Yesterday, Paypal announced that it would be reversing its stance on bans on fiction.  According to the Chicago Tribune, Paypal will look at books on an individual basis:

PayPal’s new policy will focus only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text, spokesman Anuj Nayar said on Tuesday. The service will still refuse, however, to process payments for text-only e-books containing child pornography themes.

The revised policy will also focus on individual books, rather than entire classes of books, he added. E-book sellers will be notified if specific books violate PayPal’s policy, and the company is working on a process through which authors and distributors can challenge such notifications, the spokesman said.

Based on this announcement, Smashwords will roll back its Terms of Service to its pre-February 24 state.   I know that terrible things were said about Mark Coker, both publicly and privately; but Coker clearly fought for authors and their rights to creative freedom.

Thanks to Darlynne V and all the others who shared the Smashwords email with me.

Dorchester claims it is still in business.  They posted on their Facebook page:

Dorchester has apparently posted this to their Facebook page:

Not to worry, Dorchester Publishing has not closed. However, due to challenging economic conditions, we have decided to vacate our 200 Madison office and become a virtual business. Though the transition was not as seamless as we had hoped, our phone lines are back in working order and our email is still fully operational. Our new mailing address is:

Dorchester Publishing and Dorchester Media
105 East 34th Street, Box 175
New York, New York 10016

What is the future for Dorchester Publishing? We are currently in the process of entertaining offers from reputable publishing companies and look forward to making an announcement shortly. We recognize a sale to a strong publisher is in your best interest and look forward to informing you as soon as we close a deal. We apologize for our lack of communication during this transition and for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Their new mailing addy is apparently a UPS store.

Via Tasha

I read this article about retail sites creating editorial content like recipes, party planning guides, and the like which all encourage more shopping. We get the monthly Costco magazine which contains recipes, financial tips, book suggestions, and other shopping suggestions. It’s something to think about. Are these movements toward original content centered solely around encouraging retail or will it expand into larger non fiction publications? Just something to ponder for now.

Wal-mart is one of those DVD to digital centers which will take your DVD and make a digital copy with special DRM. For only $2 more you can turn your DVD into a portable copy that you can view from the cloud.

At a press conference today in Los Angeles, the company announced that, as rumored, it’s launching a new program called the Disc to Digital service. Starting on April 16, anyone can bring their DVD collection into a Walmart store, and copies of each movie will be loaded onto your account on VUDU, the online video service that the retailer acquired two years ago. Standard definition DVDs will be converted into standard definition videos and Blu-rays will be converted into high-definition, for $2 each. You can also “upgrade” a standard DVD into an HD copy for $5.

Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer produce print editions.

In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.

Penguin has filed an answer to the class action pricing lawsuits arguing that Kindle and BN’s terms of service allow only arbitration and thus, customers are only entitled to arbitration and not civil justice because Penguin is the principal and Kindle and BN are the agents. It’s actually the first real argument I’ve seen regarding actual agency between the parties. Penguin will have to prove that it has assumed more risk in the transaction than Amazon and BN along with some other attendant agency principles but while I’m disgusted with Penguin, I kind of admire them for finally, finally putting out a true agency argument.

Penguin is selling Penguin emblazoned tchotchkes in boutique areas within Barnes & Noble.  This has been successful in the pilot stores and so B&N is expanding these Penguin oriented boutiques into more stores.

From the battery of press releases from Entangled Press, one would think that they are starting a new line and launching a Titanic sized number of books. But one highly lauded line called Lori Wilde Presents has yet to make its debut. Perhaps in part because Lori Wilde has left Entangled. The Presents line of category books will be helmed by Alethea Spiridon-Hopson who is also directing the new paranormal line. Current editor Libby Murphy is also assisting both those lines. I’ve always felt that the Entangled business model made little business sense. Everyone being paid a royalty from the sale, from the editors to the authors to the cover artists. It’s nice in theory, but practically, I don’t think it is feasible.

