For Walker, the court case has come as a shock. “I think this is serious. It means that every time you want to write a fiction you have to ask the permission of the owners or the place,” she said. “Potentially it represents a big threat to our liberty.”

She added, gloomily: “We will all have to end up writing science fiction instead.”

TW: I don’t think any sales “cannibalize” any other sales. Does a used book sale cannibalize a new book sale? Not at all. In general, people buy the nicest version of a book they can at the time. Can a used book sale or a library loan introduce my author, my series, my brand to a new reader, who may then be enthralled, entranced, ensorcelled into buying the next new hardcover in the series (and the eARC, and the final ebook, and maybe the pb too, so she can lend it out)—heck, yes. My goal is to make more readers for my brand. ANY sale has the potential to do that.

H/t to reader les

Amazon has released the MAC version of its Kindle Application. Now Mac users can enjoy all the freebies that the PC and iPhone/iTouch users enjoy.

That’s why her thyroid pounded like a murderous hippopotamus’ conscience when she heard that Harlequin Books, publisher of such romantic novels as “Tough To Tame” and “His Convenient Virgin Bride,” was to be the first non-Japanese publisher to be inserted into Nintendo DS in Japan.

Plagiarism Today asks a provocative question: Is adblocking a form of piracy? I haven’t thought this all the way through yet, but I think its kind of interesting. The question was prompted by an Ars Technica experiment. Ars coded the site so that anyone running an adblocker would see a blank page. Those who whitelisted the domain or had a paid subscription would continue to see the content.

However, ad blocking essentially short circuits that model. Since the ads are never loaded, the site pays for the content, bandwidth and server costs to deliver the material to the reader but never has a chance to recoup the costs. In short, every person who blocks ads on a site is a mathematical loss for the site, albeit a small one.

In an effort to maximize the digital platform, publishers are looking to a thing called “enhanced ebooks.”  The idea is that the publisher will include more content and then be able to charge a higher price.  The latest iteration is David Baldacci’s Deliver Us from Evil which will include a video tour of his office. You pay a $1.00 more to get access to this video so $15.99 for the book + video or $14.99 for just the ebook. What do you think? Would you pay more for exclusive video?

Here’s an excerpt: “In addition to this B&N blog post, this week’s eBook Showcase enables Nook owners to download a free essay by Skloot if they bring their Nook into a B&N store, through the company’s “More in Store” program.”

Mike Shatzkin blogs about the rise of the niches and the challenges general publishers will likely have in the future, particularly if there is a loss of a major physical bookselling chain.  Shatzkin’s thesis also applies to a move toward internet purchasing, whether it be digital or paper.

So for just about all the books that aren’t novels, memoirs, celebrity-driven, or epic works of popular history or politics, trade publishers are increasingly handicapped. Unfortunately for them, things are going to get worse.

The obvious problem is that the capacity of the general trade market to merchandise and move product is diminishing.

I can’t remember if I blogged this before and if I did, sorry for the repetition.  Pink Floyd won the right to prevent EMI from selling its songs unbundled.  Pink Floyd argued that its contract protected the ‘artistic integrity’ of the album. As commenters noted, Pink Floyd’s artistic integrity was repeatedly violated by the single play of songs on the radio but it’s an interesting argument.

Christine Brashears, owner of Samhain Publishing, brought suit against Ellora’s Cave on April 2008.  The details of the original suit I blogged about here.  Ellora’s Cave filed a countersuit, alleging Brashear engaged in misappropriation of trade secrets, defamation, breach of contract, tortious interference with existing and prospective contracts, among other allegations.

Discovery (the exchange of paper documents, written questions, and oral depositions) commenced but Ellora’s Cave refused to comply with repeated requests from Brashear and orders of the court. Finally, the court found Ellora’s Cave in contempt and dismissed with prejudice (meaning that they couldn’t bring these claims again) all the allegations against Brashears.  This occurred in November of 2009.  (PDF ruling here).

Ellora’s Cave was given one last chance to respond to the discovery but instead of responding, they filed for a protective order asking the court to limit what documents EC had to produce to Brashear.  The Court granted the motion in part and denied the motion in part.  A pretrial hearing was scheduled.

No attorney showed up for the pretrial nor did any of the representatives for EC.  I understand missing court appointments (I really don’t understand it but it can happen) but to not even follow up and provide even a lame excuse?  This was the third attorney that EC had in the litigation, the previous two withdrawing.

As the court order noted, the court placed phone calls, waited sixty-five minutes, and still there was no response.  The court then ordered a judgment against EC in favor of Brashear.  (PDF order here).

All that is left for Brashear is to prove her damages or what she believes that Ellora’s Cave owes her.  According to her petition, she has estimated the profit of Ellora’s Cave each year and reported that to the IRS.  Likely, she will present this as evidence of her loss. If EC doesn’t show up (and why would anyone expect them to at this point), the court doesn’t have much option but to take the evidence provided by Brashear as verbotim.  According to the Forbes article, EC was doing $6.7 million in revenue in 2006 and a recent article points to $5 million in revenue in 2009. (Let’s not even get started about how the most well known brand in romance epublishing had declining revenues when ebook sales are quadrupling every quarter).

At this point, Ellora’s Cave can ask for a reconsideration by the judge but these are rarely granted unless there are extenuating circumstances like the attorney’s relative dying but even then you can contact the judge and ask for an extension of time.  EC can appeal the judgment but, in my opinion, it’s not likely to be overturned by an appellate court.  If EC did appeal, it would have to put up an appeal bond which is generally 10% of the overall judgment and, of course, interest would accrue. Further, they would have to pay for a law firm to do an appeal and appeals are very expensive.  If they don’t act, the judgment would be considered final and Brashear could place a lien on the EC profits.

What this means for Ellora’s Cave depends largely upon its cash reserves. If it has the money to pay the judgment, it may delay expansion but EC does not need a ready amount of cash to keep publishing given that much of the business is royalty based, from the authors to the editors. If it doesn’t have the ready cash? That’s probably not very good for EC.

