Wednesday News: Apple’s patents rejected; Rubber duck floats down the Thames; Rise of the author brand
Publishing Newscollaborations / Intellectual Property Issues8 Comments
Tower Bridge forced to open for 50 foot rubber duck | London – ITV News – Jackpotjoy.com was responsible for sending a giant rubber duck down the Thames, forcing the Tower Bridge to open in order to allow the duck to pass. Jackpotjoy is a gambling site and its “Facebook Fundation” is “a bursary granting funds and rewards for daft ideas to encourage Brits to have more fun.” ITV
Why are novelists turning to co-authors? – British author Wilbur Smith appears to be shocking the establishment by revealing that his six book deal with HarperColins worth around £15m will be co written by other authors ala James Patterson. Smith will come up with the ideas and the co authors will execute them (write the books). Smith says he is doing this in order to satisfy fan appetite for more books. However utilising co-authors is not a new concept. “The notion of having others to produce books has been going on for centuries,” says Anna Davis, a literary agent with Curtis Brown. “The Three Musketeers author Alexander Dumas did it – he had a whole team of authors writing for him all the time. He’d plot things out and have other people do the donkey work.” BBC News
FOSS Patents: U.S. patent office declares ‘the Steve Jobs patent’ entirely invalid on non-final basis – Apple’s multi-touch patent has been ruled invalid. From the Patent Application, Apple describes this patent as
A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.
This and others are the basis for Apple’s suit against Samsung, a suit it won at the trial court. Experts say that the patents deemed invalid at this point can go on to win approval but even the USPTO making this step is important. Foss Patents
The 5 Most Persuasive Words in the English Language – Gregory Ciotti at Copyblogger argues that the five most persuasive words are You, Free, Because, instantly, and New. Therefore you should visit the free site called Dear Author because you will instantly gain new information that will enable you to function better each day. Convinced? Copyblogger
Novelists use co-authors because the author is the brand the readers trust. The brand can sell more if the brand manager (author) farms out the writing. If it works. I read an Evanovich and someone else. It had a lot of Evanovich zany details and decent plot and characters, but it was like flat champagne, the fizz was missing.
Now that you no longer need a printing press and economies of scale to publish, I’ve thought that other entities, like agents, editors, or even bloggers could create brands. I’d expect to see more experiments in branding as time goes on. I’d certainly pay more to avoid the slush pile. That includes the slush pile of forgettable, published novels.
If well-known authors could do it too, maybe someone like Loretta Chase would be able to write only the books she’s inspired to write and not the pot boilers in between. I was reading Lord Perfect, which has the ingredients of a great Chase book, but somehow it’s not working for me. I put it down and forgot to go back to it.
Lord Perfect is my most favorite historical romance in recent years. I’m glad Loretta Chase took the time to write it and gave me so many happy hours of rereading it.
As for the Apple patents, it has always puzzled me how one patents the requisite act of the customer touching one’s product in a certain way to get it to work. At least, that’s how I understand it. For example, if the original joystick maker patented the the grip and back-and-forth motion of their device, what would happen to all the sex toys in the market? :)
Okay. Need coffee now, obviously….
Ellery Queen (Daniel Nathan and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky ) went from writing their own novels to having others write them from detailed outlines to simply publishing PBOs written by other writers (including Jack Vance) under the Ellery Queen name. I don’t know if it was a financial success, but I only ever read the earlier ones published during the 30’s. The later ones weren’t to my taste..
Nowadays when someone says, “I have a great idea for a book, but I’ll never write it,” you don’t know if they’re an old-fashioned daydreamer or a bestselling author.
But it warms my cockles to know a literary agent thinks writing (AKA that long, arduous part between “idea” and “book” necessary to transform the former into the latter) is “donkey work.”
O.o
Plotting is the donkey work to me. The writing (the words, the rhythm, the turn of phrase, the VOICE) is the entire point. You could give the same plot outline to a dozen authors, and the resulting books wouldn’t be interchangeable (and they certainly wouldn’t be “co-authored” by the plotter).
@Gennita
I thought Lord Perfect had a bunch of good ingredients, but felt like Chase was telling, rather than showing me his and Bathsheba’s attraction. I thought a little more time and a stricter editor might have turned it into a really great book.
Didn’t James Frey try the writing stable idea, too? Except that he didn’t want to give his co-writers credit.
And then there was the (in)famous and highly successful Edward Stratemyer syndicate, owner of “Carolyn Keene” and “Laura Lee Hope” and “Victor Appleton” and “Franklin W. Dixon” pseudonyms, among many others.
Now I really want to know who will own the copyright to these “Smith” books.
Ack, Jane Litte is using mind control to compel me to visit DA. (Of course, I was already coming here daily anyway.)