If you wonder what the deal is on the pricing of the new book on Amazon—it’s this. Penguin, which distributes DAW, wants to set the price of its e-book offerings. Penguin apparently pulled its e-titles from Amazon. Now Amazon has retaliated by selling Penguin-distributed books, including mine, at below half price. I don’t know how this will affect what I get paid, but this isn’t going to help the already-shaky finance of the book industry, which is already unable to deal properly with new writers and is being run by oil companies who don’t know beans about books or readers. Amazon, which sells everything in the universe, isn’t going to be hurt that badly if the whole book industry collapses.
Readers and writers and of course publishers will get hurt. The world of books and literature will be hurt. This is getting ugly. And may get worse. What happens when publishers close their doors and sell off all their rights to Amazon?
What happens when the people who sell everything and anything begin publishing all the books in the English language—read, publishing everything, no matter what its quality or origin, or copyright status? We’ve got Google on one side asserting they’ve got the right to publish everything, copyrighted or not, paying nobody, Amazon on the other, asserting they’ll publishing anything no matter the quality, with no care or guidance to the authors at all, and pay what they want—and I don’t think it’ll be good.
Support your local writer. We’re going to need all the help we can get to stay alive.
Looked up the address and sent it. It has Penguin in the title.
Thanks, Tulrose.
Thanks, Tulrose.
Do you wonder how writers DO make a living, or how publishers survive, when this is so typical of the way things go that you just tend to sigh and let it go…
I did toss it back at them. I hope someone will bestir themselves to fix it. This poor book is not getting a lot of help from Penguin, politics, or Amazon, is it?
I’m building my new website and thought I’d return to this blog while taking a break. I see some are still talking about being “forced” to go to chains or Amazon. First, support CJ and other authors anyway you can. Second, there are a lot of on-line independent booksellers out there. Go to IndieBound, http://www.indiebound.org/ to locate a store and website. If you click on my ID above, it will take you to my current, embarrassing, lame, website. There’s a blog on the left explaining the site’s condition. If you attempt to search my “Library” of books, I carry nearly all the books Amazon has, and can get them to you as quickly as they can. Even though I need the money, I prefer you use a local on-line store. I try to compete with Amazon by offering all titles at 25% off and free shipping (this will change somewhat with the new site). Here’s what I and other indies give back: Eco-Libris – A $1 sticker provides for planting a tree in the rain forest. I’m able to sponsor the e-mail marketing for First Book, a national organization that provides free new books for underprivileged children. I’m setting up on-line buying programs for schools with the discount going back to the school for additional funding. Amazon set them up with no benefits at all. I’ve gotten way off topic, but I appreciate all the support that’s given to CJC and others. I think the indie stores will benefit from small publishers, because the big chains won’t bother with them.
I’m someone who has made small press and electronic sales, but not moved into the ‘big leagues’ and I have to say that the more I see of what’s going on there, the more depressing it looks. I am already joining with a couple friends in a Closed Circle sort of collection for some of our work — but since we are little known authors, it will be a hard push to get attention. I already have the basics set up, but we’ve a ways to go before we are ready to go live with it. In many ways, it’s exciting to take at least part of my career into my own hands again. It doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying to land an agent or get a big book deal (for whatever that is worth), but I have realized it’s going to be very difficult because I’m not writing for the current market at all. My first influence was Andre Norton, not Laurell K. Hamilton. I’m more interested in the alien invasion than how long it will take the captain to get the pretty ambassador into bed with him and what they do there.
I’m also prolific. Even if I landed an agent today (goes to check email — no, not so far!), I wouldn’t see half of my work published in my lifetime. And that’s if I stopped writing, which isn’t going to happen. So . . . . So, I have to start looking at new avenues if I’m serious about this.
We’ll see what happens.
@Irene Delse thank you for the link. I must admit I’ve become a lazy book buyer and have just used Amazon out of habit. So I’ll give these guys a go. Especially as the couriers that Amazon are using in my part of the UK are as clueless as a clueless thing with a degree in advanced cluelessness e.g. shoving the parcel into the wrong letter box, half a mile away and then wanting to charge me 45gbp for me to travel two hours to collect it from their depot……
This sounds too big and complicated for individual writers. If I were making a living from writing, I’d be asking SFWA or some umbrella group of writers’ associations to negotiate new standard contract terms that protected writers’ rights.
Alas, it seems that SFWA has so many internal disputes, and so many people appear to be frightened by the new world of publishing, that it doesn’t always help out as much as it could. At least that’s my opinion as an outsider watching all the feuds through the last few years.
The writers’ organizations are split between a desire to help the publishers survive—and those who are just confused. Consequently nothing gets done.