Deals

I included a smattering of contemporary “deals”. Quite a few are self published.  I tried to exclude any books that were exclusive to Amazon.

• Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S *recommended*
• More Than Memories by Kristen James * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S
• My Last Blind Date by Susan Hatler * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Sleeping with Paris by Juliette Sobanet * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Wife by Wednesday by Catherine Bybee * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S - very popular
• No Dress Required by Cari Quinn * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S - short story
• Taming Mad Max by Theresa Ragan * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Silent Witness by Rebecca Forster * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Western Ties: Compass Brothers by Mari Carr and Jayne Rylon * $2.70 * A | BN | K | S - bought it
• For Love or Legacy by Ruth Cardello * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S - well reviewed but could be fluff reviews

Related posts:

1. Tuesday News & Deals: Harry Potter Digital Goes to the Library; Major Corps Reverse Directions; More Paypal News
2. Thursday News and Deals: Naming Rights, Paypal (Again), Sockpuppetting, Amazon
3. Wednesday News and Deals: HarperCollins Sues OpenRoad for Infringement

Brenda Novak’s auction will take place from May 1st through the 31st. They are looking for donated prizes. I’m thinking of donating a 100 page critique but honestly I don’t know whether that would be something someone would want. I can’t offer an ad as I’m sold out for the year. What do you think?

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Melissa Foster and Amy Edelman for IndieReader.com itemize a number of reasons why self published authors aren’t getting respect. The reasons are commonsense and include the lack of editing and quantity over quality.

A scarier issue is that some independent authors simply believe that their work does not need to be edited. Writers are often too close to their work to make the critical structural and grammatical changes that might make the story more succinct. Let us simply say here that every writer benefits from a good editor.

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Music firms are going to be offering licensing for websites. This will allow ordinary folks to add well known music tracks to their videos or advertisements:

Examples of the customers they hope to attract include couples wishing to add music to their wedding video before uploading it to the internet, film festival entrants, small businesses making web adverts, school clubs and smartphone app developers.

Online licensing is a bonanza for music firms. Vevo made $150 million last year putting up web videos and paid out $100 million to artists.

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Stick a fork in Dorchester? That’s the question swirling around the internets now that it’s last known editor has been laid off. According to Brian Keene, Chris Keeslar has been let go.

Dear Publishing Colleague:

As of January 31st, 2012, I am no longer employed by Dorchester Publishing or collecting mail from this address. I have left a list of outstanding issues and will be available to management if questions arise, and I know that my colleagues are aware of each issue’s importance.

You can see a list of contacts Chris Keeslar provides to the publishing colleagues at Brian Keene’s site.

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Remember how Kiera Cass plotted “quietly” on twitter to down vote a negative review on Twitter? The bad review, the bad behavior, and the resulting brouhaha affected her not at all. CW has ordered a pilot of her book which is apparently Hunger Games meets the Bachelor (this book should be panned on the idea alone).

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Barnes & Noble is not stocking any print versions of Amazon published books. No way, no how, even those distributed by Houghton Mifflin. But, as Nate the Digital Reader points out, is BN going to pull all the Harry Potter books when Pottermore is launched and the only place you can buy the digital versions of Harry Potter is through Pottermore? After all, to not do so would be to violate B&N’s own policy that it created to punish Amazon. B&N’s policy is that books that are exclusive to Amazon shouldn’t be allowed into B&N’s stores. It’s the reason that B&N gave when it pulled the DC Comic books and it is the reason B&N is giving now to avoid stocking Amazon books.

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Amazon’s Q4 results are disappointing to Wall Street. It’s stock is tumbling because while the revenue stream is growing, the margin is not. Remember that Apple had a record quarter of revenue and a high margin (44%+). Wired writer, Tim Carmody, notes that Amazon’s game is the long ball.

