economics – Edward Trimnell Books

Kindle, Kobo, my future publishing plans…and yet another 1980s metaphor

Many of you have noticed that my books are now available at multiple retailers.

But not all of my books are available at multiple retailers.

There are reasons for this. Allow me to explain.

As recently as last year, I was Amazon-exclusive on all titles (with the exception of a few non-fiction books). All of my fiction was in Kindle Unlimited.

That’s not the way it is anymore.

Why?

The publishing landscape is changing.

Amazon is still the dominant player in the ebook retailing space (and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future).

But Kobo is rapidly emerging as a viable alternative for many readers (as the video below demonstrates). Other readers will toggle back and forth between the two.

Kobo is not the only non-Amazon e-book retailer, of course. There are also Apple Books, Google Play, and Barnes & Noble.

But Kobo, with its high-profile line of e-readers, seems to be the one that is making the most headway. Kobo is serious about increasing its market share.

Where readers go, authors will follow, and vice versa.

The wild card here is Kindle Unlimited’s exclusivity clause. If a title is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, it can’t be sold (in ebook format) at any of the other retailers. Historically, this has meant that thousands of titles listed at Amazon aren’t available at Kobo, Google Play, etc.

Many readers, I suspect, aren’t even aware of this.

I’ve noticed a trend: More romance authors are publishing their books “wide”, with an emphasis on Kobo.

Yes, romance… the genre that dare not speak its name at this blog. Regular readers will know how I hate werebear shapeshifter romance, reverse harem romance, and all the other ridiculous romance genres.

But I don’t deny their collective footprint in the marketplace. Those weird romance genres, much as I disdain them, may be instrumental in propelling Kobo’s growth in the near future.

This will indirectly benefit the other non-Amazon retailers—not only Kobo. Because if you’re publishing your book on Kobo, then you had might as well publish it on Google Play, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble too.

Readers will go where the books go. This is the network effect in action.

But for me, publishing wide doesn’t mean abandoning Kindle Unlimited. I will still be keeping many backlist and new titles in Amazon’s exclusive subscription program.

Yes—I know that means that those titles will only be available at Amazon. But Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program is a major player in its own right. In my opinion, part of being “wide” means having a footprint in Kindle Unlimited.

This diversified strategy may strike some readers as needlessly complicated. But remember: I’m from the 1980s. And back in the 1980s, content publishers regularly thought in terms of market segmentation.

For example: there were movies and TV shows that were available on network television for free.

Other movies and shows were available on HBO (a subscription program).

Others required viewers to access them via a pay-per-view system.

Then there were all those VHS rentals.

And finally, there were movies that could only be seen at the cinema.

I’m doing something very similar. Some of my titles are exclusively at Amazon, other titles are “wide”.

Nor have I forgotten about free, frictionless discovery venues: I’ve also been adding readings of some of my books and stories to my YouTube channel.

The 2026 content distribution marketplace is complicated; but in some ways, it’s no more convoluted than it was in 1986. So we go back to the 1980s yet again.

-ET

MS NOW, the “Gen Z stare”, and workplace realities

The so-called “Gen Z stare” has attracted a lot of attention in the media recently, especially in regard to workplace situations.

The Gen Z stare is a vapid, amused, or annoyed look that young people sometimes give their elders. And in the workplace, most of the management team is going to be over forty and therefore an “elder”.

I’m not sure that there is really anything new here. Watch a teen movie from the 1980s. You will see teenagers from the Reagan era giving older adults similar looks (often accompanied by eye rolls). Keep in mind: those teenagers of the 1980s are now late middle-aged adults in their 50s and early 60s.

The point being: young people have always believed that older people are fuddy-duddies, not current, old-fashioned. If those adults would only get with it, already!

Older people have always believed that young people are too arrogant, and need to spend more time learning the way things are done, versus expressing their opinions.

Both viewpoints are right and both viewpoints are wrong. It depends on the context. The tug between tradition and change is as old as civilization itself.

But in the workplace, the situation is less ambiguous. The workplace is not going to change for the new hire right out of college. Change is going to happen in the opposite direction.

