The Reluctant Terrorist is about to go live

Get ready for the end of the month when the Reluctant Terrorist is set free. Chaos will ensue.

Set deep within the picturesque Welsh valleys lies the quiet village of Gilfach. Nothing ever happened in the village until - the peacefulness is shattered by a confusion of killer clowns and a full-scale terrorist hunt.


John Smith is an everyday sort of man with everyday concerns. He spends his time working at the local supermarket, walking his dog and arguing with his domineering wife, Rose. However, John Smith, thanks to a bizarre series of events, most of which were beyond his control, finds himself with the tag of Britain’s most wanted.






John Smith is the reluctant terrorist.

Both in print and eBook.

For Kindle and other electronic reading devices.

Have I got eNews for you

The Guardian Newspaper have introduced a series of eBooks centering on Football Clubs - Using original reports from the Guardian and Observer archives, the  new Football Classics ebooks – part of the Guardian Shorts series – will revisit some of the game's great stories, the top clubs and personalities, and show how football writing has evolved. The series starts with Chelsea: 20 Defining Matches - a story that began in 1905 with the new club's first match away at Stockport. It was a 1-0 defeat, but the Guardian's correspondent that day was still impressed by the big names they assembled for their debut season, including the new goalkeeper, 22-stone crowd-pleaser William "Fatty" Foulke.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote denied a request from Apple and ebook publishers to dismiss a class action lawsuit accusing them of price fixing, and at the same time said that Apple and Steve Jobs were in the middle of the conspiracy.“In short, Apple did not try to earn money off of eBooks by competing with other retailers in an open market,” Judge Cote said in her ruling, according to paidContent. “Rather, Apple accomplished this goal by [helping] the suppliers to collude, rather than to compete independently.” The ruling means a class action lawsuit against Apple and publishers can move forward, but is not a ruling against the defendants.Apple had requested the case be dismissed but the judge was having none of it.

In order to celebrate indie publishing Beginning May 15 and running until the end of the month, acclaimed indie publisher Bancroft Press will host a contest on its Facebook page, giving away four free eBooks. The primary prize will be an advance copy of Elizabeth Leiknes’s praised novel The Understory, coming June 1.

The eNews - all that's happening in the world of books

eBook sales in the UK increased by 366% last year helping to offset a decline in the market for printed books, according to new official figures released by The Publishers Association. The UK eBook industry was worth £92m in 2011, - a massive leap from the previous year. However the strong digital sales have come at the expense of print sales which were down 7% on the previous year.

The first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day - participating comic book shops across the known galaxy and adjacent alternate dimensions give away comics absolutely FREE (hence, the name) to anyone who comes into their stores. It’s meant to drum up interest in comics, promote art and reading, and basically make the world a better place. So don't forget to visit your local specialist comic book shop this Saturday.

50 Shades of Grey - started out as a self published eBook but the erotic saga is now everywhere and it has created a new genre, Mommy Porn. The erotic trilogy has broken download records and climbed to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and Amazon's greatest hits. With themes of bondage, domination and sadism, it isn't your typical Harlequin romance but a kicked up lust story that falls into the new category of "Mommy Porn." The Archive predicted a few years back that the erotic genre would thrive in the new electronic reading medium - eReaders have made the genre much more accessible and private with no embarrassing covers to take to the checkout stand or to the kids' karate class. The eReader is the ultimate brown paper wrapping.

It is no surprise that Harry Potter is doing well in eBook. Ever since the Harry Potter eBooks were released earlier this year they have been some of the most downloaded books in history. Overdrive has reported that all of the Harry Potter books account for 64% of the top Juvenile Fiction eBook and Audiobook titles downloaded in April, occupying 51 of 80 possible positions on OverDrive’s Most Downloaded Books from the Library lists for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

As reported earlier Warmer Brothers have gotten into the eBook world with a series of digital script books from some of its most famous movies. We now have more details - Each e-book retails for $10, and includes rare historical documents from the Warner Bros archives, like “Casablanca” producer Hall Wallis’ production notes, Warner Bros' studio chief Jack Warner’s telegrams and memos, and excerpts from “Ben-Hur” star Charlton Heston’s acting and shooting journals, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A bit cheeky this one but I've read a report that  readers are more experimental with eBooks and are trying genres that they had previously ignored. It comes as no surprise to discover that crime is by far the most popular genre for eBook readers but fantasy, horror, erotica and even the humble old western are doing well. And so might I suggest anyone wanting to experiment with genre, try my western Arkansas Smith which comes to eBook after a successful run in hardcover.