Amazon has strategically placed a very long bet on growth in revenue and sales at the expense of profits. The Kindle Fire is a perfect example. Amazon makes relatively little in revenue and virtually no profit on the sales of individual devices. Millions of Kindle Fires, however, become millions of tiny retail outlets for everything Amazon sells, from digital books and movies to decidedly analog clothing and hardware. The company trades profit today for revenue tomorrow — with even more revenue and even higher profits arriving in the years to come. That’s the yardstick the company judges itself by.

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One of the reasons publishers are having a hard time competing with Amazon is Amazon’s direct to consumer relationship which eliminates some costs and provides Amazon with a hoard of data. The reason for this is because publishers don’t view readers as their customers and making that transition is difficult. Oh, John Scalzi might want to argue otherwise, but I don’t think that you can state it more clearly than the Authors Guild did yesterday:

For book publishers, the relevant market isn’t readers (direct sales are few), but booksellers, and Amazon has firm control of bookselling’s online future as it works to undermine bookselling’s remaining brick-and-mortar infrastructure.

The entire blog post is worth reading if only to understand the mind set of the most powerful author lobbying group in the business. There are about a half a dozen things wrong in the post but learning what others think about the business can help one understand the decisions that are made.

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A number of academics (1900 so far) have pledged to do no more work for Elsevier Publishing.  The boycott was suggested by a mathematician of the University of Cambridge.  The reason is threefold: 1) high priced access to scholarly works; 2) bundling of unwanted journals with high priced, coveted journal; and 3) support for the Research Works Act.

Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an open-publishing advocate, signed the pledge and wrote that “With the moves of these megapublishers, we [are] seeing the beginning of monopoly control of the scholarly record.” Benjamin R. Seyfarth, an associate professor in the School of Computing at the University of Southern Mississippi, wrote that “nearly all university research is funded by the public and should be available for free.”

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

Deals

• Something Secret This Way Comes by Sierra Dean * $0.00 * A | BN | K | S
• Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S (YA)
• Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham by John Stauffer * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
• The Playboy by Carly Phillips * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S * The Bachelor, first in the series, is also on sale *
• Greatest Love on Earth by Mary Ellen Dennis * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S * A circus book*
• Jane by April Lindner * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S (YA)
• Knit Together by Debbie Macomber * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• This Is Not a Game: A Novel by Walter Jon Williams * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Death, Taxes and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Hedgewitch Queen by Lillith Saintcrow * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S (reviewed here)
• Bandit King by Lillith Saintcrow * $4.99 * A | BN | K | S
• The Sherlockian by Graham Moore * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Lord Lightning by Jenny Brown * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Infinity: Chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• A Fountain Filled with Blood by Julia Spencer Fleming * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S * (this is the 2nd in the series. The first and second are now $2.99) *
• Anastasia’s Secret by Susanne Dunlap * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Blood Song by Cat Adams * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Child Bride by Suzanne Forster * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S * The book description is LOL you guys “As Annie lies unconscious, Chase can’t deny his swiftly mounting desire, watching her pillowy breasts undulate in rhythm with her shortened breaths. “
• Lily by Patricia Gaffney * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S (Reviewed favorably here)

Related posts:

1. Thursday News and Deals: Bestseller Roundup of 2011
2. Thursday News: BN Is Selling Off Assets, Trad Regency Book Deals
3. Thursday Midday News and Deals: Prices Up Says DWJ; Prices Down Says Data

To readers, this is another list full of books, the validity of which they agree and disagree about.   Here are some of my thoughts.   One thing I like to do is look at the category selections because those nominations are generally for strong books. The majority of RITA voters are category writers and they know category writing. What I feel isn’t well represented is the paranormal sub genre. The paranormal writers aren’t allowed to judge this category and I think it shows. Instead of deep rich works with great world building, we get wins like Gwen Cready’s time travel fan fic, Seducing Mr. Darcy, and Anne Mallory’s The Earl’s Pleasure, a ghost romance. (and I really like Mallory’s writing).

