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Monday, January 31, 2011

Links: January 2011

Moff's law. Mentioned by Jo Walton during her 500th post at Tor.com.

Time to feed the [ellided]. Isn't it? I, Cthulhu, or, What’s A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?

2011 Publishers Round Table -- found via comments at Kris Rusch's latest (Part 14). Yes, I am hooked on her explanations. :> I'm a publishing geek.

Last month Dean Wesley Smith covered The New World of Publishing: The Scams. Check 'em out.


And then... Readercon. Have you ever been? I've been fascinated by Readercon since I first heard about it in 2005. I think it was 2-3 days before the con itself, actually.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Kris & the Changing Times.

I've been reading the Business Rusch, by Kristine Katherine Rusch. I first heard about her Freelancer's Survival Guide, thanks to John Ottinger -- then got diverted by her Changing Times series. I had added her Guide to my to-buy book list.

I can't recommend her series enough. If you want to understand publishing even a little, particularly if you happen to write, you'll be amazed by the Changing Times.


Angry Robot shows cover love -- their books between now and June 2011.

Matt Forbeck's WFC report.

Next week's ConFusion. I'm wondering if there's enough snow. ;D It seems to be a rule that Fusion has so much snow that even native Michiganders are flummoxed. Visitors must think our winter is like this the entire time... It's not, really, but how would they know?

:D


Saturday, January 1, 2011

Ereader use.

Maybe you heard all the ruckus back in February 2011 when the publishers all decided that library ebooks should be limited. It was a BIG ruckus. Or, as Literary Sluts put it: Congratulations HarperCollins – you just guaranteed Amazon and Kindle will win the eBook & eReader war

That's a good precis.

I bring it up because I bought Dad a Nook, and my sister-in-law got my brother a Kindle Fire. I won't use the Kindle app on my Galaxy Tab 10.1. I've added the Nook app instead. (More on this anon.)

I like Amazon's convenience, I do. But their business practices are horrible; just consider last month. Despite a long-held belief that the market is always right, it's really not. Businesses are not built to be kind, they are built to seek profit. Playing well with others is a social concept devised by humans. Corporations are not people, they are constructs made by people for a purpose.

Monopolies make for bad business practices: On eating your seed corn.

Part of why it all makes me angry is that libraries -- libraries! -- are suffering.

The economy worldwide is doing poorly, and the people who buy the most books read like the dickens. Of course we use library books. If I bought one new book a week, I still wouldn't have enough to read. I read far more than one book a week! I'm reading 2 nonfiction books [I finished The Gift of Fear a week ago], along with several fiction novels; before Christmas I'd wrapped up six novels. I finished three more by 4am yesterday.

I read a LOT.

I know I'm not the only one, since I got the seed corn link from this blogger. Except... I don't remember libraries ever limiting me to a few books (except my elementary school). I remember bringing home at least 10 or 12 in high school, which was just enough for about a week if I took it slow.

Literate people need books desperately. Publishers need new readers even more desperately. Thrusting readers back into the 1800s is the worst possible idea. We want to reach the future, our future, not fall backward into the past.

So think carefully about ebooks, oh corporations. Never eat your seed corn! How ever will it grow then??