Amazon Plagiarism Charges

From the digital journal

 

Amazon is dealing with a bit of a plagiarism problem with their erotica section of ebooks, with several self-published authors being caught with copyright infringement. 

 

Sharazade, a prolific author who has had 20 of her stories published with mainstream publishing houses, has discovered something quite sinister about the erotica section of Amazon's ebooks: a large majority of the self-published authors are plagiarizing content and selling it off as their own. Sharazade--a pen name to protect her work--started to publish her stories as ebooks on Amazon's Kindle publishing program, as well as her clients work as she works as a book agent and freelance editor. Though her and her clients pieces were doing well in the ebook ranks, she started to notice a problem in some of the other published works by different authors: they were downright awful. As Fast Company describes, "Amazon is rife with fake authors selling erotica ripped word-for-word from stories posted on Literotica, a popular and free erotic fiction site that according to Quantcast attracts more than 4.5 million users a month, as well as from other free online story troves." One author in particular, Maria Cruz, copied entire excerpts from authors on Literotica to sell ebooks on Amazon--roughly over 50 ebooks in total. Writers on Literotica are not compensated for their stories and are uploading them to the website for free, and with thousands of writers on the website, plagiarizers looking for quick money through Amazon's self-publishing program have lots to choose from. Other instances of copied and plagiarized content have been found in other genres, as well. 

 

Sharazade also mentioned the poor quality of the ebooks in general. Titles and even author names are often misspelled and book covers have extreme pixelation, and are usually pictures ripped straight from Google Images. This also brings up another concerning issue: Amazon is not checking for plagiarized content, regardless if it is from an indie publishing house or self-published. If enough people complain about a certain title, however, Amazon will take down the offending content. Unfortunately responses from Amazon can take weeks to months before any content is taken down. Also, the offenders can simply re-upload new, copied content--which is what Maria Cruz exactly did after enough people complained about her plagiarized work. Authors who are seeking compensation for their stolen content are fighting an up-hill battle, and most writers on Literotica consider this more so a hobby and don't have the time, or money, for a lawsuit. Fast Company offers a solution, though: "...Why not require an author to submit a valid credit card before she can self-publish her works on the Kindle? If an author, who could still publish under a pen name, were found to have violated someone else's copyright Amazon could charge that card $2,000 and ban her from selling again. Amazon could also run content through one of the many plagiarism detectors that are available--such as Turnitin or iThenticate--before an ebook is put on sale." There are indeed many different programs online to authenticate books and articles online, even teachers use a program to detect plagiarism in students' papers nowadays. Why not do the same when professional writers are involved, trying to earn a profit from their work?

 

Archive's Book Biz News

First Penguin denied Amazon the lending rights on their title and then they compromised while security problems are sored out -  The Penguin Group said Wednesday that it will restore library lending access to older e-books while it negotiates with Amazon and e-book provider OverDrive on security issues.
As a result, customers will continue to have access to Penguin titles via the Amazon Kindle library lending program at least until the end of the year, though new titles will not be added.

Are eBooks too expensive? Take a look at the chart below which compares prices between physical and electronic books.






eBooks may be wiping out the mass market paperback market, but the opposite is true with Children's books with print constantly performing better than the electronic versions. However the situation my change with tablets such as the iPad and the Android tablets expected to be big sellers this Christmas period. At the moment the biggest percentage of eReaders are middle aged but as the young adopt the new technology it is a certain bet that young fingers will be fumbling with the controls rather than turning the pages.

Writers are invited to submit unpublished manuscripts to Monsoon Publications - they are a Signapore based publisher of English language fiction who are looking to extend their list of writers. Find Monsoon HERE


QUERCUS have launched a new imprint - Jo Fletcher Books will be a specialised SF, Fantasy and horror imprint. The first four titles from he imprint will be The Vampire Sink by Lynda Hilburn, The Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones, The Demi Monde Winter by Rod Rees and The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams.

Harry Potter and The Googley Hallows

Google announced Thursday that they have teamed up with J.K. Rowling’s Pottery to offer the author’s internationally famous Harry Potter books using the Google Book ebook platform.


Google’s deal includes all seven Harry Potter novels. Using Google’s technology will allow users to port their purchases to their choice from more than 80 ereaders.

