The false economy of adding credit card surcharges

As a homeowner, I have a handful of monthly bills from service providers (for example, landscapers). Most of these companies have begun tacking on a 3.5% surcharge if I charge their bill to my credit card.

I understand why they want to shift the credit card processing to me — profit — but they should just consider those charges an overhead cost of doing business.

Because what happens is that instead of paying their bill right away, I wait until I have two or three other bills that are due. Then I log onto my bank’s website and have a paper check sent via the mail.

This introduces a two or three week delay before they get their money. When a company sends me a bill that does not add a surcharge, I typically pay it the same day I receive it. (Often as soon as I read it, if their payment system supports Apple Pay, which is virtually effortless to use.)

Having my bank send a paper check costs me nothing, but the recipient must now receive, open and process that check. Which probably costs them more than the 3.5% card processing fee they are imposing. (Which, on a $50 transaction, would be about $1.75) And, given the poor mail service here in Trumpistan, the check might be severely delayed or lost, increasing their opportunity cost even more.

Plus, the practice pisses me off and reduces my satisfaction with their service. Which is, of course, priceless.

Book Review: Booksellers Reflect on Self-Publishing

I have been publishing my own work since 1980, so this book caught my eye. I’ve read countless books written from the author’s perspective, and many more written by publishers, but there aren’t a lot from booksellers. For a mere ten dollars, getting to learn from people who are in the trenches every day is definitely worthwhile.

That said, there is also plenty here to gleam regarding all areas of the business.

Some contributors offer a fascinating history of zines and self-publishing, while others discuss the practicality of distribution and what works at retail.

One of the best chapters is by Liz Mason, manager at the venerable Quimby’s in Chicago. (Where, ahem, you can find many of my current publications.) She describes how the store manages its massive consignment operation, which is not only interesting, but will also likely leave you sympathetic to their operations.

In today’s world, sadly, “commercial” and “bigger is better” tends to cast aspersions towards those whose passion leads them to take on the role of both writer and publisher. But historically, this is precisely how it was done. Even if you’re not so inclined yourself, this book will provide entertaining insight into this world.

I got my copy at Quimby’s (duh) but you can also obtain it from HalfLettter Press

Use caution when adding a USB drive to a Synology NAS

I recently ran out of cloud space for the backup of my Synology NAS. I have been using their C2 Service for years, but its costs have increased beyond my budget, so I used this opportunity to re-jigger my back up strategy.

Part of this reconfiguration included adding a larger USB drive for local storage. However, I found that adding an additional external drive to the Synology NAS presented a few challenges.

The first of which was that the Synology NAS only has two USB ports, both of which were already in use. To solve this, I added a powered USB Hub.

Solving this problem, however, introduced a new one. Much to my surprise, the Synology OS (DSM, as it’s called) dynamically renumbers the address of USB devices. Connecting my previous drives (which had years-long backups) and the new drive caused each to “move” to new addresses. Which meant that not only did I have to reconfigure all my backup sets, I also had to start all over and wipe out the previous back ups. (This is just one of the many deficiencies of Synology’s Hyper Backup app.)

If there’s a solution, I don’t know what it is. But if you’re planning on adding more USB drives to your Synology NAS, be advised that it’s a major headache. Once you have a drive plugged into a port, don’t you dare touch it, unless you want to all start over.

A man walks in to a bar...

Me (at bar): Hi, I’d like a Pina Coloda and a Nun Nun please”

Bartender: A Nun Nun?

Me, grabbing cocktail menu: “This drink here, on the back”

Bartender: Oh! A Nui Nui

Me: Maybe you should turn up the fucking lights in here

Avoiding QR code and Link page expenses

If you look at social media these days, especially Instagram, you’ll soon be convinced that you need a Linktree page and a QR code for your website. All the cool kids have them.

Sadly, many of the people who fall for the fad find themselves trapped in a costly and not very useful third-party service. And worse than the expense, these service are nothing but a barrier between you and your customers and friends, from which the services profit by selling activity or showing ads (or both).

Fortunately, QR codes and “linking pages” are easy to construct with very little effort, and no expense. In my opinion, you should “roll your own” instead of signing up for one of these services.

Here’s a real-world nightmare scenario: A friend of mine signed up for one of the “free” QR code services, and had the code printed on thousands of postcards that advertise his show. What he didn’t realize is that the free service was limited, and soon after publication, his code stopped working unless he paid hundreds of dollars a month to reactive it. Now he has a thousand postcards that send his customers, not to his website, but to an extortive third-party.

Make your own QR Code

It’s easy to make a QR Code that points directly to your website.

The simple way is to by going to DuckDuckGo.com, and entering into the search field something like “qr https://gordonmeyer.com”. The first result will be a QR that you can save and distribute.

A fancier way is to use the Shortcuts app on macOS or iOS. There’s a built-in Generate QR Code action that you can add to any workflow.

Make your own linking page

You probably already subscribe to a service that lets you share documents that can contain links, via the web. For example, iCloud, Dropbox, Craft, Microsoft Word, or Google Docs. Below is an elementary example; you can get as fancy with this as your time and talent allow. Once you’re finished, share your page as a public read-only document, and use that link in your social media profiles.

What do you lose?

So, you might be asking yourself, what are the disadvantages of using these methods? What you lose is that you won’t get the usage statistics that the third-party services offer (to those who pay extra). So you won’t know how many times your links were clicked, or how they came to your page, such as via Instagram versus Facebook versus Blue Sky.

However, as a small, independent creator, do you really care? Unless you’re engaged in a fancy marketing campaign, none of that information is actionable. It’s interesting to see, for certain, but that’s about it. I could also argue that not getting the measurements frees your psyche to worry about things that actually help your business or social life.