Business Musings: Economic Uncertainty

Note: I wrote this at the end of July. By the end of the first week in August, the doomsayers got confused by the stellar jobs report here in the U.S. A lot of the analysis is a confused “this doesn’t fit into our models,” rather than a discussion of how to find new models. I’m mostly leaving the post as it was when I […]

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Business Musings: Economic Shakiness

To understand what I am about to write, you need to understand that I am the adult child of two alcoholics. I’ve had tons of therapy to deal with my hugely destructive upbringing, so I know what triggers me. 2020 triggered me—of course. We all had to deal with things from deaths to illness to lockdown, and each of our journeys is personal. It’s also […]

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Business Musings: K-Shaped

On Saturday, November 14, I went on my usual morning run. I chose the route that took me past the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, one of the country’s top-rated high schools. When I ran past this school pre-COVID, I would often hear voices raised in song, or a particularly amazing band practice. Sometimes I saw very intense high school students have discussions about […]

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Business Musings: Pivot

On August 7, Wired published an interview with Bill Gates. I had seen excerpts from it, and reactions to it (not all positive), but I hadn’t had time to read it until recently. Gates, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past decade, has spent the last twenty years working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which made […]

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Business Musings: Holes in the Economy

I just saw an article this morning—which of course, I can’t find now—comparing the amount of news pouring at us right now to a DDoS (denial of service) attack. There’s so much news, every hour of every day, that we can’t keep track of it. I’m keeping up, as best I can, on the virus and vaccine news. I’m scanning the political news, because I […]

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Business Musings: The Year Ahead

I wasn’t going to write this post. In fact, I just told a friend that I didn’t see a point in writing this post for 2020, but she knows me well enough to know that if she asks the question, my mind will turn it over and over and over, and I might come up with an answer. Or at least, a blog post. She […]

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Business Musings: Running A (Writing) Business In Uncertain Times

To do modeling for the next year of your business, you need to be as clear-eyed as possible. You should research trends for your business for similar economic times, if you can.

Then you figure out as best you can what your future will be.

Here’s how you do it.

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Business Musings: Third Quarter Blues

In August, I noted a slowdown in all of our businesses, from the retail stores we own to the books we sell online to the willingness of people to sign up for online workshops.

I figured that this 2016 election was so vituperative and consumers were so spooked, they weren’t spending money, and this was unusual. So I investigated. What I discovered was very different from my expectations.

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Recommended Reading List: August, 2013

I’ve now read two books in a row in which our female protagonist wanders into a graveyard in the middle of the night in the pouring rain despite no-trespassing signs, forgets her phone (or leaves it charging) in the car, and gets attacked by the bad guy, all the while worrying about ruining her very expensive clothing. And these books were written by women. Neither […]

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The Business Rusch: How E-Books Will Save Big Publishing (Changing Times Part Four)

The Business Rusch: How E-Books Will Save Big Publishing (Changing Times Continued) Kristine Kathryn Rusch In my very first post in this long series of linked topics, I advised anyone who cared about publishing to keep up with the day-to-day industry news.  I wrote that blog post in my spare time over four days and I noted: “In four days, some parts of the [publishing] […]

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