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

The historical and the contemporary categories are pretty interesting as well. Victoria Dahl received a double nomination. (I think she received a double nomination last year?) I have to say I was surprised because Dahl’s heroines in both books are unusual. Dahl’s heroines have been castigated by readers for being amoral and unlikeable. (I’m a fan, full disclosure). Sherry Thomas was also nominated for His at Night and Joanna Bourne for The Forbidden Rose. Newcomer, Kaki Warner, received a historical nod for one of her epic Westerns.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Anthony acknowledged that in rebuilding Dorchester the company has had to "prioritize its cash flow." This has resulted in not all authors being paid the money they are owed and that Dorchester had committed to pay when Anthony took over from John Prebich last November. "All authors will be paid in full," Anthony vowed. The Keene controversy has been a setback to Dorchester's turnaround efforts, but Keeslar said Dorchester is committed to rebuilding.

Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans while they:

•Viewed photos of their ex-partner and thought about how they felt during their breakup.

•Viewed a photo of a friend and thought about a recent positive experience with that person.

•Wore an arm device that created tolerable pain sensations to measure physical pain reactions.

Researchers compared the findings with 500 scans of other people’s brain responses to physical pain, emotion and other psychological processes.

“We found that the intense experience of social rejection activates regions of the brain that are involved in the sensory experience of physical pain,” Kross says.

Related posts:

1. Thursday Midday Links: Thinking of Buying a Dorchester Book?
2. Thursday Midday Links: Dorchester Dis-invited from RWA
3. Thursday Midday Links: Beauty and romance

I negotiated a deal with Dorchester that allowed for: 1. The immediate reversion of all of my print rights, and 2. The reversion of all of my digital rights as of 11:59pm 12/31/10.

This means that only Brian, not Dorchester, would have the right to distribute and sell those books going forward.   However, Dorchester appears not to have been abiding by this agreement, but instead putting Keene’s books up for sale on digital retailing sites.

Except that it wasn't, because since then, Dorchester has repeatedly violated that agreement. Since January of this year, unauthorized digital editions of my work have been sold via Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Sony. These digital editions were not made available for sale until well after the rights had reverted back to me. Dorchester's response, in each case, has been to blame someone else and assure me that "they are looking into it" and that I would be "financially compensated" and that "it wouldn't happen again". Except that I haven't been financially compensated and it keeps happening again. In the most recent case (iBooks), Dorchester blamed their vendor, Libre Digital, but provided no documentation verifying this. An employee at Apple cast doubt on this explanation. In the case of Kindle, they blamed Amazon.com. Again, an employee at Amazon cast doubt on this. The ebooks were sold under the Dorchester brand. They were sold even though Dorchester does not have the rights to them. And it is Dorchester, rather than their vendors or booksellers, who are ultimately responsible. I have been patient. I have been understanding. The first time, I allowed that it could indeed be a mistake. Four times later? It is no longer a "mistake". It is theft, or at the very least, staggering incompetence. And as of this writing, I have not seen financial restitution for these unauthorized sales, nor have I received a valid explanation of how they occurred, nor have I heard what steps the company will take to prevent it from happening again.

Brian doesn’t have the means to sue Dorchester for this action and frankly even if he did, I doubt Dorchester would even pay the judgment.   Dorchester’s response to Brian has been evasive and then silent.   Dorchester’s response to fans has been to disable comments on their facebook page.   Brian is calling for a boycott of Dorchester books.

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Jessica Verday has a follow up to the debacle with Running Press and the editor of Wicked Pretty Things, Trisha Telep.   Even though Running Press invited Verday to resubmit her m/m short for inclusion in the anthology, Verday has declined because she doesn’t feel comfortable supporting any royalties going to Trisha Telep for this project.   Telep, if you recall, stated this in response to Verday’s going public about Telep’s request to make the m/m story into a m/f story.

