Over two years since my last post to this blog. Nobody missed me, but today I enjoyed rereading my old posts. The traditional book business isn't quite dead (me too) but it has certainly changed in two years. Japan has changed too though it seems that not all Japanese politicians and companies realize it. I have come to love Twitter (imcbook). Quick and short tweets are easy to read and write, but I could waste all day following the links. Facebook, the current darling of Wall Street, leaves me cold. Opened an account. Decided it was poison. More next week.

I love Amazon, even as it slowly destroys the old book business that I lived with for decades. Now the Kindle, and a host of other digital friendly devices, is opening up possibilities that never existed before, but there is a huge territory that I do not yet understand; so today I wrote an email to an Amazon Help address, but I had not bought anything, thus I had no order number to put into the Amazon form; so, the email was refused by their software. I still want answers to my questions. In a broader sense my questions apply to any downloadable product for Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook or any similar device (computers, etc, etc). Below the line is what I wrote but never sent.

I half-way know the answers, but I cannot rely on that. Does anybody have accurate answers?
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I am in Japan and I sell books. I have been interested in Kindle and other reading and audio devices but today is the first time I have made an effort to set up a Kindle account.

(1) Is there such a thing as a truly FREE Kindle product? You (Amazon) use the word Free but seems to me there is ALWAYS a (small) fee. No such thing as Free free?

(2) If I buy a book using Kindle, can I later transfer that book to another person, to their Kindle or other digital device that is compatible? I am guessing yes, and doing that would delete that item from my Kindle list.

(3) Can I print (using regular laser or inkjet printer) a document from Kindle?

(4) As some Kindle books are very very old and are in the public domain, Amazon holds no copyright on those items. Right?

(5) Is the Kindle now able to handle Japanese and other CKJ characters?

The above questions are being asked seriously and I hope you will be able to reply soon
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Simple questions. but Amazon' s Kindle pages contain tons of legalese (at least not micro-size type) and there are literally hundreds of "help" pages.

Big Organizations .... wealthy fat fools

Here in Japan, Toyota has recently been shaken by problems that it tried repeatedly to shrug off. My cousin in Massachusetts sold Toyota related products throughout New England and he loved them long before Toyota became trendy. Now they are big, fat, and foolish. The founder started with bicycles and got his hands dirty making and improving things. His son built a hugely successful company with worldwide reputation for quality. Now the third generation is in charge and from his appearance on TV I get the feeling that he doesn't have a clue as to what is under the hood. No, I am not turning against Toyota. They are still great, but their attitude is that of a big company that has lost touch with the people.
Yesterday was a very very busy day for me. In the early evening I checked my email, incoming orders, problems, etc. Then I set about sending email, one to an author from whom I buy books, another to another author in Tokyo (he turned out to be in Rome), one to a small publisher in Austria who claimed that I had not paid for books bought over a year ago, another to a shipping company in the USA that ships every week to one of my associates .... who had suddenly died, and finally I searched out the best online contact point at the Harvard Business Review. Going way-back in time, I was once the representative in Japan for HBR (no connection now for many years) and visited Boston each year to talk with the publisher. I thus knew HBR well and never had contact problems. Today (result of my internet searching last night), two astounding things: (1) HBR has great new software for subscribing online ... the only problem is that it does not work. I am sure it will be fixed someday by an IT expert, but not by a magazine subscription professional who cares about readers. In the meantime they will lose subscribers if not respect. (2) I could not find the name of the publisher of HBR, the editor, the circulation director, or anybody else. I don't mind being snubbed, but at least I prefer to be snubbed by a human; so I was reduced to using the online response FORM for Customer Service. Okay, I did that; immediately I got a computer reply that roughly said "Due to the high volume we may not be able to respond within the usual 8-hour response time". True to the computer's word HBR did not and still has not responded.
All of my other emails to individuals and small companies have been responded to between the time I went to bed and got up this morning, and in most cases I have further replied.

Update No.1

Over two years ago this blog was started. Then I forgot about it and nobody ever bothered to look at it. I am not a blogger at heart but sell books, a business that may be dying. So I must look at what I have been doing for decades and try to chart a path, however short, toward the future. I am not really in the travel guidebook business though Lonely Planet accounted for more than 60% of my sales a few years ago. Actually I am in the information business. I sell useful (not literary) information products from outside this country to Japanese and I export information products from Japan to Americans and other foreigners overseas.
Maybe I will reply with some useful opinion if you comment. Anyway, I hope to use this blog as a way to express stray thoughts and to hear what (if anything) people have to say.
Cheers

A Non-blogger starts a blog

Why am I doing this? I don't know. I have plenty of other more important things to do, but perhaps it is time for me to learn what a blog is. I hope it isn't a nuisance. I hope it does something useful though at this moment I have only a vague idea of what it might accomplish. One nice thing is that I can babel on without my wife telling me to be quiet (as long as I am not playing music).
In fact, I deal with travel books, books in English, and you can find info on them on the website. But, on the blog I think what I really want to do is to develop some information on a nice, old, unfamous, small area of Tokyo. Iriya is a district that is a part of shitamachi (old downtown). Japanese are attracted to the area only a couple times per year when there is a festival. Uptown foreigners who work in major companies and embassies seldom come to Iriya.
Have you heard of Iriya? The Hibiya Line subway stop after Ueno. To the left is Uguisudani (Nightingale Valley) now has more love hotels than birds, except for crows. To the right a few minutes walk brings you to Asakusa. Once the theatre and commercial center of Tokyo; now living off of history. And in back of Asakusa, Yoshiwara .... sordid remains of the famed "entertainment" district, very busy but seldom mentioned. And further back is Sanya, where day laborers sleep indoors when they can, rough when they lose their youth, are injured or drink too much. That area is changing some as hostels learn to attract foreign backpackers.
We will welcome posts by anyone who has info to add and perhaps we will become organized enough to be of some real help. Cheers