That’s why I’m not a fan of videos like the one recently published by MS NOW, entitled “Did You Just Get the Gen Z Stare at Work? This is Why.” The video asserts that today’s young adults were brought up in a “participatory” culture, and—therefore— don’t cope well with “hierarchy”.

Here’s a newsflash: you could have said more or less the same thing about young adults entering the workplace in 1990. Here’s another newsflash: those young adults of 35 years ago had to change and adapt to the workplace. Today’s young adults will have to change and adapt, too.

The workplace, whether we like it or not, is all about hierarchy. Just ask anyone who’s ever held a job for any length of time.

-ET

Rescuing restaurant chains from the MBAs

Back in the 1980s, Pizza Hut was one of my favorite places to eat. I ate at several local Pizza Huts here in Cincinnati with my parents, my friends, and some dates.

Even back then, Pizza Hut was a national franchise. (In fact. I think it was already an international franchise). But Pizza Hut was distinctive, atmospheric, and wonderfully quirky. Those glass light fixtures, and the red-and-white checkered tablecloths. The arcade games in one corner.

And then the MBAs ruined Pizza Hut, as the MBAs ruined so much of American business.

Some time around the turn of this century, corporate management teams in multiple restaurant chains decided that restaurants should lose their distinctiveness, and aim for a stripped-down, ultra-modern corporate look. The idea seemed to be that restaurants should mimic the Apple Store.

Suddenly, Pizza Hut wasn’t a fun place to eat anymore. Ditto for others. Very few fast food restaurants provide anything approaching an immersive experience nowadays.

There have been some notable consumer backlashes. Last year, customers expressed their vehement disapproval on the internet when the corporate pointy heads decided that it was time to give Cracker Barrel a makeover. Cracker Barrel’s management team promptly backpedaled.

As the attached video from CBS shows, a Pizza Hut in rural Pennsylvania has discovered a new formula for success. That formula turns out to be—lo and behold— going back to the distinctive Pizza Hut decor, menu, and layout of the 1980s.

The video also mentions that the store has brought Pac Man back. This is a nice touch, but I don’t think it’s necessary for every restaurant chain to literally go back to the 1970s and 1980s. For example, those famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) aluminum ashtrays are not coming back to McDonald’s in an era of smoking bans. And I’m okay with that. We can leave the aluminum ashtrays (and all the second-hand smoke) in the Reagan era.

But there are a lot of good things that should be brought back to national restaurant chains—wonderful elements of well-known brands, that were eliminated in the name of nonsensical “modernity”.

Every restaurant should not look the same. And restaurants certainly shouldn’t look like the Apple Store.

-ET

OnlyFans and inevitable aggregations

As this video from Coin Bureau Finance explains, the OnlyFans gold rush is already over, and more changes are coming. The platform is inherently risky for investors and credit card processors; but that isn’t the only problem. The OnlyFans ecosystem is also subject to the aggregating forces that are present in any creator-based economy.

Henceforth, OnlyFans will likely be moving in two directions, neither of which is promising for the much-ballyhooed individual creator on the platform.

The first is the superstar creator. Often this will be a celebrity. Recently, there has been an influx of aging female celebrities joining OnlyFans. These are actresses who have aged out of leading-lady roles (don’t look for Sydney Sweeney or Zendaya to join anytime soon) but who are still young and attractive enough to draw in millions of simps with credit cards. Shannon Elizabeth is the most famous recent example, but she is far from alone.

The second direction is that of the AI-powered OnlyFans agency. In these cases, there may be a real live human female somewhere, providing some of the content. Increasingly, however, content that does not feature a celebrity will rely on artificial intelligence.

And according to the above video, artificial intelligence is already powering many OnlyFans accounts. The thirsty males who plunk down their credit cards each month think that they are gaining access to the woman on the other side of the screen. In reality, they are most likely chatting with a woman (or possibly even a man) in a call center-like facility in the Philippines or Vietnam.

Which brings us to another familiar realization: OnlyFans subscribers really are a gullible, pathetic bunch of men.

-ET

Homeschooling: the wrong solution to a real problem

A large number of school levy issues were on the ballot throughout Ohio this past Tuesday. Most of them were rejected by voters. Reading the comments on Facebook, I noted that those who voted against the levies were largely unapologetic.

