JanePublishing NewsAmazon / Hacking / privacy / science19 Comments

I feel for you Hitler, I really do. That said, my little index finger will be hovering over the buy button on the 12th.

Ebooks: is it a genre thing? Definitely… – “But I do suspect that ebooks and the nature of ereading are changing the nature of popular narrative. Anything complex and lengthy – even Stephen King – feels odd on the ereader page. These are works made for paper, not pixels. The ones that ereaders – the people, not the device – favour are less adventurous, more predictable, and inevitably sit in the middle of popular genres.

In short… if you’re looking to the ereading revolution to save interesting, innovative and revolutionary writing then Ewan Morrison’s bang on: you’re looking in the wrong place. The challenge for those of us who care about quality is going to be to find the texture, resonance and depth of ‘literature’ — whatever that is — within the tight strictures of an undeviating narrative shorn of anything the average reader might regard as ‘art’.” David Hewson

A long time ago, I wrote an article about how literary fiction writers should embrace digital publishing. This author, a literary fiction writer, claims that digital books (which he seems to equate with self published ones) do not do well in digital because digital readers are genre readers; not literary fiction readers. He has some interesting things to say. I don’t think I really agree with him wholeheartedly in part because literary fiction people have been some of the strongest advocates of the print form, eschewing digital. It may be that the primary audience of Hewson’s books simply prefer reading print and therefore self publishing digitally is missing the main audience.

Order re Disclosure of Financial Relationships with Commentators on Issues in the Case – “The Court is concerned that the parties and/or counsel herein may have retained or paid print or internet authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have and/or may publish comments on the issues in this case. Although proceedings in this matter are almost over, they are not fully over yet and, in any event, the disclosure required by this order would be of use on appeal or on any remand to make clear whether any treatise, article, commentary or analysis on the issues posed by this case are possibly influenced by financial relationships to the parties or counsel. Therefore, each side and its counsel shall file a statement herein clear identifying all authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have reported or commented on any issues in this case and who have received money (other than normal subscription fees) from the party or its counsel during the pendency of this action.”  Digital Commons Law

This is the text of an order in the Oracle v. Google intellectual property case. I think the list of paid journalists and bloggers could be really interesting and potentially damaging if these writers haven’t previously disclosed.

Why Do the Mars Rover’s Images Look So Bad? – “A lot of people are wondering why the first color image from the Mars Curiosity Rover looks so murky. Or why the black and white pictures look so low-resolution and out of focus in some areas. Calm yourselves. They will look absolutely amazing soon, perfect and in high-def….two words. Dust caps.” Gizmodo

I was wondering why the photos from Curiosity were so poor I needed everything labeled (and possibly even when they are in high res, I will need labels) but the good news is that better, amazing photos are yet to come.  And just as I was getting this article ready to go, this panoramic image of Mars was posted.

Apple Really Doesn’t Know How to Fix Its Massive Security Exploit – When Gizmodo alumnus and wonderful human Mat Honan got hacked, the point of entry for the hackers was through Amazon and Apple’s lax security policies. Amazon immediately admitted its fault in the situation and updated its security policy accordingly. Apple? Well, Apple still doesn’t know what do yet. Gizmodo

Worst-ever game sales spook studios toward digital migration – “UK video games retailers made just £8.4 million ($13 million) from software sales last week – the lowest since records began, according to UKIE-GfK Chart-Track (via MCV).  Industry umbrella group TIGA is now warning its membership of games developers to be more proactive about digital distribution, seemingly in readiness for a total collapse in bricks-and-mortar sales of plastic discs.”  paidContent

Why wait until there is a crisis to make a change?

News Corp writes $2.8 billion off its publishing activities — paidContent – “Revenue in the group’s existing “publishing” division – comprising Dow Jones, WSJ, The Daily, New York Post, UK and Australian newspapers and HarperCollins – has halved in the last year, according to the group’s Wednesday disclosure of earnings for the fourth quarter ending June 30. News Corp blames worsening advertising at overseas newspapers, the absence of income from the shuttered News Of The World and the unquantified cost of April’s e-book price-fixing settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.” paidContent

You can’t help but wonder if HarperCollins wishes the ABA, BN, and Authors Guild etc would stop protesting the settlement of a very expensive lawsuit for HC.

