrong with chasing that dream, as long as you're informed of your chances.

Big Bestseller: And the win is bigger than you suggest, I think. Even at my level, which is far from the very top, the win is ten times bigger than we're seeing with AP or KDP, and even on your estimates it's not ten times harder to get there.

Barry: I named some of the biggest winners I know of, acknowledged that there’s more to the potential payout than just those megahits, and called upon New York to share anonymized data to help authors make better choices. As I said: if New York has the best lottery in town, why not back the story up with evidence?

I know, I know…because they don’t need to, everything is fine, self-publishing is the new slush pile. Maybe so. It’s interesting to watch it all unfold.

Big Bestseller: But that last paragraph refers to today's status quo. Will it sustain itself? No, I think, not in any recognizable way on either side, but that's a different subject entirely.

Barry: A different subject, agreed, but I wouldn’t say an entirely different one. Because depending on how much your digital sales are growing relative to your paper ones, you might find self-publishing or Amazon-publishing an increasingly attractive kind of lottery to play, and that inquiry involves the larger questions of, “What happens if B&N closes? What happens if digital continues to grow relative to paper overall? How long can the current structure of legacy publishing endure?" These were all part of my own decision several years ago. Not that my conclusions will necessarily be instructive for other authors, but I think the framework will be.

You want to know my favorite thing about all this? That we’re talking about it at all. Five years ago, or certainly ten, there was only one lottery to play, and conversations like this would have seemed pointless. Now, no matter how grudgingly or implicitly, everyone acknowledges there are new games in town. Trying to dismiss their significance or even their existence is like that Samuel Beckett line: “God. That bastard… he doesn’t exist.”

The new choices are real. Sometimes I forget how monumental that is. Sometimes I take for granted that even the staunchest establishment insiders like Maass and Gottlieb now feel compelled to try to marginalize them. But then I remember how awesome it is that for the first time authors have meaningful choices. Thanks for adding your voice and helping more authors make the best choices for themselves.

And now if only Scott Turow would say something…:D

Joe: Thanks, BB. And again, feel free to add comments, or email Barry or me if you want to add anything lengthy

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Fixing Metabolic Damage- My Reverse Diet Diary.



Holy swizzle stick!- Hawaii, in 3 months?! Good golly, gee wiz! I am supposed to be a personal trainer, I better sharpen up the rig ASAP!

So that was my typical female thought pattern about 3 months before jet setting to Hawaii. My motivation sadly came from wanting a ‘beach body'.. might sound vain, but hey, I have a vagina and society is bullying me into this.. give me a break. 

Anyway, around June last year I was only eating around 1300 calories a day, so in order to lose weight I dropped my carbs to a stupidly low level, and ate very few calories in order to get lean pronto. I trained hard (felt like crap) & went from 55kg to around 52-53kg (depending on if I'd taken a dump recently or not). Anyway, I was happy with how I looked once I smothered myself in a violent fake tan, I was ready to hit the Hawaiian sand.
 
Life was hard in Hawaii..


I enjoyed Hawaii but was very mindful of how much I ate to ensure I didn’t go over 1100 calories. Half a quest bar & a coffee was my breakfast everyday and I pretty much lived off rice cakes (good thing I love them)

Anyway, when I got home I was ready to eat normally again and  fix all this damage I'd done to my body. (Note how I was eating 1100 calories for 4 months & training hard, and only lost 2kg?) I had read about metabolic damage & knew that I needed to do a reverse diet to help my body heal & to increase my calorie intake. So I sat down with my awesome coach Joey to formulate a reverse diet plan that would allow me to increase my caloric intake with minimal weight gain.

Below is the dairy I kept of my thoughts as I went through my 20 week reverse. (I only started the diary at week 7, because thats when I realized it would be a good blog post)

Keep in mind that prior to starting this reverse I was extremely strict with my food intake, I never ate sugar, lollies, ice-cream or chocolate (not even dark chocolate), I wouldn’t go near a dessert menu and even the smell of something ‘unhealthy’ made me anxious- I hadn’t eaten any ‘typical’ junk food in over 2 years and the last time I ate fast food was in Bali 3 years ago. It once took me 45 minutes to choose a dip in the supermarket because I was so obsessed with finding one that didn’t contain vegetable oil...

