Good news, bad news about our March Meet e-book

Check out a sample chapter from the Kindle version.I've written previously about The Californian's cool e-book documenting the world-famous March Meet held just north of Bakersfield. 

And here's some good news regarding "March Meet: Bakersfield's Love Affair with Speed, Nitro & Good Times": Amazon and Barnes & Noble are selling versions for $9.99. The Amazon Kindle version is here and the Nook version is here. Buyers of the book will get a link and password to a special web page containing 21 videos and hundreds of photos covering a wide variety of people, events and happenings at the March Meet. 

The bad news: Our enhanced iPad edition of the e-book, featuring hundreds of embedded photos and a dozen videos, remains in queue in the iBookstore. It's been sitting there for more than one month, and Apple has told us several times it's simply backed up reviewing iBookstore submissions. Hmmm, you'd think a company with $100 billion in cash could hire a few extra people to help unclog the pipeline. 

Mad props to BookBrewer, an e-book publishing tool we used to upload the book to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Simple, easy and cost-effective. And less than a two-day turnaround to hit the Kindle and Nook stores. 

Why Apple and the Green Bay Packers are so much alike

My Packers stock certificateThanks to Santa, aka my wife, I'm now the owner of an NFL team. OK, part owner of the Green Bay Packers, courtesy of a recent stock sale the team unveiled to fund stadium improvements. I've been a diehard Packers fanatic since 1971, and this gift may go down as one of the best ever. 

For $250, plus shipping and handling, I now own one share in the team, for which I get a nice stock certificate, access to the company's annual shareholder meeting, and discounts at the Packers Hall of Fame. Unlike a publicly traded stock, this certificate cannot be sold or traded and has no direct monetary value.

Critics of the Packers' stock sale/purchase ask, "Why would you pay $250 for something that's not worth anything?" It's a valid question but assumes the stock must have a market value instead of the enormous sentimental value that has driven the sale. 

Diehard Packers fans can speak passionately about why being a shareholder is worth $250 or more, but just in case any of them may have forgotten, the Packers have done a masterful job of reminding their fans why they and the organization are special, and not just because Green Bay is the only publicly owned professional sports team in America. 

With the stock certificate comes a "brand book" -- a small CD-sized booklet that eloquently reminds the owner of the things -- big and small -- that make the Green Bay Packers different than any other pro sports franchise in the United States. 

In 28 easily read pages filled with big pictures and short sentences, the stockholder is quickly reminded why their $250 investment is far more than a piece of paper. 

Case in point:

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Help me with my math

We all know the financial markets are crazy, but if you want proof even serious investors can be distracted by shiny objects, try this on for size.

Smart Money magazine reported this month that Twitter's $8 billion valuation means each of the 51 billion Tweets you and I and everyone else send annually is worth 16 cents. Seriously? My Tweets are genius, but I wouldn't pay 16 cents for them. That 16 cents should make every serious investor stop and take notice and stay far away from any IPO until Twitter shows signs it can earn consistent and sizable revenue. For those who don't know, the company is losing millions of dollars, and has since it launched and is still struggling to find any sizable revenue stream to pay its enormous serving costs, let alone investors. An IPO is simply a way to get others to pay for the party.

Then The Wall Street Journal reports that Tumblr is on the verge of raising up to $100 million in outside investment, giving the blogging company a value of $800 million. This for a company that, while very cool and growing in popularity, generates almost no revenue and has no clear concept of how to make money.

Hmmm ... reminds me of Pets.com, a flash-in-the-pan company whose business strategy was to lose money on every sale.

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