Theo Black, web designer and husband of author Holly Black, took to criticizing the websites of his former clients. I think Black is a talented guy but his vision of website design is style over functionality. I much prefer the functional and generic websites that he disdains because these sites are easier to [...]

My reading comprehension has gone down the toilet. Apparently, we are for sale at the Brenda Novak auction today. You are bidding for the ad space on the right sidebar.
Here is our stats:

Mea culpa for telling you all the auction for us was tomorrow.

A few readers had emailed me their frustrations with the Harlequin One Click Bundles. When you buy these items, you get one giant file containing all the books instead of individual files for each book. I asked Harlequin what the reasoning behind this is/was and they said it was an issue of technology. [...]

Today the California Supreme Court’s decision dropped on the constitutionality of a same sex marriage ban. Specifically, the court addressed this question:
The question we must address is whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution.
The Court found that the “right to marry [...]

Avon and The Sak has teemed up to give away a handbag and books each month. This month’s giveaway is the Silverlake Canvas Convertible Satchel($99 retail value) filled with two Meg Cabot books, 1 Rachel Gibson book and 1 Marion Keyes book. The giveaway is for 15 sets of the books + bag [...]

We review here for free, but it’s not much different if you review for a trade magazine like Publishers Weekly. With traditional media hurting financially, PW has responded one way by reducing the amount of money that reviewers will be paid for each review to $25.00. Obviously reviewing is done by those who [...]

Borders is suffering financially and Tuesday saw the removal of eight management individuals which included buyers Beryl Needham and Tom Dwyer. Rob Teicher was numbered among the eight although Shelf Awareness reported that he was retiring.
Via ShelfAwareness.

Astak inc is showing off three different sizes of e ink ebook readers at the International Digital Publishing Forum conference. The smallest one has a 5″ screen and is going to retail for $200.00. There will also be 6″ and 9.7″ sizes. The larger devices will have wi fi and bluetooth capabilities. [...]

This is kind of long – these are all the May deals I thought were interesting. I whittled out some of the guy-oriented books and some of the mystery/inspirational. I’ll do it on a weekly basis after this.
Major deal = $$$ money.
NYT bestselling author of WHAT THE DEAD KNOW and ANOTHER THING TO FALL Laura [...]

Will Kresley Cole hit #1 with her June release? She’s at number 3 with her May release. Brenda Jackson’s Kimani release hit the extended list which is unusual because, in part, it is a category romance.
***

Book Title
Author
Publisher
Price
Rank
Peak
NYT

The Devil Who Tamed Her
Johanna Lindsey
Pocket
$7.99
7
7
14

Twenty Wishes
Debbie Macomber
Mira
$24.95
10
10
3*

A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek [...]

Millenia Black announced that the settlement of her suit with Penguin over the allegations that Penguin tried to make her write black characters. As a part of the settlement, Black had to purge every reference to the suit from her site as well as refrain from any future discussion. Oddly, some people deem [...]

Budget Travel magazine decided to publish a “consumer generated” issue of its magazine. It received over 2800 submissions and resulted in 324 contributors to the final issue. Whether the consumer generated issue is a wave of the future or a gimmick remains to be seen. Budget Travel magazine editor admitted that the [...]

File this one under “WTF” category (which I don’t have but clearly should). Penthouse is losing money through its traditional print media. In order to increase flagging revenues, Penthouse has gone online and diversified. Bolstered by success with AdultFriendFinder.com, Penthouse has started up Bigchurch.com where those of faith can find like minded individuals. [...]

A couple of weeks ago, the possible assimilation of Yahoo by Microsoft caused people to wonder about the future of Google. Now that Microsoft’s bid is off the table, a Yahoo + Google merger is swirling around again. According to BBC, the potential merging of search engine giants is facing a call from [...]

In an act that will endear authors to Indiana in spite of its recent “sex registry for booksellers” law, the Indiana Attorney General is suing publisher, Airleaf aka Bookman Marketing, for accepting payment of authors and not delivering the promised services from publication to promotional services. The owner is Carl Lau and it looks [...]

HarperCollins is experimenting with a no return policy. According to the GalleyCat article yesterday, 31% of books printed are returned to the publishers. Removing the right of return would reduce environmental waste. However, no returns will likely result in fewer books ordered by the chain stores. Independents might eliminate ordering books [...]

Received this release in my inbox:
We are pleased to announce that veteran literary agent Lucienne Diver, previously with Spectrum Literary Agency, has joined on as the newest member of the Knight Agency’s talented group of agents. For full details please visit the Knight Agencies blog at www.knightagency.net
I’ve never heard anything but good things about Diver [...]

Borders, who financially might be on its last legs, is not going down without a fight. It opened a new store a few weeks ago and is now launching a new Latina book club (does the Latina instead Latino mean that the book club is just for women?)
Does this mean that there will be [...]

Publisher’s Weekly has a small article about the state of GLBT Publishing. The while the writers of GLBT fiction are strong, the sub genre seems to be marginalized.
In my view, it is clear that today there is less and less visible publishing of gay and lesbian books. Carroll & Graf, Alyson and [...]

Mildred Loving was the female half of the seminal court case Loving v. Virginia wherein the Supreme Court found anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. She passed away on May 5, 2008. She never intended to be a political figure or stand for anything but when confronted with not having the right to marry Richard Loving, [...]

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) met with a number of technology executives and argued forcefully that ISPs must stand up for net neutrality or face the removal of legal safe harbors and tax freedom. One of those legal safe harbors is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which provides immunity from liability for ISPs for [...]

This falls into the “how did I miss this article” category. News Corp has been accused of hiring hackers to spy on rival Dish network “in a scheme to deprive a competitors of hundreds of millions of dollars. The big news was that in testimony, a computer hacker admitted that he had been [...]

In my inbox I received an email stating that Fictionwise is working on making eReader compatible with the iPhone.  Fictionwise bought eReader a few months agao.  This is excellent news for MAC users and PC users alike.  I love reading on my iPhone.
eReader is not my favorite mobile reading platform but something is better than [...]

A few weeks ago the Ninth Circuit released an opinion that allowed searches of laptops (and presumably other devices) at the border. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sent a letter on behalf of 40 civil liberties organizations to the Head of Homeland security requesting a hearing on searches of electronic devices.
As the commenters previously [...]

I received a warning regarding Ocean’s Mist Press and a question as to its current status. Apparently sometime in 2006, Ocean Mist announced that it would be closing its doors. Then in early 2007, it was announced that there would be new management. No books were released, although the submissions page gives [...]