I suspect they’re mirroring the feelings of their membership, since I think everyone is pretty much confused at this point.
CJ, if you are like me and would rather have dead tree versions of books, where is your preferred venue? I have not yet gotten a dedicated e-reader, and probably won’t until a. the price comes way down and b. more books are available which can be read on any platform I might have. Besides, reading on a computer screen for more than half an hour at a go make my eyes wiggy. Our island just lost its last secondhand book shop, the comic book shop went out of business last year, and the only remaining book stores on the island are big chain ones.
lulu.com is one of the ones I’ve had recommended to me. I can’t afford to print and sell, because they’re a bit pricier than ordinary hardbounds, and the number I could sell would just make me crazy trying to keep up with storage and all, not to mention I don’t have the capital to do it; but you can get a single copy of anything printed if you have the file, I believe.
The readers are running about 259.00 right now: the Nook and the Kindle are right neck and neck in price; and then there’s the I-pad, at nearly twice the price. When you do get a reader, I’d recommend the e-ink type: no flicker, no internal light. But it is an investment, for sure. Somebody remarked that having a cover you can open and close improves the experience and makes it more book-y. Other sorts of things display the e-books, but they are real small screens.
You might investigate the Nook, ultimately, scalable font-size, and basically reads ePub, which is an up and coming format, generally a good bet to win the format wars. The Kindle is the other contender, reading .prc or .mobi , which is the other major format besides plain old .pdf.
Lulu.com is really relatively easy to use. Russ used it for a nonfiction book for a local event a few years ago, and had very little trouble. And it is good that the author does not have to invest any money up front or buy boxes of books. Everything can be handled right on the site. The formating is very easy. Pricing of the books can get high, though — but that’s true of all POD material. (And a reminder to everyone else that POD is a technology, not necessarily just used by self-publishing people. Many of the very small presses use it now, often going through lulu.)
The big problem is with the ISBNs because you don’t want lulu to put their own on a book. Those can be pricey, though even they are coming down in cost.
I’ve looked at the other sites like lulu and not been pleased with what I’ve seen.
And the ebook format wars will drive us all insane. I am looking at Smashwords.com for ebooks just because I don’t think I could stand to do all the formating myself.
We are willing to tell people the sequence of formatting steps we use. It’s changed, because Jane has refined it, involving 5 extra softwares, most free.
Are you saying that we are allowed, by law (or by you), to print one copy of your e-books at Lulu.com?
I remember you mentioned that you had something going on about lulu.com but I haven’t read anything about it in a long time.
You said that you could include a writen statement, or something along those lines, to show that it is okay to print one copy of your books.
The main problem with taking the e-books and getting them printed is the formatting.
It’s a lot of work, you can’t print the text as it is formatted in the e-books, and you have to know what size you want your book to be. That means you can’t make a file that fits all sizes, right?
I’d be interested in finding out about your formatting secuence if it’s at all possible. I’d even suggest you put it up as a permanent link on the front page (or nested underneath one of the existing ones).
Of course, we can’t use any of the artwork used for the e-book versions for the printed books. Even if we had permission the images are low resolution and wouldn’t print well. I’d probably try to make covers with some graphical shapes or patterns and make subtle color changes between books.
I have printed a few books at lulu.com. Those were books that I had scanned after getting permission from the author’s agent. I had to re-format everything, as OCR document’s can’t be cut and pasted just like that.
I wasn’t able to remove all the formatting problems (couldn’t go through all text on the computer) but there were no real big problems.
Just about 100 to 200 little irritating things per book (of average 160 pages per book).
The biggest problem with lulu.com are their international shipping prices. I only want hardcovers and those are printed in the US. That equals a high shipping price per book (even at economy rate, don’t get me started on the regular and express prices).
I will be getting all your books in e-book format although I don’t use my newly purchased BeBook One reader that much. I just got it so I could support Closed Circle. I can say, for your information, that I mainly use the rtf format since it allows me to use the font I want at the smallest size and still have it perfectly readable. Fonts like Times and other serif fonts don’t come off well on the reader. I have to resize the text at least two times. Those fonts come off as too grey, too light, against the light grey color of the e-ink surface. If you use a different font, I use a sans serif fat font, you can get better contrast.
I did try Jane Fancher’s e-book sample that was supposed to include several fonts but I wasn’t able to change fonts in my reader.
I ordered the new book from my “local” internet seller here in Sweden. Looking forward to reading it.
Good luck.
ericf
Verlag Pabel Moewig in Germany, one of the hefte publishers (owns Perry Rhodan) has done quite a lot of work of e-copies of their weekly output. They also did demo issue of one episode that resulted in a fully customised printed version of that week’s Perry Rhodan being sent in the post. Each version having your name and other details inside. That was on a unit cost of euro 3,90. They’ve also had the hefte available as mobi and pdf versions for at least three or four years now so the new issues just drop into your mail box each Tuesday (iirc).
