Posts by Glenn Pearce

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  • Southerly: At Last, David Haywood's 2010…,

    cover design amusingly extended to a large cabal of my partner's workmates

    His workmates suggested a picture of you in your underwear for the cover ?

    If I was an author, and my publisher talked about me like Mike just talked about 'Haywood',

    The last time he was referred to as 'Haywood' would have been around 1985 when the roll was called I think.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Southerly: At Last, David Haywood's 2010…,

    So this means lifting up the house, moving it out the way, putting in new foundations that go down 3 metres to the gravel layer, putting the house back into position again, reconnecting it to all the services, and then patching-up all the structural damage caused by moving it around.

    MacGyver style, with your new hammer, 2 rolls of duct tape and a stanley knife.

    It all adds up! And it all takes a lot of organizing...

    quite, your time not reimbursed by the insurer either.

    On the upside it will be like the Six Million Dollar man once it's finished, better than it was before...

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Southerly: At Last, David Haywood's 2010…,

    The idea is that the website is effectively an aggregator -- the authors would maintain their own stock of books, i.e. they would act as a 'capacitor' between the publisher and the customer

    Ok, got ya now. You've probably got some legal issues to resolve then. Who's paying the GST, tax. Who's the legal entitiy purchasing the stock. Ownership of the website/business etc. etc. I'm sure that's resolvable though.

    The risk of carrying the stock is of course pushed back to the Author under this model and every few unsold items cuts drastically into your profits.

    Don't underestimate the cost of providing customer service either. I seem to recall numbers like the cost of replying to each customer email is about $15-20

    Is that the 2rd or 3rd edition of xxx you've got listed ?
    Can you get me a copy of xxx ?
    Where's my order ?
    Refunds/Returns handling etc. etc.

    What's the story with the house ? I thought you were relatively unscathed (ablution issues aside) ?

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Southerly: At Last, David Haywood's 2010…,

    Yes, this is a possible problem. The way round this is to have the organization (as a single buyer) deal directly with the publishers via an automatic email ordering system, but then to have the books delivered to the authors, i.e. similar to the way that chain bookshops work. It's an added layer of complexity, but quite doable.

    David once you go down this road you need to integrate your website with the Publisher's systems to get the inventory levels right. Otherwise you end up displaying books on your website as available when in reality they're not = pissed off customers.

    The publishers really just want you to buy in bulk and carry stock = risk and requires a certain amount of capital.

    Don't get me started on pricing either. Many people expect (rightly or wrongly) the book to be cheaper from the web to offset the cost of postage.

    aaargh this is bringing back FlyingPig memories for me...

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Hard News: The GST Punt,

    Nash is talking about a world where a Farmer who sells his Carrots to Countdown would charge Countdown 15% GST but Countdown would not add 15% when they sell them to you.

    But if the same Farmer takes the same Carrots to the Farmers Market and sells them direct to you he cannot charge the 15% GST.

    There will be all sorts of arguments about who's retailing and who's wholesaling.

    I don't think we have a scenario at the moment where the rate of GST on a purchase depends on who/what the purchaser is ?

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Hard News: The GST Punt,

    I look forward to the purists, and believers in "universal" GST, extending it to rents, mortgage interest, currency exchanges, transport of imported household goods, bank fees, etc. etc.

    Purists like Dr Cullen ?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-taxation/news/article.cfm?c_id=690&objectid=230461

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Hard News: The GST Punt,

    Gold is GST exempt because it is considered near enough to money. That would be like having GST on cash.

    One of the reasons Residential Rent is exempt is because if you taxed Renters, to be fair you'd have to impute a *rent* component into mortgage payments for Home Owners and charge GST on that and I think that's just in the too hard basket.

    Banks pay GST on goods and services they purchase but cannot offset that against GST on their fees so in many way their costs are higher than other businesses.

    The subtle diff between Exempt and Zero Rated is that for Exempt you cannot offset the input GST against the outputs. For Fruit and Veg Nash is talking about making it Zero Rated not Exempt BUT only at the Retailer which is where the complication comes in I think.

    I believe Zero Rating is normally used for exporters so that the non-NZ consumer does not have to pay GST in NZ.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Hard News: The GST Punt,

    To make this work I think they'll have to change GST law from being a Value Add type consumption tax to a Sales type consumption tax but for Fruit and Veg only.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Hard News: Little pieces of a big picture,

    As for the PM flying in 12 hours late er planes need long flat pieces of land that haven't been undermined or disturbed by things like earthquakes

    They managed to SBW up to Auckland in a Chopper for a Commercial shoot, he even had time for a fly over his mum's house in Pt Chev apparently.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Southern Apps,

    The segregation of the Net haz started!

    I've noticed that iPod/iPhone users do tend to sit at the front of the bus.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

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