As part of the deal, Google has exclusive payment rights for all Pottermore.com purchases — meaning all products will be purchased solely through Google Checkout rather than Amazon or Paypal. What Google doesn’t get, however, is the right to sell the ebooks, which will be available exclusively at Pottermore.com. That arrangement means Rowling can avoid splitting the sales with Amazon or any other online retailer.

Pottermore.com, which is expected to go live in October, was developed as a way for Harry Potter fans to play games, enjoy additional content features, and interact with other fans in an environment created to standards set by Rowling.

In what must have been the trade-off in the deal, Google's payment service Google Checkout appears to be the only way besides debit or credit cards to purchases the books from Pottermore. The inclusion of Google Checkout is a huge snub for PayPal, the original and most used third-party payment service online. Instead, Google Checkout will be exposed to millions of Harry Potter fans looking to buy digital versions of the wizard stories.

In the last few months, Google has been strengthening its push into the e-commerce and mobile payment fields, announcing recently it had begun testing a service called Google Wallet, which allows consumers to pay using their Android phones using a technology called NFC.

The Harry Potter books could become the most purchased e-books upon their release if the franchise's performance at the box office and at book stores are any indication. The final Harry Potter film had the best opening of all time, scoring $168.6 million in the U.S. and Canada in three days. Four years ago, the last Harry Potter book had a similar release, selling 8.3 million copies in its first day, according to Guinness World Records.

Will the eBook save real books?

It's a strange twist on the eBook story, but several recent surveys have suggested that readers who enjoy books on devices like the Kindle are often buying more physical books. John C Davorak, host of the video podcast Cranky Geeks, who seems to be the eBook man for PC Magazine wrote in a recent article - 

"I'm reminded of my son's reaction to the Kindle. He got a Kindle because he thought it would be a nice way to make the library of reading more practical and compact. The more books he read on the Kindle, the more books he decided he had to buy in hardcover or paperback edition" 

At a time when the widespread  opinion is that eBooks will kill traditional books, it would be perverse if the new technology actually increased physical book sales.

2011 - the year of the eBook

8 million Kindles sold last year and more and more publishers are stating that their digital sales are booming. Bloomsbury for instance, the company, which publishes the Harry Potter series of books, said that in the US fiction e-book sales are now estimated to account for around 15% of total sales. This was highlighted by the success of the 2010 Man Booker Prize winner - 42% of US sales of Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question were electronic. And Amazon recently made the claims that they are selling more eBooks than not only hardbacks, but paperbacks as well. In fact Amazon founder, Jeff Bazos claims there are 6 Kindles sold for every 10 physical books.

Some of the reasons that eBooks have been so successful are:

• they are more affordable
• they are more portable. You can always have a book with you.
• they are more varied. Lots of new and exciting authors are publishing books they wouldn’t have been able to using the traditional model.
• more people are inspired to read by this 21st century approach to what’s been around since the 15th century’s Gutenberg Press

And perhaps most important of all they are giving a platform for authors to take control of their own work. Take Joe Konrath for instance - whilst he may have started out in traditional publishing he is doing even better self publishing his own eBooks and recently became one of Amazon's top selling authors in the Kindle store. How does he do it? Take a look at his website HERE .

Later this year I will take a dip into the self publishing to eBook when I publish, Riding The Western Trail, an anthology of Jack Martin westerns. The book will feature several short stories which have been published elsewhere and an all new, novella. And I know that several of my contemporaries are planning to self publish to eBook. That's not to say we will turn from our traditional publishers - far from it and I hope Jack Martin is long featured in the Black Horse range, but the option of eBooks allows for us to publishing works that may not sit comfortable on the conventional lists, be this because of length, theme or whatever.

So will 2011 be another boom year for eBooks? The answer to that question is, this early in the year, already obvious, and is a most definite, YES.

A Policeman's Lot (left) was actually my first excursion into eBooks - published by Solstice Publishing it is still available for the Kindle as well as all other formats. It's an historical thriller that uses the Jack the Ripper mystery as its theme and even offers up an all new theory as to the perpetrator.


 "A Policeman's Lot is an entertaining story that brings together one of the last icons of the American West, a look at British police work while the force was still in its infancy, and one of the most widely known murder cases in history. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy historical crime fiction and police procedurals." From Mack Captures Crime

Amazon to list free eBooks seperately

Following criticism of its book charts, in which free eBooks were taking top position, Amazon say they will now have a separate chart for free eBooks - Last week, Amazon announced that it will soon pull all the $0 Kindle ebooks from its regular bestselling list, and group them all together in a separate free ebooks list. A big publisher said this was a great move that would benefit consumers. Maybe, but not in the way the big publisher wants you to believe.

