Jun 26 2012
Tuesday Midday Links: HarperCollins parent corp debating a breakup
Kindle Fire 2 may hit as soon as July | E-book readers – CNET Reviews – “What’s next for Kindle hardware? Well, a credible source has told CNET that Amazon will unveil a second-generation Kindle Fire this summer and that it’s targeting July 31 for a launch event.” CNET
PN: The price point would remain the same and the current Kindle Fire would be reduced to $149. The rumors regarding Kindle Fire 2 include higher resolution and a camera.
Brazilian prisoners given novel way to reduce their sentence | World news | guardian.co.uk – “Brazil will offer inmates in its crowded federal penitentiary system a new way to shorten their sentences: a reduction of four days for every book they read. Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil’s most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48 days off their sentence each year, the government announced.” Guardian UK
PN: I think it is great to encourage reading but increased reading =/ decreased criminal intent.
News Corp Considering Splitting Into 2 Companies: WSJ – Deadline.com – “Analysts said a split would be positive for the company as whole although they warned some investors may want to sell out of the publishing company to focus on the much bigger and more profitable film and entertainment company. Some analysts value the publishing division as worth just 7% of the empire and estimate that it contributes around 10% of earnings before interest and tax.” WSJ
PN: The split would spin off the film/entertainment with the publishing/newspaper portions. For some reason, I always thought it was CBS that would shed Simon & Schuster first. News Corp owns, among other things, HarperCollins, the parent of Avon.
Andrew Zack: Making E-books Is Harder Than It Looks – “Recently, I became a publisher when my company, Author Coach, LLC, began publishing e-books from out-of-print titles (we also have a few originals in production) as Endpapers Press. As a small press, I’m mostly viewed in the “self-publishing” category by Amazon, B&N, etc., since I don’t have hundreds of titles. Amazon keeps a bit over 30 percent of every book, because it also charges a “delivery fee” above and beyond the percentage it makes. B&N keeps about 35 percent. Google kept 48 percent on my last report. The vast majority of publishers are paying 25 percent of the net amount received as a royalty to authors. ” Huffington Post
PN: Andrew Zack’s post is about how the DOJ lawsuit is wrong because Agency pricing hasn’t brought about higher prices, but I thought it was interesting to look at the revenue split from each retailer along with Zack’s admission that publishing an ebook is harder than he had originally envisioned.
Leigh Bardugo – Author of Shadow and Bone, Book 1 of The Grisha Trilogy – “Here are a few terms found in the pages of Shadow & Bone. Special thanks to my Celebrity Guest, David Peterson of Conlang.org. Dave created the Dothraki language for HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones. To my surprise and delight, he generously gave his time to help me out with the phonetics. We didn’t always agree on pronunciation or spelling (he’s right, I’m stubborn), but that was part of the fun” Leig Bardugo
PN: I thought this was fun but I didn’t understand why the author didn’t know how to pronounce her own words. Or am I misunderstanding her post?
Post-Apocalyptic Romance Suggestions & a Giveaway | The Book Pushers | Book Reviews | Book Chatter – “Here are the few suggestions I got. Some have magic, paranormal elements, zombies or crazy technology. But they all have at least two things in common: a romance at the core of the story, and the threat of the end of the world!” The BookPushers
PN: The BookPushers sought recommendations for post apocalyptic romances and generated a wonderful list. The giveaway deadline has passed but the list lives on.
Facebook Just Changed Your Email Without Asking—Here’s How to Fix It (Update) – “Hey, here’s something really stupid and annoying: Facebook abruptly switched everyone’s default email address to the @facebook.com account you’ve never used. Here’s how to switch back Facebook’s obnoxious overreach right now. So people can actually, you know, contact you.” Gizmodo
Deals
Reposting the deals that I posted yesterday because the prices have flipped.
- THE BLACK ECHO by Michael Connelly * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN by John Fowles * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- FOREVER by Pete Hamill * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- ALONG CAME A SPIDER by James Patterson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- THE LOVELY BONES by Alice Sebold * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- THE PILOT’S WIFE by Anita Shreve * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- THE WINDS OF WAR by Herman Wouk * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- THE TIPPING POINT by Malcolm Gladwell * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- MYTHOLOGY by Edith Hamilton * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- BLUE HIGHWAYS by William Least Heat-Moon * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- AMERICAN CAESAR by William Manchester * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- LONG WALK TO FREEDOM by Nelson Mandela * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- NAKED by David Sedaris * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
- WAR by Sebastian Junger * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
Send to Kindle
Jun 26, 2012 @ 11:20:10
Newscorp is probably splitting to preserve its different parts. The Leveson Enquiry in the UK is threatening to rip the organization apart, and some of the Newscorp employees are under investigation. One of them has been arrested.
It might be a bid to reinstate Murdoch’s heir apparent, James, who was forced to resign from his positions as head of BSkyB and the newspaper UK arm. There’s a fairly comprehensive account of the ongoing enquiries here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal
It’s moving so close to government, and by implication, the governments of other countries where Newscorp operates, that I suspect they’ll pick a few scapegoats and leave it at that.
Jun 26, 2012 @ 13:53:32
Thanks for linking to us Jane!! :)
Jun 26, 2012 @ 14:02:15
Yesterday I saw something about the annoying thing that FB did with email addresses. Changed mine immediately and told me friends to do the same. Why does FB continually mess with things? I also read on Deanna Raybourn’s blog that they try to charge people such as authors who run fan pages to “promote” a post. In other words, if you “like” a fan page, a new post from it may not show up in your timeline unless the page’s owner pays FB. Puh-leeze.
Jun 27, 2012 @ 02:41:03
@Karenmc:
“Why does FB continually mess with things?”
To increase your time on the site and the value of the site to advertisers. It’s never about user convenience, otherwise this new ‘email’ would automatically forward to your real one. It doesn’t, and you can’t make it, and you can’t read it anywhere else but on the site. It’s ridiculous.
“They try to charge people such as authors who run fan pages to “promote” a post. In other words, if you “like” a fan page, a new post from it may not show up in your timeline unless the page’s owner pays FB. Puh-leeze. ”
It’s an option but so far I haven’t had any problems getting posts to show. I suspect only companies will do this, and you can avoid their posts by not liking their pages. I suspect this will backfire big time.
Jun 27, 2012 @ 03:45:20
So, with the prison sentence reduction thing… How will they know if the dudes have actually read the books? Pop quizzes? Comprehension exercises? A nice idea, to try to educate the recidivist, but I’m not sure that’s the way to go about it.