Update on Ian Tregillis' Milkweed Triptych Delays - self-publish next time!

NEWS | Update on Ian Tregillis' Milkweed Triptych Delays ~ Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review:

".... In less than two weeks, she had already read the published version of Bitter Seeds, as well as the 20-month-old manuscript for Coldest War, and was a few chapters into Necessary Evil. And she even plans to go back and reread Coldest War again before consolidating her notes on the book! I've been told to expect an editorial letter by the end of this month. Best of all, we had a broad-strokes discussion of her analysis, only to discover that we're very much on the same wavelength."

So the trilogy is written but buried by incompetent and/or lazy publisher/editor--and now its finally getting back on track for 2012, maybe. Another reason why self-publishing will start to gather steam.
Bitter Seeds is a fantastic book and there is no reason not to believe that the remaining two books in the trilogy are not just as good. Tregillis could have capitalized on the success of the first book and gone on to have great sales figures, an RPG, MMO and other profitable spin-offs in the time he has been waiting for the publishers to get off their asses.

Goodreads buys Discovereads - eBookNewser

Goodreads buys Discovereads - eBookNewser:

"Yesterday the online book community Goodreads bought the book discovery site Discovereads for an undisclosed sum."

Combine this kind of social networking and book recommendation technology with self-publishing and we have a winner.

The beginning of the end for iBooks

5 reasons Apple’s touch App Store approach is the beginning of the end for iBooks - Book Bee

With Apple’s iBooks offering still struggling, and getting smashed by Amazon on catalogue range (even more so if you live outside the US) and probably sales, on one level it would make commercial sense for Apple to start trying to drive ebook purchases through iTunes. Otherwise others profit from the strength of Apple’s ecosystem, without Apple getting a cut.

But when looking at the “big picture” enforcing this is a ridiculously bad idea for the following reasons:

A.Apple paints itself as the big, bad corporation, and gets in a fight with everyone. It’s already a PR disaster.
B.The more they enforce their rules, the more they remind everyone that they are running a very closed ecosystem that can change on a dime, and the more they drive people to Android.

From Jason Davis’s Book Bee blog.

I don't see Apple backing off in any significant way (ie that will impact their short term revenue model). Apple is collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucracy.

Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value. - Mr. Pickles, have you no shame?

Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value. - Philip Pullman

You don’t need me to give you the facts. Everyone here is aware of the situation. The government, in the Dickensian person of Mr Eric Pickles, has cut the money it gives to local government, and passed on the responsibility for making the savings to local authorities. Some of them have responded enthusiastically, some less so; some have decided to protect their library service, others have hacked into theirs like the fanatical Bishop Theophilus in the year 391 laying waste to the Library of Alexandria and its hundreds of thousands of books of learning and scholarship.

Isn't there a Mr. Pickles in all our communities? Philip Pullman fights back against cutbacks in the library system in England and does so in style. By covering class warfare, the soul crushing marketplace philosophy, and political cowardice he describes whats wrong with government and publishing in one fell swoop.

Is DRM-induced double-dipping beneficial to publishers? | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics

Is DRM-induced double-dipping beneficial to publishers?

"In a Publishing Perspectives discussion seed article connected to the piece on the French Feedbooks matter that we covered a few days ago, Edward Nawotka pondered whether one of the reasons publishers like DRM so much might be that it often causes people to have to buy multiple electronic versions of a given work as earlier platforms fade to obsolescence."

Short-term: yes. Long-term: no. Lazy and greedy will eventually be beat out by inventive, active, and greedy as smaller hungrier publishing houses find the ideal balance between the author and reader.

What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January1,2011?

What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January1,2011?:

"What other works would be entering the public domain if we had the pre-1978 copyright laws? You might recognize some of the titles below.

* The first two volumes of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers
* Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (his own translation/adaptation of the original version in French, En attendant Godot, published in 1952)
* Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim
* Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception
* Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!
* Pauline Rage's Histoire d'O
* Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent, subtitled “The influence of comic books on today's youth'
* Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* Mac Hyman’s No Time for Sergeants
* Alan Le May’s The Searchers
* C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, the fifth volume of The Chronicles of Narnia
* Alice B. Toklas’ The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook"

PaulCornell.com: The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Ten

PaulCornell.com: The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Ten:

"1: Publishers have always thought that when you buy a hardback, what you're paying more for is the chance to own it on the day of publication. Paperbacks are cheaper because they come out a year later. The reading public, on the other hand, always thought what they were paying more for was the extra physical mass and quality. (Actually, a hardback costs, one publisher told me, only from 50p to a couple of pounds more to make.) So obviously publishers think an e-book, out on the day of publication, should cost the same as a hardback. And obviously the reading public think it should cost less than a paperback. From this difference in perception stem all subsequent horrors."