• The next hot thing appears to be the straight contemporary patterned after the Virgin River series by Robyn Carr.  Several houses are trying to capitalize on this through marketing and repackaging.  Mariah Stewart of Ballantine and Toni Blake from Avon are examples of this.  The Toni Blake cover changes are striking.  Here are her past covers and this is the cover for the upcoming “Sugar Creek” novel.  Robyn Carr’s books remind me of the trope that Suzanne Brockmann perfected and that is the slow build of a number of interconnected relationships over a period of books. In some sense, Carr’s band of alpha men (almost all are former military which is kind of ironic because military man does not equal alpha, but whatever) are different incarnations of the SEAL Team, Brotherhood stories that made Brockmann and Ward so popular.  This will give me a good excuse to read Blake. I have heard good things about her last book.
• Speaking of Ward, her next Black Dagger Brotherhood book featuring Xhex and John is put to bed and ready for publication.  I have no spoilers.
• Suzanne Brockmann is publishing a straight contemporary (with maybe some suspense) in mass market form this summer. It will NOT be tied to her existing SEAL series.  I was told that this was more like her early books like Hearthrob and Bodyguard.
• Some publishers were taken aback by RWA’s extensive questionnaire that forms the basis of who is determined to be a “qualifying market.”  Some of the publishers who have responded have done so with vague answers and some have not responded at all.
• Obviously this was done because of Harlequin’s foray into the vanity publishing/publishing services market with Dell Arte Press.  One thing I was told was that there was never any referral link in the rejection letter.  Maybe it was considered at one time but it was never implemented.  It is in the Thomas Nelson rejection letters, I believe, so that might have been how it became “fact”.  Harlequin could have done a better job of explaining that, though.
• Harlequin was very pleased with its giveaway last year and continues to see success in its digital programs. In 2010, Harlequin has a goal of digitizing 2010 backlist titles.  They will need suggestions.  I’m going to open a thread next week for this.

Are these works protected?

Absolutely – by copyright laws.

However, we are offering these works without electronic passwords or encryption or DRM (Digital Rights Management) because of the difficulties they impose on readers. We are hopeful that, in turn, readers will honor our rights. If we find that trust is abused, we will need to revisit this decision.

I love this idea and hope it succeeds.  I’ve bookmarked it, but I wonder how I will remember to return month after month?

• 3/1/2010 to 3/14/2010: Operation Sheba: Super Agent Series, Book 1 by Misty Evans
• 3/15/2010 to 3/28/2010: Male Call: Hot Zone Book 1 by Denise A. Agnew

Audio Realms is now producing paranormal romance audio versions of novels by New York Times bestselling authors C. L. Wilson, Nina Bangs and Katie MacAlister, as well as some of the more groundbreaking names in horror and paranormal romance. In addition to listings onwww.Dorchesterpub.com, readers will now be able to visit www.AudioRealms.com for classic sci-fi, fantasy and horror, www.DarkRealmsAudio.com for urban horror and www.DarkDesires.com for paranormal and other romance. To purchase audio books in downloadable MP3 format, readers can visitwww.theaudiobookshop.com.

There is no press release from EC but you can see the audio titles here. H/t to Anne Douglas.

The Ivory Bangle Lady remains were found in August 1901 in a stone coffin unearthed in Bootham, where a group of graves were found. The grave has been dated to the latter half of the fourth century. Items buried with the Lady included expensive luxury items such African elephant ivory bracelets, beads, pendants and other jewelry, a blue glass jug, a glass mirror, and Yorkshire jet. A rectangular bone mount, possibly for a wooden coffin, was also found in the grave. An inscription on the bone, “Hail sister, may you live in God,” suggests the woman held religious beliefs and may have been Christian. She is believed to have been one of the richest inhabitants of the city.

Will research like this allow for more diverse historical romances?

• Bookseller pays publisher half ($13)
• Print, storage, and shipment is approximately $3.25
• Cover design, typesetting, copyediting: $.80
• Marketing: $1
• Author royalty: $3.90

Costs decline on a per unit basis the more copies sold except for the print/storage and shipment, I presume.   Unearned advances can actually result in a much higher royalty for an author.

A consultant to the publishing industry argues that high ebook prices can slow ebook adoption. This is probably true if BISG data is correct in that affordability is one of the driving factors behind readers moving digital.

I’ve watched this conference evolve from a curiosity to a conversation. The “tools” of “change” are not always apparent. Sometimes the tool is as simple as attending something outside your wheelhouse; sometimes it’s hearing how someone else does something and realizing parts will work for you. It’s the “tools, not rules” thing. If anything, this year’s TOC highlighted the need for even more nuts-and-bolts discussions — and there were quite a few of those mixed in with equally important long-term vision sessions.

Macmillan ratchets it up the debate by putting a full page ad in the NYTimes for Atul Gawande’s latest book and placing the text “Available everywhere but Amazon.”

Barry Eisler analyzes publisher position v. digital tides. Don’t be deceived by the narratives, he says, as they are all self serving. The digital tide, however, cannot be stemmed and publishers need to go on the offense

Earthworks are a static defense. Publishers can do a few things to make the walls marginally higher and thicker, but that’s about it. Meanwhile, the force of the digital tide is always increasing. Eventually, a kinetic and ever stronger offense will overwhelm a static, finite defense

Hachette moves to the agency business model and in a letter to agents:

It’s important to note that we are not looking to the agency model as a way to make more money on e-books. In fact, we make less on each e-book sale under the new model; the author will continue to be fairly compensated and our e-book agents will make money on every digital sale. We’re willing to accept lower return for e-book sales as we control the value of our product–books, and content in general. We’re taking the long view on e-book pricing, and this new model helps protect the long term viability of the book marketplace.

This article suggests that the increased ebook prices will result in a boon to readers:

The economics of the agency model mean that everyone—readers, authors, publishers, and Amazon—will gain if trade paperbacks are sold at $9.99.

That would still leave room for front list e-books at $12.99 or $14.99, a great discount over the physical book price.

The article also says:

We also know that there is a very vocal faction of putative Kindle owners—one suspects many are not actual owners of e-readers but simply Internet entitlement zealots—who believe e-books must be significantly cheaper than physical books to garner sales.

Really? Only Internet entitlement zealots believe ebooks must be cheaper to get sales?

Washington Post says that Apple won in this battle between Amazon and Macmillan and I think they are right.

The Apple iPad isn’t even available yet, but already it is forcing Amazon to respond in a variety of ways to protect its competing Kindle eBook business….
Amazon cannot afford to lose this war. Not so much because of the potential revenue impact this year, but because as digital books become more popular they will become a bigger part of Amazon’s business than of Apple’s.

Bob Lefsetz, a famous music business consultant, wrote:

And if you think physical books are the way of the future, then you’re unaware of the towns that no longer sport a bookstore, like Laredo, TX, you’re unaware that library hours are shortening, that Borders is on the bring of bankruptcy and Barnes & Noble might soon be taken over. The publishers are too ignorant to even see what’s going on. They’re running into the arms of Apple to avoid Amazon.