There is a general dissatisfaction throughout America with public schools: their management, their methods of (taxpayer) funding, and the instruction that is taking place within them.

This dissatisfaction with public education has fueled a concomitant rise in homeschooling. When I was a kid, during the 1970s and 1980s, one never met anyone who was homeschooled. (Fewer than 1% of Gen Xers receive their education this way.) But nowadays it seems that every other young adult one meets is the product of homeschooling. Every young couple with children is at least talking about educating their kids at home. The percentages rise as the neighborhoods become whiter and more affluent.

I understand the dissatisfaction with twenty-first-century public schools. It seems that no news day is complete without a fresh report of some weirdness being taught in public schools, or some flagrant example of teacher misconduct.

And yet…I had a very different experience in the 1970s and 1980s. I attended both public and working-class Catholic schools, both at the grade school and high school levels. I received an excellent education. And while I liked some of my teachers better than others, almost all of them were intelligent adults who were deeply committed to their calling.

What happened, then? Sometime during the mid-1980s, one began hearing the catchphrase, “if you can’t do, then teach”. The careerism of the 1980s taught young people that teaching was a second-rate profession. If you were smart, if you were a capable student, then you didn’t want to be a teacher. No, that simply wouldn’t do. You had to be an attorney, a CPA, or a CEO.

Another important trend occurred during the Gen X growing-up years: a decline in the number of capable young women entering the teaching field.

As recently as the 1970s, teaching was considered a top career choice for the most capable young women. While some of my teachers were male, they were disproportionately female. Many of my female teachers were absolutely brilliant. My junior high science teacher, a woman named Mrs. Tierney, was as knowledgable as many college professors.

That all began to change in the 1980s, with the rise of “girl power”, and the idea that the brightest young women must compete in all traditionally male careers. The result was more intelligent young women working in law and finance, but fewer intelligent young women becoming math and science teachers.

Did society benefit most from more intelligent young women entering law firms…or from more intelligent young women entering the field of education? I’m going to let you draw your own conclusions on that one. (I don’t want to deal with the hate mail.)

What I will say is that there are trade-offs to all societal changes. Forty years ago, we began subtly denigrating the teaching profession (“if you can’t do, then teach”) and we began telling young women that they were passively accepting the patriarchy if they didn’t go toe-to-toe with their male classmates in the corporate boardroom.

Forty years have come and gone since all of those trends began. The excellent teachers who provided my education during the 1970s and 1980s are all retired. After casting the teaching profession as a second-rate career choice for four decades, many people are shocked to discover that—lo and behold—the field is now populated by mostly second-rate people. (In one of their Freakonomics books, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner documented the decline in teacher IQ within my lifetime.) Many parents are also shocked to discover that a disproportionate number of those teachers are left-wing ideologues who shouldn’t be trusted with anyone’s children. But that tends to go along with the second-rate thing.

And now many of those affluent white suburbanites have decided that public schools must be abandoned wholesale. Parents who once believed that a teaching career was beneath them have decided that they should take a break from their law firms and corporate offices to…educate their children at home. Can no one see the irony here?

I reiterate: I experienced public, industrialized education during the 1970s and 1980s. It really isn’t that bad when the right adults are in charge. The problem is that the right adults are no longer in charge, because the right adults are off doing other things. Among those other things (note irony once again) is now homeschooling their kids, because they no longer trust the people working in education.

I am grateful that I wasn’t homeschooled. I loved my mother dearly, but she would not have been capable of teaching me Spanish and algebra at home. In my experience, very few parents are well-equipped to provide competent instruction beyond the fifth- or sixth- grade level. Teaching at the junior high level and above really is a task that is best left to trained professionals.

The proof is in the pudding. I’ve met many of these young adults who were homeschooled in recent years. Most of them are nice enough, but there are noticeable gaps in their knowledge and social development. I would not have wanted to trade places with them.

Another important factor is the socialization and people skills that the organized educational experience provides. I was neither the captain of the football team nor the most popular kid in my school. But my high school experience was anything but four years of living hell. In fact, I rather enjoyed it.

More germane to our discussion here, my school years taught me about friends, enemies, rivals, and conflict management. These are skills that many screen-bound Gen Z young adults sorely lack.

