Game Afoot

Before you part with your money to invest on penny stocks, make sure you do your research first and get as much information about the microcap company. Don’t rely on your friends for tips; they probably know less than you do. Because information about microcap companies and penny stocks is hard to find, you will need to do a Sherlock Holmes and ferret out that information.

Investigate whether the company’s securities are registered. Companies that go public must register its securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The law also requires that the following should file reports with the SEC:

* sluice boxes that have 500 or more investors and $10 or more in assets,

* companies that are listed on the stock exchange boards of Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia; the American Stock Exchange, the Pacific Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market, and the International Securities Exchange; and

* companies whose securities are listed on the OTCBB

Only the extremely small companies are exempted from filing reports. The information about the company

contained in the quarterly reports, annual reports, and reports of significant events that it submits will indicate whether it is making or losing money, and why. The documents that are filed with the SEC are public records, and you should be able to find them in the SEC or from your state’s securities regulators.

Make sure you know enough about the company’s business and its products or services. If you plan to invest in a company’s penny stocks, you should know what you are buying. Don’t go rushing to buy penny stocks just because you heard a tip that you think is good.

Read the company’s reports, particularly its financial statements. Financial reports are a good indicator of whether a company is making money or not, and therefore worth investing in. Pay particular attention to the company’s revenue, earnings, debts, and assets. Check too if the company’s financial reports are audited and certified by an accountant. If these are not, then be wary.

If a company does not file reports with the SEC but sells its penny stocks, it is still required to file an annual report under Rule 15c2-11 of the amended Securities Exchange Act of 1934. If you cannot find any information about the company or its penny stocks from the SEC, your broker should be able to give you the information that was reported under this rule.

Find out about the people running the company. Information about the people running a penny stocks company can indicate if they have a poor history of moneymaking. Have they made money for their investors before? Have they had run-ins with the securities regulators or the investors? The state securities regulator should be able to give you this information about the company’s heads.

Check if your broker and his firm are registered and licensed. A legitimate broker should be registered with the SEC and licensed to operate in your state. Ask your state regulators too whether the broker has received any disciplinary sanctions or complaints. If it has, take this as a sign that the broker may not be an honest one.

Penny stocks have the potential to give your big earnings for your investment, but only if you are buying into a legitimate and above-board company. Don’t jump into the pool with your eyes closed, otherwise you could be saying goodbye to your hard-earned money.

For some time now, I have been hearing about how bookstores are struggling to stay in business, not only the small, local bookstores, but also the big chains, such as Borders. My perception is that Amazon.com’s success is partly responsible for these struggles. I like Amazon.com, and I also like “bricks and mortar” bookstores. Amazon.com’s future seems pretty secure at the moment, so I propose three strategies bookstores can use to remain in business and survive Amazon.com.

THE NEW MARKET ENVIRONMENT

Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a book, you bought it from a bookstore. Book buying possibilities have changed. Now you can pay to download a book to an e-book reader or buy it from an online source (e.g., the author’s or publisher’s website, Amazon.com). Book buying behaviors have changed, but bookstores seem to be trying to maintain the way they do business. Other than adding a coffee shop, bookstores now look much like I remember them before Amazon.com made online book shopping practical.

In my opinion, one of the advantages Amazon offers book buyers that bookstores don’t is the breadth of selection. Amazon has a wider selection of books than bookstores. The second advantage is cost. The price to purchase a book online is often lower than the cost bookstores offer. Amazon doesn’t have to pay for store furniture, decorations, floor walkers, fancy buildings, etc. With lower operating costs per book and greater volume, Amazon can keep prices down. As my Aunt Irene used to say, “Ain’t pretty, but it works.” To attract book buyers, bookstores are going in the opposite direction. This doesn’t seem to be working.