Given that they have a back catalog of some 3,500 hefte and others in that series and its associated properties maintaining a physical inventory is pretty much impossible so e-distriubution will become essential for the back runs.
I feel the book thing is a real dilemma. On the one hand, I love my books. I have a lot, and I love having them, and looking at them and reading them. On the other hand, they take up a lot of room, and someday fairly soon I may no longer have room for everything. Also,the 30 year old paperbacks are not in good shape anymore, and that includes my early Cherryhs. On the gripping hand, the kindle and the kindle app for the iphone make my library, to the extent that it is digital, so portable. it is wonderful to be, for example, stuck on a stalled train as I was this morning for an hour and have 94 books on my iphone to choose from, once I finished my first read of Deceiver.
Finally, what if there is a power outage? Not only can’t you go on line, you can’t read if you’ve become too dependent on the electronic media. And moreover, what about take off and landing when you have to turn your electronic devices off? I have done a fair amount of long flights lately and was so proud not to have incurred excess baggage charges for my reading material, only to be relegated to the inflight magazine for 45 minutes on either end of the flight. ugh.
So I need both real print and digital. I would in many cases be happy to have versions of both.
I wish authors could reserve their ebook rights, and publish them exclusively on sites like Closed Circle. then I could buy the print versions of the ones I want and double up with e-versions when I like. But I don’t find the time to visit the sites of all of my favorite authors who may be doing e-publishing to be sure I catch their new works in a timely fashion.
@kokipy: “the gripping hand”? You must have read “The Mote in God’s Eye” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. And the sequel was called “The Gripping Hand”. Now, there’s 2 books I would like to have as e-books. They may be out there but not on Amazon. I’ll have to search around.
indeed, Tulrose, that was a motie reference. let me know if you find e versions.
I’m looking forward to the day I can justify buying an e-book reader and not hauling 2 tons of books around every time I move. (Not exaggerating.) However, I’ve found standing on the sidelines until a clear winner has emerged has kept me from blowing (too) much money on tech that becomes instantly obsolete. And I had no idea Amazon had become the Evil Empire. Now I feel guilty. There aren’t many books I buy in hardcover, but I’d have been willing to pay the full price for Deceiver. I may have to figure out that donate button…and on a not-unrelated note, got home from work at 10:30 last night to a box from the Evil Empire, and now I’m at work having had 2.5 hrs of sleep…you do this to me every time, CJ-ji…
@mrgawe….. donating is easy….just click ‘donate’ and follow the steps…. at some point towards the end there will be a ‘message box’…… you can designate who gets your donation there. You don’t have to have a PayPal account to use it.
Hope you are enjoying Deceiver…am trying my best not to discuss until june 1 😆
Yes, be good, smartcat! I won’t get mine until next week!
Hey, you’re right, smartcat, that *was* easy. First step was realizing I needed to be on Closed Circle and stop looking on this site… 🙂 Thanks!
Finished my first pass through Deceiver last night. Of course, finishing at 6am means that details are a bit fuzzy in my head at the moment. I’ll have to do the second pass through after my wisdom teeth come out. (I’ve found that not only is one rewarded by a second pass through CJ’s work, it’s very nearly required.) I finished re-reading #1-#10 a day before #11 hit the mailbox, so my head is positively swimming… so, er, when is #12 coming out?
@kokipy: I emailed Jerry Pournelle and asked. You never know …
Gosh, Tulrose! the approach direct! what an excellent idea.
I usually email any author whose back list I would like to find as an ebook. Sometimes I get an answer, sometimes not. I’ve had pleasant discussions with a couple of people on the pros and cons of ebooks. I’ve also had flat out NEVER IN MY LIFETIME answers, which ends the correspondence right there. Sort of short sighted IMHO.
I thought Larry Niven had passed away, but apparently not. I’ll email him as well.
Well, apparently I won’t be emailing him. What I thought was his website was a fan site w/o contact info.
😆 Larry and Jerry are both friends of mine and are very much alive,not much changed from what you remember, I’m sure…I last saw Larry at San Diego, where we had the usual good time. I’m not at liberty to give out Jerry’s addy if he hasn’t, but I think the answer is probably that any e-books will be put out by their regular publisher. Larry and I did have a discussion about ebook rights, but Larry sort of has the traditional “never, never, never” opinion toward any sort of self-publishing that has characterized professional writers forever, and he and Jerry are usually in step on given issues, being close friends and business associates. I don’t know if I changed Larry’s opinion of author-run e-books, but he and I were discussing them in a serious and sober tone by the end of the convention.