The solution to the crisis in public education is not for a million concerned parents to isolate their children and retreat behind suburban walls. The solution is for a million concerned parents to become involved and take back their public schools.

This is not like trying to take back the national government. Education is still largely managed at the local level. It is possible for organized groups of adults to bring about substantial changes.

This would be a lot more beneficial (for their children, most of all), and practical, than for every parent to try to become a do-it-yourself calculus teacher.

-ET

Kindle Unlimited, Kobo Plus, Taylor Swift tickets, and my books

“Why aren’t all your books in Kindle Unlimited? Why aren’t all your books available on Kobo/Google Play/Barnes & Noble/Apple Books? I only read on the (fill in the blank) platform, you know.”

That’s a composite of the emails I get nowadays.

The book market is rapidly changing. These changes are exacerbated by technological shifts and political turmoil.

There are Amazon readers who will only read books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. There are US readers who seek alternatives to Amazon (Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo.)

There are Canadian readers who are mad at the current US administration, and only buy books from Kobo, a Canada-based company.

Where readers are concerned, there is no such thing as one-size-fits all anymore, if there ever was.

Which brings us to subscription programs like Kindle Unlimited. When you purchase a membership to a subscription plan, there is generally an expectation that everything you want will be included in that program. (I remember, some years ago, purchasing a subscription to Netflix. I was disappointed to discover that most of the movies I wanted to see, especially old movies from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s were not available on Netflix.)

I have no basic qualms with enrolling my titles in Kindle Unlimited. But Kindle Unlimited comes with a rigid exclusivity clause. This means that if a title is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, it cannot be sold as an ebook on any other platform. Nor can it be offered anywhere on the Internet for free in electronic, text-based form. This effectively means that if a title is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, it is limited to Amazon in ebook form. (So much for that “unlimited” part of Kindle Unlimited.) The corollary: if a book is listed on Kobo, B&N, Apple, or Google Play, it can’t be in Kindle Unlimited.

Which brings us to Taylor Swift. The median ticket price for a concert ticket for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was $1,550, per online sources. Almost all of my ebooks are one third of one percent of that (about 0.32%), or about the same as a Caffè Latte at Starbucks.

Nevertheless, almost all of my books are available in either Kobo Plus, Kindle Unlimited, or via your public library through Overdrive.

Amazon is the big dog among book retailers. I’ll always have all my books for sale at Amazon. That said, I can’t promise to always have all my books in Kindle Unlimited.

There’s a downside to this, of course. If you don’t happen to have both a Kindle Unlimited and a Kobo Plus subscription, there is a chance that you might occasionally have to pay for one of my ebooks.

But this is only because we have so many book platforms nowadays. Not all of them play nice with the other ones. This, unfortunately, is beyond my control.

What would Taylor Swift say about this, though? Remember those aforementioned prices for her concert tickets. Taylor Swift wants four figures from you. All I’m asking for is the humble price of a latte at Starbucks.

-ET

Draft 2 Digital, AI slop, and the evil necessity of publishing fees

Draft 2 Digital is a company that provides indie authors and small publishers with a single interface for “wide” distribution of ebooks to a host of online retailers. The company has historically taken a small percentage of sales revenues in exchange for its services.

But in recent years, AI slop has invaded and overwhelmed the publishing world. There is now an entire online ecosystem of low-content and junk content churned out by AI writing tools. This “book spam” is clogging up online bookstores and retailers with content that no one is ever going to buy in any meaningful quantity. And with AI tools, the book spammers can do this at scale.

To make matters worse, there is also now an ecosystem of YouTube and TikTok hucksters, teaching others how to “make millions!” with these techniques. This is like the content farm problem of the 00s, but exponentially larger.

Draft2Digital has addressed the problem in a number of ways. Some time ago, the company announced that it will no longer handle nonfiction titles covering topics that are low-hanging fruit for spammers (exercise, cryptocurrency, diet, and various New Age subject matter).

D2D also announced that it will begin charging a $20 set-up fee for new accounts, along with a $12 per year account maintenance fee for any publishers who earn less than $100 per year.

In other words, less than $8.33 per month.

Needless to say, there are people kvetching about this on the Internet. As for me, I am 100% in favor of it.