Sure, I can buy books directly from bookstore’s websites. I can go to the Borders site, for example, look up some books, and buy them. However, if I’m going to buy books online, I’ll probably buy them from Amazon.com. Bookstores offer a very different experience than online shopping, and I want bookstores to succeed. Thus, the advice I have is for getting more people to buy books in bookstores.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO BOOKSTORES

1. Employ e-book and web-based technologies.

Bookstores need to use the new technologies, not resist them. I’m specifically referring to e-book readers. When I was at a Borders bookstore earlier this week, I checked out the Sony e-book readers they had for sale. I was pretty impressed. The sample models were preloaded with long excerpts from about 15 books. They were firmly attached to the counter, so I couldn’t pick them up, much less walk around with them. While playing with them, I glanced around the store. Against nearly every wall and in every corner, I saw people sitting in comfy chairs reading books. They could browse the shelves, pick up a book, carry it to a chair, and read. I couldn’t do any of that with the e-book readers being displayed. That got me thinking about sales possibilities and buyer behavior.

People in bookstores like to browse books, pull out a selected title, and read a few pages. If they like what they read, they will buy the book. Unfortunately, they are limited to the books on the shelves, which might not be what people want. For example, I wanted to look at books on building tree houses. None were available on the shelves. (I was referred to the local hardware store!) I wanted to flip through the 2009 Writer Watchdog. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to read a few pages of Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. Not available. Maybe I could look at Interpreter of Maladies, the first book by Jhumpa Lahiri. Same problem.

I understand that bookstores cannot stock every possible book in their databases. That’s a given. But shouldn’t I be able to look at them anyway, whether or not they are on the shelves? This is where e-book technologies can play an important role.

Here’s the scenario I envision. I check out an e-book reader (for free, of course) from the service counter. The e-book reader is connected wirelessly to the bookstore’s network. I walk over to the computer at the end of a bookshelf or the touch screen panel situated in a book rack. I search titles, check out authors, look at covers, and find a book that seems interesting. I punch in the number of the e-book reader I’m carrying, and the first 40 or 50 pages of the book are downloaded to the reader. I take the e-book reader to a soft chair, hook one leg over the armrest, and read. Maybe I find 10 books that look interesting. I download the excerpt from each.

(Why didn’t I just browse through the e-book reader? E-book readers are black and white—currently. I want to see color covers, so I use the color computer monitor or panel.)

Two of these titles are sufficiently interesting that I want to buy them. I pull up the menu on the reader and add them to my shopping cart. When I’m done browsing, I hit the purchase button. According to the displayed information, one of the books is in the store and will be waiting for me at the main counter. The other book isn’t available in the store, but it is in the warehouse. I can get it for a 10% discount. Would I like to buy it and have it mailed directly to me? Sure, I would!

(Why the 10% discount? First, if it’s not in the store, then the corporate office has determined that it is not a book that is likely to have high volume. It’s going to take up inventory space in the warehouse, and keeping inventory costs money. The discount encourages me to get it off their hands. Second, the discount helps justify the delay caused by shipping. Third, the discount also helps the store compete with Amazon.com prices. If I’m going to wait anyway, then the cost should be competitive. Otherwise, I will just buy it from Amazon.)

I can enter my credit card information and buy the two books through the e-book reader. If I don’t want to enter my payment information through the reader, or if I want to pay cash, I take the e-book reader to the sales counter. The clerk scans the number of the reader and pulls up my purchase details. The first book is, indeed, waiting there for me. The clerk confirms that I want the other book, too. I do. I make my payment, get the first book, drop off the reader, and I’m done. I’m another happy bookstore customer.

2. Improve book searching at bookstores.

I’m referring to new semantic mapping technologies. When I enter a book title or author name, I should not only get specific search results, but also I should get a list of books that are related. (This is similar to how Pandora.com creates online music stations for users based on the user’s musical selections.) If I am interested in a particular book or author, then the search engine should also recommend other selections. This will need to be far more in-depth than simple category searching currently available.

For example, if I enter the term “Sherlock Holmes,” I should see titles of other books in the Sherlock Holmes series, other titles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, other mysteries with a lead male detective, books written in the same style, and books written around the same period. Instead of just books about Sherlock Holmes, I can browse a broad selection of books that are related by a comprehensive set of identifiers. I can hit the “more like this” or “not like this” buttons to further refine my search.

Eventually I get to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I have never thought of reading this book, but it fits my interests; I just didn’t know it. “Ok,” I think, “I’ll check it out.” I download it to my e-book reader, read 10 or 15 pages, and find that it does, indeed, interest me. I buy a book that otherwise I would never have thought to buy. I’m another happy bookstore customer.

