With publication of The Loveliest Dead E-Reads continues its program of reissues of horror novels by Grand Master Ray Garton.

In this novel Garton is at the top of his macabre form. The “loveliest dead” are far from lovely but they are definitely dead and making life hell for the living. Following a sequence of increasingly dire personal tragedies, culminating in the unexplained death of their four-year-old son, Josh, Jenna and David Kella plan to make a new start of their lives on the old family homestead they’ve inherited just outside Eureka, California with their surviving son Miles. What they discover, though, is a nightmare. Ghostly children play on the backyard swings and vanish abruptly. In a cruel and maddening irony, one of the child ghosts resembles their dead son Josh. The horrors pile up as psychics, Ouija boards and poltergeists drive the couple to the borders of madness and terror.

Ray Garton is the author of close to sixty books of which perhaps the best known is Bram Stoker nominee Live Girls. E-Reads has recently released his widely-praised novel Sex and Violence in Hollywood, bringing to 5 the Garton books in our program. We have no intention of stopping there.
RC

E-Book sales statistics for October 2009 are more than 3.5 times greater than those of the same month one year ago, according to information released by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which collects it in conjunction with the International Digital Publishing Forum. The $18,500,000 figure breaks the previous one-month record, $16,200,000, set last July.

The true sales numbers may be even higher than the above chart indicates. Michael Smith, Executive Director of IDPF (International Digital Publishing Forum) reminds us that:

* This data represents United States revenues only
* This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.
* This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
* This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
* The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
* The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is “All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices”

RC

During the reign of the Emperor Vespasian and shortly after Roman armies have crushed the Jewish revolt in Judea and destroyed the Temple, a young Roman Questor and investigating magistrate, Julius Varro, is commissioned to investigate the story that a Jew rose from the dead after being crucified in Jerusalem some forty years before. Implicit in his commission is the mandate that he must return with proof of the conclusion that such an event could not have happened.

The fast-growing cult of the Nazarene is becoming a threat to the political stability in the region—and to the power of Rome as well—and convincing disproof of the story. Many of the witnesses to the tale are long dead, the trail of evidence is chancy at best. Many of the living feel compelled to lie to protect their own lives. Questor Varro pursues his mission with zeal and conviction, determined to produce a report that will demolish the claims put forward by those he regards as religious fanatics and crackpots. Along the way, his investigation stirs religious passions, immerses him in unexpected intrigue and foments violence. He also finds himself attracted to a beautiful Jewish slave girl.

Varro completes his report demolishing the myth that seems to be fueling the new Christian movement and is set to return to Rome when an extraordinary, in fact miraculous, event occurs that changes everything…including Varro’s own beliefs.

In Inquest, a magnificently conceived and executed historical novel, Roman historian Stephen Dando-Collins invents a historical conceit worthy of the work worthy of comparison with The Da Vinci Code.

RC

Ruminating about the current controversy about whether publishers should delay e-book reprints of hardcover books, Mike Shatzkin had an epiphany. And when Mike Shatzkin has an epiphany it usually ends up kicking the paradigm shift a hundred yards up the road.

“This is really about the agents and publishers trying to take control of ebook pricing, and value perception, back from Amazon,” says Shatzkin. One proof of his contention is that Barnes & Noble, a retailer that few consider to be a friend of publishers, actually agrees with the publishers’ position. B&N Chairman Len Riggio says holding off e-book reprints is “in keeping with the long-held practice of issuing paperback editions after the initial hardcover.”

“If the other biggest bookseller, which also has a dedicated e-reader and an aggressive attitude toward consumer pricing, seems okay with this idea, it strengthens my belief that it is about controlling Amazon, not about controlling ebook pricing,” says Shatzkin. “The desirability of restraining Amazon is certainly something the big publishers and Barnes & Noble can agree on.”

Shatzkin then touches on the essence of the power struggle: “If the big houses can do this, they can do much more than this. They can sell ebooks direct off their own web sites.”

Direct Sales of Books and E-Books by Publishers

Almost two years ago, in an article entitled Direct Sales: Publishing’s Last Stand, we surmised that a war between publishers and booksellers was inevitable, and the only effective weapon publishers have in their arsenal is direct sale of their books to consumers. “Publishers have awoken to the horrible realization that by allowing themselves to ” we said. “As their profit margins wear down to transparent thinness, they understand they must recapture the advantage or risk being marginalized even more than they are now.

“There is only one way for publishers to recover the initiative,” we concluded, “and that is to sell books directly to the consumer.”

War to the death? “It is hard to imagine this battle ending peacefully anytime soon,” asserts Shatzkin. Read about his epiphany at length on his blog: The ebook windowing controversy has subtext.