So from me this reverse diet was more then just a calorie increase, it’s a total mind reset.

Week 7.
Total Cals: 1440
Protein: 130g
Carbs: 140g
Fats: 40g
Fibre intake: 20-25g

Ok so before starting this reverse my carbs were crazy low, so it has been a change to have a higher carb intake. Hello sweet sweet fruit! This week has been interesting, really struggling to keep the fats down. Ive had to take it easy on the peanut butter (worst news ever). I jumped on the scales and thought id put on 3kg in a dayI think I just needed to take a crap, cause I was back to my normal weight the next morning. Thanks a lot hormones, way to freak me out.

Week 8.
Total Cals: 1480
Protein: 130g
Carbs: 150g
Fats: 40g
Fibre intake: 20-25g

My former self would have died from anxiety if she saw the foods I have eaten this week. Ive had a banana like everyday- I used to think bananas were the devil due to their high carb count and glycemic index.. now I actually have to eat them to hit my carb intake! I also ate ice-cream yesterday cause I had left over carbs and fats.. #winning. My tastebuds are dancing like 3 year olds to the wiggles… frantically and kinda dangerously. I’m finding the supermarket a whole new adventure- it’s a weird concept for me to no longer look at certain foods as 'good' or ‘bad’.

Week 9
Total Cals:1480
Protein: 130g
Carbs: 150g
Fats: 40g
Fibre intake: 20-25g

I kept my carbs the same this week because I did a bit of a rubbish job at hitting them last week. I actually had a piece of birthday cake today too (which I haven't had in like 3 years!) Ill admit though, eating so much is actually kind of hard, I’m finding that I am force feeding myself quite a bit. But that’s ok- ill get there! I just have to make sure I space my meals out so I don’t have to slam a heap of food before bed.

Week 10
Total Cals: 1520
Protein:130g
Carbs: 160g
Fats: 40g
Fiber: 20-25g

My numbers stayed the same again this week as I thought I had gained 500grams, however this morning I jumped on the scales and I have actually lost weight! Im at 52kg which is slightly lower then when I started 4 weeks ago! So I'm pumped about that. Ive decided not to count macros on Saturdays at it was becoming stressful and isn’t worth the hassle of trying to fit in certain foods around events. I just eat intuitively on Saturdays and try to be smart about my intake. Training is going well & I am feeling strong in the gym. Ill be upping my carbs to 160 this week! Yikes! I don’t think ive ever eaten so much fruit before in my life! Its freakin amazing!!


Week 11
Total Cals:1605
Protein:130g
Carbs: 170g
Fats: 45g
Fiber: 20-25g

Fruit, im eating so much fruit. Its amazeballs. Last year I literally didn’t eat any fruit for the whole year- I actually used to think of them as ‘sugar’ and being unhealthy. What the fudge was wrong with me? Who ever got that Idea into my head should be slapped with a bread stick.. I think it was Charles Poliquin, damn that carb hating man. I missed out on some bloody good fruit! Well.. im totally making up for lost time!





Week 12
Total Cals: 1645
Protein 135g
Carbs 175g
Far 45g

I have noticed some interesting things this week, Ive stopped needed to have a nap each day & my muscles are not as 'achy' at night (I sometimes find it hard to sleep because my body hurts), my hair is also looking healthier & Im not losing clumps of it in the shower! Although, yesterday I was totally convinced that I had put on weight, all my clothes fit but I guess smashing so much food everyday is psychologically messing with me. I did my measurements anyway just to check...nothing. All my measurements are the same & so is my body weight. Crazy huh? I could get used to this eating 3 big meals a day business..


Week 13
Total Cals: 1692
Protein: 135g
Carbs: 180g
Fat: 48g

I forgot to write anything down for week 13, but I'm going to assume it was an awesome week, cause generally my weeks contain a fair amount of awesome.