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The good news is that Connie Brockway is finally going to be publishing Giles Strand’s romance story.   The bad news, for some readers, is that this will be digital only.   Brockway announced the news via the All About Romance blog that she was taking the self publishing route.   Brockway left the historical field to write a couple of contemporaries and then returned with at least one historical from Signet.   The current contractual terms offered made it easy for Brockway to decide to self publish.   Hopefully a return to her romance origins will revitalize the career of a favorite of many romance readers.

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Paul Biba from Teleread posted his notes from #pubtip (a mini conference) which was really just a conversation between Michael Healy (currently the registrar for the registry created by the now rejected google book settlement) and Carolyn Reidy, the CEO of Simon & Schuster.   I thought Reidy’s comments were interesting because she believes that the focus on publishers should be proving themselves to authors, not really developing relationships with consumers.

Biggest challenge is for publishers to prove they have a value to authors, not to become a B to C business. Have always been a B to C business – they always did this but now they are more directly involved.

Other notes include that S&S doesn’t sell to libraries because there they “haven't found a business model that they are happy with” and sales for books are half digital in the early selling periods.

Related posts:

1. Thursday Midday Links: Thinking of Buying a Dorchester Book?
2. Friday Midday Links: Leah Hultenschmidt, Don D’Auria Let Go by Dorchester; Only Keeslar Remains
3. Thursday Midday Links: Dorchester Dis-invited from RWA

You can sign up for a chat reminder using the widget on the sidebar —–>

Updated: Meljean Brook emailed me and offered 2 more Kindle/Kobo copies to random commenters.

Contest is now closed.

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Updated: Two events readers might want to take notice of is the Harlequin Open House and the last day of the Unusual Historicals anniversary celebration.

Harlequin Open House:   Are you ready for the eHarlequin.com Annual Holiday Open House? More than 140 of your favorite authors will be meeting with you, LIVE, December 15th to celebrate the holidays!  We’ll  have  our discussion forums open all day long running through every time zone so that our overseas authors and members can meet on their own time zones! Then, in the evening, from 7-10pm  Eastern Daylight Time, we’ll have three full hours of live chat! And, don’t forget, there’ll be oodles of door prizes and wild fun!

Unusual Historicals:      The finale is drawing is going through this week, so people still have a chance to enter for the last prize package.

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A few more details have been provided about the first India Mills & Boon romance.   A handsome stranger and a city India girl meet in a yoga studio.   This article suggests the work is only 2,000 words long which would be about 6-7 pages so hopefully that was just her contest entry and not the entire work. No word as to whether this will be available to non India readers.

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Best Buy’s value is declining, in part, because it is losing market share to online retailers.     I only mention this because it’s interesting to see what is going on in corollary retail markets.

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Eoin Purcell takes a cynic’s view of Amazon’s offering limited Nieslen Bookscan data to authors.   This move is bound to create headaches for publishers and foster the concept in author’s minds that they could do better dealing direct with Amazon. I tend to side with Eoin on this matter.   After all, Amazon is only giving away valuable data for free because it expects to profit from it down the road.

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Edward Docx (what a great last name) brings the haterade to Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown.   Docx skills don’t lie in creating convincing arguments:

Readers, publishers and writers alike can agree that John Grisham, Robert Harris, Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel build up their massive readerships by knowing precisely what they are doing; they are master practitioners of their highly skilled craft. Conversely, Brown and Larsson – in their different ways – are mesmerisingly bad.

Laura Miller from Salon replies that we like Brown and Larsson because of the cliches in their stories, not in spite of them.   Anymore, I am not sure what separates literary fiction from the rest of fiction other than a label.   Not all literary fiction ends sadly and not all   literary fiction is morose.   Not all literary fiction is qualitatively good and not all of it is boring.   Literary fiction, just like any other area of fiction, suffers from its bad press.   There are bad books out there in every genre.   Question is should we measure discrete areas of fiction by the best or the worst?   And who judges?

