
Head on over to THE CULBIN TRAIL for the most exciting news since Wyatt Earp showed Doc his pistol.
THE ARCHIVE SAYS: WHOOOOPIEEE!
Barnes & Noble has been nearly overwhelmed by pre-orders for its upcoming Nook e-book
The Nook went on sale last month through B&N's website, and the company had planned to bring it to stores on Nov. 30. However, the company revealed today that this won't happen for another week. And there will only be a few units available in each store.
B&N is going to put most of its efforts into being sure that those who have already pre-ordered this electronic book reader get it in time for the holidays. At this point, shipments are expected to start arriving on Dec. 11.
No Nook for You!
Demand for the Nook has been so strong that Barnes & Noble has had to announce that only products ordered before Nov. 20 will arrive this year.
The Nook webpage has a note warning customers that items ordered now won't ship until early January.
Those who really want to get an e-book reader for someone on their gift list should note that there is no shortage of the Nook's rival, the Amazon.com Kindle 2.
An Overview of the Barnes & Noble Nook
B&N's e-book reader will have much in common with Amazon's offering. It will differentiate itself by allowing users to lend books and connect to Wi-Fi networks.
This device will have 6-inch, grayscale E-Ink screen for displaying the contents of books, newspapers, and magazines, and below that will be a smaller color touchscreen that will be used as a keyboard and to perform other actions.
Users will be able to purchase and download e-books directly on the Nook, either over a Wi-Fi connection or over AT&T's 3G network. Those who want to access hotspots in B&N stores will be able to do so for free.
E-books will be in eReader, the open ePub standard, or Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, and users will be able to move files onto this reader -- they don't have to come from B&N.
This device will have 2 GB of internal storage -- that's room for about 1,500 books -- plus it will have a microSD card slot for additional capacity.
The most unusual feature of the Nook will be the ability to "lend" books; users will be able to loan a text to one of their friends for up to 14 days for no charge. The receiver must have either a Nook or a compatible device -- iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, PC, etc. -- with the free B&N eReader software installed.
Physically, the Nook is going to be 7.7 inches by 4.9 inches by 0.5 inches (196 mm by 126 mm by 13 mm). It will weigh 11.2 ounces (317 g).
Mon | Tues | Wed | Thur | Fri | Sat | Sun | Total | Avg | |
Pageloads | 286 | 329 | 223 | 222 | 196 | 190 | 216 | 1,662 | 237 |
Unique Visitors | 191 | 196 | 164 | 146 | 150 | 152 | 143 | 1,142 | 163 |
First Time Visitors | 159 | 160 | 142 | 124 | 127 | 125 | 116 | 953 | 136 |
Returning Visitors | 32 | 36 | 22 | 22 | 23 | 27 | 27 | 189 | 27 |
This Christmas, see Sherlock Holmes as you’ve never seen him before! In a dynamic new portrayal of
Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous characters, “Sherlock Holmes” sends Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his stalwart partner Watson (Jude Law) on their latest challenge.
Revealing fighting skills as lethal as his legendary intellect, Holmes will battle as never before to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy the country. Once you’ve seen the movie, why not explore Sherlock’s Britain for yourself?
VisitBritain has created a new website that gives loads of great itinerary ideas for the independent traveller and super Sherlock fan. The movie also stars Canadian talent, Rachel McAdams.
The firm said that existing customer orders are also being delayed but will be fulfilled.
The Borders Entertainment part of the site - which sells DVDs, CDs and electrical items - continues to operate as normal.
Some publishers are also reported to have severed links with the retailer.
When customers try to order a book on the website they receive a message saying: "Sorry, title cannot be purchased."
Potential buyers
Reports have suggested that Borders, which has 45 stores in the UK, does not have enough cash to last until Christmas. It is thought it could go into administration if no buyer is found.
Talks with WH Smith reportedly collapsed last week. There is also speculation that HMV, the owner of Waterstones, is in talks to buy some of the stores. HMV refused to comment.
Borders, which also owns Books Etc, has suffered from increased competition from online retailers, such as Amazon, as well as supermarkets.
The Borders chain was originally owned by the US book giant of the same name but was sold in June 2007 to Risk Capital Partners.
Risk Capital then sold it on to the private equity firm Valco earlier this year.