Week 14
Total Cals: 1752
Protein: 135g
Carbs: 195g
Fat: 48g

Carbs carbs carrrbbbs delicious carbs.. Holy baked potato. I am battling to hit the carb count again, I’ve resorted to drinking fruit juice and chowing down on cereal to try and get my carb intake up. Full.. me so full.

Week 15
Total Cals: 1752
Protein: 135g
Carbs: 200g
Fat: 48g

Hello festive season, this year was AWESOME! I actually remember last year having all this amazing fruit for Christmas and not eating any of it cause I was a carb a fobic.. this year I was pretty much injecting fruit juice into me! I didn’t officially count Christmas or boxing day, but I am becoming quite good at guessing my intake so I am betting I actually came pretty close to hitting my targets. I still trained right throughout the festive season, no rest for the wicked- plus I enjoy training so that helps!

Week 16
Total Cals: 1752
Protein: 135g
Carbs: 200g
Fat: 48g

Kept my intake the same this week as I went to Adelaide for a 10 day holiday. I made sure I kept up with the training, but probably didn’t train as hard as I would have liked. Really struggling with the increased food intake, I am innately not a big eater and I hate that feeling of being so full you feel sick- I feel like I am constantly eating all day.

From here I reversed for another 4 weeks, but I forgot to write down my thoughts as I was writing my Ebook and life got a little cray. BUT I remember complaining that I felt fat, even though the scales didn’t change at all. I ended up getting my intake to over 2000 calories and carbs around 240g- At the end of the 20 weeks I had put on about 500grams (give or take a bathroom visit), which I am hoping is muscle (since I was hitting the gym pretty hard).

The hardest part of the reverse was knowing that I wasn’t going to lose weight in those 20 weeks. (Even though, I actually have clients who find they do actually drop weight when they reverse!) I feel like in the past 4-5 years I’ve consistently tried to lose weight. There hasn’t been a single week, month or day that hasn’t gone by where I haven’t stressed about what I put into my mouth or haven’t followed some sort of training program at the gym in order to trim down. It was a nice mind shift to make myself accept the size that I was and be OK with it staying that way while I did the reverse.

So, what happened next? Well, It is my brothers wedding in 3 weeks & I set myself a goal to get to down to 51kg by that date. Im happy to report that I am well on my way to achieving that goal, and still dropping weight by eating over 1600 calories!

The reverse diet has changed my mindset beyond belief, I now go to parties, I eat cake & I’m not scared of carbs. (Inner Italian is being unleashed again!)

If you are one of the many people who are under-eating & overtraining and feel like you are trying everything in order to lose weight and you cant, a reverse diet could be the golden nugget you need. (mmm… nuggets).


Believe it or not, It is actually very rare that I will have a client who does not need to do a reverse!


From my E-Book: "Have your cake & get lean too- A guide to counting Macros"


If you would like to know more about reverse diets & how to do one, please purchase my E-book 'Have your cake & get lean too- A guide to counting macros" which ill tell you everything you need to know, you can also get a personalized consult if you would like me to calculate a plan for you. 

If you are into Fitness Modeling or body building & need the assistance of someone who is qualified in that area, I would highly recommend my coach Joey!

Best Wishes,

Yours in carb filled love!

Mel x
melvfitness.com.au
Instagram: @melvfitness

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Konrath on Patterson Deux

James Patterson, in an unprecedented act of good will, is giving $1,000,000 to more than 50 indie bookstores.

It's a generous act.

It's also a misguided one.

Last year, Patterson committed another misguided act, buying an ad in the NYT asking who will save our books, our bookstores, and our libraries, and then suggesting the government needed to step in.

He was wrong, and I explained why in great detail.

I'm going to quote Patterson from the recent NYT article, and from things he said on NPR, and show why he's wrong once again.

Patterson: We're in a juncture right now where bookstores as we have known them are at risk. Libraries as we've known them are at risk, publishers are at risk, American literature is at risk, as we've known it, and getting kids reading is at risk.

