Companies You Like

[Freecare Spiritwise]

It seems like there's so many big companies I dislike, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there's a bunch that I do like.

These companies have consistently treated me right over the years. Never one bad experience with these:

1. Amazon
2. GEICO
3. Newegg
4. Southwest Airlines

There's a few product brands I really like as well. Never one bad experience with these either:

1. Oakley
2. Samsung
3. Acer
4. Leatherman
5. Chevy
6. Craftsman
7. Kitchenaid
8. All-Clad
9. DeWalt
10. Honda

What are some companies/brands that you guys like?

[Ddrak]

I've found myself buying a lot of Samsung stuff lately, though I've never really interacted with them as a company.

Amazon has always been good to me, for sure. Newegg I liked in the US, but sadly they don't ship to Oz. Southwest always scared me a little - the people were great but I never felt 100% confident in their aircraft.

Oddly, I've found the people that work for a lot of truly awful companies are usually pretty awesome if you try not to blame company policy on them personally. Weird.

Dd

[Taxious]

I agree with you Free on a lot of those. Amazon, Geico, Newegg, and Samsung have never let me down.

I JUST started using Southwest for flights late last year and like it. For whatever reason, I didn't know they didn't include themselves in those aggregated travel sites like Expedia. Once I found out it's usually cheaper to directly use Southwest, I've just been doing that (as well as got their credit card for a stick of gum and a bunch of free flights).

Newegg I liked in the US, but sadly they don't ship to Oz.

How sad.

Southwest always scared me a little - the people were great but I never felt 100% confident in their aircraft.

Why?

[Jarochai Alabaster]

I actually stopped using Amazon after I read an article or two about the way they treat their warehouse employees. They're basically the Wal-Mart of online distribution.

There really aren't any companies I "like." There are plenty of companies I don't hate, however. Target is one of them, despite a less than stellar employment experience I had with them several years back.

Oh, now that I think about it - there's a local used game chain here in Omaha called Gamers. They have 3 locations in town, and one over in Lincoln. I've literally never had cause to complain, and the employees are usually informed enough to help with anything I may need. Plus I like helping out a local small business instead of some nightmare chain like Gamestop. Oh, and Gamers keeps literally <i>everything.</i> They have games and systems dating back to Atari. If it was a gaming console in the 80s, they probably have it in stock. The only thing they don't do is PC games, and even then they might keep high-profile new PC games in stock during release hype. I'm not certain.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I always had a great experience with Southwest and even their planes (all 737's I think). Open seating is great because with human nature, the plane fills up all the way to the back before people start sitting next to each other. I usually get a front seat just by saying "hey, can I sit here?". That or it's some super hot chick that everyone is intimidated by and nobody sits next to - stuff like that. But somehow I always manage to score a front seat.

For Amazon, I just go by how they treat me. I always liked them, but when the missus switched us to Prime, I started loving them. Every time we place an order, they move their asses. They don't make mistakes and they are always super cool to deal with.

There's some local places here in Spokane that we like. I also try to support local business when I can.

And Dd, I do try to put on a brave face for companies I despise, but I also try to keep my interactions with them to a minimum. My home loan got sold to BofA and suddenly the company I hate the most owns my house. So, I do try.

For companies I don't like - companies that are rude or mean to me - what I've started doing is being belligerent with them. There were some bill collectors calling for my brother, and some calling for some person who owned my phone, and they wouldn't take a hint that it was the wrong number. I'll be friendly and professional about the first 5 or so times and then I just start automatically (and creatively) cursing them out. That has been very effective. So yeah, not out of anger but as a calculated tactic

[Harlowe]

Amazon (love my Prime acct), Newegg, Target, my local Dunn Bros Coffee and local community bank. I also like my Samsung products, my Roku and Honda.

[Ddrak]

Southwest always scared me a little - the people were great but I never felt 100% confident in their aircraft.

Why?

I read a bunch of dodgy things about them when they were starting up, and the effects of their halving the on-ground time over regular aircraft. I also suspect there's a lot of bad press about them because they're doing so well...

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Amazon (love my Prime acct), Newegg, Target, my local Dunn Bros Coffee and local community bank. I also like my Samsung products, my Roku and Honda.

We're in coffee country in Eastern Washington state. There's a little independent coffee shack on almost every corner here, and they all make superb coffee; mainly Espresso-based drinks. Oh, and every single one of them has smokin' hot baristas, and they're all cool. Amazing coffee and amazing service. Most people here tip them well, too. The only Starbucks in town which I know do well are the ones inside the couple B&Ns we have.

