Wednesday News: Retailer who terrorized customers for giving bad reviews sentenced to 4 years; New Kobo reading devices; Jane Austen measured by MRIs
Publishing NewsKobo / Multifunction-Device / paid reviews / tablet9 Comments
Kobo has released a new suite of reading devices although none of them are getting major play. These devices are all noted as “coming soon”, but the Kobo Arc is targeted for a mid November release. This has a nice comparison between the Fire and the Arc.
Kobo Mini ($79)
- 5″ E Ink touchscreen; Vizplex V110 display; 16-level grey scale
- 2 GB internal storage
- Files types: EPUB, PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RFT, CBZ, CBR.
Kobo Glo $129.99
- 6″ E Ink XGA Pearl screen; 1024×768 resolution; 16-level grey scale
- 2 GB internal storage / external storage micro SD
- 55 hours of continuous use with the light on.
- Built-in ComfortLight technology with micro-thin hard coating for durability and even light distribution
Kobo Arc ($199)
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Micro USB
- Built-in dual front-facing speakers and universal 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack with SRS TruMedia™ sound
- 7” IPS display; 1280 x 800 HD resolution; 215 ppi;
- 720p HD front-facing camera (1.3 MP)
- 1.5 GHz dual-core processor; 1 GB RAM
- Open access to Android™ 4.0
- 8 GB or 16 GB models
- 10 hours of reading
This is your brain on Jane Austen, and researchers at Stanford are taking notes – Researchers are studying cognitive brain function by taking MRIs while humans read Jane Austen. The idea is to study blood flow, in terms of quantity and location, and how it increases or decreases according to the text perused. “The experiment focuses on literary attention, or more specifically, the cognitive dynamics of the different kinds of focus we bring to reading. This experiment grew out of Phillips’ ongoing research about Enlightenment writers who were concerned about issues of attention span, or what they called “wandering attention.”” Stanford
The Oatmeal v. Funnyjunk, Part XI: What Remains – Charles Carreon, the humiliated California lawyer who tried and failed to sue The Oatmeal for satirizing the Funnyjunk, is now going after the lawyers and bloggers who supported The Oatmeal by reporting them to their states’ ethics boards and sending letters to their lawyers. It’s the kind of thuggish action we’ve seen threatened over at STGRB site. Shameful but maybe effective. Ken from Popehat is taking a small hiatus. Bloggers are dropping every day. Popehat
USDOJ: US Attorney’s Office – Southern District of New York – Remember the eyeglass seller who reveled in his negative reviews, claiming that those reviews were propelling his business forward? He engaged in terrorization of his customers with threats, intimidation and harassment to get them to shut up. He was prosecuted and sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding his customers and for sending them threatening communications.USDOJ
On repeated occasions, BORKER also threatened to, and did, send false and obscene e-mails to customers’ professional associates or colleagues. For example, BORKER sent e-mails to colleagues of a disgruntled customer and falsely claimed that he had an affair with the customer, and that the customer had engaged in professional misconduct. He wrote emails about the sexual preferences of other customers, and made claims that some of them were involved in drug dealing. These emails were also sent to his victims’ professional associates and colleagues. … In sentencing Borker, Judge Sullivan said: “These were vile threats, and you were terrorizing these people.”
Just How Much Dishonesty Is OK With Konrath? – Some of the leading lights of self publishing continues his march toward the margins (I hope) with his latest blog post wherein he declared that “Buying reviews isn’t wrong. Using sock puppets isn’t wrong. Leaving fake one star reviews isn’t wrong.” Konrath was called out for this and midday deleted his assertions and replaced it with “Amazon allows one star reviews.” Of course, should this surprise us when Konrath and his co author, Barry Eisler, uses rape terminology in their book on marketing books? https://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/thursday-midday-links-stanza-not-dead-reviewer-sued-for-defamation-amazon-acquires-tts-firm/ Mike Cane
Makes you wonder how many successful self-pubbed authors have used sock puppets or fake reviews to climb out of the slush pile, doesn’t it?
Konrath, I just don’t know what to say about him but the optometrist? That is some weirdness right there. If you give him a bad review he’d send letters to your co-workers about your love life? How many bad reviews does an OD get in a year that he’s going that far?
On Konrath: I’ve never been a fan of him, not even when he was publishing books on a semi-major press. Still, I’m always curious to hear what he says on self-pubbing. The quote you posted is a huge turn-off from reading any future things he has to say. There’s nothing wrong with leaving an honest one star review, particularly when the reviewer can back it up. but leaving fake reviews of any star rating is disgusting. Sock puppet accounts and buying reviews are flat-out wrong. How can the potential reader know that it’s really a good product if the reviews are only written for money? It doesn’t help his case that he later deleted the post. At least he could’ve stood by what he said.
I do need to ask, however, how does the line about how he and a writing partner using rape terminology in one of their books relate to this particular discussion? It’s generally relevent in knowing what kind of language this writer uses and a little of his personal beliefs, but I’m not seeing a clear connection between today’s topic and that controversy. Could someone clear that up for me, please?
On the new Kobos: Hmmmmm, they’ve modernized the devices and they still look…clunky. I would be interested in knowing if they do well (regardless of how I feel about them).
Konrath and his co-author Blake Crouch have an Amazon review of the latest Eisler book in the “Editorial Reviews” section of the page. Aside from the fact that I didn’t see any disclaimers about their personal or professional relationships in the “review,” it’s clear that the section itself is pretty motley. A promo piece (for all three of them) that is labeled as a review, a blurb, a genuine review from PW, and an in-character column.
Ken’s back at Popehat since the Sept 6. Matt Inman raised over a million dollars for Tesla’s museum. Charles Carreon is continuing to make a fool of himself.
@Patricia Eimer: I don’t think he was really an OD – you went to an OD, got a prescription and sent it to his site, which ostensibly sold designer frames at a discount. His egregarious conduct w/r/t customers came to the attention of the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pagewanted=all) and then to Google (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DecorMyEyes) which ultimately wrote a special algorithm to exclude his shop from the top of their search rankings. Additionally, he appears to have gotten busted for child porn this past June. All in all, not a sensible guy.
I don’t always agree with you, but I’m with you on the Konrath thing. That man will do anything for a buck and a little attention.
I feel as disgusted at Konrath and Barry Eisler being seen as the ‘gurus’ of self-publishers as I do at Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins being held as the ‘high priests’ of atheism.
Konrath does not speak for me, nor for most authors, and anyone who follows his advice is asking for disappointment. Contrary to what he and the idiots on a certain site like to claim, there is a bright line between ethical behaviour and unethical behaviour, and contrary to their examples, it’s actually pretty damn easy not to be a fraud and a fake. The idea that it’s almost mandatory for SP authors to cheat customers is so toxic and delusional, it’s rage-making.
I was shocked to see Popehat Ken being intimidated by online trolls. I thought if anyone would be impervious, it would be someone like him. Another reason to push back against the idea that being on the internet means we have to accept crappy behaviour and harrassment.
Ken’s hiatus didn’t last very long, actually–which makes many of us quite happy.