Joe: I agree legacy bookstores are at risk. They're at risk because people are buying their books online, and in different formats than paper. That doesn't equate to books becoming extinct. It indicates a change in customer preference, both where people buy their reading material, and what format they buy it in.

Libraries, like Bibliotech in Texas, are able to directly meet the new demand. For the link-lazy, this is what Bibliotech is doing:

Mission:
Provide all Bexar County residents the opportunity to access technology and its applications for the purposes of enhancing education and literacy, promoting reading as recreation and equipping residents of our community with necessary tools to thrive as citizens of the 21st century.

Through BiblioTech, residents of Bexar County will be able to access over 10,000 current titles through e-readers that they can check out to take home or read on the premises.  Residents will also be able to use their own e-readers or tablets to access the collection.  

BiblioTech currently has 600 e-readers, 200 pre-loaded enhanced e-readers for children, 48 computer stations, 10 laptops and 40 tablets to use on-site.  Additional e-reading accommodations will be made for the visually impaired.  

Am I the only one who wants to live in Bexar County?

So, no, I don't believe libraries are at risk. Nor do I believe American literature is at risk. Books are written by authors, who are able to self-publish. More American literature is available to readers than ever before.

Patterson: (Via CBS Good Morning) If we don't have good publishers, who is going to find the next Infinite Jest or To Kill a Mockingbird?

Joe: The readers, Jim. You know, the ones who have embraced those books and made them bestsellers.

Patterson: The government has stepped in to help banks, automobiles, anything where money is concerned, but nobody seems to care about books and our bookstores. And I'm telling you, American literature is in jeopardy.

Joe: Jim, once again you're conflating brick and mortar bookstores closing with books no longer being available. Amazon is a bookstore. Ebooks are books.

Asking the government to bail out a business model that is no longer attracting enough customers to support itself is just throwing taxpayer money away.

I like bookstores. I've visited over 1200 of them. I also liked record stores, and my 35mm camera, and renting VHS tapes. But I didn't call for the government to save Tower Records, Kodak, and Blockbuster when customers' preferences changed.

Books are still selling very well. Authors are doing well. Middlemen such as publishers and indie bookstores are no longer needed to fulfill the public need for books.

I understand that brick and mortar bookstores and publishers helped make you very rich. It's nice that you want to help them out. But stop confusing the trouble they're in with literature being in jeopardy. Literature is not in jeopardy. The way customers acquire literature is changing. That's all.

According to NPR, Patterson will give up to $15k to each store on his list.

Patterson: It ranges from Andover Bookstore, where a son and daughter wrote and their father hadn't had a raise since 1988. ... Children's Bookstore in Baltimore, they give books to schools and they want the kids to be able to keep the books. Book Passage out in California will do more book fairs with it. Little Shop of Stories down in Decatur, Ga., they're buying a bookmobile.

Joe: You're doing a nice thing, Jim. But is it a smart thing?

If a store has been having difficulty since 1988, $15k won't do much to help it. I don't want to be cruel, but perhaps it is time to pull the plug. No one owes anyone a living. My father was a small businessman who owned several shops. It was his dream, and his passion. Not all were profitable, and he closed the ones that weren't. That's how business works.

Giving books to schools is noble. I've donated a few thousand dollars to www.firstbook.org, giving books to children. But I also bought my grandchildren tablets for the holidays. Let them download the ebooks they want. Ebooks they'll own forever (unlike my childhood books, which were read to pieces).

And bookmobiles? Driving paper books around in a truck to sell to people sounds labor intensive and expensive. With a Kindle, there are no dead trees, no fossil fuels, a much bigger selection, and instant delivery.

Perhaps that's why ereaders far outnumber bookmobiles.

Again, I'm not trying to be mean here. But perhaps we should listen to what readers want, rather than romanticize the days of old.

Patterson: I just want to get people more aware and involved in what’s going on here, which is that, with the advent of e-books, we either have a great opportunity or a great problem.