This is not because I want to see more fees for their own sake. But rather because something needs to be done about the sheer volume of online garbage.

And when I use terms like “online garbage”, I’m not talking about stories and books that don’t suit my taste. Hey, if someone has labored over their billionaire, reverse-harem cowboy hockey player romance novel, and they want to publish that, let them go for it. (Although to be perfectly honest, I would prefer that they didn’t. The romance genres have become as trashy as Pornhub in recent years. But I digress.)

I’m talking, rather, about the low-content and extremely low-effort books produced, often with AI tools, for the sole purpose of manipulating bookstore algorithms and exploiting subscription services like Kindle Unlimited. No one benefits from the presence of that—including the authors of billionaire, reverse-harem cowboy hockey player romance novels.

A modest per-book monthly or annual nuisance fee would prune the sheer volume of junk that is accumulating on online bookstores. (Listen to Mal Cooper’s video below.)

I know the nature of the internet. There are people out there who believe that anything on the Internet should always be free, no matter what it is, and no matter what costs are associated with it, simply because it’s on the Internet. That’s an argument that goes back at least 25 years, to the original debates over file-sharing and NAPSTER.

But AI slop threatens to undermine, if not destroy, indie publishing. Online retailers and distributors will never have the manpower to meticulously vet every title. In lieu of that, per-title maintenance fees may be a necessary evil for combating AI slop.

-ET

The New York Post fails Economics 101

As Mark Twain reportedly said, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

And then there is sloppy clickbait journalism.

In a recent article, Zachary Kussin of the New York Post presents the following statistics on recent trends in home ownership and home buying:

“Baby boomers — born between 1946 and 1964 — comprised a 42% share of buyers, which remained unchanged from last year. These older Americans benefit from the equity gained from homes they previously sold — and likely lived in for some time as they raised families.

Both the Silent Generation, the eldest Americans born between 1925 and 1945, and Gen Z, who were born between 1999 and 2011, made up the smallest share at 4% each.

Younger millennials — those born between 1990 and 1998 — made up the largest share of first-time buyers over the past year, at 60%. That marks a loss in market share, as that figure is down from the 71% tallied the previous year.

Older millennials, meanwhile — born between 1980 and 1989 — are moving their way up in the world, and that’s manifesting in home purchases…they have the highest median household income of any generation at roughly $133,000, purchased the largest dwellings with a median 2,100 square feet and were less likely to be first-time buyers than younger millennials.”

I won’t argue with the statistics. They may very well be correct.

But somehow, Mr. Kussin managed to spin all that data into the following headline:

“First-time home buying plunges to record low as baby boomers prevent younger Americans from ever owning”

Before you ask: no, I’m not a Boomer. (I was born in 1968.) But “blame the Boomers for everything” has become tedious and intellectually lazy, the last resort of all simpletons who are not Baby Boomers.

There have always been generational differences in equity in the real estate market. No one has equity when they buy their first home. And there have always been older homeowners with comparatively more equity. It’s called time.

This was the way it was when I purchased my first home in 2000, or when my parents purchased their first house in the early 1970s.

Time and equity are not Baby Boomer conspiracies to deprive younger home buyers. Any journalist who would publish the above headline needs to take a basic course in economics.

-ET

Buc-ee’s and the need for belonging

This past week the first Buc-ee’s opened here in Ohio. The event attracted Buc-ee’s fans from throughout the Midwest. Some reportedly camped out in front of the store. They saw sleeping on the pavement as a small price to pay, if it meant being among the first customers through the doors on the morning of the grand opening.

This is a gas station we’re talking about.

I can just imagine the reaction of some of the readers in Massachusetts or California. “Well, what do you expect of the unwashed masses in Ohio, that flyover state where most people vote Republican?”

But foolish mass events are not limited to Ohio or the Midwest. Consider the time, money, and emotional energy that people invest in Taylor Swift and spectator sports. Remember the Pokémon GO fever of a few years ago?

It would be easy—and facile—to dismiss all such followers of mass enthusiasms as dimwits or sheep. But there is something far more complex going on here. No one really cares that much about a gas station, even if every Buc-ee’s does have a vast, deluxe restroom.

And no, they aren’t all idiots.