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I’ve heard that the next upgrade for Nookcolor will actually turn the device into a real tablet by giving people access to the Android app market which means you’ll be able to read Kindle books on your nook device.   I wonder if opening up the nook will force Kindle to open up and accept ePub?     If this next upgrade happens, I do think the Nookcolor is a great alternative to the iPad.

UPDATE: According to Mike Cane, this is not happening.   Nookcolor will be getting an upgrade but it won’t be opening up its system to become a true tablet.

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Curtis Brown is going to open a literary writing course that costs 1,600 pounds.   That’s nearly $2,000.   Each student will have the opportunity to be critiqued and reviewed by a Curtis Brown literary agent.   While not exactly the same, Donald Maass’ wife, Lisa Rector, offers editorial services to authors.   Maass is a respected literary agent. In at least one confirmed account, a client of Ms. Rector’s spent up to $10,000 with Ms. Rector but achieved no publishing success as of yet despite alleged promises that Maass himself would be interested in reviewing the manuscript once edited.   The first hand account of this has all been deleted but references can be found at sites like the Kindle Boards.

Because agents are fiduciaries of authors, even prospective authors, this type of intermingling of services seems very odd to me. It would not be permissible within the legal practice but then again, neither would publishing books as some agents are doing.

I’m curious what people think of this in light of the huge outcry that went forth when Harlequin decided to offer Dell Arte Press, originally under the name Harlequin Horizons.   A publisher has a very different (non fiduciary) relationship with prospective authors than agents do; yet, no one seems to be bothered by agents offering a service for a fee that clearly conflicts with this stated premise I’ve heard again and again: “all money flows to the author.”

Is it that in this changing publishing market, all bets are off and a new paradigm is emerging?   Is it that authors have more trust in agents than publishers?   Is it something else?

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I missed this in November, but Dorchester has a new CEO who is promising that the boat will be turned around.   This new CEO has inspired some confidence in SFWA who has placed Dorchester on probation.

If Dorchester successfully completes its one-year probation, fiction contracted during that term will be viewed as acceptable for qualification for SFWA membership. If it does not SFWA will remove it from the list of approved markets.

Related posts:

1. Wednesday Midday Links
2. Wednesday Midday Links:
3. Wednesday Midday Links: February Book Specials

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A Dutch ereader enthusiast and owner of has started a Dutch version of Lostbooksales at http://www.gemisteboekverkoop.nl/. It seems that this is an idea that has caught the attention of people worldwide. I had an email the other day from a Polish company wanting to utilize the same platform.

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Borders and Sony are selling the Sony Pocket and Sony Touch Edition (both of which have touchscreens) for $149 and $199 respectively. I love the Sony touchscreens but I feel that they are somehow crippled without at least wifi.

Nate at the digital reader has an exhaustive list of what eReaders are on sale on Black Friday. The best deal is clearly the $99 nook at Best Buy.

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Ned is a big fan of Top Gear, a British show about cars. One of the regular features are cars driven by “The Stig” a mysterious white jump suited man who does terrifyingly awesome things with terrifyingly expensive vehicles. The Stig’s identity is a big secret so big that BBC spent over  £70,000 trying to keep The Stig’s autobiography from being published by HarperCollins. BBC has failed and “The Man in The White Suit” will be published. I won’t spoil it for you but if you click on the link, Stig’s real identity is revealed in the headline.

One of the problems for Top Gear was that The Stig was seriously underpaid compared to the co hosts and couldn’t exploit his “fame” because of the mystery surrounding who The Stig was.

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Richard Curtis alerts us to the fact that Dorchester’s CEO, John Prebich, has left the company.

I think that it is highly unlikely that Dorchester will make it next year.

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Tess Gerritsen admits to being wrong about ebooks, piracy, and self publishing. It’s a pretty self effacing article and I’m quite impressed with the author.