I don't believe this for one second. I believe you were told this, but there is no way that hardcovers are more expensive because they come out first.

Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors - Would they have self-published today?

mental_floss Blog - Try, Try Again: Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors:

"These best-selling authors were rejected, too, and some not very kindly. Editors, publishers and agents have made big errors in judgment, as evidenced by the list of unkind (and sometimes needlessly rude) rejections received by these famous writers."

From George Orwell and William Golding to Stephen King, some of our greatest authors have faced the dreaded rejection letter.
The rise of effective (as in you don't have to stand in the street trying to sell photocopied, hand-bound pamphlets) self-publishing will pretty much make the rejection letter a minor nuisance rather than a career ender. How the great written works will rise above the crowd in the future remains to be seen.

Google eBooks: Is That All There Is?

Google eBooks: Is That All There Is?:

"Two weeks ago the Google eBookstore finally launched, and the world was briefly amazed. Google Editions, as it was known until launch, was the book world’s Duke Nukem Forever: vaporware for seven years, depending on how you count. Its actual emergence was like the birth of a unicorn. A mewling, misshapen, half-baked unicorn."

Sounds like the typical corporate malaise: more time spent in the boardroom working on mission statements and marketing plans than actually building and populating the store.

How Barnes & Noble Can Help Kill Itself - Another case of remote control gone wrong

How Barnes & Noble Can Help Kill Itself

Barnes and Noble has every right to try to maintain the "purity" of their e-readers by wiping out rootkit replacements of their software: its not going help them sell more e-books or e-readers. Theres a difference between trying to build a relationship with the customer and holding a gun to the customer's head and demanding "buy from me or else...".

Free ebook/audiobook: With a Little Help by Cory Doctorow – Mad Marketing Skillz

Free ebook/audiobook: With a Little Help by Cory Doctorow – Grasping for the Wind:

"Cory Doctorow has just launched his self-published short story collection With a Little Help. The book is availble in paperback, super-limited hardcover, and audiobook for a fee. There are also free digital editions (including a free audiobook)."

Authors and indie publishers need to "pirate" Doctorow's marketing plans and start making some noize on the internet.
(Get it? All hip and young and new! Not your granddaddy's publishing plan.)

Pros and cons of e-reading: best of both worlds not where I live

ReadWriteWeb's take on the pros and cons of ebooks assumes the best of both worlds.

5 Ways That eBooks Are Better Than Paper Books

1. Social Highlighting
2. Notes
3. Look-up of words
4. Ability to Tweet & Facebook quotes
5. Search

5 Ways That Paper Books Are Better Than eBooks

1. Feel
2. Packaging
3. Sharing
4. Keeping
5. Second-hand books

I usually read paperbacks: Feel and Packaging is not something I'd describe as a positive. On the other hand I have no great interest in tweeting or facebooking what I am reading.

Dedicated ereaders the choice of heavy readers, Retailers more important than Publishers

Dedicated ereaders the choice of heavy readers, says BSIG study | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics:

"More than 40% of e-book readers have reduced the number and dollars spent on hardcovers and paperbacks.
Retailers are becoming more important than publishers as a source of information about e-books.
General fiction and mysteries are the fastest-growing e-book genres.
More respondents received e-readers as gifts than bought them for themselves.
Respondents who bought devices for themselves most often were motivated by suggestions from friends.
The iPad has only a marginal impact on the popularity of the Kindle and Nook.
Heavy to moderate book buyers want e-devices that don’t have a lot of other options."

(my bold)

The view from here literary magazine: E-books and the Agency Argument

The view from here literary magazine: E-books and the Agency Argument:

"Sometimes it seems to me that the thing publishing does best of all is to get itself into a terrible mess. New technologies always bring with them significant challenges to accepted custom and practice. For years the music industry has spectacularly failed to control the development of the digital media, which, at different times, it tried to ignore, to outlaw, to appropriate and to exploit. Many commentators believe the record companies have come to embrace it too late and will never now catch up with its onward march."