The Wrap suggests the battle for higher ebook prices is already lost:

“I think Amazon has quite successfully burned the $9.99 price point into the brains of digital readers,” said Jason Boog, editor of mediabistro.com’s book industry blog, GalleyCat. “If people are actively organizing boycotts against a certain price point, for better or for worse, Amazon has already won the price war.”

and

“Amazon has done a great job of marketing the illusion that an e-book should be $9.99,” [Sarah] Weinman [of Daily Finance] said. “So how can publishers tell consumers, in clear terms, why $9.99 is bad and convince them that discount culture shouldn’t screw over the authors they profess to love?”

Australia’s federal court has issued a ruling that negates the responsibility for ISPs to engage in enforcement.

In a definitive defeat for film studios—and in a first case of its kind worldwide—Australia’s Federal Court has ruled that ISPs have no obligation to act on copyright infringement notices or to disconnect subscribers after receiving multiple letters. If copyright holders want justice for illegal file-sharing, they need to start by targeting the right people: those who committed the infringement.

Computerworld AU analyizes this further:

iiNet’s win in its civil case against the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) in the Federal Court of Australia is just the start of a potentially long legal war, according to a Melbourne University copyright law expert.

D Packman, former CEO of eMusic says that publishers pricing ebooks higher are in for a sad reality:

Remembering your Econ class, you also know that most goods are elastic; as price lowers, demand increases. An optimum point exist that maximizes profit. I am pretty sure that the book industry, like the music industry before it, has not maximized profit by finding the optimum price. This is generally because the book publishers are not retailers — they have never forged a relationship directly with a customer. To optimize pricing (particularly on a per title basis), you need to conduct lots of tests and analyze lots of data. Amazon does this in near-real time and, I am told, is constantly optimizing pricing, page layout, merchandising, bundling, shopping cart path, and many other ecommerce variables.

Sidenote: Is this all a crazy ploy to get us readers to be happy about windowing (the delayed release of ebooks?)

Steve Axelrod who reps bigtime authors like Julia Quinn, Suzanne Brockmann, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (you know, big trade authors important to publishers) isn’t thrilled with the whole agency model because he, like Macintosh of Random House, isn’t convinced publishers know what they are doing in regards to pricing. He lays out 6 reasons why moving to the Agency model sounds like a mistake.

Kobo books has a post up about price elasticity at its blog.

Publishers have never done pricing without the safety net of retailers making adjustments to optimize consumer demand. Retailers spend a great deal of time on price analysis/optimization. As we work with publishers on agency, continuous review of price/purchase behaviour is going to be essential. Daily/weekly, not monthly/quarterly.

Books price $11 and on face a sad downward decline in sales numbers until it sort of flatlines. Kobo calls this “The Barren, Rocky Plain of Publisher Wishful Thinking.”

I think this is Kobo’s “Danger, Will Robinson” call.

Dorchester Publishing has launched a new publicity campaign called the Publisher’s Pledge program.

“Publisher’s Pledge is a reaffirmation of the business model Dorchester has always prided itself on,” stated Brooke Borneman, Director of Sales and Marketing. “Our strength has been identifying emerging voices and trends in the industry rather than chasing bestsellers. Our intent is to reestablish ourselves in the market as the publisher authors and agents turn to first to introduce new talent.

I thought the press release was a bit ironic given that it pointed to the names that they discovered and then sold recently to Avon. The books in the Publisher’s Pledge will be sold with a “money back guarantee”.

The first Publisher’s Pledge title will be Barbara Monajem’s Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (April 2010), an erotically charged urban fantasy in the same vein as Charlaine Harris. Additional titles include Elisabeth Naughton’s Marked (May 2010), a darkly sensual paranormal romance inspired by Greek mythology that will appeal to fans of Sherrilyn Kenyon; Christie Craig’s Shut Up and Kiss Me (June 2010), a delightfully quirky romantic mystery that will appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich; and Erin Kellison’s back-to-back debuts Shadow Bound (July 2010) and Shadow Fall (August 2010), the first two releases in a riveting post-apocalyptic series that fuses dark fantasy, science fiction, horror and romantic suspense.

She prefers not to lose a potential sale because an ebook version is not available and also does not want to “create an adversarial relationship” with ebook readers or “train those readers that instead the best way to get that digital copy is to download it for free.”

But she also sees the need to maintain control over pricing but admits that publishers have very little pricing knowledge, primarily because they don’t have a relationship with the end user.  Interestingly, the article suggests that publishers will vary price according to perceived demand which means that authors with lesser demand will be priced lower than those with higher demand.  This could work to benefit and hurt the author. It will be interesting to see how ebook royalties will be structured given that the list price (usually the basis for the royalty) may fluctuate a good deal.  In any event, this was a great article and I know it’s a paid subscription but it’s worth it.

In the comments to that article, Robert Gottlieb of Trident Agency, argued that windowing was important and that maybe agents should sell erights first and then print rights. For big name authors, it’s possible that they would have the power to decouple the digital from the print. After all, would Macmillan really want to lose an author like Janet Evanovich over that issue? For most authors, though, this might not be realistic. Of course, the entire battle is over the big name frontlist sales so it may not matter what “most” authors would be able to negotiate.

Under Amazon’s Kindle publishing platform, Gottlieb could garner his author 70% of the royalty off a $9.99 priced ebook. Or he could go through Rosetta Stone and perhaps have a 50/50 profit sharing deal for the ebook alone. One question is whether the ebook would be windowed before or after the print publication. If it is before, then I would think agents would be contacting NYTimes and USAToday to get all pre-print sales counted toward the bestseller list.

Authors are probably more sensitive to demand and pricing than the publishers are due to the direct contact authors have with readers.

Simon & Schuster has been quietly laying off people for the last few weeks. PW reports that Beth Wareham, director of bookbook and lifestyle, is the latest casualty. Wonder if Amazon is hiring editorial staff yet.

A word about Amazon. This has been a very difficult time. Many of you are wondering what has taken so long for Amazon and Macmillan to reach a conclusion. I want to assure you that Amazon has been working very, very hard and always in good faith to find a way forward with us. Though we do not always agree, I remain full of admiration and respect for them. Both of us look forward to being back in business as usual.

“We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99,” Murdoch said. “They pay us the wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge,” he said. “But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.”

Touchco uses a technology called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, which it puts into displays that can be completely transparent and could cost as little as $10 a square foot. The capacitive touch screens used in the iPad and iPhone are considerably more expensive. Unlike those screens, the Touchco screens can also detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touch points.

This is pretty interesting. I would not have guessed that Amazon was going to invest heavily in the hardware, but this move signals a serious intent to compete, not only on a platform basis, but an entire delivery system. I think it also signals that Amazon is not likely to open its doors to epub books or go DRM free. AllThingsD says that this might be the end of Amazon as a dominant force in book retailing.

Harlequin has priced all the Kimani titles at 40% this month.

Commenter Dana points out Direct ebooks is selling all the romance titles at 25% off through February. All the ebooks on this site have no geographic limitations.

Hachette has a few bundling deals (usually these can only be found at the Sony ebookstore)

• Get 2 K.J.Parker books for the price of one:  Devices and Desires and Evil for Evil for $12.99.
• Get 3 Ione books for $14.68 or 30% off the retail price for Pleasure Unbound, Desire Unchained, Passion Unleashed.  ( this is a fun, sexy series and I’ve liked most of the books).

• 2/1/2010 — 2/14/2010: Icy Heat: A Heat Series Story by Leigh Wyndfield
• 2/15/2010 — 2/28/2010 Wolf Signs: Granite Lake Wolves, Book 1 by Vivian Arend

For paper lovers, Borders has launched its “Buy 4 get 1 Free” special both in store and on the web. I used to buy books like crazy under that sale.

The folks at Shelf Awareness really aren’t a fan of the nook. Part 1 and Part 2.

Part of me thinks, well, it’s new technology, what did I expect? The other part of me replies, BETTER!

Amazon’s Third Annual Breakthrough Novel contest commences. Given that the past winners have been more literary than popular fiction, I would guess the chances of a romance writer winning would be low to zero. But, hey, the contest is free. Contest details are listed below, and further information and official rules can be found at www.amazon.com/abna. To get tips on how to enter or sign up, visit www.createspace.com/abna. Grand Prize includes:

[A] full publishing contract with Penguin to market and distribute the Grand Prize winner’s winning manuscript as a published book, including promotion for the published book on Amazon.com and a $15,000 advance.

Lauren Willig and Cara Elliott are teaching a college seminar on historical romance at Yale this semester. The reading list is here (Doc file). I would love to audit this class but unfortunately I live too far away. I will be reading the books on the list because there are several I have never read. What a great guide.

Liza Daly has a great collection of things book publishers must do in creating ebooks with value for readers. Simple things like including the color cover, getting the metadata right, and making sure the formatting looks good. In order to demand higher prices from readers, publishers really need to start delivering a quality product, not the half assed stuff we ebook readers put up with now.

Stanza was told to stop including USB synching in its iPhone App and many people have seen this as a sign of evil by Amazon. I’m not convinced and here’s why.

USB synching was never officially allowed by Apple. Stanza got around that by hacking Apple’s SDK. With the iPad, Apple is allowing USB synching but in a particular way:

[T]he beta iPhone OS 3.2 SDK includes an API which allows access to a shared storage folder, which will be mounted as a readable and writable disk when you plug it into your computer

My guess is that Apple is requiring its developers to use the new authorized USB function rather than the hack it had allowed in the past.

1. Old pricing scheme in which it would sell to Amazon at list and Amazon would decide at what price point to resell to consumers but Macmillan would engage in “deep windowing” which means Amazon wouldn’t get the content for 6-7 months or maybe longer.

2. New pricing scheme wherein Macmillan sets the price and Amazon merely serves as the facilitator in the sale between Macmillan and the reader.

Amazon balked and expressed its disappointment by removing the buy it now button for all the Macmillan titles.

Authors became quite angry with Amazon, starting with John Scalzi and including others like Tobias Buckell, Scott Westerfield, and the like.

Scalzi believes that the fans of an author will abandon Amazon and that Amazon completely lost the optics of the weekend.

They feel somewhat connected to their favorite authors. So when their favorite authors kvetched on their blogs and Facebook pages and Twitter feeds about the screwing Amazon was giving them, what did many of these fans do? They also kvetched on their blogs and Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. So in pissing off a myriad of authors, Amazon also pissed off an exponential number of book readers, many of whom followed their favorite authors’ leads in complaining about Amazon, and who themselves were read and followed by an exponential number of others.

If Scalzi and authors could convince their readers to buy en masse from a particular vendor, they have enough power to sell print and e direct.

Tobias Buckell accuses Amazon of price fixing which is sadly so incorrect given the price fixing requires collusion (in other words, Amazon can’t price fix by itself).

If Amazon were a smaller retailer, this probably wouldn’t be a big deal. But Amazon pretty much, right now, has a monopoly on online bookselling. They’re huge. As a result, this becomes nearly a form of de facto price fixing.

Indie author, April Hamilton, wonders why Macmillan authors are happy about the outcome:

Macmillan authors are rejoicing, and I’m shaking my head. Would musicians cheer a decision on the part of their labels to raise the price of their music on iTunes by 62%? I think not. Yet despite the fact that their books will cost 62% more than other Kindle bestsellers, and their royalty on those sales won’t be even one cent higher, the Macmillan author “victory” dance continues apace on the interwebz.

Mike Shatzkin and Kassia Kroszer point out the authors in this situation are really losing out in the form of reduced royalties.

From idealog:

The proposed Agency Model will have publishers setting a price lower than the established retail they had before but higher than the deep discounts Amazon led retailers to sell at. The publisher intends to pay 30% of that established price to the retailer and 25% of either the full consumer price or of the 70% “net” (still to be determined) to the author. This means that the retailer will get a higher price from the consumer and a better margin than they realize now (even though a lower percentage of the “established” price). The author’s cut per copy could actually be reduced!

From Kassia Krozser at Booksquare:

So what does all this mean? I imagine the next huge debate will be between agents and publishers as the new model is mapped to real money for the people who write books. Other retailers will be demanding similar terms to Amazon (and perhaps breathing a sigh of relief). Consumers will be sniffing at the new pricing model and voting with their dollars (one doesn’t have to read between the lines of Amazon’s statement to know where the retailer hopes this ends). DRM will remain on the horizon.

Richard Curtis believes that ebook royalties must increase as a result of this:

If, as a result of negative publicity, Amazon relents on its rigid pricing formula, e-book revenues will increase and it will be so much harder – indeed, it will be intensely embarrassing – for publishers to continue parceling out the mingy royalty they now proffer.

This is a debate that has emotions running high. A thread concerning this at Amazon has 807 posts and counting.

Taking into account emerging trends in publishing that may offer opportunities to writers, the task force recommended that RWA adopt methods used by other trade shows and conventions and to shift its method of evaluating publishers as a whole to evaluating publishers by divisions, imprints, or lines.

Under this revised method, RWA will extend invitations to a wide pool of publishers. Invitees may only represent their non-subsidy/non-vanity publishing programs (imprints, divisions, or lines) at RWA’s conference. Space for spotlights, workshops, and booksignings will be allocated to lines, imprints, or divisions that best meet the requirements for “Qualifying Markets.” This new process of evaluation will likely increase opportunities for small presses and e-presses that previously have been excluded.

….

The Board amended the definition of subsidy/vanity to read: “Subsidy” or “Vanity” publishing means the production of books in which the author participates in the costs of production or distribution in any manner, including assessment of fees or other costs for editing and/or distribution. This definition includes publishing programs that withhold or seek full or partial payment or reimbursement of publication or distribution costs before paying royalties, including payment of paper, printing, binding, production, sales or marketing costs; publishing programs whose authors exclusively promote and/or sell their own books; and publishers whose business model and methods of publishing are primarily directed toward sales to the author, his/her relatives and associates.

….

Based upon the recommendation of the task force, RWA will no longer designate publishers as “RWA Eligible.” Instead, RWA will have a conference allocation system to identify “Qualifying Markets,” which must be a non-vanity/non-subsidy publisher or a non-vanity/non-subsidy division, imprint or line of a publisher.

Since RWA will no longer have a classification for Eligible Publisher, the Board approved definitions for “Eligible Novel” and “Eligible Novella” based on the non-subsidy/non-vanity production of these works. This change will allow members to qualify for PAN, participate in Romance Sells and trade shows, report first sales in the RWR, and receive a “First Sale” ribbon at conference as long as the terms of the definition are met. Because policy prohibits the changing of contest rules while the contests are in progress, the Board will address the eligibility requirements for the RITA contest during the July Board meeting and will continue to work diligently to address the issue to reach a fair and equitable solution that will benefit our members without compromising RWA’s mission to support the professional interests of career-focused romance writers. Policy provisions regarding entry into PRO will be addressed at the March Board meeting.

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Speaking of bookselling in the UK, the Guardian has a write up about how Waterstones has killed the small bookstore combined with the collapse of the Net Book Agreement which allowed retailers to agree not to discount books.  The artificially high pricing allowed publishers to subsidize the printing of important but less well selling books by the income earned off bestsellers.  (This is still the primary way that publishers run their business with 20% of the titles supporting the remaining 80%).  Waterstones is facing stiff competition from Amazon because the latter has no physical retail expenses.  The article further wonders whether Waterstones is hastening its own demise by selling ebooks.  (Thanks Dr. Vivanco for the link)

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Teleread links to the weekly On the Media radio show which talked about the rising volume of books released in the U.S. annually, about a half million.  With the rise of the digital market and the ease of entry, the volume of books pressed on the reader will be overwhelming.  Effective filtering and curation will be a valuable resource in the evolving market.

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The nook is sold out at Barnes and Noble.  Any pre Christmas purchase of the nook will have to take place via a third party like eBay with you, the consumer, paying a super premium price for the holiday delivery of the electronic reading device.  Mike Elgan, of Computerworld, suggests that you just wait.  I agree.  2010 will see the launch of inexpensive netbook tablets, Android based web tablets and use of reflective LCD shipping from Pixel Qi.  And, possibly, the Apple Tablet.

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iPhone owners (and this presumably includes iTouch owners as well) consume more digital media, including digital books, than the average user.

While only 30% of the entire population would download an ebook and 29% would buy a digital magazine, 42% of iPhone users will buy ebooks and 38% are up for reading digital magazines.

]]> http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/11/30/monday-midday-links-bookstore-outlet-looks-grim/feed/ 13 http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/11/17/harlequin-horizons-shortsighted-or-farseeing/ http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/11/17/harlequin-horizons-shortsighted-or-farseeing/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:08:32 +0000 Jane http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/?p=15308 I couldn’t resist the wordplay for the title.  In any event, it appears that authors really are unhappy with the announcement of Harlequin Horizons. I’ve heard that some published authors are asking for the RWA board to examine whether Harlequin should be a recognized publisher.

Essentially it appears that Harlequin is lending its name to a self publishing venture that will be sourced by AuthorSolutions Inc.  My guess is that Harlequin will use this to monitor sales and move authors who are selling well from Horizons to one of its print/digital lines.   HarperCollins UK does this with Authonomy but it isn’t a profit making venture, yet.

As I see it authors have three basic complaints:

• dilution of house brand
• possibility of unsuspecting authors spending money on the chance of getting the notice of Harlequin.
• the choice of POD partnership.

Dilution of House Brand

This one is the most understandable to me.  Harlequin Horizon books are labeled with the Harlequin brand (although we don’t know what the badging will look like).  If a number of works in circulation carry the Harlequin brand and the quality declines, one assumes that the Harlequin name brand also declines.

Authors also refer to this as a loss of prestige (which is not the same as brand dilution in my opinion).  Essentially saying that you are published through Harlequin can become ubiquitous, thus reducing the personal cachet to an author.

Unsuspecting Authors

I have a much harder time with this argument.  People who have written books and then want to pay to have their books published are somehow chum for the sharks of vanity press.  I’ve seen people use the words “prey” and “predator” in reference to the vanity press.  Essentially a person pays a vanity press for everything that a publisher should do for you if your work is accepted.  Is business model making victims of people who want to be published but cannot get accepted by traditional or digital publishers?

Another way of asking it would be is Harlequin required to be paternalistic to non published authors? Or is there something just so offensive about the business model of vanity presses?

POD Partnership

Random House has a self publishing interest in  Xlibris.  It owns 49% of the company.  I haven’t heard that Random House is preying on innocent writers. Amazon owns CreateSpace, a vanity press.  On the digital front, Smashwords is a self publishing company in which Smashwords keeps 20% of an author’s sales.  Smashwords is partnered with Barnes and Noble.

I only point out these other relationships so that I can get to the core of what is the complaint about the Harlequin Horizons endeavor.  I understand the brand dilution thing. I’m not so sure I follow on how HH makes victims of authors.

I know that one of the reasons I have resisted a Kindle or a Nook is because of the limitations put on it by the manufacturer. I want something that allows me to upload and read any document I so chose, regardless of origin. I also want to be able to manage my own electronic products, move them around if so desired.

Stephenie Meyer is burnt out on vampires and her next book is likely to be a follow up to her adult novel, The Host and maybe a fantasy book. Sounds like she doesn’t have anything written. Maybe look for Meyer in 2010 or 2011?

Publishers’ Weekly has an article entitled “Romancing the Recession” and it talks about the vibrancy of the romance genre. Paranormal leads the pack with historicals selling strong but what is surprising (but encouraging for me) is the rise of the contemporary. Long time readers will know that I love a good contemporary. Sarah Wendell and I even created a special website called SavetheContemporary.com.

St. Martin’s, says Enderlin, continues to see growth in this area, especially with humorous, contemporary romances such as Susan Donovan’s Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, about the romantic fortunes of a group of single women in a dog-walking group. SMP also recently launched a new chef-themed series by Louisa Edwards with Can’t Stand the Heat; the follow-up, On the Steamy Side, is due in March. Each title is billed as a “recipe for love novel.” As Enderlin says, “Right now there’s so much dark paranormal out there. Light, funny, contemporary can be an antidote to that.”

Author Sharon Ashwood is offering holiday greeting cards in an effort to assist dogs and cats who are injured and abandoned. These cards also serve as a promotional vehicle for her upcoming release, Scorched. Photos of GVAC pets and artwork for the greeting cards can be found at: http://www.sharonashwood.com/gvac.php.

For every card downloaded, Ashwood, a native of Victoria, Canada, will donate 54 cents, Canadian, to the Greater Victoria Animal Crusaders (GVAC). All donations will help defray veterinary costs for one of GVAC’s injured pets. Once that animal’s expenses have been covered, all donations from Ashwood’s program will then go toward the health care costs of another dog or cat. The author says she settled on 54 cents as the donation amount because that’s the current cost for a Canadian first-class postage stamp.

Wired takes a look at adaptions of children’s books that have resulted in box office disappointment.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Where Gene Wilder succeeded in making Willy Wonka a lovable character with a sardonic twist, Johnny Depp did quite the opposite, and director Tim Burton helped turn the character into a creepy loner with too much makeup. While the children were spot-on and the music was updated to current pop culture standards, the presence of Depp’s Wonka gave the film a disturbing vibe that was hard to shake. —Curtis Silver

Apple has filed a patent on ad technology that would require you to interact by pressing a button or tapping a screen in response to a directive from the ad itself. Egads, is this scary or what?

The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.”

Can DNA matching serve you better than a regular old dating site?

A couple of genetic testing companies are promising to match couples based on DNA testing, touting the benefits of biological compatibility. The companies claim that a better biological match will mean better sex, less cheating, longer-lasting love and perhaps even healthier children.

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Gawker mocks Newscorp in its fight against Google. Murdoch plans to stick it to Google by selling his content to Bing, the Microsoft search engine. It reminds me of publishers. They don’t want to have Amazon in control of their pricing, but they seem more than happy to get into bed with Google.

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How costly will it become for vendors and retailers to provide free wifi? Motion Picture lobbying group, the MPAA, got a town’s free wifi network shut down after discovering a possible, not yet confirmed, illegal download. Barnes and Noble, Borders, McDonald’s and the like are easy targets for piraters not wanting their illegal activities to be traced back to their home networks. Google, by the way, is giving free wifi away at airports this christmas.

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PW looks at Amazon’s Vine program. This is where Amazon sends out a monthly email with all the products vendors are offering for review. It’s not just books. (I am actually a Vine member, but I’ve never requested anything nor reviewed anything under the Vine program). Authors are apparently not fans because the Vine reviews aren’t “professional” and they aren’t “consumers”. One author argues that because Vine folks receive free books, they are employees. Really?

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Carolyn Reidy of Simon & Schuster will be in Korea next week talking about the digital market and new strategies. According to “advance script”, Reidy will argue that the digital market will comprise 25% of publishing in 7 years.

In the advance script, Reidy argued that “ebooks are still relatively small but are a rapidly growing part of our business, but could be significant (25 percent) within seven years.”

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Brenda Hiatt updates her “Show Me the Money” page. I haven’t decided whether this helps or hurts authors given that the averages are so easily skewed and there are so few reporting. One thing that jumped out at me where the deals that Ballantine had made which seemed out of line with the other publishers. (Out of line on the high end). From Publishers’ Marketplace data, it appears Ballantine has paid in excess of six figures for three or more books to authors like Lindsay Graves, Kimberly Raye, Tessa Dare (2 sets of 3 book deals), Christy Reece, Tracy Anne Warren (who is now with Avon), Cherry Adair, Mariah Stewart (7 figure deal for 4 books), Nicole Jordan (250K-400K), Allison Brennan (500K+).

Lindsay Graves never made a bestseller list. Kimberly Raye squeaked into the USA Today list for the first two books (126 and 145 for books 1 and 2) but the nothing since 2008 has placed. Christy Reece’s books were published back to back to back this summer but she never placed on the bestseller list either. This isn’t to say that Graves, Raye or Reece aren’t great writers or that their books aren’t worthy of 6 figure deals or that they won’t earn out someday. It just highlights how uncertain the advance model is. Audrey Niffenegger received a $5 million advance and sold, according to Bookscan, under 40,000 copies.

Newer publishers are abandoning the advance like OR Press and Carina Press, modeling themselves after the digital press business model. If advances are eliminated (and I’m not convinced that they totally are. I think that there will be low advances and really high advances but not much in between), this will undoubtedly result in a loss of some talent who will choose not to risk copublishing or forego advances for their work. Will the resulting rise of the digital market and the broader economic opportunities lure new authors in? It’s hard to say at this point where we are going. I like to think that the market will become more diversified. Nathan Bransford argues that the publishing industry has to learn to minimize its risks and learn to leverage the internet to seek out its audience. It’s an uncertain time for those who make their money off of the written word. In the end, I want to believe that the changes will benefit the reader. What do you think?

Today Harlequin is announcing the creation of Carina Press, a digital only epress from Harlequin.  On a personal front, this news is exciting because Angela James is a friend of mine and will be the Executive Editor of this new line.  On a reader front, I think this move signals how important the digital space is becoming.

You can read all about Carina Press at its website: Carinapress.com.  The plan is to launch in Spring/Summer 2010.  Carina Press will release DRM FREE!!! ebooks on a weekly basis.  The books will be available for sale at Carina Press and through other etailers.  Carina will be publishing steampunk, sci fi, futuristic fantasy, multi cultural books – “if readers are blogging about a genre with passion and interest, we’ll publish it.”  A whole list of genres can be seen here including thrillers, mysteries and erotica in addition to romance.

The Press will consider nearly any length of novels including short stories, genre novels between 50,000 and 100,000 and “complex narratives” of over 100,000.  In short, it seems like Carina Press has few restrictions for authors in terms of genre, length or subject matter.

There are no advances and the books will be royalty based.  Carina will be looking to relaunch digital editions for titles that are out of print.  (Someone contact the Curtis’ stat!  We need Windflower and Bad Baron’s Daughter out in eform!)

In any event, here are a few words from Angela James and her journey to Carina.

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Sometimes it’s hard to believe everything happens for a reason, when you’re the one it’s happening to. Four years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom to a one-year-old daughter. I’d left a job I loved as an occupational therapist in a psych hospital in order to stay home with Brianna. To keep myself occupied (because I’m someone who loves to work) I’d been doing some casual work for Ellora’s Cave as a proofer, something I’d started doing while I was pregnant. I actually applied for a position as an editor, but didn’t quite make the cut, and in mid-2005, they restructured how they did the editorial and I was cut loose as a proofer.

By that time, I had the editing bug, I’d made contacts with some authors and I wanted to do something to stay in the business, so I began doing freelance editing. Right around that time, several authors mentioned to me that a new publisher was going to be opening its doors, the owner was looking for editors and would that be something I’d be interested in, because I’d be good at it? Heck yeah! So I was introduced to Christina Brashear and in September of 2005, I found myself the first editor for Samhain Publishing.

I loved working for Samhain, and helping build a fantastic publisher in the digital community. I learned a lot during those first few years, and it was an unforgettable experience. In the past year, I’d had some soft interest from others in the industry, with potential job offers, but it wasn’t until the crew from Quartet Press came along that I started giving serious thought to leaving Samhain. After four years, I felt almost inexorably bound to Samhain, with an emotional connection that I’d certainly never had to my jobs as an occupational therapist. It was a difficult thing, contemplating leaving, giving up the easy camaraderie I had with the other editors, who I found an amazing source of information, talent and support, leaving behind all of the authors I’d worked with, many of whom I’d watched grow their careers from their debut books with me, and walking away from a company I felt entwined with.

But at the same time, I was ready to grow my career and do something that would help grow the digital publishing industry even further. So when I say the decision to leave Samhain was not made lightly, I mean the decision was made after weeks of sleepless nights, long talks with my husband, close friends and the partners at Quartet. And weeks of stress, anxiety, tears and a headache I was convinced had taken up permanent residence. Once I finalized the decision to leave, I still had to move past telling Samhain, my co-workers and authors. After that, there was a period of dealing with the public reaction to my departure, something I hadn’t anticipated. Shock, excitement, and from some, dismay and a sense of betrayal. All of it difficult since it was, without a doubt, one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made. At the time, I compared it to being similar to all of what I’d experienced when my first husband and I divorced.

Beginning work for Quartet was an amazing period of discovery and anticipation. I truly believe the industry has room for more quality digital publishers, and with the assembled team at Quartet, I believed we were in a fantastic position to create that press. I had an immense respect for my teammates and was flattered that they felt similarly about me, enough to woo me from my position at Samhain. So imagine my complete and utter shock when just a few weeks after I’d begun, I got an email stating the press was closing its doors. I had little information as to why or what occurred to cause the decision, and suddenly, there I was, playing my (urn)employment drama out in public again while trying to deal with they myriad of not-so-positive emotions I experienced.

This is where I realized how lucky I was because the outpouring of support was immense. I got blog comments, personal emails, messages on Twitter, Facebook, message boards and elsewhere offering sympathy, suggestions and any kind of support I needed. People I barely knew or didn’t know at all wrote. Friends and acquaintances put out the word that I was available for hire. No less than three companies emailed me that first day to soft query me about possible jobs. Sure, there were a few people who felt I’d somehow gotten what I deserved, but overall, overwhelmingly, the publishing community, from readers to authors to editors and publishers, let me know it was going to be okay, and that everything happens for a reason.

And you know what? They were right. You were all right. The day after Quartet announced it was closing its doors, I got a phone call from someone I admire tremendously. Some might call it a phone call offering the opportunity of a lifetime. Malle Vallik of Harlequin called to say, “I heard what happened, I’m really sorry but…this might be really good for us and we might have an interesting proposition for you.” Okay, hello! The Harlequin digital team wanted me to consult? And help with this new digital-only press they were building. And they thought there might be a spot for me at this digital-only press. Dear God. How much emotional rollercoaster can one person handle? Devastation and fear to instant euphoria? Harlequin was (and is) my dream publisher. They’re forerunners in the digital field, I’d been reading their books since fourth grade, and they throw the best RWA Nationals party. Heck yeah!

So here I am, almost two months after becoming publicly unemployed, and keeping Carina Press a secret for that entire time, finally able to share my news, my excitement and my joy with everyone. And finally able to publicly say thank you to everyone who supported me these past months, and who believed all this time that something awesome was right around the corner for me. I think I really did get what I deserved. I’m so glad you all were right when you told me that everything happens for a reason.

The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:

• The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of October would be a November release)
• You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
• No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
• Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
• This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.

DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends are going to be allowed. Sorry.)

That’s it. Post away.  (Please note that our spam filter is very aggressive so wait a couple of hours before reposting).

So thank Eros for two Americans, Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, who dreamed up Mavis for their book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. It’s an unashamed celebration of their great passion, and they make no apology for it. “There’s nothing like a beautifully executed romance novel or the afterglow upon finishing an especially good one,” they write.

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Wall Street Journal op ed piece scoffs at the FTC regulations that are pointed at bloggers arguing that mainstream journalists receive so much swag that the office closets are groaning under the weight.

The specter of freebies has long haunted journalism. In the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons was famous for her swag intake. Come Christmas Eve she would “unwrap an avalanche of gifts” from Tinseltown royalty, according to screenwriter Anita Loos. “Two secretaries used to stand with notebooks to keep score so that Louella could remember the next day who had sent what.” Those notes weren’t taken to help her make proper disclosures to her readers.

Eric Felton, the author of the article, isn’t convinced by the FTC reassurances that bloggers aren’t the target.