For breakfast we usually do a simple french press with beans we grind ourselves on-demand. A few people have seen my Kitchenaid bean grinder and were amazed I paid $200 for it. But we've used it every day for several years, and we get great beans for $2 a pound with the missus gaming the coupons at CostPlus World Market (another one we like). So, for about 1/4 price that it used to cost me to brew that pre-ground crap going through disposable filters, I get coffee that meets or exceeds most fine restaurants. There's nothing wasted, and nothing to burn out or quit working. We have it down to a science.

[Arathena]

GM and Ford both buy the tools that pay my bills.

My experiences with Nationwide as an automobile insurance company have been fantastic.

There's a regional gasoline and convience store I rather like: Sheetz. Not so much for the gas, but as a fast food choice it's fantastic compared to the national chains; much higher quality and better selection, with only a small increase in price. No lie - their salads were a major cornerstone in my weightloss journey, which is kind of sad.

My wife-to-be also had some rough patches with her employment at Target, especially at the end, but on the plus side, it was less outright abusive than some of the other employers we'd both had in the past. We still shop there, since they have higher quality 'generic' goods than Wal-Mart, and cheap clothes that are good enough.

McMaster-Carr is the Amazon Prime of industrial supply. I <3 them when I need hardware now.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I had a brand new, fully loaded Ford Explorer in 2000 which I bought for my wife. Then, they had this problem where the Firestone tires were falling off / exploding and killing people when the tires blew out at freeway speed. I sent them a letter politely asking for new tires, and pointing out that I had bought a new Ford (friends were all Ford salesmen) every year for like 7 years, sometimes two Fords at a time for me and the wife.

They responded that my particular Firestone tires weren't the exact ones which were exploding, and that they were perfectly good. I responded that I didn't trust the tires, and that if they wanted to keep me as a customer, then they would replace the tires for free, and pronto, because it was my wife's vehicle and I didn't want her driving it.

They sent me the standard corporate mumbo jumbo about how they valued my business and reiterated that my tires were just awesome, so I replied back that I was never going to buy another Ford and that they lost me permanently as a customer.

Then, I traded in the vehicle for a Dodge Durango IIRC. About a month later Ford sent me a letter saying that they had changed their minds, and that I could bring in my Ford Explorer to the nearest dealership and they would replace my tires for free. Oops, too late.

The childhood friend who sold it to me said that Ford lost shitloads of their best customers over this Firestone snafu. So, I am never going to buy another Ford. It used to be the only brand I bought.

[Raelesyn]

Shameless plug for my company...Empire Today Carpets...pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head!

[Alluveal]

I love Amazon, even though they treat self-published writers the same way they do their warehouse employees (apparently). They are my go to for pretty much anything. I love the review system. Sure, you have to weed through the assholes, but I find it fairly helpful with merchandise.

I like Best Buy and Target as well. I'm also a fan of some local stores like used bookstores and artisan shops.

American Furniture Warehouse. Not sure these are everywhere, but in Colorado, I always find AWESOME deals with them.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I love Amazon, even though they treat self-published writers the same way they do their warehouse employees (apparently).

I'll need to pass that on to my sister, who just wrote a book and was asking me advice about putting it on the Interwebs. I can create web sites to host eBooks, and add paypal buttons and pay-for-download PDF mechanisms, but I'm a geek, not a publisher. I told her that her best best was sucking it up and letting Amazon do the heavy lifting, if nothing else for the exposure.

[Alluveal]

Over 700,000 "self-published" titles were tossed up on Amazon last year. About 675,000 of those titles were utter and complete crap. We're talking stuff that people do not edit in any way, shape or form, writing that makes the Twilight chick look like fucking Hemingway. While it gives good writers a chance to prove their "chops," people are sick of wading through crap. Remember when I said I loved Amazon ratings? Not for self-published books. Some self-published writers get family/friends to fluff the ratings and you see "oh, look, 8 out of 10 stars, I'll give it a shot" and then you realize you've bought a 99 cent bag of dicks.

In short, the market (especially at Amazon) is flooded with shit and it's only getting worse with assholes like Konrath out there thinking they have the magic formula and preaching to the world how people are going to be rich self-publishing.

There are only a handful of success stories with people who have self-pubbed and been later picked up by big 6 publishing companies. Konrath is one (though he railed against publishers for years).

But, here's the thing . . . the publishing world is really sitting on the point of a dagger. Agents I've talked to say the best thing is to do the legwork and query traditional print agents, but also get a foothold in digital (it would have to be in another genre, using different characters as once a publishing house gives you a deal, they have exclusive rights).

