Pinch Me Plz

Since the NBA draft will be held this week, I was thinking about the potential trades for my NY Knicks basketball team last night. I followed rumors such as the team seeking a superstar like Paul George (who wants a 4 year extension) or a replacement for Isaiah Hartenstein (who is likely to leave in free agency) and even make a dream trade for Lebron James (nope!). Meanwhile, Nets have been practically shouting they’re keeping Mikal Bridges.

So when I saw the breaking news last night that the Knicks got him for a bunch of unprotected first round picks plus Bojan Bogdanović (who will likely get rerouted to another team), it’s like Xmas in June for me. Critics argue Leon Rose traded the farm and mortgaged the team’s future for a secondary star, and they are correct.

BUT the window of opportunity to contend for a championship is really, really, really short in the NBA. The Knicks were a few able bodies short of reaching the Eastern Conference Finals this year; if they faced the Celtics, the series would have been close.

This year’s championship showed that you could build a contender around wings, and the Knicks could do the same with a OG-Mikal tandem. And if that means blowing up the budget and paying OG a 5 year/$200m contract, do it. Let the Knicks contend for a championship for the next two years, and then start a rebuild to go under the cap in 2026. The worst thing GM Rose could do is sit between a tanking team and a contender.

8.875%

This is the combined sales tax I am required to pay as a NYC resident. OUCH! The tax has 3 components: state (4%); city (4.5%); transportation surcharge (0.375%).

I’ve been eyeing a bigger fish tank for my turtles (55 gal), so I wanted to calculate the total cost with the sales tax. I’m waiting for a sale or a coupon (there was one last week for the 29 gal tank). Hopefully it will part of the Amazon Prime Day discounts this summer.

I’m happy that Amazon doesn’t seem to charge taxes on ebooks (I buy instead of subscribe to KU), or I would need to dial back my purchases by a lot.

re: Elon’s $56B Payday

After a Delaware court invalidated Elon Musk’s all-stock pay in 2018, Tesla shareholders seem to be re-approving it. Although I don’t own Tesla shares and ineligible to vote on this issue, I do have a derivative investment based upon its share price in my portfolio. Thus, approving his pay would hurt me indirectly by diluting the current shareholders and causing the existing share prices to drop.

Putting aside my personal stake, I also view this package negatively for a different reason. The last time Musk sold his shares was to raise money to fund his purchase of Twitter for $44b in October of 2022. Since then, it lost an estimated 3/4s of its value, bouncing between $11b (financial papers’ estimates) and 20b (Elon’s claim this March). So let’s be generous and go with Elon’s $20b figure, resulting in a loss of $24b. Between that purchase date and today is roughly 20 months; Elon lost an average of $1.2b in Twitter’s value per month under his total ownership of the company.

How many business leaders, tycoons, etc. could lose $24b in 20 months and still have a job running a publicly traded company? And if you put another $56b in Elon’s hands, which shiny new toy will he purchase next and run it to the ground? Will he, for instance, buy 2/3 of OpenAI (worth $80b currently) and integrate its AI with Tesla and X? Do you, the consumer, have the confidence he won’t mess up the next company he buys with that $56b?

Elon has had a nice run with Tesla, and many early shareholders grew their investment portfolios. But it seems to me his previous success inflated his ego, and we’re stuck with the bad-Elon with the reverse-Midas touch. If he succeeds in getting that $56b payout, be scared of what he’ll do with that money.

Solo Leveling: Arise Clears $100m in Sales

According to multiple sources, Net Marble’s new game Solo Leveling: Arise has reached over $100m in sales within a month. I was one of the folks who pre-registered for Google Play. But after I learned the game will be available on PC, I downloaded NM’s launcher and the game itself, logging in at 11pm EST on launch day (May 7th) to join the fun.

SLA is an action rpg that pulls from the manhwa source, and I could see its appeal to SL fans and also the action gaming community. Unfortunately for me, I’m more of a casual player, so I stopped logging in/playing the game after 3 days. Now, I’m stuck with the NM launcher at startup on my PC. I considered uninstalling it but I’m hoping to see a cross over collaboration in the future. So I’ll keep it on my hard drive for now.

Writing Progress May ’24 Edition

I finished the first draft of my manuscript, clocking in at 97k words. The word count is a tad under my 100k goal, but I could still wind up adding material to the manuscript. I started the first round of edits (spent a week on it already). Also, my book cover designer already sent me book 2’s cover. I should be on track to release volume 2 of Infinite Rebirths at the end of this month.

I will update and post here when the new book is up for pre-order on Amazon.

Microsoft Buying Steam? Not!

This week, there was a rumor going around with Microsoft planning to offer $16b to buy Valve Corp., the private owner of Steam gaming platform. As a longtime Steam user from my college days, I am really, really skeptical it’s going to happen for various reasons.

First, Microsoft closed its $68b purchase of Activision Blizzard last year, after successfully fighting off a legal challenge from the Justice Dept. When you have a major company purchase like this, the buyer and seller needs time to integrate their operations, including ongoing projects/developments, employees, internal communication systems, payroll, etc. If this integration completes within five years, that would be fast in my view. So based on the timeline alone, Microsoft isn’t going to swallow a second gaming company like Valve anytime soon.

Second, if you’re an investor, you know that the hottest buzz surrounds AI, and Microsoft has done its part by backing OpenAI and integrating its AI products and services. Since investors and senior managements are prioritizing AI integration, why would they take a detour with Valve? Again, the timing isn’t right for Microsoft.

Third, Valve isn’t losing money. Its Steam platform brings in plenty of revenues, and the company will soon release a second version of its Steam Deck portable gaming system. Frankly, $16b might not be enough to convince its private owners to sell the company.

Based upon these considerations, I don’t see any momentum from Microsoft to buy Valve., or the private ownership to sell. This rumor sounds like a dream with no basis in reality.

Valiant Effort From My NY Knicks

The New York Knicks lost today’s Game 7 at MSG to the Pacers. The story of the series was injuries; the team suffered too many during the playoff run. I’m not surprised OG couldn’t do much this afternoon. Losing Jalen to a broken hand injury in the 3rd was the nail in the coffin. Thank you to the team for a memorable season, and I hope they will build on it next year to reach the Eastern Conference Finals.

re: Humble LitRPG Audiobook Bundle

As a PC gamer, Humble Bundle is a website I check regularly for bundle deals. As an LitRPG author, I couldn’t help but notice their latest offering from rb media. Pay 18 bucks to get audiobooks from seven different authors. The idea behind HB is to sell books, games, and software at a discount while giving a portion of the proceeds to specified charity/charities, with the customer having an option to pay more than the requested amount.

The focus of this post is to examine the business side of this offering from an author’s POV. I’ve participated in something similar in the past with another website, and the point of joining these sorts of deals is to generate publicity for your brand/series. Any royalties you generate will cover a cup of joe or a pizza pie (if you’re lucky). For any HB deal, the proceeds split between the website, the charity, and the publisher. From the publisher portion, you’re splitting between rb media and the authors (which then split 7 ways because there are 7 authors’ offerings in this bundle).

If you, as an author, ever receive an invitation to join this sort of bundle deal, should you accept? The answer is it depends on the IP involved and when it was released. If your book is a recent release (under a year), then I would recommend no because your work will likely generate more sales as a recent publication. But once it moves to the backlist, then the ballgame changes because you want to generate publicity for your older work whether as part of a promotion or a sale. If an unfamiliar reader enjoys your work, hopefully they will check your other backlist titles or recent releases.