Jan 15 2013
Tuesday News: A bookless library; a glimpse at the technological divide from a former inmate; self published author declares Amazon is after the indies
America’s first bookless public library will look ‘like an Apple Store’ – Library services are changing quite a bit with the advent of digital books. Bexar County, Texas, will be opening its first 100 percent digital public library system. This digital library system is designed to supplement and not replace existing libraries within the county. If you read the comments, it is apparent that even the technologically connected commenters at the Verge are unaware of the impositions that publishers have placed on libraries. Currently some publishers won’t allow libraries to purchase digital books or require them to pay three to four times as much per copy and have time limits when the license will expire. The Verge
Kids Are Adopting eBooks Faster Than Their Parents, Scholastic Reports – One thing that you may have learned during the election cycle is that the polls conducted by Pew and Gallup aren’t very accurate. Whether the statistical problems can be extended into non election polls hasn’t been proven but the disparity between the Scholastic reports and the PEW reports about digital book reading is alarming (if anyone is relying on PEW, that is). I actually did not report on the PEW polls on ebook reading because my confidence in their data and data interpretation isn’t very strong post the election. Scholastic reports that 46% of children in the US have read an ebook and 41% of the parents have read an ebook. Look for more bookless libraries in the future. The Digital Reader
What It’s Like to Experience New Technology After 25 Years in Jail – Michael Santos, a convicted cocaine distribution dealer from Florida, has recently been released from prison and he is finding it difficult to adjust despite having all the tools (new iPhone, Macbook Pro and iMac purchased with funds he earned from writing books while in prison). Santos was well read and even well educated, obtaining at least a Bachelor’s while imprisoned but his discomfort with the Internet and computers and even the “language of technology” shows how troubling the technological divide can be. I suspect that there are children in the US who are in far worse conditions technology wise than Santos was in while in prison. Gizmodo
Self Published Authors Get Ready, You’re Being Dumped – Self published author Derek Haines rants that Amazon is trying to kill off self published authors. He has no actual proof of this, but instead strings together things like Amazon deleting reviews and a rejiggering of the algorithms that control when books appear on the bestseller lists and the “customers also bought” features as anectdotal evidence that Amazon is in cahoots with big publishing to drive out the indie producers. The Vandal
This post gins up hysteria to a Defcon level based on nothing. This is hostile to actual facts such as 4 out of the top 10 Kindle books are self published or that Amazon’s ability to push exclusive content without having to deal with major publishers is a major boon to them. Amazon has no incentive to drive out the indies in favor of the mainstream publishers. It is actively trying to weaken mainstream publishing bargaining positions. The move toward policing reviews is designed to ensure customer trustworthiness in the review system. All Amazon ever does is to try to sell more product, hook more people on its service. May Amazon, at some point, reduce royalty rates paid to those who use KDP or tie higher royalty rates with longer exclusive terms? Sure, but that doesn’t mean Amazon is trying to drive away indies and individuals who believe that because their sales are somehow not as robust are making baseless accusations not grounded in fact.
School Fundraising: School Donation: Grants for Teachers: PTA Fundraising – Goodreads is encouraging its users to check out Adopt A Classroom, a non profit organization that partners donors with teachers so that teachers do not have to use so much of their own money in purchasing classroom supplies. AdoptAClassroom.org
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Jan 15, 2013 @ 14:04:10
Hmmm.
Guess Derek missed how Amazon is now trying to complete with the big publishers with its own imprints. That’s part of the reason, imho that Amazon holds the ABNA’s each year. Createspace gets new clients, and Amazon, since its no longer partnering with a major publisher for the contest, gets first dibs on self published and unpublished works. This is the first year Amazon has included a romance category. Before everyone was lumped into general fiction, but now there can be five finalists, in addition to YA. I decided to enter YA this year.
I’ve only used Select for a five chapter excerpt, sort of to promote my book before releasing the full novel, but I’ve read both pro and con on the Select Program. It’s not for everyone, but some authors are satisfied with it.
Jan 15, 2013 @ 17:27:32
“This post gins up hysteria to a Defcon level based on nothing. ”
No shit. But that’s standard operating procedure with the Amazon conspiracy theorists.
Mark Coker A, href=”https://www.smashwords.com/press/release/35″>reported that ” Based on what I’m seeing in our trailing 6-week reports from Amazon, Amazon’s dollar sales were FLAT post-Christmas.” This compares to a big Apple and B&N surge over the same period.
However, Apple and B&N sell only a fraction of the books that Amazon does, so this likely still means Amazon sold more in absolute numbers.
Reasons? (Amazon not having the slightest motive to depress sales of any product, can be discounted as the cause) People’s uncertainty about the economies in their country, the shockingly awful weather in both hemispheres, concerns about overspending pre-Xmas leading to austerity after Xmas, etc.
But of course we must *never* blame things like lousy marketing by the ‘indies’, or bad writing, or bad behaviour, or hostility towards consumer reviewers meaning worse word of mouth, or increased conpetition from rising numbers of self-published authors….
No, it must be Amazon’s fault. Anyone but themselves.
God damn it, authors are nuts!
Jan 16, 2013 @ 04:55:25
Technology is too damned hard and changes too fast. I was computer savvy in my 20s. I’ve used computers all my adult life, but I find my skills diminishing. Every time there’s an upgrade supposedly offering new and better software and making my life easier, I find that I can no longer do all the things I used to be able to do and I don’t always re-learn them. When Expose and Spaces in the Mac OS got upgraded, I stopped using them. Real manuals would help. Something that goes deeper than the menu tree to find the command, but a discussion of how it works.
My husband who got his start up the career ladder by knowing more about technology than even most of the IT guys at his first company, has an ancient computer and is swearing because the keyboard is going and he has to replace it — and spend lots of time learning the latest way to do all the stuff he currently knows how to do. My bet is the upgrade will downgrade his skills, too.
Jan 16, 2013 @ 19:39:59
I’m intrigued by the all-digital library (branch?). Our local library system is moving quickly into increasing digital content, yet many people in our community still thing the public library is all about paper books. They’re not aware of the DVDs, computer stations, free wireless, downloadable books, gaming and other aspects of 21st c. public libraries, but the regular users have been keen to access new technology via the library.
It’s encouraging to me that as brick-and-mortar bookstores disappear, our public library is gaining more users than ever because of the range of materials available in a variety of formats.