There are success stories (Amanda Hocking), but these are so incredibly rare. Some might break $500. Others don't break $50. An agent told me that most people on Amazon (when they self-pub) sell an average of 14 copies. Amazon also charges $1000, I believe, at the VERY least. This includes formatting your manuscript to fit with Kindle readers and so forth. You also get your book on the biggest mega-book selling entity in the world. But, they own you. They own your ass like a bitch. Their contracts are, from what I have heard, tyrannical. If you're okay with that (and with competing with hundreds of thousands of ass-kayaks who think they're the next Stephen King), then maybe? I don't know.

What genre does your sister write? That could change. If she writes romance, for instance, there are some decent digital ebook companies (some run by big names like Harlequinn), that treat their writers decently and do an adequate job at marketing for you.

YA doesn't sell well via digital.

Fantasy/Sci-Fi is all over the place. Epic Fantasy doesn't sell well, but urban fantasy does. Sci-Fi, hmmm, still an iffy genre for digital, at least now.

Horror is kind of a low point on all formats for some reason.

Hybrids (romance), like fantasy/romance, historical romance, urban fantasy romance, are hot on ebooks.

But, honestly? My suggestion to everyone is to get your work to agents and go the "traditional" route. Agents are crossing over into digital representation now hardcore. Get the book finished (edited, proofread, gone through a few beta readers, edited again) then query it. If she can get them to request partials (or fulls) of the manuscript and get feedback, that's gold in publishing. It's a huge learning experience.

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE I see writers making is that they finish something and get so excited that they want it up RIGHT THIS MINUTE. My manuscript is almost through a 2nd run on revision (and will go through a few more). After that, I have three beta readers who have offered to read it. It's been through my writing group. Then, when I've scoured it with a fine tooth comb for inconsistencies, grammar, spelling, formatting, plot, character voice (etc.) I'm sending it to my friend who's an assistant editor at Oxford Press. (We exchange services, so it's free. I beta-read her material and she says she'll edit mine). If I didn't have such a pal, I'd hire an MFA student to edit it and probably offer 300-400 flat fee.

Also, I've been simultaneously working on my query letter (which, for me, has been harder than writing the goddamned book). Just the letter has been through multiple drafts and reads by friends.

So, I dunno if any of this helps. With the e-publishing, you'll need to format it for Kindle and other ereaders if you do it yourself. Kindle will do that for you if you sign on with them. I think it's awesome your sister finished a book, but I'd tell her to sit on it for at least 3 months. She could spend that time researching the e-market, researching agents to query for print.

If she insists on digital and print (and if you can set up a website for her or whatnot), then tell her to research the holy fuck out of successful self-published writers. We're talking over 40,000 copies sold. Figure out where they are. What type of formatting their using. You CAN format it yourself, but I hear it's ass-shit tedious. You can also pay people to do it for you. See how they market their own work.

I go to this board. They have HUGE amounts of support for people who write (and want to publish) in any format.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php

Lots and lots and lots of resources there.

Okay, tangent over. Whatever she picks, I wish her good luck!!

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Wow, LuLu, thanks for that. I copied and pasted that into an email and sent it to her. I'm sure she will be grateful as well

She's a mathematician who used to be the top scientist or something for the credit scoring companies, doing all these mathematical models and such. Really boring, evil empire shit like what I do. Well-paying but completely soulless, and she just couldn't do it any more.

So, she pretty much checked out of the rat race and now she's writing all over the place. She's writing a book on credit repair (since she invented/helped invent the top sekret formulas they use) but the book she's trying to publish now, and the book I'm talking about here, is a mathematical analysis of crop circles in England. She's figured out some theorem about how they somehow relate to music theory. So, I have no clue what to tell her about publishing, other than I could setup a web site to do whatever she wants. She claims it's groundbreaking. Now, it's pretty hard for me to discount any of that because she played in an orchestra through college and she's a prominent mathematician. Musician + Mathematician = she knows what the fuck she is talking about. She understands it's one of those "follow your heart" things she'll never make a boatload of cash from, but she does want to put the material out there. And she certainly could use the money. So, potentially super-groundbreaking, but to an obviously limited audience.

And so, it's very problematic pinning her down to a genre lol. She and I both want to write about the outdoors and hiking/camping/survival and so forth. She spent years as a volunteer in the Peace Corps and she bounced all over the world teaching half-naked tribesman whatever it is she taught them. So, she's an expert in survival and emergency/disaster preparedness. Not that history channel "preppers" BS either. Actual, practical stuff. She does pretty well selling all her kits on flea-bay, but she wants to do some writing on the subject too.

