Jul 30 2012
Monday News: Important insight on accessibility for readers; Noble Romance future uncertain
Image from BigStock Photo
Future of Noble Romance uncertain with departure of manager – “At this moment, I do not know what the owner’s plans are, as far as the company’s immediate future is concerned. I’m pretty sure he’ll keep it up and running, in some form, so he can earn back some of his initial investment. I, on the other hand, only invested years of my life, my talent, my expertise, and my hard labor, and so I don’t imagine there is any way I’ll recoup my contribution. ;-) I’m not concerned about that, though. For me, this has always been a labor of love. “ The internets
This is an excerpt from an email message Jill Noble sent out last Tuesday announcing her immediate departure from Noble Romance Publishing. Since then the author’s loop has been torpedoed and there is limited communication from the owner of Noble (who is apparently James Noble, Jill’s brother, and a successful technology businessman). A new loop for authors was privately set up and according to author J. S. Wayne, there appears to be a pattern of delayed royalty payments and reported royalties not matching novel rank.
On Erastes’ blog, authors were told to expect more clarification today. Hopefully the promised communication will be released and authors will be treated fairly.
Penguin profits slump, but ebook revenues rise 33% – ”Sales at Penguin fell 4% to £441m and adjusted operating profit fell 48% to £22m, with parent company Pearson blaming a number of factors – including the runaway success of rival titles Fifty Shades of Grey and The Hunger Games. “They have distorted the overall books market, Fifty Shades of Grey has sold more than 30m copies,” said Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson. “The US is the only place we are down, those big best sellers really did take a lot of air out of the market.”" Guardian UK
50 Shades has ruined everything, even one of the largest publishing company’s sales margins.
Kaetrin’s Musings: Why fade to black doesn’t work for me. Except when it does. – “I think there are two aspects at play during a sex scene in a romance (as opposed to erotica) – there is (often) something physically arousing about it and there is something I’m going to call, emotionally arousing. I can’t say I’m immune to the physical “symptoms” of a well written sex scene but for me, the bigger payoff is in the emotionality. I think very often the sex scene creates a “shortcut” to the emotional arousal I’m seeking – the heightened emotions which are often present being key here.” Kaetrin’s Musings
Kaetrin discusses the importance of emotionally connecting with a reader within a sex scene and beyond.
29. Book Accessibility: An Interview with Sassy Outwater, Pratik Patel, Laurel Montgomery and Kodak – “I interrupt your regularly scheduled RWA interviews for a podcast interview with Sassy Outwater, Pratik Patel, Laurel Montgomery and Sassy’s guide dog, Kodak. Kodak has many crucial things to say. We talk a bit about why blind accessibility for books is important, how authors can advocate for their books and their blind readers – and fear not, the bulk of the presentation and the handouts we gave will be available online soon, too. ” Smart Bitches
Giving PW Select another look – “Although I want to retain an open mind regarding the possibility of finding self published books that would make good additions to my library’s collection, I find PW Select to be mostly just a waste of my time. I perused all 184 listings and found that in the vast majority of cases, a 25-30 word description just wasn’t enough to get a sense of what a book was about although in some cases the poorly composed descriptions served as red flags to stay away. ” Hey Dead Guy
A librarian takes PW to task for charging $149 for the chance to appear in the PW Select which he deems “a waste of time”.
In funny news, apparently being a superhero is super expensive.
Image source: MoneySupermarket;
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Jul 30, 2012 @ 07:21:17
Well, I must say, I’d hate to lose my eyesight and be stuck with Audible for books. A book it takes me two hours to read can be 15 hours of beautifully narrated Audible audio. I’d rather have a toneless machine which butchers any non-conventional name and gets the job done in a quarter of the time.
Jul 30, 2012 @ 07:37:28
“50 Shades has ruined everything, even one of the largest publishing company’s sales margins.” – thanks for the morning laugh =D
ETA: Publisher drama is so last year; 2012 is the year for author drama. Somebody needs to send some people the memo.
Jul 30, 2012 @ 08:46:33
@Loosheesh: And I thought it had been shaping up to be the Year of the Bully (or the year of Kicking Reviewers In The Teeth).
Jul 30, 2012 @ 09:15:29
Perhaps there is truth to the rumor that the word “Grey” has contributed to climate change.
@SAO:
Still mourning the loss of regular access to Recorded Books so am glad to have Audible.com available
Jul 30, 2012 @ 09:20:21
I think that if one book/series can be shown to be the sole cause for a publisher being in the black, it might be feasible for it to be the cause for the market forces affecting other publishers. And I am soooo sick of hearing about 50 Shades. I might be more tolerant of it if someone could actually give me a good explanation of why badly written BDSM fanfic became so popular with women who have always bashed romance novels for being “girl porn.”
Jul 30, 2012 @ 09:35:58
What 50 Shades and Hunger Games “taking the air out of the market” says is that plenty of people will read books, but the publishing industry isn’t figuring out how to connect them with books.
Jul 30, 2012 @ 10:03:14
#facepalm I tried to leave this comment at SBs, but the damn comment system still won’t let me. Since this site uses podcasts as well, I’ll leave the comment here:
I wanted to headdesk when I saw that that group has provided a podcast on book accessibility without a transcript. That’s a really, really, really dumb thing to do. It’s completely missed the point of inclusivity and accessibility.
When one talks about accessibility, one should to back it up by providing all possible resources to make it accessible for all. Otherwise, it’s hypocritical and pointless. “The bulk of the presentation and the handouts we gave will be available online soon, too” isn’t good enough.
Yes, I’m really annoyed. It’s such a short-sighted, stupid and headdesking thing to do. I’m going to stay away from the internet for a couple of days. That’s how annoyed I am. Cheers.
Jul 30, 2012 @ 10:21:21
I’m a Noble author and it saddens me to see the company go through this. I’ve missed most of it, due to Tendonitis and Tennis Elbow. My interactions were with Jill Noble and editors and cover artists associated with my stories. I so appreciated their kindness and respect. I have no idea about the rest of the organization and am confused about how to proceed.
I have one book left in my Ophelia Dawson series and Noble was my second publisher on that series. If the reorganized Noble still wants the last book, what will the team look like? If rights for Sweet Bytes return to me, should I seek a *third* publisher? That does not even sound fun at all. Should I just wait for the rights to the first two books to return to me and then self-publish the whole series, including the final novel, and then move on? I think this might make a really good blog post on the perils of writing a series in ePublishing one day, but I’m obviously not ready for it, even though my hands are feeling better.
The other scary thing is I have a new story in my head totally unlike my Young Adult stories or anything I’ve written thus far (published or not) and I’m used to having wonderful editors to discuss such things as how best to format a story for which kind of audience and if there’s a market for it. And now I don’t know who to turn to.
In such situations, I find the best course for me is to simply wait for the dust to settle and then proceed. In the meantime, my positive vibes go out to everyone caught up in it and wish you all the best.
Jul 30, 2012 @ 13:33:45
@Maili: I dislike podcasts to begin with, since I’ve always had a hard time parsing the spoken word if I don’t have a face to look at, but having a segment about accessibility only available that way is bonus irksome. If you’re really interested in accessibility, you should hold the post until you can transcribe it.
Jul 30, 2012 @ 13:47:17
Just an update – we were promised a statement today, but now we’ve all had an email from Faith Fredin, who is the only “official” person who’s contacted anyone about anything professional – and now we’re told to expect a response sometime around middle of this week.
I’ve held my breath so often my face is permanently blue