Mobile Opportunity: Will E-Readers Eat the Tablet Computer? - Free the Nook Color

Mobile Opportunity: Will E-Readers Eat the Tablet Computer?:

"Second, B&N is missing a huge opportunity. It's not like they're losing money on Nook Color sales (the hardware cost is probably in the $150 range, or lower). As long as you're making some money per unit, I think it makes sense to grab as many customers as you can now, while you have a structural advantage in the market.
The ultimate payoff for an ebook distributor like B&N is to displace the publishers and start selling ebooks (and other content) directly to the public. To get to that goal, B&N should be trying to grow the e-reader installed base as quickly as possible. Instead of restricting Nook Color to people who already want ebooks, B&N should sell it to everyone and then entice them into becoming e-reading users."

A thoughtful piece on the e-readers vs. tablets debate using the Nook Color as a test case. Essentially E-ink devices are a beast unto itself and LCD readers can compete if they are sold cheap and bound to sales of e-books. This will succeed if the middleman (publishers) are cut out so that book prices can be set to attract and keep more e-book readers.

The view from here literary magazine: E-books and the Agency Argument

The view from here literary magazine: E-books and the Agency Argument:

"But the Net Book Agreement worked because it applied universally. You couldn’t go somewhere else to get a book cheaper. Under the agency model we have the absurdity of Stephen Fry’s new book selling on Amazon at £10.04 in paperback while the Kindle version is £12.99. If you visit other retailers you find even bigger discrepancies. Howard Jacobson’s Man Booker winner is £10.03 in hardback on Amazon, but £13.28 as an ebook at waterstones. Ken Follett’s new novel sees the same split: £10.00 hardback, £14.00 download. Just have a browse – you’ll find loads of examples."

It’s Simple: ePub is Open, Except When It’s Wrapped in DRM, And Then It’s Not - Unwrap the Fish

It’s Simple: ePub is Open, Except When It’s Wrapped in DRM, And Then It’s Not | Publishing In the 21st Century

Looking back at an August post on E-reads reminded me to take another look at this issue.

Search for "strip drm epub" in google and you would be inept if you can't figure out how to unwrap the epub from the DRM wrapper. This is, of course, moving to the Dark Side. If you are want backup copies of books you own, want to transfer them to another e-reader, or feel that DRM is an insult to your sense of justice (buy an e-book for the same price as a hardcover and you are only "renting" it?) then you may want to investigate further.

Libraries Say 'No DRM'; Springer Agrees

Libraries Say 'No DRM'; Springer Agrees
Springer Verlag has been doing it right since 2006:

“Libraries buy direct from us and they own the content,” he said. “Once users download content, they can give it out, share, whatever. They own it.” Scottie explained that once libraries have paid for the content, the e-books are available without charge to everyone at these institutions, so there’s no need to repost or redistribute it online. Once the e-book is downloaded from the library, no return is necessary. “Some of our competitors are afraid to do this,” Scottie said, “but we say, free the content.’”

Even eBookstores Are Doomed ... to change

Even eBookstores Are Doomed:

"In a world that’s decentralized, what could any of them add that couldn’t be added by blogs with affiliate links? How many people today rely on any bookstore for recommendations over, for example, blog reviews or — the gold standard of recommendation — word of mouth?

Consolidation will inevitably fail. Discovery is the business to be in."

Theres some truth to this, but I think that many/most writers are not like Cory Doctorow. Marketing/proofing/distribution/bookkeeping is something they are not good at, mostly because they're not interested in that stuff. eBookstores will likely stick around, as long as they serve authors as much as they serve readers.

Baen’s free Cryoburn CDROM includes Bujold’s complete Vorkosigan series | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Baen’s free Cryoburn CDROM includes Bujold’s complete Vorkosigan series | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home:

"Baen has published another book with a promotional CDROM pack-in, and (as with all the others) the CDROM is available for free download from the Fifth Imperium Baen CD repository. In either case, the contents are free to share and upload, but cannot be sold. The book is Cryoburn, the latest Miles Vorkosigan novel, and is worthy of mention for a couple of major reasons.

One reason is that it includes (in multiple DRM-free formats) the entirety, start to latest volume, of a smashing good 14-book series, based around the adventures of one of military SF’s most unusual heroes (though the first two books chronologically actually cover his parents)."

This is a fantastic series and including the entire series (DRM free!) with the latest book is guaranteed to bring in more fans. Genius.