3. Use print-on-demand (POD) technologies.

Print on demand can increase available selections while decreasing inventory costs. As my former managerial accounting professor said, “Inventory is bad.” In the perfect world, a bookstore has no inventory. Exactly the right numbers of books are available, all the time, to meet customer demand. Of course, this is impossible. However, reducing warehouse inventory is possible by using POD.

Instead of warehousing 1,000 copies of a book in a central repository (or 25 copies for an independent bookstore), a bookstore only keeps enough books to meet expected demand for the next short period. This may be only 10 or 20 books if expected demand is low or unknown. The bookstore company (e.g., Borders) uses POD technologies to produce additional books as needed. Using POD technologies, short runs of books can be produced very quickly. Even 1 book can be economically produced using POD.

For large runs of books, over 1,000, for example, offset (i.e., traditional) printing is usually more cost effective. A new book by Stephen King should be printed with offset printing. The books will be on bookstore shelves, not in inventory, and will sell fairly rapidly. Inventory costs are not the same problem as they will be for less well-known authors or less popular topics. By using POD, bookstores can maintain a very small inventory (or none) of most books and have the books printed when they are demanded. Through POD, a book can be produced overnight.

Think about the first scenario above. I find a book I want, but it is not in the store. I can buy it and have it shipped to me. What I don’t know is that the book isn’t in inventory, either. All I know, all I need to know, is that the book will be shipped to me tomorrow. When I buy the book, the order is submitted, the book is printed that evening, and the next day it is shipped.

Bookstore companies can go about this process two ways. First, the bookstore company can license the right to print the books at its own facilities. The book will be the exact same book that the publisher would have printed: same ISBN, same cover, same everything. The bookstore is not the publisher—only the printer. This may be costly at first, but it will allow the bookstore to sell books efficiently without having to put in a buy order to the publisher or deal with “middle-man” costs and inefficiencies. The major costs will be incurred by the purchase and set-up of the printing technologies, as well as personnel to operate and manage the process.

The second way to do this is less expensive but also less efficient. Major bookstores can give preferential treatment to those publishers that employ POD, thus encouraging publishers to create this possibility. The corporate book buyer can then send an order to the publisher requesting 5 copies of a book. Normally, the publisher would laugh at such a request because it uses offset printing. However, a publisher that uses POD can do it, and the books will be ready tomorrow.

If the bookstore wants to keep books in inventory to reduce order and delivery costs, it can use a kanban system in conjunction with POD to keep books available while keeping inventory costs at a minimum. A kanban system uses a “pull” process to initiate the creation or purchase of a product. When only a specific number of books remain in inventory, an order is placed, and more books are printed. Here’s how this works.

Let’s say the bookstore anticipates selling 7 copies of a book per week, or approximately 1 per day. Some days, 2 copies are sold, but never more than 9 books in any week and never more than 4 books in 3 days. Let’s also say that books can be printed and delivered in 3 days, which is nearly impossible with traditional printing but simple with POD. Then, using the kanban system, when only 4 books are in inventory (the maximum that will be sold between the time of the order and the time of the delivery), the company places an order for another 9 books. This way, just when the inventory has no more books from the previous order, the next order arrives.

A bookstore can order 1,000 copies of a book. Some will be sold right away, but others will sit in inventory for a long time. Using print on demand publishing and a kanban system, many small orders are placed. Inventory is kept at a minimum, costs are reduced, and the books are always available when demanded. As the book shopper, I get the book I want, either right now or in a few days. I’m another happy bookstore customer.

LOOKING AHEAD

That’s it. Those are my recommendations for keeping bookstores alive and valuable to book buyers. My hope is that when I’m 80 years old, I won’t be heard saying, “When I was younger, we could go to an actual place where books were sold. It was called a bookstore. Gosh, I miss those days.”

The Hansom cab, as favoured by Sherlock Holmes as a method of getting around the city, is, or rather was, a horse-drawn carriage. Designed and patented by one Joseph Hansom, an architect from York, in 1834.

Hansom realised that there was a need for a lighter, more manouverable, type of transport than the Hackney carriage at the time so they invented ghost hunting equipment.