That's just three genres that I know about!

Oh, and she and I both want monetized blogs that tie into the stuff we like to talk about. There's millions of shitty blogs by people who don't know what the hell they are talking about, with the sole purpose of pretending to have good content in order to get page hits for advertising. We are looking to do the same, except we plan to have actual, meaningful content, with all the passion and forethought that comes with it. We both want to possibly, eventually make a living with writing. She's more interested in books and I'm more interested in stream-of-consciousness formats like blogging.

She was valedictorian (duh) and has mad English skillz, but I'm a high school dropout who got straight F's in English, when I even bothered to go. So, both of us are looking to get the ducks we need to get in a row and make this shit happen.

Thanks again LuLu!!!

[Alluveal]

Well, some changes because it's nonfiction. The good news is that querying and such through traditional publishers is pretty much the same. The awesome news is that nonfiction is a hell of a lot easier to sell and it's easier to find an agent, ESPECIALLY if it's a niche topic like this. Unfortunately, the nonfiction market I know little about (and there are quirks and such). But, that website will help her.

Also, once she gets the book out, she has to contact George Noory from Coast to Coast. It's a radio show that has fuckin' millions of listeners all over the world. People who get on the show and talk about their work (book stuff) usually get a NICE boost in sales. Guests have hit the NYT best seller list by being on this show.

Here's the link to the radio show: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

They do all kinds of cool stuff on UFOs, conspiracy theories, gov't bunk, supernatural stuff, ghosts, you name it, and the people who have a scientific background really get a lot of good attention.

I don't know the genre specifically (but nonfiction for sure as the general genre). I'd suggest that she look at books that are similar to hers and see where they go on the bookshelf. That's how I usually get genres out of people who don't know, by asking them, "where do you see yourself on the bookshelf? What authors are next to you?" As shitty as it is, that's what publishing houses want to know first and foremost.

I think she has a seriously awesome chance. The work sounds fascinating and there's a nice, big, fat audience out there for it if you can just tap into it. People eat that shit up, and the more science-based, the better, imho. Hell, I want to read it.

And hey, writing is writing. Maybe you're more of a poet.

[Harlowe]

Someone just posted this about publishing on Amazon - thought it was timely. =)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/0 ... ?ref=books

[Freecare Spiritwise]

My sister leaves for the UK next week. She's going to interview the locals. I don't know much about geometry, but it's somehow related to music theory, and her theory of crop circles ties that together. It's a special type of geometry ... the name escapes me at the moment. She doesn't think some of these are man made and I agree with her on that. I believe she thinks that some of these crop circles are trying to enlighten us about advanced mathematics. She thinks we are being schooled in geometry - shit, she should know.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

She said thanks for the advice. We had just automatically assumed Amazon. She'll probably spend the next 6 months editing and revising it anyway.

I guess these things form in the countryside almost daily, so she's going there mostly to observe and take measurements. I suggested an RC helicopter with a camera and laser range finder, though with the caveat that she check local ordinances in advance. She says the circles are getting more advanced, and there's no real science being applied to them because it's a taboo subject in the scientific community. So applying actual science might help solve the mystery of these things.

The math goes way over my head, though. I've heard of the fibonacci sequence, but that's about where my brain shuts down. Repeating sequences based on square root of two just hurts my brain to think about. I got a C in geometry. Fractals, harmonics ... that shit's voodoo to me.

Somewhere I have some links of some good crop circles maybe I'll start a thread for. Intuitively I find them meaningful, but it's nothing I can articulate. I'm glad someone can.

Back on topic, another company I really like is Google. I think they might just be the perfect business partner for someone like me, who wants to make a living as a blogger, and even for common sites like my consulting site and company intranets and so forth. Their tools are very primitive but with some clever workarounds, you can get a decently functional web site with them.

[Alluveal]

Good link Harlowe. That's when it can work for someone, but she doesn't state how she got so many sales. How much marketing did she do? She probably got another 50k sales from that article alone, but not everyone gets published on the Huffington Post. Did she just throw it up on Amazon and the PR fairies came for her one night? That would have been a lot more helpful than just saying, "I sucked at the traditional route and got mad and self-published and now I'm making an ASSLOAD of money."

Hell, I want to know how she got those kinds of sales.

But, I think traditional publishing DOES need to get their asses in gear or they're going to lose on this front. Big time.