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Friday Midday News and Deal Links: Ebook Sales Up and Down

Book Deals / Publishing News / / / / 10 Comments

News

Google has filed its motion to dismiss in the Google Book Settlement.  The motion is based on a legal term known as standing.  Not everyone can sue anyone else.  You must have “standing” and Google is arguing that only the individual authors and artists have standing, not groups such as the Authors Guild.

In a copyright case, standing comes from ownership. Only the “legal or beneficial owner” of the exclusive right the defendant has allegedly infringed has standing to sue. Since the Authors Guild doesn’t own the copyrights in its members’ books, it can’t sue in its own behalf.

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Hal Roberts posts that SOPA advocates are using his research incorrectly.  His research on DNS filtering does not support SOPA and he tries to set the record straight.

Opponents of SOPA have argued that the DNS filtering, even though it will have a number of harmful effects on the technical and political structure of the Internet, will not be effective in preventing users from accessing the blocked sites. Mr. Castro cites our research as evidence that SOPA’s mandate to filter DNS will be effective. …. His presumption that people will work as hard or harder to access political content than they do to access entertainment content deeply misunderstands how and why most people use the Internet. Far more users in open societies use the Internet for entertainment than for political purposes; it is unreasonable to assume different behaviors in closed societies.

But facts aren’t driving SOPA.  Emotion is.

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October sales results are out and it shows a decline in ebook sales from August to October. According to Publishers’ Marketplace, the ebook sales for August were $80.3 million and ebook sales in October were $72.8 million.  Still, that is enough for an 82% increase over last October ebook sales and every other segment of publishing declined in sales in October including mass market which is down a whopping 33.7%.

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Lenticular clouds West yorkshire

Lenticular clouds have appeared in West Yorkshire.  Amazing gallery to be seen here.

Deals

These are Amazon Big Deals and other than the Miriam Minger titles, the deals expire today. The lowered prices may not be reflected at other sites but the links are provided as a courtesy.

Jane

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty. You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

Comments

  1. De
    December 23, 2011 @ 10:57 am

    I’m in the Pacific time zone, and I have to say, it’s very strange to see something labeled “Midday News…” before the library opens in the morning. :)

  2. Courtney Milan
    December 23, 2011 @ 11:33 am

    I wouldn’t call it a decline in e-book sales per se. I think sales of books are always higher in the summer–that’s when people are on vacation, buying beach reads, which is why when they give increases, they compare it to the last year, rather than the prior quarter.

    To me, it looks like a slowing in the rate of growth of the market. And that kind of makes sense–more people who were considering adopting in July-September would have held off on buying e-readers, thinking that the newest versions would be launched closer to Christmas.

    I suspect, based on a handful of anecdotal evidence (basically, people looking at average rankings compared with # of sales) that Q4 ebook numbers will show an increase of at least 10-30% over the summer.

  3. Nadia Lee
    December 23, 2011 @ 11:42 am

    @Courtney Milan: I agree 100%. I waited until Amazon revealed its latest Kindle lineup before I ordered one for myself and another (later) for Hero Material.

  4. Courtney Milan
    December 23, 2011 @ 1:51 pm

    By the way, Jane, I think this sentence isn’t saying what you mean:

    You must have “standing” and Google is arguing that everyone but the individual authors and artists have standing, not groups such as the Authors Guild.

    I think you mean “only the individual authors and artists” not “everyone but.”

  5. erinf1
    December 23, 2011 @ 1:54 pm

    Thank you so much for posting all of the e-book sales. I really appreciate all the work you and everyone at DA do to put these posts together. I have spent quite a bit of money this last week and all of it has been directly off these lists.

    Happy Holidays!!!

  6. Anthea Lawson
    December 23, 2011 @ 9:04 pm

    The e-book sales figures are for the publishing industry — they don’t take into account self-published authors. Since nearly 1/3 of the top 100 Kindle genre lists at Amazon are self-published, indie, or non-publisher-released backlist titles (more than 1/3 some cases, like romance) — well, I’d just keep that in mind when looking at ‘official’ sales figures for e-books.

  7. Evangeline Holland
    December 23, 2011 @ 10:22 pm

    I recommend Blue Angel by Logan Belle! F/F and M/F, with a burlesque twist!

  8. Jane
    December 24, 2011 @ 10:28 am

    @Courtney Milan I had to read it a couple of times to figure out how to rewrite it.

  9. hapalochlaena
    December 24, 2011 @ 4:35 pm

    Team Ilona Andrews has a present for Kate Daniels fans over on their web site: _Magic Gifts_, a novella.

    The link will be valid for two weeks from Christmas Day.

    As it’s already Christmas here on the south-eastern coast of Oz, I’m off to upload the prezzie onto my Sony. Woohoo!

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