Return of the Book Thread

[Morat20]

Got it for my nook just now.  Sometimes I wonder if I should have bought a kindle but then Amazon pulls some shit like this and I'm glad that I can borrow e-books from the library and buy from more than one company.

I can't blame Amazon for this shit. They had it priced for over a year like that, and Penguin didn't say jack until the week or so before it was due to be released.

I know people that bought it pre-order months ago, at that price. Yanking it a week before release over a price point that's been set for a year is a dick move by Penguin.

[Evildrider]

I finally picked up Changes today and I'm gonna read it all tonight after my ICC run.  I wish he could pump out more then one book a year.   

[Ard]

I wish he could pump out more then one book a year.   

Well, his fantasy series is done now, so I'm hoping he starts churning out this series faster, but I have a feeling he's going to start into another series on the side instead.  Couldn't find anything about his writing plans on his site after scanning it for a few minutes though.

[Mazakiel]

We are getting another book from him later this year, a short story collection of Dresden stuff.  Granted, most of it is stuff previously published in other compilations or by themselves, but there's a few new ones apparently.  The big one I'm wanting to see is one that's set right after the end of Changes, from Murphy's POV.  One of the older stories in there is one from Thomas' POV that I think was set right before Turn Coat. 

[RhyssaFireheart]

I'm fine with an author taking a year to come out with a book.  I'd much rather they take the time to come up with something good rather than churn out crap just to sell books.

That said, I think I'm a book behind in the Dresden series.  I'll have to check what I have and what's out now.

[MahrinSkel]

Penguin is hoping that people will blame Amazon, not them.  Which is stupid, because Amazon is the one who gets to inform them they won't be getting their pre-order, and therefore gets to set the narrative.  Penguin doesn't even know who the hell they are.

Lots of authors have blogged about the Amazon/Publisher skirmishes, generally taking the side of the publishers (presumably the ones who are on Amazon's side don't want to shit in their bed).  What it comes down to is that in an eBook world, a publisher's functions are reduced to providing editing and marketing, and the Top Ten and Recommendation lists of the eBook portals are the only marketing slots worth talking about.  The publishers are *doomed* if they don't see the handwriting on the wall and create their own eBook standard, devices, and portals, and that would require a level of cooperation they simply don't seem capable of (literary agents can take over their editing functions, where web-savvy authors haven't built their own fanbase into a crowdsourced editing team).

--Dave

[Morat20]

I thought I'd plug the Kindle a second -- my wife had hers three months, dropped it from waist height, and it broke. Screen was all screwed up. I had gotten her the extended warranty (which covers ONE replacement over the two-year period from something like "You're a moron, which is why your Kindle is broken").

So I called it in, and the first question they asked was "How far did it falll" and I told them three or four feet onto tile. She dropped it from either waist or mid-chest (basically juggled it as she was picking stuff up). They told me "That's within it's specifications, it shouldn't have broken from a fall that low. It's designed to take hard floor impacts from sliding off tables or counters". So they replaced it, under the original warranty not my extended one, and shipped it overnight.

Can't really fault them for customer service. And apparently the sucker is tougher than it looks. Or is supposed to be.

[HaemishM]

The publishers REALLY don't have a clue when it comes to eBooks. I mean, they are totally blindsided by the whole thing. A lot of the indie authors I'm talking to who have smaller publishers are talking about getting charged a fee for the publisher to provide an eBook, and the publisher retains all control over pricing and distribution. Meanwhile, I'm over here paying absolutely nothing to have Amazon list my eBook, and Smashwords is distributing it just about everywhere else, also for no upfront cost. Both take a little off the top when it sells (Amazon takes 65%, Smashwords 35% + a transaction fee) and come June, Amazon will only take 30% so long as I keep the price above $2.99 I think. The publishers who don't start playing ball on eBooks are going to find themselves struggling hard - they'll make their margins off a few bigger authors and be totally perplexed as to why the rest of their authors are pissed off at the service the pub is giving them.

The mid-list book is coming back, only it won't be published by a publishing house anymore - for anyone but the big-time best sellers, it won't make sense for the publishers to expend the money and effort. The Kindle, the iPad, the Nook, the Sony Reader, all the dedicated and semi-dedicated reading devices are going to seriously stratify the book business in the next decade, as well as Print-on-demand services.

[Draegan]

I really want a kindle.  I really don't want to spend $240 on it.

[Sky]

I really want a kindle.  I really don't want to spend $240 on it.

And then have to start buying books to put on it.

[Cyrrex]

I'm starting a little experiment to see if I like using my iPhone as an e-book reader.  I've used it a little bit, but not for any significant lengths of time.  As someone who can stare at a monitor all day playing video games and who can read small text rather comfortably, I have a feeling this is going to be the way I do books from now on.  Don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before or not, but there is a kindle app for the iPhone, so you can get all stuff from Amazon's library.