The Hackney carriage was much more cumbersome, being a four wheeled carriage, drawn by a pair of horses, and seating six people. By contrast, the Hansom was much lighter, only two wheels, and only needed one horse to pull it’s load of two passengers and driver.

Being much more manouverable, able to turn round in it’s own length, speedier, and able to cope easily with the congestion that was already becoming notorious in London at the turn of the century, the Hansom rapidly became popular. The fact that for a given journey they were quite a bit cheaper than the Hackney did no harm for their reputation either.

Of course, as today, many journeys were undertaken by just one or two people, (Holmes and Watson for example), and often the Hackney carriage was only a third full. However, as Hansoms were not totally enclosed, the front of the cab had just folding doors which protected the occupants feet and legs from mud etc. and they soon gained a reputation as being a bit “racy”, it was not done for ladies to travel alone in them.

The original Hansom cab, as designed by Joseph Hansom, was to combine speed with safety, having a surprisingly low centre of gravity, which made cornering safe. This design was altered by John Chapman, who felt that it was not sufficiently practical. However, although the design was altered, the patent held, and the name Hansom cab was retained.

The cab, as previously mentioned, sat two passengers comfortably, three at a squeeze. The driver sat behind and above the cab on a sprung seat, giving him visibility and control. The passengers were able to communicate with the driver through a trapdoor just behind their heads in the roof. The occupants would also pay the driver through this trapdoor. He would then operate a lever, releasing the door so they could get out. Problems with non-payers even then!

Over the years the cab was modified, with the addition of a glass window above the doors to enclose the passengers, and a curved fender mounted in front of the doors to stop flying stones etc. thrown up by the horse’s hooves. Depending upon which illustrations, films, and TV shows you have seen you will probably have seen Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson use all these varieties.

At the height of their popularity there were around 3000 Hansom cabs in use in London, and they had spread to many other cities and large towns in the UK. They were also popular in Europe, being particularly well represented in Paris, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. By the late 1890’s they had been introduced to the United States, where they were in common use in New York City in particular.

The Hansom cab remained poular until the 1920’s, when the internal combustion engine had found it’s way into cheap, reliable transport for the masses. Surprisingly however, the last Hackney cab licence was not issued until 1947. Quite a success story.

Was the Lone Ranger really alone? No, he had Tonto. Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first consulting detective, had Dr. Watson. The revived Doctor Who has his traveling companion, Rose, Martha, or Donna, depending on what season you’re watching. And who was Superman’s sidekick? Think about that; it’s a trick question.

This topic lodged itself in the front of my brain after I watched an interview with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, the stars of the hit BBC Wales programme, “Doctor Who.” (That’s the British spelling of “program.” I strive for inclusiveness.) The interviewer questioned Tennant and Tate on why the doctor needed a companion.

The interviewer will remain nameless to save him embarrassment (and because I don’t feel like going back on YouTube and looking it up).The question betrayed a lack of knowledge, both of the Doctor Who canon and dramatic structure.

For the uninitiated, the Doctor is more than 900 years old and the last member of the race of Time Lords. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS, his time machine/spaceship, which happens to be in the form of a London police call box. The Doctor seems to have a soft spot for the British Isles, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. (You want details, watch the show.) From a character standpoint, the Doctor needs a companion because he’s lonely.

From the story telling standpoint, it’s a different, well, story. Dialogue has two overarching functions in fiction and nonfiction: reveal character and advance the plot. In movie and TV fiction, there has seldom been a truly lone hero. If he were alone, who would he talk to?

I teach classes on both fiction writing and memoir writing, and I always make it a point to distinguish between writing for the page and writing for the screen. One of the telling differences is the way we learn what a character is thinking.

The first time I noticed the difference was when I was a teenager and read a paperback novel based on the TV series “The Wild, Wild West.”

(This was the late 60s, when paperbacks had cigarette ads on heavy stock glued to the spine right in the middle of the book. Remember that? Hated it. End of nostalgia break. Onward.)

On the show, when Jim West and his partner, Artemus Gordon, were trying to figure out the problem of the week, they talked to each other. But in the book, the author could explain what a solitary Jim or Artemus was thinking in the narrative, without the need for a sounding board. That was quite an a-ha moment for me.

