complaining won't fill your till

As a writer, publisher, and book purveyor, I always read literary news with great interest. I’ve been in the military, high tech, and government contracting, and the world of publishing is just as volatile and crazy as any of them. Yesterday, an article on the web complained that Amazon was destroying Britain’s book industry through its rock-bottom pricing, ruthless corporate behavior, and grotesquely unfair tax arrangements. So what’s your point? Welcome to life on Earth. Corporations are ruthless, life isn’t fair, and if you aren’t pricing everything as competitively as possible you won’t be running your business for long. When I worked in semiconductor manufacturing, it was obvious that factories outsourced to lower-cost regions to get that rock-bottom pricing; and when I was in government contracting I saw some pretty ruthless corporate behavior. You must react to changes in your industry sooner rather than later. Pretending it’s not going to happen is not an option, yet we do this all the time. For all our claims that flexibility is the key to airpower, human beings will always loathe change. If something is radically changing in your industry (and it always is) do something differently than you’ve done it before. Repeat this cycle every day of every month of every year as long as you are breathing. And ruthless behavior, not just in corporations, is a fact of life. Only you have the power to decide how much ruthlessness you are going to expose yourself to. How can I attract more business aside from calling my competitors jackasses? We’ve all heard of the ‘Law of Attraction’, yet you’d think everyone had a Ph.D. in the ‘Law of Repulsion’! Stop telling me how horrible your adversary is. All’s fair in love and war and ESPECIALLY in business. Don’t tell me what the other person is doing wrong, fill my head with all the things you are doing right and what that means to me! Just because you say a competitor sucks, that doesn’t make me feel drawn to you any more than insisting that my political party is corrupt makes me want to switch sides. I’m too busy being creative to worry about how to ‘dis’ my opponent. Imagine if we all engaged in conversations where we were actually passionate about what we believed in instead of spewing out hate about the opposition. Books are sacred. They aren’t ordinary objects like TVs or even fighter jets. If you can hold it in your hand, you can keep it in your heart. And yes, you can buy our books on Amazon. But if I haven’t convinced you why you should stop by our website or call and order directly from us, than I’ve got no one to blame but myself. So stop competing and start achieving! Stop complaining and start promoting! And for God’s sake, stop pointing at the problem and start being a part of the solution!