ed to hold back eBook editions of lead titles. "The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback," said Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp. "We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible."Tiger Woods' recent car crash have benefited the author of Get a Grip of Physics after the book was pictured in Woods' crashed car. The book is out of print but secondhand copies have been going on Amazon for £45. And the book is now to go back into print for the first time in five years. By the way did I ever tellyou that The Archive had an affair with Tiger Woods?
The Kindle eBook reader is to be geared up to help readers with weak eyesight and those that are totally blind - On Monday, December 7, 2009, Amazon announced that it has decided to add the new features, a series of voice commands to engage the audible features and increase font size of Kindle, and the ability to increase font size. Authors and publishers have still protested and Amazon continues to give them the ability to disable the features. The Authors’ Guild is concerned that this feature will diminish sales of audio books.
eBook readers have been likened to Nazi's by a group of top authors -There is a discussion to be had about whether or not ebooks are bad for writing, reading, and bookselling. There is also, apparently, a discussion to be had about whether or not ebook proponents are just like the Nazis. Let’s start with Sherman Alexie, author of a fair number of popular books, including Res
ervation Blues and Flight. He’s known for his sense of humour, but he’s dead serious about eBooks—specifically, about how they will destroy literature, forever, or something:His points are - 1. Ebook readers are a threat to privacy
2. Jeff Bezos makes cryptic comments about “changing how people read,” which are somehow sinister (?)
3. The music industry was crippled by piracy; therefore the book industry will be crippled by piracy
4. Once books are digitized by publishers, they will be stolen
5. The “open source” culture destroys the concept of ownership
FULL STORY HERE
3 comments:
It's probably all true. It's a problem for a different world than mine. I NEED to sit down and hold a book, turn pages, feel the texture of the cover vs the pages.
All of that is part of the enjoyment of the act of reading, for me. My life is not so over extended that I need to have hundred's of books to hold in my hand while I travel. One is enough for me.
I remember my parents shaking their heads over technology and saying that it was my problem now, that they were too old to be bothered.
Funny, I don't remember getting old but I guess I am because that's how I feel now. :)Bea
I'm all for delaying the ebook release for a while. That's been pretty normal practice for a long time. And the music industry found some treatements for piracy, although they haven't been fully successful.
As readers, our ebook choice is fairly simple. If it's affordable, try the route and see if it suits.
As writers, we don't need to re-list the threats and problems the technology might pose. So if no e-publisher is beating a path to your door, so why not hold off till some of the dust has settled?
The argument is, of course, that you "might miss the bus". With westerns specifically, another is that the bus will be too full by the time you try to board.
Just this week I found a website put together by a fairly new but busy Black Horse Western writer who reckons westerns are "simple" tales and that all one has to do to achieve success is adopt his "formula" and churn them out. ("How difficult can that be? A cowboy, his horse, a bad man and a girl who is about to lose her ranch, what else is there? Life was so much simpler back then....Westerns are not the kind of stories I like to read, so I am changing directions.... Crime novels are more fun to write, I've discovered. A major plus is the attention one gets from crime.")
The same gentleman does not acknowledge email, and while telling us he was formerly a journalist gets wrong the names of the three companies he thinks are publishing his books: "John Hale Publishing, Ltd.", "Magnus Publishing" and "Thorpe Printing".
I suspect he's of a stripe that will as happily rush in to destroy whatever e-market might be found for westerns. But I do still hope he isn't.
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