On the page, the hero can think to himself. On the screen, he has to do it out loud.

Until then, I was used to people on TV incessantly chattering to each other. The Lone Ranger talked to Tonto and formulated a plan, which usually involved Tonto going somewhere by himself and getting the snot kicked out of him. Then the Ranger would come to his rescue and dispatch the baddies. But the point is, the Lone Ranger talked to someone. He had to. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know what he was thinking.

In “The Adventures of Superman” TV series of my youth, the sidekickless Man of Steel hardly ever figured things out aloud because he hardly ever talked to anyone. But Clark Kent did. He figured things out while talking to either Lois Lane or Jimmy Olson. Then he ran to the storeroom, stripped down to his longjohns, flew out the window, and rescued either Jimmy Olson or Lois Lane.

Part of Dr. Watson’s function in the Sherlock Holmes stories (in print) was to be the viewpoint character, thereby representing us, the readers. A viewpoint character should not know everything. Rather she or he should learn things as the story unfolds. The problem with Holmes as a viewpoint character was that he saw too much too soon. That makes for a brilliant and an fascinating detective, but it lessens the drama. Through conversations with Watson, however, we learned what he was thinking in a more dramatic way.

Solitary characters did talk to themselves in the early days of theater. Just think of Hamlet’s soliloquy. That was a necessary theatrical device because we had to know that Hamlet was contemplating suicide, and that’s not a topic you chat to your buddies about. But the actor can’t just wander the stage looking pensive. He must voice his thoughts for the benefit of the audience. Monologue or dialogue, they both do the same thing.

Dialogue is both necessary and desirable. Many fiction writers make sure they have quotation marks on page one of their books. Those little marks mean people are talking to each other, and that might mean something juicy on which to eavesdrop. That serves to pull the readers in and get them to page two.

Dialogue is an essential ingredient in the recipe for a well told story. After all, without dialogue how would the Doctor’s sidekick know what a sonic screwdriver is?

(Look it up.)



By: Jay Speyerer

About the Author:

The factors that influence a writer or author to create such perfectly detailed work are often questioned. Whether it is a situation that they were somehow involved in or presented or another author’s work which they read and felt the need to make their own, there are always questions with writers about the influences of their work. The most common influences are that of another writer. Not many writers can say that something that they have read previously did not in any way affect them because that is of course simply unbelievable.

The author is an interesting person. Why he or she writes about what they do is really of no significance to the reader until the end of the book. This is when the reader starts to wonder what influence created such a well written piece of literature. This article will state several, but not all influences or possible influences to make the reader aware of the circumstances involved in a majority of writing.

There could be war going on in the author’s country. When there is war, there is writing. It is an escape from reality and a hope for something more brilliant than the battle itself. It is a need to alleviate the pain and suffering and an undying feeling of release. Writers can emulate what is going on in their minds and relate it to what is going on in their fictional world. The tale does not have to be about a battle between countries to accomplish this; just a battle between characters or within a character.

There may be a bad relationship. Relationships make up a large amount of writers’ stories. Therefore, the relationships that they have in the real world have often tended to relate to those that their characters have in the fictional world. Of course, for some writers, these relationships are that of which the writer would like to have or have had in the real world. It could be that of a love interest or that of a very intriguing friendship or enemy; something to spice the life that they truly lead.

There can also be more critical reasons for why an author chooses such work to write about. Death is a large part of writing also. It influences the writer in ways that nothing else can. It serves as a leading and fantastic influence over many an author.

Finally, the works of other author’s are important. The influence that one writer has over another is great. It is one of the most invading and underlying reasons that a writer has, but may not realize that they have because they are too callous to. Doyle relates to Melville, for example. This is not to say that the Great Sherlock Holmes was created due in part to Melville, but to say that he was an image of chance that was created because of the influence Melville’s writings had upon Doyle. This great character is one that still exists in the heart of many a fan similar to that of Melville’s characters that have lived on in his great works.

Of course it is now impossible to know what, or who, influenced Conan Doyle for sure, but one thing is certain. All his millions of fans, both past and present, are most grateful that something did!



By: Chris Haycock

About the Author: