I don’t know about you, but I feel dispirited when I drive down the street and see yet another small business closed. Yes, there are tough brave souls starting new enterprises. Their offices decorated with optimistic grand opening banners, but most often the signs nowadays are final liquidation, lost our lease, or nothing at all, just an empty shell where a business once thrived. I’m not trying to bring you down here. This is a sad topic and I don’t know else to put it.

I’m not saying anything new when I report that the printing and mailing industries have been hard hit. Earnings have fallen 40% to 50% over the last two years. When a printing company calls it quits, you might think that the remaining shops would benefit by having less competition and the possibility of divvying up some one’s customer base. You’d think that, but it hasn’t been the case.

Unless you are in the printing business, you may not understand why it is happening, nor care. But you should care. No business stands alone. Businesses are about people and small business employs the most people. Those people when paid sufficiently buy the products and/or services of other businesses. We are interdependent.

A  business is NOT the sum total of its assets. Just go to a liquidation auction and see how much those assets are really worth–pennies on the dollar.

Why is this happening? Here are three reasons printers fail in a tight economy:

1. Printers count heavily on cash flow to pay operating expenses. No one I know has big reserves to tide them over. In fact it is nearly impossible to buildup a reserve when profits average 5% or less.
2. Printers are usually highly leveraged. To stay, or become more competitive a printer must invest in expensive equipment. The multi-color whiz-bang press they bought when times were better carries a multi-million dollar mortgage. Banks don’t care if business is down, they still demand their due.
3. Printing isn’t like the corner grocery. You can’t hire an employee for minimum wage and teach them the job in an hour. Press operators, for example, take years to train. Payrolls are relatively high because experienced people are necessary to fill critical positions. Just try to turn an inexperienced pressman loose on your whiz-bang press and at the very least you’ll be doing a lot of reprints. At the worst, who knows what costly damage could be done? I witnessed a press catch on fire one day. It didn’t do that by itself.

We are in a precarious position in the USA. Until we come to grips with the understanding that we are all in the same boat. One industry doesn’t fail to benefit another. When one suffers we all suffer.

I read in the latest AARP Bulletin that top executives especially in the financial sector are still getting increasingly lavish bonuses while at the same time cutting back on the retirement packages of other employees. I ask, who will take care of those employees when they are retired? Not the bonus babies, and not their companies. The burden will fall on all of the rest of us. A small percentage of the mucky-mucks will cruise along on their big retirements funded by extravagant bonuses leaving the worker bees to live on what the government can raise in taxes. Where does the tax money come from? The taxpayers, with the middle class carrying most of the burden.

Then New York Times in a January 9, post written by Louise Story and Eric Dash, entitled Banks Prepare for Big Bonuses, and Public Wrath, discloses the planned amounts of bonuses and  reveals that the bonuses were “earned” during 2009 when the taxpayers were bailing them out. When will we connect the dots and realize that their actions are not a victimless crime. And I think crime is the right word. They have taken away funds that could have made the country more prosperous for their own personal use. They have committed robbery by contract. If you think those zillion dollar bonuses don’t hurt you–think again. They do. Can’t we, for heavens sake, put a stop to this?

Maybe the Health Care issue affects me more because I’m self-employed and have been for the last twenty years. We do tend to get more worked-up over things that impact us directly, don’t we? I don’t really know who reads this blog, but I suspect that many of us are in the same boat. Writers, salespeople, and small business owners have all felt the crunch of rising health care costs.

Health Care Without the Care.

Let me tell you a story. Years ago, I worked as a life and health insurance salesman. I was sent to a week-long seminar in Denver, Colorado. At the training was a speaker. I don’t remember his name, but I can say he was an engaging executive type fellow and the story he related stuck with me to this day.