[Draegan]

I really want a kindle.  I really don't want to spend $240 on it.

And then have to start buying books to put on it.

Heh well I don't mind that part. 

[craan]

I'm starting a little experiment to see if I like using my iPhone as an e-book reader.  I've used it a little bit, but not for any significant lengths of time.  As someone who can stare at a monitor all day playing video games and who can read small text rather comfortably, I have a feeling this is going to be the way I do books from now on.  Don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before or not, but there is a kindle app for the iPhone, so you can get all stuff from Amazon's library.

I tried this for about two weeks.  On the one hand it was great for reading during metro trips from/to work and even during the numerous 'wait for everyone to show up for the scheduled meeting' minutes.  Small screen chunks of text lends itself well to sudden interruptions.

I ended up not liking it because I started to feel claustrophobic about how few words were on the screen.  Weird, I guess.  I found myself missing the 'all the other words' in my periphery.

[Cyrrex]

I'm starting a little experiment to see if I like using my iPhone as an e-book reader.  I've used it a little bit, but not for any significant lengths of time.  As someone who can stare at a monitor all day playing video games and who can read small text rather comfortably, I have a feeling this is going to be the way I do books from now on.  Don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before or not, but there is a kindle app for the iPhone, so you can get all stuff from Amazon's library.

I tried this for about two weeks.  On the one hand it was great for reading during metro trips from/to work and even during the numerous 'wait for everyone to show up for the scheduled meeting' minutes.  Small screen chunks of text lends itself well to sudden interruptions.

I ended up not liking it because I started to feel claustrophobic about how few words were on the screen.  Weird, I guess.  I found myself missing the 'all the other words' in my periphery.

Heh, that's my initial reaction, too...I'm just going to see if I can power through it and see where I land.

[Samwise]

I really want a kindle.  I really don't want to spend $240 on it.

And then have to start buying books to put on it.

Heh well I don't mind that part.  

I dunno, I might find the Kindle more appealing if I could have it quickly scan my bookshelf and give me e-versions of all the books I've already bought.

[Morat20]

I really want a kindle.  I really don't want to spend $240 on it.

I got mine for Christmas. (Well, technically, I had enough Amazon gift-cards to cover 80% of it.) Replacing all my old books on Kindle is going to be a bitch, especially since only a fraction of them are available, but hell....I can ask for more gift-cards.

My house is groaning with books, and they're overflowed the shelves and I'm out of room to put new ones in. I don't plan to -- even if they were all on Kindle, even if there was a free "send up your book, we'll send you the kindle version" program -- to replace ALL my books. But some 90% of them could be moved to Kindle and leave my quite happy, although at that point I'm going to start hassling Amazon to provide a better directory structure. :)

In the meantime, my wife has got me reading Chelsea Handler's books, and for someone whose public persona is 'drunken vodka-swilling slut', she's a really good writer. I'm..impressed. It also helps that the first bit I read was her description of a vacation with her father, and I recognized my father's antics in hers.

[Johny Cee]

Penguin is hoping that people will blame Amazon, not them.  Which is stupid, because Amazon is the one who gets to inform them they won't be getting their pre-order, and therefore gets to set the narrative.  Penguin doesn't even know who the hell they are.

Lots of authors have blogged about the Amazon/Publisher skirmishes, generally taking the side of the publishers (presumably the ones who are on Amazon's side don't want to shit in their bed).  What it comes down to is that in an eBook world, a publisher's functions are reduced to providing editing and marketing, and the Top Ten and Recommendation lists of the eBook portals are the only marketing slots worth talking about.  The publishers are *doomed* if they don't see the handwriting on the wall and create their own eBook standard, devices, and portals, and that would require a level of cooperation they simply don't seem capable of (literary agents can take over their editing functions, where web-savvy authors haven't built their own fanbase into a crowdsourced editing team).

--Dave

Um.  Go read what the industry insiders are saying.  The cost of printing a book, from what I've seen, is 7-10% of the total cost.  That's either hardcover or other formats....   what you are paying on hardcovers is a premium to have the book first.  Hardcovers are one of the few things keeping alot of niche authors alive and with a publisher. 

Amazon is trying to use their market dominance to cut their costs and subsidize the Kindle and their proprietary format.  Basically, it's one part Walmart/one part Microsoft.  The publishers had no other option until Apple stepped in.  Apple is using an agent system, where the publisher sets the price and Apple just gets a sales cut.  Which do you think the publishers prefer?

Most of what publishers do already is editing and marketing and formatting/typesetting.  You aren't going to replace that with free services without affecting quality, or the ability of people to hear about your book.

The idea that you can get motivated fans to step in and take over editing is....  foolish in the extreme.  It's like asking for legal advice on a forum.  Most non-profit and volunteer orgs are lucky to get any substantive support, and those are matters of belief.  Most still need to have government grants and solicit contributions to fund having employees.