I grew up during the 1970s and 1980s. I didn’t grow up in a small town, but I grew up in a close-knit suburban environment. I saw both parents every day, and my grandparents every week. I attended the same schools that my mother attended. Many of my classmates’ parents had been my mother’s classmates.

My growing-up environment felt almost like one big extended family. This doesn’t mean that everyone was always kind and supportive (though many people were). But there was a sense of: this is your home, your microcosm within the much larger, much more random and unknowable world.

I don’t feel that way about this twenty-first-century environment, and I know that many others share this sense of dislocation, or isolation. The situation is made even worse by the uncertainty of global events, and the bad behavior of our national leadership in recent years.

And yes, if you’re married (or otherwise romantically partnered) you might smugly say: “Well, I have my significant other.”

Perhaps you do…for now. Romantic partners are notorious for dying, moving on, and changing the locks on you. Most people, even if they’re romantically partnered, find that they need more than that.

I’m talking about a broader social support system. This is what used to be provided by communities of church, school, extended family, neighbors, and old friends. This was once the reality for many Americans—not in some distant, mythical past, but within my lifetime. I know, because I experienced it.

But we no longer attend church, we homeschool our kids, and most of our relatives live in another state. Old friendships and acquaintances are limited to Facebook.

It is therefore not entirely surprising that people seek group affiliation via Taylor Swift or Kansas City Chiefs fandom.

Or, perhaps, enthusiasm for the grand opening of the next Buc-ee’s.

So yes, I understand, on one level. But I can’t help reminding you: at the end of the day, it’s just a gas station.

-ET

TERMINATION MAN: Corporate HR represents your employer, not you

TERMINATION MAN is the story of Craig Walker, a management consultant who specializes in “removing” problem employees through entrapment and techniques of “social engineering”.

TERMINATION MAN is fiction, but it is based on my experience in the automotive industry. The novel’s premise also has a basis in HR practices.

“Managing out” is a common corporate HR practice. When an employee is “managed out”, her situation is made so unpleasant or unsustainable that she will effectively fire herself, and voluntarily resign. This saves the company hassle and expense on multiple levels.

TERMINATION MAN is an embellishment of the managing out practice, of course. But the principle exists, and all HR professionals are familiar with it.

Another thing to remember: corporate HR is not your friend. Corporate HR does not represent you. Corporate HR represents your employer, the company.

This doesn’t mean that corporate HR reps are automatically sinister, venal, etc. (Most are not.) But you should never forget who pays their salaries. (Hint: not you.)

-ET

**View TERMINATION MAN ON AMAZON**

The end of MTV (1981 – 2025)

December 31st marked not only the end of 2025, but also the end of MTV (1981 – 2025).

As I explain in the video below, I was one of MTV’s young fans back in the early 1980s.

MTV was a brilliant mechanism for content marketing. Suburban teens like me would discover new bands on MTV. Then we would go to the local mall and purchase the albums.

I discovered many of my favorite bands on MTV, including Def Leppard.

-ET

**View NO SURE THING: A GEN X COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL SET IN 1988 on Amazon**

1980s tech was expensive, and it didn’t do much

I vaguely remember the TRS-80 Pocket Computer. Introduced in 1980, this little device was manufactured and marketed by the Tandy Corporation/Radio Shack. (Every shopping mall in the 1980s had a Radio Shack.) Science fiction author Isaac Asimov appeared in a series of marketing spots for the gadget.

1980 Radio Shack ad featuring the TRS-80 Pocket Computer and Isaac Asimov

I didn’t own a TRS-80 Pocket Computer, however. The MSRP was $169.95. In present-day money, that’s about $670—the cost of a base-model iPhone.

And of course, the TRS-80 Pocket Computer had a minimal functionality when compared to an iPhone. It couldn’t make phone calls, play music, or take photos. It couldn’t surf the Internet—which didn’t yet exist, anyway.

The TRS-80 Pocket Computer was programmable in BASIC (which couldn’t do much for the average consumer). Other than that, it was basically a glorified pocket calculator.

Herein lies an important realization about 1980s tech: it was very expensive, and it didn’t do much. Even if you could afford it, you usually concluded that you could do without it.