Why big publishers love old-fashioned bestseller lists

When Publishers Weekly broke the story last week, an executive from HarperCollins told the magazine that this was a wonderful idea because it will make the list more consumer friendly. Her reasoning, however, sounds mainly like justification for her company’s marketing departments:

…she thinks Amazon is certainly doing the right thing by splitting the list, noting that consumers “want to know what books everyone is reading, and buying,” and that a list which combines free downloads and books for sale doesn’t deliver this information.

Aww, that’s sweet, but of course it’s a little misleading. Traditionally, the bestseller list has been a tool for publishers more than consumers; if you can manipulate the market enough (with pre-orders, ad campaigns, bulk purchases, media appearances, etc.) to get a title on a bestseller list, you’ll gain free publicity at the retailer level, in newspapers, and in the general consciousness of the population. People tend to be interested in, or at least curious about, what’s popular, so being a bestselling title becomes self-sustaining to a point.

That marketing system breaks down when more than half of the top 100 best “sellers” on the Kindle Store are fast-moving freebies. For one thing, “free” is a premium than any publisher can offer, even the smallest independent publisher with no marketing budget, which means the competition to get on the list is greater. That leads to a second complication, which is that to compete on the Kindle Store bestseller list a big publisher has to drop the price of books to zero, which eats into profits. HarperCollins has already spent tens of thousands of dollars on traditional marketing, and doesn’t want to have to give away books on top of that just to compete with the indies.

Why readers should be optimistic about having two lists

So the Kindle Store bestseller list is going to become more traditional this summer which will make big publishers happy, but that’s not a bad thing entirely. As long as Amazon doesn’t institute an arbitrary minimum price requirement on titles included in its bestseller list, what this will really do is enlarge the competitive space for publishers–and that should benefit consumers in the end.

With the free titles removed from the list, the best way to send a little-known or undermarketed title to the top of the bestseller list will be to mark it down as steeply as possible, to get it as close to free as you can in order to entice more customers to give it a shot.

This should lead indies and aggressive big publishers to continue to offer titles at huge discounts, and force other publishers to start looking at deep discounting as a necessary strategy to make it on the Kindle Store list.

But since the free list isn’t going anywhere, it will also remain a viable marketing option for publishers, especially smaller ones who don’t have big marketing budgets. Big publishers’ titles may not show up on the free list much in the future, but that might be a good thing in that it will create a second “discovery pool” of new titles that would otherwise remain invisible to casual shoppers.

Amazon could sabotage the free list by keeping it hidden from casual view, but those free titles offer such compelling value to Kindle owners that I doubt that will happen. And if it does, well, there’s now a well-developed network of blogs and websites that can promote those hidden gems for Kindle owners. Unfortunately for big publishers but fortunately for us, those free Kindle ebooks aren’t going anywhere.

ARTICLE FROM KINDLERAMA

eBook news

THE CHOICES GROW:

When it comes to buying and selling books on the iPad, we’re about to witness a strange dance between those who make or sell electronic books and those who read them.

On April 3, when customers pick up their fancy new Apple iPads and want to purchase an e-book, they will have to decide which online bookstore they want to give their money to.

From the start, no one bookstore will come with an advantage: No matter which bookstore application iPad owners choose, they will have to download it first. Even the iBookstore, as Apple writes on its Web site, won’t come preloaded on the device. I Pad owners will be asked to “Download the iBooks app free from the App Store.”

There will also be a swarm of other booksellers to choose from.

As my colleagues Brad Stone and Jenna Wortham reported on Monday: “Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble are working on apps for buying and reading electronic books, even though both companies sell their own e-reading devices and Apple will offer its own iBooks app.” And there are a variety of other free e-book applications, including Stanza and Eucalyptus, which are currently available for the iPhone and offer thousands of free e-books. FULL STORY

RANDOM HOUSE STALL ON IPAD:

Random House, the world's largest publisher by sales volume, is still holding out on including its titles in the iPad's iBookstore. At issue, apparently, are fears that Apple's business model will spark a price war among publishers, ultimately hurting profits.

According to the Financial Times (registration and/or paywall warning), Random House CEO Markus Dohle claims that the company is still negotiating with Apple and that a deal could be reached before the iPad goes on sale on April 3. FULL STORY