That's not to mention the inherent problems of trying to run an all volunteer environment with required technical expertise and significant time commitments.  At worst, things will self-destruct (think UO freeshards and past incarnations of LtM) or will drive the material straight into fanwank territory (have you seen most fan fiction?)  Not to mention whole avenues for domination and authority games inherent in the volunteer environment.  MOST small non-profits I've been involved with have nearly self-destructed because of palace intrigue at one point or another.

I almost forgot ownership problems as well.  Looking at comics, I would think there is a huge potential for ownership difficulties between an author and a volunteer editing team.  I mean, if Sid Uberfan spends man-weeks editing an authors work, and then said author takes off big?  Or they have a falling out about the story direction in book 5?  Lawsuit time!

Internet book portals are only as well respected as they are now because they don't matter too much...  so no one is actively trying to bribe them.  If people are actually paying attention to them, they'll go the way of gaming portals that get kickbacks for how much they can fellate the latest release. 

There is a large disconnect between what sells and what has the internet rep.  Jordan, Goodkind, Card, etc. are actively reviled....  and still sell like hotcakes.  Guys like Abraham and Lynch and Abercrombie get lauded and underperform.  A guy like Jeff Vandermeer (who I really like) has huge rep and mediocre sales.

There is even a huge disconnect between what has internet rep in one place, but is regarded with disdain another.  Erikson gets badmouthed on a site like westeros, but he has his own pretty active fansite and has some active backers on others general sites.

[Quinton]

In the previous system amazon would pay the publishers a fixed % of MSRP (or whatever the publishing industry equivalent is) and then would sell the book at what price they want -- just like any other bookstore.

In the new agency system the publishers directly set the price to the end purchaser and take 30% (or similar) of the sale.

In the new system the publishers quite possibly will make less money per book, but they get to directly set the price amazon sells the book at.


I find it fascinating that when it was music, Jobs used a very similar deal as the original Amazon deal to help ensure the record companies wouldn't kill electronic distribution by pricing it absurdly.  He obviously cared about that a lot.  This time around I think he cares about screwing Amazon over and isn't worried about impact to the endusers because hey Steve doesn't believe in reading anyway...

[schild]

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter just came out. It's pretty great. By the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies guy (Seth Grahame Smith or whatever). Click the Amazon link at the top if you want to be awesome.

Trust me, you want it just for the dustcover.

[Samwise]

Is the actual book any good?  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies had a great cover and everything inside was utter crap.

[AutomaticZen]

I wish he could pump out more then one book a year.   

Well, his fantasy series is done now, so I'm hoping he starts churning out this series faster, but I have a feeling he's going to start into another series on the side instead.  Couldn't find anything about his writing plans on his site after scanning it for a few minutes though.

I actually found the Codex Alera books to be a bit stronger than Dresden, though I enjoy both.

[Morat20]

I actually found the Codex Alera books to be a bit stronger than Dresden, though I enjoy both.

Started off slow, built up. And you have to hand it to the man, for working in the  into a Lost Legion plot. I rather liked the diversity of 'magic' in the Codex Alera stuff. It seemed the entire series was built around allowing certain characters moments of total badassery and awesomeness.

Up to and including a volcano erupting in such a way as to make a character's "Who am I" speech far more awesome.

[naum]

Um.  Go read what the industry insiders are saying.  The cost of printing a book, from what I've seen, is 7-10% of the total cost.  That's either hardcover or other formats....   what you are paying on hardcovers is a premium to have the book first.  Hardcovers are one of the few things keeping alot of niche authors alive and with a publisher. 

Amazon is trying to use their market dominance to cut their costs and subsidize the Kindle and their proprietary format.  Basically, it's one part Walmart/one part Microsoft.  The publishers had no other option until Apple stepped in.  Apple is using an agent system, where the publisher sets the price and Apple just gets a sales cut.  Which do you think the publishers prefer?

Bullshit.

Editing, proofreading, typesetting, etc.… are one-off costs.

The cost of paper is significant though I know that costs can be cut there. Still, it's a cost that's replicated in every copy, unlike in a digital realm.

Bottom line: an absolute absurdity that Amazon features printed books at a cheaper price than the ebook version.

[Tmon]

Here's what Charlie Stross says about book production in general  http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-are-made.html  and an NYT story about the costs of e-books http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/media/01ebooks.html?emc=eta1

[naum]

Here's what Charlie Stross says about book production in general  http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-are-made.html  and an NYT story about the costs of e-books http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/media/01ebooks.html?emc=eta1

Yes. Have read those articles. Doesn't alter a thing I stated.