It seems that when he was much younger he was just an average guy working at an average full-time job. One day a favorite cousin came by to visit him. The cousin had taken a position selling a new product called health insurance. The speaker said that he laughed out loud and told his relative that it was the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard. After all, hospitals at that time were primarily community facilities and often run by religions or other charitable organizations. A hospital bed ran around 10 dollars a day. No patient was ever turned away, and doctors would accept terms, trade, or dismiss debt entirely if the patient couldn’t pay.

As much as the speaker tried to persuade his cousin, he held firm. So, he decided to prove his relative wrong by conducting an impromptu survey. He got a clipboard, a pen, and some paper and started ringing doorbells. When the door was answered he would lead with the worst opening ever conceived, “You wouldn’t be interested in buying health insurance, would you?”

“No” was the answer he received door-after-door-after-door.

Just when almost satisfied that he had collected enough no’s to make his cousin see the light, he got a “Yes.” The people invited him in and asked him to tell them more. Of course, he wasn’t knowledgeable about the product, so he phoned his cousin and invited him over. Together they wrapped up a nice sale. Then the new policy holder said to his wife, “We have friends and neighbors who should hear about this.”

So they invited other people over. Before long, they earned more in commissions than the speaker earned in a month of full-time work. He was so excited, he quit his job the next day and became an agent.

Health Insurance Took the Care Out of Health Care

It was a compelling story and got the crowd of insurance agents wound up and ready go out and sell, sell, sell, but the enthusiasm of the speech is not what I want to convey. Let’s take a look back at some of the facts: $10.00 per day hospital beds, charity run hospitals, no one turned away, and doctors more interested in treating patients than in paying their country club dues.

Follow the Money–Who Really Benefits from Health Insurance?

Think about it, since the inception of health insurance who has benefited? The patients? No. Health insurance has made it possible for a one day hospital stay to rack up thousands of dollars. It created the 1 dollar aspirin and the $2,000.00 per dose medicine. It has made Doctors wealthy. It has made health insurance executives millionaires. But it hasn’t done anything for policy holders except drain our wallets and gets us to believe the big lie that we have the finest health care in the world. Ha–that’s a laugh.

Who runs health care now? CORPORATIONS. It is no longer about the patient it is about the profit. Hey, that would be a good slogan for them, “Profit Over Patients.” How do they make those profits? They make them by denying claims. They aren’t really in the health care business they are in the claim denial business. One has to wonder, if they are so good at the art of minimizing their risk, and they are, why does your insurance go up 20% or more every year? Can you say Corporate greed? The Lund Report said that the CEO of the Oregon Blue Cross/Blue Shield in 2008 was the highest paid insurance executive in the state taking home nearly a million dollars. “So what did Regence do that resulted in its leaders being rewarded so well? If you take a look at the company’s performance last year, it’s hard to find the merit. Not only did the state’s largest insurer lose 32 percent (334,228) of its members, bringing its enrollment down to its lowest level in five years (776,647), Regence’s profit margin barely reached 1 percent. However, the company collected more in premiums than during the previous year.” Where did the increases come from? Duh, from raising premiums on the policyholders.

They’ve Got Us Over a Barrel.

Doesn’t this sound suspiciously like the greedy Wall Street titans? They take theirs, and then some, while everyone else suffers. If health insurance executives want more money they raise premiums, after all, what can you do? If you have been sick while under their plan, you now have a preexisting condition. No other insurance company will cover you. And if you drop your current coverage because it is too expensive, they will never take you back. Talk about having us over a barrel. We are screwed. As long as health care in America continues business as usual, we will be paying twice as much per person as any another other country in the world. But do we have the best health care in the world? NO! According to W.H.O., we rank No. 37. We are 37th and we pay more than anyone. Double in many cases.

How Stupid Are We, Paying Double for Half the Benefits?

Let’s stand behind the president and give the public option a chance. Private industry has had its chance and unless you’ve got your head buried in the sand, you’ll agree that it has been a failure on a massive scale.

Attention Authors

Congratulations–you have written a book. If you want to sell your book, you have to learn how to use the Internet, Network Marking, and Amazon. Try The Author Platform for 15 days FREE!

I’m proud to announce the beginnings of a new movement toward achieving credibility and respect for self-publishing authors.

Manifesto

for

The Red Hen Association of Self-Publishing Authors

We, the members of The Red Hen Association of Self-Publishing Authors, witnessing a decline in publishing opportunities, the rapidly changing habits of the book buying public, and the unwieldiness of the traditional publishing industry, are seizing control of our own destinies and banding together for the purpose of increasing our credibility, respect, and profitability. We are not expecting or demanding that anyone else have as much faith in our work as we do, therefore, we will not shy away from the challenges and costs of self-publishing including production, marketing, and distribution, but:

1. We abhor prejudicial rejections. Self-publishers are never too old, too new, too unproven, too innovative, or too risky. We refuse to be disrespected, dismissed, or ignored. Our success or failure is determined by our own efforts, and the marketability of our work.
2. We understand that traditional publishers seek manuscripts with high potential mass audience appeal, but we know that reasonable profits can be achieved even in limited markets. Money isn’t necessarily the only goal, sometimes the appreciation and gratitude of our readers is its own reward.
3. We may be small individually, but by banding together we will have access to the finest minds in book production, public relations, marketing, etc. The finished work should reflect our highest dreams and aspirations and stand proudly with the best the publishing industry has to offer. We refuse to ever be ashamed of our products because of shoddy, or low quality workmanship.
4. We insist that those who are recommended to assist us in our endeavors are trustworthy, competent, of have the highest standards of integrity. We reserve the right to accept or reject a recommendation from the association because we are first and foremost independent business people and will keep our own council.

Like The Little Red Hen in the children’s story:

a) We will prepare the ground by learning all we can about self publishing, marketing, and distribution.

b) We will sow the seed by using every means available to establish credibility for our own work and increase respect for self-publishing.

c) We will water and fertilize by blogging, using press releases, doing book signings, appearing on television and radio, and all manner of self-promotional activity. By our efforts we achieve success and inspire others to do the same.

d) We will thin and weed concentrating our efforts on successful methods and discarding those less productive.

e) We will harvest our crop using proper accounting and other business means to create  firm bases of operations.

f) We will employ the miller no matter how competent and capable we are, there are some steps we cannot do by ourselves. We recognize these steps and rather than botch the job, are willing to hire professionals with the talents, knowledge and abilities we need to supplement our efforts.

g) We will make the bread through our individual efforts we will print, publish, and sell our books, choosing the avenues and manner of distribution, and standing behind our work until our audience finds us. We have no respect for the practice of floating new books for only 30 days, then pulling them from the shelves. We will work our titles for as long as we are willing and able.

h) We will eat the bread and happily enjoy a much greater profit on each book sell than we would have earned with just royalties alone.

i) We will save some seed from every crop to plant, and harvest again because we are writers and writers need to be read.

Therefore, The Red Hen Association of Self-Publishing Authors is formed for the purposes of:

1. assisting authors/members by offering all or part of the following services as requested: to professionally prepare their works for printing or electronic production, to manage the production process including finding the least expensive methods, to provide marketing assistance from instruction to implementation, to developing business plans, and any other services needed to assist authors to achieve their personal and business goals.
2. offering courses and learning opportunities to instruct authors in self-reliance by every means from recommending books, to on-line courses, to personal coaching.
3. giving author support, The Red Hen intends to establish quality and professional standards to provide author/members the peace-of-mind of knowing that recommended sources bearing The Red Hen seal have earned the respect and backing of the organization.
4. helping members  rise to meet high standards for business ethics and quality levels. Only those who are worthy will be given the right to use The Red Hen seal in their marketing efforts.
5. furthermore, The Red Hen Association of Self-Publishing Authors will actively represent the collected authors and promote its members in any, and every way possible, from marketing opportunities to the lobbying for fair and equal treatment under the laws. We affirm that self-publishers rights  will not be diminished.