Monday News: Tap dancing cover; Ill strikes down internet tax; tablet and ereader ownership on the rise
Publishing NewsAmazon / ereader device / Multifunction-Device / sales tax8 Comments
SpecFic 2013 – Thea and Ana are the editors of the 2013 edition of the Speculative Fiction: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary. This will collect the best reviews, essays and commentaries on speculative fiction and all profits go to Room to Read.
our goals are as follows: We will strive to strike a balance between essential cyclical conversations (e.g those about diversity and representation and critical writing in SFF) and the New and Shiny catchprases or topics (e.g. Grimdark) that steal the stage in 2013. We will do our best to capture a broad swath of the many fandoms and subcategories that fall under the SFF umbrella, including (but not limited to) reviews of novels/novellas/short stories, television shows, gaming, art (professional and fan), movie talk, as well as essays about the different aspects of SFF overall. We will acknowledge the fact that SFF conversations are also happening in forums that are not SFF-exclusive (e.g. at locations very much like our own blog). We will maintain the gender balance of contributors. More importantly, we will attempt to maintain the gender balance of the content itself. We will solicit voices that cover different age ranges of SFF fiction – because the Young Adult and Middle Grade categories are exploding with books and discussions – as well as voices from often dismissed subgenres like Urban Fantasy and Romantic SFF. We’ll also do our very best to include international voices, beyond the United States and United Kingdom.
Head on over to their site for the details on how to submit. The Book Smugglers
Ill. Supreme Court invalidates ‘Amazon tax’ requiring retailers to collect state sales tax – I haven’t paid full attention to the state by state legal challenges to online sales tax but this WashPo articles says that the Illinois Supreme Court was the first to invalidate a tax on digital transactions. The reasoning given was that the law created discriminatory taxes. This is really a federal issue and federal taxes should be imposed for the ease of collection and implementation. It would be more fair to all parties, including small businesses. Opponents argue that it harms the in state businesses. Washington Post
Pew: One in three Americans owns a tablet, one in four owns an e-reader, and 43% have one or the other – According to recent PEW results, tablet ownership is on the rise. Women are slightly more likely to own a tablet and ereader and one in four US citizens age 16 or older owns an e-reader. Combining the tablet and e-reader numbers, nearly 50% of the adult population own either a tablet or an e-reader. Teens are more likely to own a tablet over an e-reader whereas the over 30s are more likely to own an e-reader over a tablet. The Next Web
For romance fans of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth you may or may not want to check out spoilers regarding Allegiant. I’m not going to link to them but you can search #allegiant spoilers on Tumblr and that should pop it up right away.
To make your week start out just a little better, watch this tap dancing cover of Cups by Anna Kendrick
re: Allegiant
It’s not just romance readers, I think, who’d be irritated with the spoiler in question.
I saw the Allegiant spoiler on Friday and immediately canceled my preorder.
Wow ok I have read spoiler right now and going to cancel my preorder in the next few minutes too. I love spoilers , love them seek them out – I demanded my friend to read me a last page of Harry Potter when she was waiting on line ( no she did not agree lol). And boy am I ever so pleased that I read this spoiler. Thanks.
Whatever the spoiler is, I wonder if TPTB will change it in the film version since it seems like the spoiler is unpopular with readers. Assuming Divergent (in production) and Insurgent (script ordered) bring in enough $ to get Allegiant made, I wonder if Veronica Roth will insist that the film remain true to the book.
I haven’t read the spoilers but so many readers adverse reaction to them makes me kinda glad I never got around to finishing Divergent
Oh dear. I’ve had Divergant on my TBR stack for the longest time. Now I that I know there’s a plot development down the road that’ll piss off my romance reading sensibilities, I think I am not even going to bother. I am a little fed up with distpoian fiction anyway and to not even get something of a romance HEA to lighten the gloomines equals epic fail to me. Thanks for the heads up. Wish I could donate my ebook somewhere…
Mari: You could still read Divergent as a standalone. Obviously not all of the questions are answered in the first book, but there is a sort of sense of closure. When the 2nd book came out, I wasn’t just dying to get my hands on it b/c I HAD to see how the story continued. I’m going to pretend that the 2nd book was the end, and be glad I didn’t spend money on the 3rd.
I certainly give her kudos for having guts to write this actually, but my kudos are conditional so to speak – if she starts to come up with explanations and/ or excuses I really won’t care for it. Stand by your artistic vision IMO if she does that, I will definitely check out her next book. But respect or not – I am not reading this one. This is one plot development I won’t read even if the writing is fantastic, no way.