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Laptop Magazine gave the Nookcolor a pretty positive review. The downside is the closed Android system and the non responsiveness of the touchscreen due to fingerprint build up but everything else is viewed positively.

Related posts:

1. Wednesday Midday Links: Book Sales Plummet, eBook Sales Flat
2. Tuesday Midday Links: Harlequin Horizon’s, A self publishing venture
3. Tuesday Midday Tech Links: BN’s Reader Is Called Nook. Not a Joke

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I’m surprised that no one has yet come up with a subsidized ereading device plan. It’s one I suggested a long time ago wherein you would require a customer to buy a certain amount of books every year or month in exchange for the use of an ereading device. I.e., you have to buy $20 per month of books from that store (say Amazon) and in exchange you get a new Kindle. Like a cellphone plan, you might be locked into that agreement for a period of time like two years. It seems like a good way to get users hooked on your platform. I wouldn’t even mind a lease or rental program for the ereaders given how fast these suckers change.

A Dutch company is offering readers a free ebook device (worth 149 Euros) in exchange for any customer who buys ten ebooks from them. Nate over at theDigital Reader is trying to run down the veracity of this claim.

Nate’s blog, which is a must read for any digital reading enthusiast, also has posts about a few new ereading devices:

• Sagem Binder (eink) released in Europe 199 Euros
• eKing S700 tablet/notebook.   No pricing released.
• Next2 Android Tablet $199 on the Home Shopping Network.   Hooks up with the Borders eBookstore. Runs Android 1.5

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Stephen King isn’t quite ready to self publish but admits to making ridiculous money off his digital short Ur.   It took him three days to write and so far has netted him $80,000.

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Harlequin is really, really looking for some fresh voices. I’ve been told that they have a campus outreach program right now and are going to launch a week’s worth of talent scouting on the internet.   At the end of the week people can send in a first chapter and synopsis to a special email box:ucanwrite@harlequin.ca and get a priority read by eager editors looking to work with new talent.

So You Think You Can Write allows hopeful novelists to spend an entire working week with more than 50 Harlequin editors andUSA TODAY bestselling authors through social-media tools such as blogs, podcasts, webinars, community chats, community discussions and Twitter. Harlequin editors believe that by engaging unpublished writers, explaining the tremendous appeal of the romance genre and offering professional insights into crafting the perfect story, they can help promising young novelists hone their skills and get started on the path to publication.

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Every major bookseller now has a digital self publishing platform:

• Amazon with CreateSpace
• Barnes and Noble with PubIt!
• Borders with BookBrewer

Authorhouse has been signing up publishers to create a self publishing arm such as Harlequin’s DellArte Press and Thomas Nelson’s   WestBow Pres.   Self publishing is a huge business and with authors promoting this as a valid path to a career in writing you have to wonder how long the Big 6 can sit on the sidelines without wanting a piece of that pie themselves.

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Mystery Writers of America has delisted Dorchester Publisher as a recognized publisher of its organization and thus no books published by Dorchester will be considered for awards from the MWA.   One of my favorite responses to this was on Twitter:

Anyone else hear about MWA booting Dorchester off their approved pubs list? It’s kinda like hearing your ex got herpes after you broke up.

Of course, MWA is one upping RWA here.   RWA was able to call an emergency session to get Harlequin delisted but it’s still deciding what to do about Dorchester?

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Kobo is not going quietly into the night.   Determined to compete for consumer attention in the digital reading space, Kobo has announced that its wifi reader will be in Wal-mart and indeed,   the Kobo Wifi reader is selling for $129.   I’m definitely seeing a $99 ereader during Black Friday and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the Kobo Reader   Kobo reader, if you recall, reads epubs but not nookBooks or Kindle books.   It is compatible with libraries and all other epub DRM book.

It has also announced that it will be selling newspapers and magazines as well with a 2 week free trial. Don’t forget you have a chance of winning a Kobo Reader if you buy Jeannie Lin’s Butterfly Swords before the end of October.

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One more thing about digital books and that is the issue of price parity around the internet. Some people have emailed me about this.   As I understand it, many of the Big 6 have price parity deals with the online retailers, in that if the publisher makes a promotional deal with one retailer, all retailers get the same deal (or all the big retailers).   So if you see a deal on an ebook at Kobo but you are a Kindle user, most of the time, the Amazon prices will be equal to that of the Kobo pricing.   For example, St. Martin’s Press is selling some of its old backlist titles for $2.99.

• Street Magic By Caitlin Kittredge: Kobo and Kindle
• Demons Not Included By Cheyenne McCray: Kobo and Kindle
• Ain’t Too Proud To Beg By Susan Donovan: Kobo and Kindle
• Blue Moon By Lori Handeland: Kobo and Kindle
• Sugar Daddy By Lisa Kleypas: Kobo and Kindle
• Shadowfae By Erica Hayes: Kobo and Kindle
• Devil In My Bed By Celeste Bradley: Kobo and Kindle
• Reno’s Chance By Lora Leigh: Kobo and Kindle
• Evermore By Alyson Noël: Kobo and Kindle

Related posts:

1. Friday Midday Links: Publishing Haiti Relief Efforts
2. September New Releases Catalog Updated
3. Friday Midday Links: It’s All About the Ebook Reader

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If you are a Starbucks fan, you might be interested in a new Starbucks Digital Venture that presents a digital network for customers containing movies, books, etc.

A feature called the Bookish Reading Club offers a rotating selection of digital titles from publishers Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster. People can read the books -’ sometimes the entire text, sometimes an excerpt -’ in their browser via an HTML5 reader while on the network.

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Borders presents its own self publishing service for ebooks. BN readers complain about the influx of BN’s self publishing ebooks through PubIt.

Please can we have a search function that allows us to filter out Pubit books if we wish? I have been using the new releases tab in ebooks to browse and find mystery books I want to buy – but I am finding that I now get floods of Pubit books. Many of these are not even classified sensibly – should “Age of Information” really be showing up in the mystery/thriller category or Jane Austen books in science fiction?

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Forbes has followed up on the FTC Guidelines for bloggers and has found few cases being investigated.   Of course, this doesn’t mean that bloggers should forget that the guidelines exist.

"Not everyone's going to obey the law," Engle adds. "People will always use shills. Where we see actions we think are egregious, we'll bring action."

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Dorchester is apparently having problems getting books for which it does not hold the rights taken off of online retailers.   Authors and at least one agent have sent letters regarding what they view to be the unlawful sale (and in some cases giving away) books that Dorchester no longer holds the rights for and received no response from Dorchester.   The timelines is very sad but basically a month of sales/giveaways has occurred for at least two former Dorchester authors: Jana DeLeon and Leslie Langtry.   Fortunately for those authors, the copyright law affords them the highest civil protection: Strict liability, treble damages, and attorneys’ fees.   Dorchester might not have any money but if Amazon, BN, etc are ignoring DMCA takedown notices, a case could be made against those two healthy companies.

In the comments, Chris Keeslar shows up and wags the angry finger at Sarah for failing to follow up with Dorchester and him for comment.   I think Keeslar’s responses should be directed toward the authors who claim over a month of silence and non response.   When you buy a Dorchester book, you may want to think about what is going on there.

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Hard Case Crime used to be with Dorchester but with the changes (going digital and then trade print later), Hard Case looked for a new publisher and distributor.   Titan Publishing is a UK based publishing and it has plans to acquire all existing stock of the Hard Case Crime and will be publishing future books under that imprint.

Related posts:

1. Thursday Midday Links: Dorchester Dis-invited from RWA
2. Tuesday Midday Links: Publishers still thinking not thinking about readers
3. Thursday Midday Links: Is Google Book Settlement Dead?