THE ARCHIVE SAYS: Although it is a harsh market place with times being hard, particularly for the book trade which is in a period of change, some blame must be with Borders themselves - the stores here in the UK just don't feel like bookshops and from personal experience the majority of staff don't know much about books at all. The service has been shoddy for a long time now. Still I do hope a miracle happens and that Borders survive - only a few years ago they were my favourite shop in the entire world.And I hate to break it to you but the, greyscale, single-screen eBook reader you’ve been eyeing up in your local department store isn’t going to be any different. FULL STORY
Mon | Tues | Wed | Thur | Fri | Sat | Sun | Total | Avg | |
Pageloads | 275 | 316 | 314 | 268 | 299 | 261 | 280 | 2,013 | 288 |
Unique Visitors | 188 | 216 | 206 | 195 | 192 | 166 | 190 | 1,353 | 193 |
First Time Visitors | 149 | 176 | 170 | 163 | 160 | 138 | 157 | 1,113 | 159 |
Returning Visitors | 39 | 40 | 36 | 32 | 32 | 28 | 33 | 240 | 34 |
FROM THE TIMES ONLINE:
One in five new apps in the Apple app store last month was an electronic book. There are now 10,000 ebooks for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, most of them free and many available for download as entire libraries.
For example, Classics (£1.79) is a collection of 23 — you guessed it — classics, including Dracula and Pride and Prejudice. Browse a book from the shelf and the beautifully animated page-turns and crinkly paper sound effects are enough to win over even a diehard dead-tree bibliophile. Even so, as all its titles are out of copyright and therefore, in effect, free, it’s a bit of a cheek to charge so much.
With the Great Books Mega Collection (£1.19) you get 200 for your money, with the option of setting it to roll an entire chapter past your eyes — good autocue practice for newsreaders. Free Books (an oxymoronic £1.19) includes those same 200 books plus a further 23,269. The volumes are not actually included in the app; instead it’s a searchable index on which you tap to download. This means you’ll need to be in a wi-fi zone or have a 3G signal to install a book.
Why pay a thing? With the free Shakespeare app you get the Bard’s 37 plays, 154 sonnets and five poems along with a search function capable of picking out a phrase in seconds. Wattpad is another free app for Apple and Nokia devices, but classics are hard to find among thousands of self-published works — mostly misspelt and attempting to titillate. Less like browsing in a library; more like marking year 10’s English homework.
To get hold of any new bestseller, you’ll need to shell out real cash. Most usable of the bookstore apps is the B&N eReader (free for Apples and BlackBerrys). You’ll need to open an online account (in US dollars) with the Barnes & Noble chain (prices are a little lower than in UK bookshops); the app then saves each download on the smartphone and puts a copy on your computer.
After which, all that remains is to stoke the fire and throw on another hardback.
A U.S. District Judge, in a ruling filed yesterday in New York, granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement and scheduled a hearing for final approval on Feb. 18. The authors and publishers revised an earlier settlement to limit the Internet company to books published in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Canada. Several nations including France and Germany objected to the reach of the earlier deal, which would have covered millions of out-of-print books published around the world.
Under the $125 million agreement, Google will set up a Book Rights Registry with publishers and authors to compensate copyright holders whose works are scanned. It also would seek to identify and compensate the rights holders of so-called orphan works whose owners aren’t currently known.
"Turmoil over the book price war took a new turn today when the Justice Department was asked to investigate what a booksellers group called “illegal predatory pricing.”
The American Booksellers Association sent a letter dated Oct. 22 in which it says, “We believe that Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, and Target are using these predatory pricing practices to attempt to win control of the market for hardcover bestsellers.”Barnes & Noble embraces social digital rights management (DRM) and snubs Amazons proprietary AZW format.
In the latest s
alvo in the escalating eBook wars, Barnes & Noble recently announced it was standardizing on the open ePub and PDF formats, embedded with “social” digital rights management (DRM) content protection.
With this move, B&N is embracing the cross-platform Adobe solution accepted by nearly 100 providers, including Sony (announced in August it plans to convert its eBooks to the ePub format by the end of 2009).
However, that group does not include market-leader Amazon, which debuted its popular Kindle 2 in early 2009. Kindle 2 eBooks are available in Amazon’s proprietary AZW format, as well as support for PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.
This running battle between Amazon and everyone else is driving down prices, fueling better retail distribution and drawing massive media attention-all factors cited when Forrester Research revised its 2009 sales projections last month on eReaders by a stunning 50 percent.
