Linked List – Novelr

How The eBook Reader’s Bill of Rights Benefits Authors:
Ebooks should transcend platforms. What you buy on the iBookstore or the Kindle should be readable on the Nook or Kobo and vice versa. Ebooks should be platform neutral and portable. As an author, in order to reach the widest audience possible, your books should be able to travel wherever your audience wants them to be. You’ve put in the hours and the hard work; why should something like software or technology get between your prose and the reader?
Some context: Andrew Woodworth is a librarian. Last week, he posted the eBook Reader’s Bill of Rights. I don’t talk about it much, on Novelr, but there’s a struggle going on right now in the publishing industry with traditional publishers on one side and libraries on the other. The issue: the right for libraries to lend out eBooks. And the libraries are currently losing. # (1)

Amanda Hocking on the publishing industry:
Saying traditional publishing is dead right now is like declaring yourself the winner in the sixth inning of a baseball game when you have 2 points and the other team has 8 just because you scored all your points this inning, and they haven’t scored any since the first.
Also, note how she says that ‘people can’t grasp how much work I do’ (and how much of it isn’t writing). For what it’s worth: I’ll say this – Amanda Hocking is nice. Follow her on Twitter if you haven’t already. # (1)

I quite like this indie-focused book blog: IndieReader. They accept book review requests from indie authors, by the way, so I recommend that you go check that out. # (0)

Kevin Kelly (the former Wired editor) has noticed something rather odd: Kindle prices have been dropping at a steady rate since Feb 09. He concludes that the Kindle will be free by November this year:
… I’ve mentioned this forecast to all kinds of folks. In August, 2010 I had the chance to point it out to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. He merely smiled and said, “Oh, you noticed that!” And then smiled again.
He suggests that Amazon would introduce the cellphone model: a free Kindle if you buy X amount of ebooks. # (5)

For some reason, this Youtube video made me very happy: Organizing the Bookcase. # (0)

Mike Shatzkin: from some perspectives, we are tipping right now and publishers’ metrics will show it:
I have heard the argument from very smart people that ebook adoption will plateau at some point. Since it has been doubling or more for the past three years and was often placed in the mid-teens for new fiction and narrative non-fiction by the last quarter of 2010, we know that it can’t continue to double for the next three years without exceeding 100%. Nonetheless, predictions that ebook sales would achieve 50% in the next five years and that bookstore shelf space would drop by 50% in the next five years — which is what I thought would be the case — seemed pretty aggressive six months ago. They don’t seem aggressive anymore.
# (0)

Pandamian launches – ‘The Easiest Way To Publish A Book Online’. This startup thing that I’ve been working is now open for registrations. Am really tired in the marathon programming leading up to the launch – but must admit that I’m really looking forward to feedback. # (0)

Remarkable: The New Library of Alexandria is protected by Egpytian Youth.
The library is safe thanks to Egypt’s youth, whether they be the staff of the Library or the representatives of the demonstrators, who are joining us in guarding the building from potential vandals and looters. I am there daily within the bounds of the curfew hours. However, the Library will be closed to the public for the next few days until the curfew is lifted and events unfold towards an end to the lawlessness and a move towards the resolution of the political issues that triggered the demonstrations.
# (2)

Indie author J. A. Konrath has been on a roll recently:
I just checked my last royalty statement. Rusty Nail, that book I worked so hard to promote, has thusfar earned me $42,000. This includes all of my hardcovers, paperbacks, ebooks, and foreign editions, combined. With self-publishing, in a single month, I was able to earn the same amount of money it took me four and a half years to earn through traditional publishing.
And that’s only 20% of readers currently reading ebooks. # (4)

Francis Ford Coppola on making money in the arts:
We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.
# (6)

Bad writing is good:
Don’t expect the public to read you because what you’re writing is important, just grab them by the throat by using every cheap trick at your disposal, from sensational, teaser headlines to hyperbole and synthesized conflict within the article. If the story is worth telling, you’ll be doing more good than harm by reaching more readers.
Not sure if I agree with him (i.e.: that this is the way things should be) but he does make a valid point. Writing on the web means writing for a significantly different medium, one where distraction is forever a concern. (thx, Greg) # (2)