Most published books earn little for authors. Only the rare outliers and fabulously popular authors like Steven King, Harry Potter author, John Grisham, $OtherPopularAuthorIAmForgetting, etc.… really ride the gravy train on the sole effort of book authoring…

Even moderately successful authors do not make enough money from book advances and royalties — but it does grant speaking opportunities where they can easily make 10-100X whatever the paltry book proceeds were.

Mind you, this has nothing at all to do with ebooks, except that some have raked in equal or greater amounts self publishing ebooks (mainly tech authors, speaking with friends, who've made more money selling epub/PDF online than they received for printed O'Reilly/Pearson/Wiley titles) on their own.

[HaemishM]

Those two articles absolutely ignore the elephant in the room of the publishing business - the distributors. The people like Ingram whose sole purpose is moving paper from publisher to bookstore. For that service, they immediately take 50% off the price the publisher gets from the customer. The worst part about all that is they are completely and utterly unnecessary with the advent of print-on-demand services.

This interview I did with Babbling About Books kind of outlines my view of the future bookstore, and that model does not include the Ingrams of the world. Moving bits is a lot cheaper than moving paper.

[Morat20]

You know what this is? Exactly the same fucking slapfight that happened over music going digital. With the same arguments, and the same dire calls, and in the end people have to change their business model and some companies go out of business and some don't, and what you end up with is a way to get the music you want when you want it, without either having to have it shipped at best, and at worst having to troll ebay looking for a 12-year old album by an obscure band.

Of course publishers and distributers are going to scream bloody murder and claim it's the end of life as they know it. It is. They'll have to adapt or die. And just like the music industry, those that adapt will still make money and those that won't will go out of business. Nobody wants to upset the apple cart if they're not certain they'll end up better off.

[dd0029]

Is the actual book any good?  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies had a great cover and everything inside was utter crap.

Just finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies .  The Jane Austen parts were good.  The zombie stuff not so much.  And what was with the hur, hur ball jokes?

[Mosesandstick]

Vince Cable on the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson: "The best read in years: the most original heroine; transforms boring, grey, Sweden into often disturbing and vivid, gruesome, technicolour".

[Draegan]

So I'm about 3/4th's of the way through Hero of Ages by Sanderson (Mistborn Series)

[Sky]

Finished off Saga of Seven Suns, I found it to be a decent action scifi. Dragged a bit in spots and they kept Wencelas around far beyond believability, Anderson definitely rambled through the plot at some points without an outline. But for light action scifi, it was a fun read with very short chapters that are conducive to reading on break at work or on the can.

I was going to read Modesitt's new recluce book but someone checked it out. Haze bothered me with the blatant politics and I stopped reading it pretty early on (something I almost never do). Imager stuff also checked out.

Thinking of picking up Feist's new series, but I kind of want to wait for him to finish it first. Maybe I'll try Erikson again.

[Morat20]

I was going to read Modesitt's new recluce book but someone checked it out. Haze bothered me with the blatant politics and I stopped reading it pretty early on (something I almost never do). Imager stuff also checked out.

Arms-Commander? I finished it awhile back. Wasn't as good as the other two Winterlance novels, and was really hammer-heavy with the "Angel ends up leaving Westwind 'cause she knows not all men are dickholes' thing, but then Rheba's whole "men suck" thing is an understandable over-reaction for any woman (especially one from an absolutely equal-rights civilization with a history of female warriors) landing in a male-dominated, fuedal society.

Subtle distinctions and shades-of-grey are not your friend.

Just finished A Mighty Fortress and was upset at the distinct lack of Charisian ass-kicking. There WAS some Charisian ass-kicking, but not the steamrolling I was hoping for. However, the ending DID ensure that, in fact, more steamrolling was coming. Of course, it's really hard to live up to Off Armageddon Reef for that. Introducing a fleet of galley's to galleons (incorporating some 200+ years of ship design, fun design, and sail design into like 2 years) is hard to top for sheer destruction and ass-kickery.

[Sky]

Wasn't as good as the other two Winterlance novels.

The Lord Protector's Daughter was pretty poorly written, so after actually putting down Haze, Modesitt is one book away from being officially on notice. Too bad, he was always good for decent, if predictable, novels. Feist went through a period with the Krondor trilogy, but iirc he's recovered somewhat. Makes one appreciate Anderson wrapping everything up in book 7, even if he does make it end with a sappy neat little bow and everyone lives happily ever after.

[Draegan]

I might have to retract my statement about Hero of the Ages.  The last 3/4 of the book really moves and gets interesting fast.  There is finally a goal and a lot of moving towards it instead of meandering around a lot.

[WayAbvPar]

Finally slogged my way through The Fall of Hyperion. Interesting world and story, but the writing style got to me after awhile- I got really tired of reading different adjectives/descriptions of colors eventually.

Have Gardens of the Moon sitting on my desk. I am trying to decide if I want to embark on a multibook series just yet, or if I want to clean up some more to dos on my reading list before I commit myself.