-ET

The comparative joys of old (1980s) movies

I have been watching some old movies from the 1980s recently. Some have been movies that I saw, but have long since forgotten. Others are iconic films of that era that I never got around to seeing when they were current.

For example, I recently wrote a post about Mystic Pizza (1988). Last night I watched Risky Business (1983). I will have a post about Risky Business soon.

One thing I’ve noticed is that many films created in 1980-something as disposable teen comedies were actually pretty good. In 1985, did anyone imagine that people in 2025 would still be talking about The Breakfast Club? Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) has been recognized by the American Film Institute for its merits.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the diversity in movies from that bygone era. In 1985, an original movie, properly executed, could make a lot of people rich. But the economics of the 21^st-century box office encourage conservatism and a tiresome emphasis on franchise films. Continue reading “The comparative joys of old (1980s) movies”

Stephen King’s ‘The Outsider’ in Kindle Unlimited

While poking around on Amazon this morning, I noticed that the electronic version of Stephen King’s 2018 novel, The Outsider, is now available in Kindle Unlimited (KU). This means that subscribers to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program can read the electronic version of the book for free.

(Note: At least for now. Kindle Unlimited terms run for a period of 90 days. So if you’re reading this post a year from now, The Outsider may or may not be in KU.)

Amazon launched its Kindle Unlimited program more than a decade ago. Since its inception, there have been arguments for and against the program.

On one hand, Kindle Unlimited is to books what Netflix is to movies. KU thereby allows subscribers to discover new books and authors for free (aside from the KU subscription fee).

On the other hand, Kindle Unlimited requires books to be exclusive to the Amazon platform. (More on this shortly.) This creates a “network effect” that arguably disadvantages other stores like Apple Books and Kobo.

Another concern with Kindle Unlimited is that it tends to be skewed toward certain kinds of genre fiction, like romance, urban fantasy, and space opera. In the past, critics of the program (mostly book reviewers) have complained that Kindle Unlimited doesn’t contain enough titles from bestselling, household-name authors.

Well, you can’t get any more household-name than Stephen King. If a Stephen King title is available in Kindle Unlimited, then the program has all the bona fides it needs.

There is one important catch, however. And this quibble comes (mostly) from the perspective of an independent author/publisher like me.

The Outsider is still available on other platforms, like Kobo and Apple Books. (I checked.) Stephen King’s title is not subject to the normal rules of KU exclusivity.

This is an important exception. If I place a book in Kindle Unlimited, I have to agree to make it exclusive to Amazon (not available anywhere else) for a period of 90 days. This means that readers can’t find it on other platforms, and I can’t sell it on other platforms during the Kindle Unlimited enrollment period.

So Stephen King gets different, more preferential treatment at Amazon than I do. I’m neither outraged nor surprised. Having spent many years in the corporate world, I know how the corporate world works.

As someone once told me, many years ago: “Rank and status have perks.” At the time, we were discussing the egalitarian implications of reserved parking spaces for top managers in the company parking lot. The corporate world is far from egalitarian. It would be naive to think that book publishing and retailing are “special” in this regard. Business is business.

On the contrary, I might benefit from this. The placement of The Outsider in Kindle Unlimited will bring new horror fans into the subscription program. After they’re done reading The Outsider, some of them may read one of my horror novels, like 12 Hours of Halloween, Revolutionary Ghosts, or Kuwa 6226. They may even give my historical horror series, The Rockland Horror, a try.

Yes, that was a little self-promotional plug, tongue-in-cheek though it was. Like I said: Business is business.

-ET

1980: a shave with your Egg McMuffin?

This is a promotional ad that McDonald’s ran in 1980. Breakfast customers were given a free Bic razor with the purchase of any breakfast entree.

I don’t specifically remember this promotion, and my guess is that it didn’t last long. This is also one that you’re unlikely to see repeated in the twenty-first century. Clearly the ad appeals to one specific gender. (And in 1980, no one disputed the notion that there were only two.) But as we all know, women eat pancakes, too. So what’s going on?

My mother worked outside the home in 1980; but that was the very beginning of the Boomer-led “working woman” trend of the 1980s. The McDonald’s marketing folks probably figured that men would comprise the main market for fast-food breakfasts, presumably on their way to work.

-ET