Forrester now expects that three million eReaders will be sold in 2009 (the previous projection was two million), with 30 percent alone bouncing off the shelves during the holiday season. What’s more, for 2010, Forrester projects even more dramatic growth of eReader sales, of up to 10 million units.
The ePub move makes sense for B&N to grab market share from powerhouse Amazon. Producing books under one standard already adopted by other eReader device manufacturers is attractive to consumers. For one, consumers can transfer eBook collections across various devices, important for preserving their purchases should their manufacturer discontinue support. And, by adding password-based content protection for ePub, Adobe addresses piracy concerns, but delivers a less onerous DRM option.
How does it feel to be joining the Black Horse range?
It’s great! I’m definitely the new kid on the range but I’ve found everyone involved with Black Horse Westerns to be very supportive and encouraging. I’m amazed at their level of enthusiasm for the genre and have found that everyone wants others to succeed. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that.
What does the Western mean to you?
As a kid, I remember curling up on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon watching old black and white cowboy movies with my grandfather so I guess I’ve always had a soft spot for them.
From a historical point of view, the more I read, the more I am amazed at the sheer bravery and determination of the men and women who pioneered the West, settled it and finally tamed it.
I admire the breadth, quality and sheer creativeness of western writers and get annoyed when people get a little ‘snooty’ about the genre.
Where do you see the western's future?
I think it’s healthy and as long the genre adapts to other means of distribution like Kindle, E-Books, POD etc I don’t see any reason why the stories will not continue to sell. When I speak to people about western books, they tell me you can’t get your hands on second hand books because they sell so well and people collect them. In libraries, borrowing frequency is still high (check out how many times the books are borrowed) so there is still a very healthy interest in them and I don’t see that going away.
It is frustrating though, to go into large bookshops like Borders and Waterstones and not see a dedicated Western section!
What should readers expect from your books?
Hopefully, characters they can believe in and a good action-packed yarn. Gun Law was my first book and although I’m proud of it, already I can see ways I could have improved on it. I hope in subsequent books to keep growing and improving as a writer.
Future projects?
I’ve got a few things in the pipeline.
Gun Law comes out at the end of December so I’ll be busy working on the publicity for that.
I was delighted to have a short story called Dead Man Walking accepted for the second anthology of short stories from Express Westerns – A Fistful of Legends – and I have been working on a couple of short stories (The Angels and Demons, The Kid) for future anthologies
I recently sent John Hale the first three chapters and synopsis of Gold Fever, my second BHW and he responded favorably and has asked me to send him the completed manuscript, so I’m busy putting the finishing touches to that.
I signed up for this years National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which started on 1st November and I’m busy blitzing through a 50,000 word first draft of a novel with the working title, ‘The Man Who Wouldn’t Die’, which if I finish, will hopefully become my 3rd BHW.
I reckon those projects will keep me busy until the end of the year!
I’m already setting New Year goals for 2010 and have got outlines for another four books – nothing like setting your sights high, I say!
Writers that influence you?
Believe it or not, I’ve just discovered Louis L’Amour! (I told you I was new to westerns.) Thoroughly enjoying getting through his books and I’m a big fan of Matt Braun and Annie Proulx – and of course I try to get through as many BHW’s too!
Your writing practices?
I do try and write every day but don’t always achieve it. (I own a property business, have a full time job, a six year old and a large Airedale Terrier that needs long walks everyday!)
I like to come up with a title first and then I write out the plot using index cards breaking the story down into separate scenes the way a scriptwriter might. Once I’m happy with the arc of the story, I can then start to develop the characters and do any research I need. Of course, these parts all work together, so sometimes the character changes the plot, or another idea comes out of the research that changes the direction but I try to have it all worked out before I knuckle down to the writing.
Advice for aspiring writers?
Never give up. Enjoy the journey. Don’t do it for the money. Seeing your name on a book makes it all worth it!
Desert Island Western - both book and movie
I would take the complete collection of Time Life Western books which I am working my way through at the moment. Great photographs, very informative and great research for BHW’s – although they are so enjoyable to read, it doesn’t feel like work.
A movie? I’d take Dances With Wolves.
For fun - Eastwood V Wayne. Who wins?
Has to be Eastwood but a big Wayne fan too.
Write drunk, edit sober - Hemingway said or didn't really but the much repeated quote has long been attributed to the writer and it'...