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Romance Novel TV has decided to close its doors. It’s sad to see them go. Marisa and Maria were real fans of the genre and were some of the first to bring video to the online romance world. Video interviews with authors seem to proliferate every site, but Romance Novel TV was really the first to break out. We’ll miss them and good luck to their future endeavors.

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The Bookseller wrote a critical piece of Waterstone’s distribution center. In retaliation, Waterstone has blocked employee access to The Bookseller. Stay classy, Waterstone. Your inept attempts to make bad press stop only serves to generate more bad press.

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Barnes and Noble is purportedly in talks with publishers to allow a “lending” feature with its device and the ebooks. This would push me toward buying an ebook reader from Barnes and Noble. I have doubts as to whether BN could pull this off. After all, publishers can’t even get the pricing situation worked out what with St. Martin’s Press refusing to allow all of its books released in digital format and when they are available in digital format, SMP is charging a 100% upcharge for the digital copy. I’ve heard some noise about charging more for an ebook that comes with a lending ability. I don’t like that at all. I’m not going to pay a few extra dollars to be able to share my ebook.

I suggested a warning and opportunity to cure and Cleland liked that idea. He said that they have used it in the past in the health product field except they are called advisory letters.

I asked about the issue of the fines. Cleland stated that this is something the AP took out of context. The FTC has no ability to levy fines. A charge must be made and taken to an administrative law judge and a cease and desist is requested and provided if the FTC fulfills its burden. If the C&D is ignored, then a civil penalty can be requested for up to $11,000.00. The full explanation of enforcement and penalties for all FTC violations can be read here.

No case would be brought in federal court unless it involved a very serious fraud else the FTC would likely be frowned upon by the court for wasting judicial time.

We discussed the issue of Twitter and whether each and every positive statement about a book that had been received for review would need to carry a disclaimer. Cleland was of the opinion that it would however we did discuss the issue of the product itself. In many other industries, the review product is nearly always returned and not kept by the reviewer. In the book industry, it is common for all reviewers, regardless of whether they review for mainstream publications or whether they review for a personal blog, to keep the books that are reviewed. I also brought up the issue of e-arcs and how any blogger could prove that the product had been deleted or kept.

I’m fairly certain that Cleland is not familiar with the book industry or the book blogging industry. He certainly was open to hearing more from us. I plan to continue to discuss this issue with him.

1. The Members’ Forum on the IASPR website is a standing messageboard where IASPR members (and non-members) can interact, sharing news of and discussions about popular romance studies. Anyone can register as a member of the board but members of IASPR will have access to a members only section of the forum.

2. IASPR has a Cafe Press store where you can buy shirts, mugs, and pins with our logo as well as fun slogans like “Romance Readers Make Better Scholars,” “Romance: Think About It,” “In UR bodice, analyzin UR literachur,” and many more.

3. A few IASPR Officers and members will be at the annual conference of the Romance Writers of America in Washington D.C. next week at various events:

• President Sarah Frantz, Vice-President Pamela Regis, and NYT best-selling author Sabrina Jeffries will be presenting “If you like the Classics; Or, How to recommend romance to Literature Snobs in your library” at the Librarians’ Day on June 15, 2009.
• Sarah, Pam, and IASPR member, Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, will be presenting on “The Wit, Wisdom, and Writing Advice of Jennifer Crusie” on Friday, July 17, 3:15-4:15pm, in Washington 3. IASPR Board Member Jenny Crusie herself will be responding to the panel!
• After this panel, IASPR will have a get-together from 4:30-6:30 in a room to be announced. Watch the IASPR Twitter page for announcement.
• IASPR will have a table at the Moonlight Madness Bazaar on Thursday, July 16, 8-midnight. We’ll be handing out IASPR swag to members: a tote bag, a membership pin, pens, a lanyard, bookmarks, etc.

4. The first IASPR conference will take place next month in Brisbane, Australia, 13-14 August, 2009 with a truly international list of speakers. Registration is open. The conference has been generously sponsored by Samhain Publishing, the Romance Writers of America, DePaul University, the University of Queensland, Queensland Institute of Technology, and the Fryer Library.

5. The IASPR conference next year will be in Belgium, 5-7 August, 2010, on the theme of “Theorizing Romance.” The Call for Proposals has been posted.

6. We plan to have our 2011 conference in New York City, NY on the theme of “The Business of Romance,” and our 2012 conference in Los Angeles, CA, on the theme of “The Music and Movies of Romance. If you are interested in being involved in the planning and organization of either of these conferences, please email Sarah Frantz.

7. The Journal of Popular Romance Studies has posted its Call for Submissions. Our first volume will be released on February 14, 2010.

8. Finally, do you know anyone else working on popular romance studies? Don’t forget other fields: anthropology, sociology, art, film, business, marketing, computer science, philosophy, psychology, etc., even neurobiology? We’d love to hear about them or have them hear about IASPR. Post about them here, or send them the web address of IASPR so that they can discover who we are and what it is that we do.

9. As always, feel free to email any questions about IASPR. You’ll get a quick response.

The consumer will be offered the choice of paying full price for the book or accepting ads to reduce the price of the book.

The ads will be based on both the content of the book, metadata for the book, and user profile information that is either freely given by the user or mined from the users’ past purchases.

For example, if the customer has a history of interest in travel as indicated by the associated user profile, the advertisement component may include, in the printed content, advertisements related to travel, even though such advertisement may not be directly relevant to the requested content.

Depending on the agreement with publishers, Amazon could conceivably roll out advertising for ebooks right away with POD ad supported books coming soon.  Still to be resolved would be whether publishers and content creators a) have any right to control the ads (to some degree it seems that they would not) and b) whether they would be entitled to any ad revenue (off hand, again, I’m thinking that content creators would not be entitled to ad revenue so long as Amazon met its payment obligations such as remitting 30%-40% of the retail cost of the product to the publisher no matter for what price Amazon sells the product).

The danger to consumers is that books will begin to be priced in such a way as to force readers to buy the ad supported books else incur a premium cost.

• Michael Nielson’s long post on how publishing is failing and how smart parts of publishing can reinvent itself. It’s definitely worth reading but it’s not an article that can be read and absorbed in one sitting.
• John Green talks about advances versus royalty rates. Like many a good blog post, the topic inspires many good comments.
• The Espresso Book Machine is becoming a favorite of patrons in an independent bookstore in Vermont but it’s used mostly to publish self published works.
• Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell are arguing on the issue of free. Seth Godin weighs in.