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

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JanePublishing NewsAmazon / censorship / Paypal17 Comments

News

RT is offering a chance for one reader to have her (or his) name in Kristen Callihans’ next book.

And now, Kristen Callihan is offering readers a way to become part of her new series. One lucky reader’s name will be used for a character in the upcoming series second, Moonglow.

More on the Paypal thing. Roslyn Holcomb had commented early on that Paypal issue may be related to chargebacks and I received another private email that suggested the same thing. Visa/Mastercard apparently charge “high risk” accounts a higher fee and Paypal isn’t set up that way and thus the chargebacks are becoming a problem and charge backs are frequent within the adult industry. One adult vendor shared a list of keywords that Paypal indicated cannot appear in book titles. AKA no “Daddy’s Best Friend”.

Jennifer Rhinehart wrote a two star review of The Firelord’s Lover by Kathryne Kennedy. A reader by the name of “Dark Hero: creates a profile and gives a one star review of Rhinehart’s book and starts hassling Rhinehart in the comments of her review. Unfortunately, CT Kennedy logs in and gives a positive review of another book and when you clicked on the CT Kennedy name, it led directly to Dark Hero profile. When this was outed, CT Kennedy changed the name to Angel Eyes and separated the identity from Dark Hero. Dark Hero also proceeds to delete a few comments on the thread under Rhinehart’s review.

Dark Hero continues to post using poor grammar and lower case letters. I guess to better disguise the identity?

I emailed Kathryne Kennedy and asked her for a comment and her reply was that it was her husband and not her. Shared with permission:

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. CT Kennedy is my husband and I confronted him about your email. He recently received a Kindle, and apparently in a misguided attempt to defend me, he responded to a negative review on Amazon. I asked him to stop it and delete anything he might have written! I have never responded to any negative reviews or comments in any way over the many years I have been writing, and I apologize if this has created any problems.

Again, thank you for letting me know.

Kathryne

Amazon is trying to flex its muscle in order to improve its margin. When Independent Publishers Group’s contract with Amazon came up, Amazon wanted better terms on the ebooks. IPG didn’t agree and in response, Amazon pulled the buy buttons for all the ebooks. This constitutes about 5,000 books. Amazon still sells the print versions. IPG sent out a press release/email to all of its client publishers telling them to stay strong and send all the traffic they could to other retailers.

Deals

Bundles.  I think the great prices might only be at Amazon.

• One-Click Buy: December 2009 Harlequin Blaze by Vicki Lewis Thompson * $3.70 * A | BN | K | S
• One-Click Buy: December Harlequin Blaze by Jill Shalvis * $3.70 * A | BN | K | S
• One-Click Buy: December Silhouette Desire by Kasey Michaels * $3.91 * A | BN | K | S
• One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents by Kate Walker  * $4.10 * A | BN | K | S
• Mackenzies Bundle: Mackenzie’s Mountain / Mackenzie’s Mission / Mackenzie’s Pleasure / A Game of Chance $5.92

Macmillan books for $2.99

• Evermore by Alyson Noel * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Dead Simple by Peter James * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Marked by PC Cast * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Still Life by Louise Penny * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Mixed Blood by Roger Smith * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Gettysburg by Newt Gringrich * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Pearl Harbor by Newt Gringrich * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• To Try Men’s Souls by Newt Gringrich * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Ice Station by Matt Reilly * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Tides of War   by Tillyard, Stella * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Boca Knights by Steven Forman * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• From Two Rivers: Part 1 of Eye of the World by Jordan, Robert * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Hot Girl by Dream Jordan * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Me, Myself, and Why by MaryJanice Davidson * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Midnight Sins by Lora Leigh * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Cheri On Top by Susan Donovan * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Death, Taxes and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Secrets to Seducing a Scot by Michelle Marcos * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Autumn by David Moody * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Kill Zone by Jack Coughlin * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• One Good Dog by Susan Wilson * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Typhoon by Charles Cumming * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Wanna Get Lucky by Deb Coonts * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Blood Song by Cat Adams * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Siren Song by Cat Adams * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Demon Song by Cat Adams * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Shadow Prowler by Alexy Pehov * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Into the Night by Janelle Denison * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Down River by John Hart * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Emma’s Secret by Barbara Taylor Bradford * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S

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

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