Joe: If you consider ebooks a problem and are truly concerned about the future of bookstores, you could always refuse to release your work in ebook format, Jim. I'm guessing you earn more on ebooks annually than the $1M you're giving to bookstores.

If you consider ebooks an opportunity, and want to help children learn to read, I bet www.firstbook.org would accept a donation of 100,000 Kindles from you, loaded with all of your children and YA work. I bet that will get kids reading.

Patterson: I’m rich; I don’t need to sell more books. But I do think it’s essential for kids to read more broadly. And people just need to go into bookstores more. It’s not top of mind as much as it used to be.

Joe: Why do people need to go into bookstores more, Jim?

I love booksellers. I thanked thousands of them, by name, in the acknowledgements of my novel Dirty Martini. I've been to a bookseller's wedding. I've gotten more than my fair share of booksellers drunk.

Sometimes, when you love someone, you need to let them go. Life support can be crueler than just allowing nature to take its course.

With the advent of tablets and ereading devices, there is effectively a bookstore in every person's home. And those who can't afford ereaders can borrow them from libraries. Ebooks are cheaper, easier to read (backlights and adjustable fonts), are delivered instantly without having to travel anywhere, and a much wider selection is available on Kindle than in even the largest brick and mortar bookstore.

I tried, years ago, to help booksellers, showing them a plan on how to compete. Not one took me up on my offer.

I've mailed signed books to bookstores, for free. I've signed thousands of bookplates for bookstores. I've signed used books and galleys for booksellers (which they can sell by don't earn me any royalties). But those days are in the past, and nostalgia isn't a good enough reason to invest in an archaic technology.

You're a generous guy, and your heart is in the right place, but you aren't going to change customers' buying preferences by throwing a bit of money around. Bookstores won't be saved by your $1M, or by a government bail out. They'll continue to exist only if customers continue to support them. And customers are voting with their wallets.

If I were a cynical man, I'd believe this offer of yours is a PR stunt. $1M is a nice, large number, but you reportedly make over $90M a year, so this isn't straining you financially. So you make this donation, get a lot of press, and both publishers and bookstores love you for it, while you slyly resuscitate the meme that ebooks and self-publishing and Amazon are bad--zombie talking points that further the legacy agenda. As a former ad man, you know how publicity works. And at the end of your CBS piece, you hawked your newest novel. I bet all those bookstores you're helping will be selling more of your backlist than ever before. You've certainly incentivized them to.

Maybe that isn't the point, and you truly are worried about the state of American literature. But you mistakenly believe indie bookstores are somehow the guardians of it.

They aren't. Good books, and good authors, will survive without bookstores. In fact, more than ever before are thriving in this new environment.

Your agenda is wrong, Jim. If your main concern was getting kids to read, and making sure American literature survives, there are much better ways to spend $1M. Like gifting Kindles to needy kids, or running your own book club or imprint. I believe these are just flowery talking points for your ultimate agenda, which is to make sure paper continues to remain the dominant format for your books.

See, you have a huge advantage over me in paper. Your books are available everywhere, often heavily discounted. You don't want to lose that advantage, because on Amazon, you and I have the same amount of shelf space. Naturally you want the status quo to continue, because it has made you wealthy. Of course you want as many outlets for your work to exist as possible.

Because if more and more bookstores close, and more and more readers switch to ebooks, all of that shelf space real estate you once owned becomes worthless. If spending $1M and doing a media tour helps bookstores stay around a bit longer, you're directly helping yourself.

There's nothing wrong with that. But let's tell it like it is, and drop the "save literature" and "it's for the children" talking points.

BTW, I predicted this in 2011. One day, Jim, you will be self-publishing your new release as a $2.99 ebook. The bookstores that still exist might complain, but when they're no longer a viable revenue stream for you, you'll go where the money is. Like any smart businessman does. Of course, that will also mean abandoning your publisher, but that's fodder for another blog post.

You can't stop technology. You can't change customer preference. And you're not going to get caught on the losing side of a revolution.