Richard Curtis

In our posting about Cory Doctorow’s second article in Publishers Weekly (about his Lovers Quarrel with Audio) we found an appropriate illustration, a baby clapping hands over ears (below).

Doctorow has gone one better and sent us a photo of himself (r.) in the same pose.

Thanks, Cory!

Just to summarize, in his second PW piece Doctorow describes the challenge of getting audio versions of his books produced. His only condition is that he has to be satisfied, and that’s a bit of a problem, because Doctorow’s satisfaction quotient does not sit on the same coordinates as those by which the rest of us measure pleasure. Still, in chronicling his adventures in audioland he does not come off as unreasonable. To the contrary, his annoyance with proprietary restrictions, generically known as “DRM” – Digital Rights Management – is something that bothers e-book readers as well as audiophiles.

Doctorow’s quest for an ideal audio experience will benefit all of us and, we hope, enable producers to give customers better products and services.

Check out Can You Hear Me Now? and you’ll see what we mean.

Last month we reported that Cory Doctorow (that’s not he at the right) had launched a monthly column in Publishers Weekly dedicated to monitoring his venture into book publishing. “Doctorow, whose brash and sometimes subversive-sounding publishing strategies have made him a folk hero to his fans and generated intense controversy in the mainstream publishing community, has laid siege to the very ramparts of that community by wagering that he’s at least as good a publisher as they are,” we wrote. “Maybe, even, a better one. And he’s thrown down the gauntlet in the industry’s very own trade publication, Publishers Weekly.” You can read about it in What Publishers Can Learn from Cory Doctorow.

In his second essay, he describes the challenge of getting audio versions of his books produced. His only condition is that he has to be satisfied, and that’s a bit of a problem, because Doctorow’s satisfaction quotient does not sit on the same coordinates as those by which the rest of us measure pleasure. Still, in chronicling his adventures in audioland he does not come off as unreasonable. To the contrary, his annoyance with proprietary restrictions, generically known as “DRM” – Digital Rights Management – is something that bothers e-book readers as well as audiophiles.

Doctorow’s quest for an ideal audio experience will benefit all of us and, we hope, enable producers to give customers better products and services.

Check out Can You Hear Me Now? and you’ll see what we mean.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.

Don’t know what a lot lizard is? You obviously haven’t been hanging around truck stops. And you may never want to go near one after you read Ray Garton’s Lot Lizards

A “lot lizard” is a female hooker who works highway truck stops as her territory. When trucker Bill Ketter looks for a little relaxation and release, he discovers, too late, that he has bitten off more than he can chew. In fact, his lot lizard is the one that does the biting–she is a vampire, one of number who move from one truck stop to the next under the watchful and vicious eyes of the repulsive Carsey Brothers. Against his will, Bill becomes one of the undead. He follows the brothers and their cargo to another stop where he meets his ex-wife and children and Bill finds himself battling the vampires and their age-old leader for the life of his teenaged son.

Horror Grand Master Ray Garton has created another small masterpiece, contemporary adult horror at its most gruesome and loaded with extras doses of sex and gore. The confined setting creates a perfect claustrophobic stage for the story and the hellaciously quick pace never lets the action slow down.

Like a wolf marking its territory against rivals, Random House served unequivocal notice today on what it perceives as potential e-poachers seeking a loophole in Random’s definition of “book”. The warning was embedded in a letter from Random CEO Markus Dohle mailed or emailed to literary agents describing the company’s plans and initiatives in the digital world. Authors were also put on notice that they are “precluded from granting publishing rights to third parties that would compromise the rights for which Random House has bargained.”

“The vast majority of our backlist contracts,” writes Dohle, “grant us the exclusive right to publish books in electronic formats. At the same time, we are aware there have been some misunderstandings concerning ebook rights in older backlist titles. Our older older agreements often give the exclusive rights to publish ‘in book form’ or ‘in any and all editions’. Many of those contracts also include enhanced language that references other forms of copying or displaying the text that might be developed in the future or other more relevant language that more specifically reflects the already expansive scope of rights. Such grants are usually not limited to any specific format, and indeed the “form” of a book has evolved over the years to include variations of hardcover, paperback and other written word formats, all of which have understood to be included in the grant of book publishing rights. Indeed, ebook retailers market, sell and merchandise ebooks as an alternate book format, alongside the hardcover, trade paperback and mass market versions of a given title. Whether physical or digital, the product is used and experienced in the same manner, serves the same function, and satisfies the same fundamental urge to discovery stories, ideas and information through the process of reading. Accordingly, Random House considers contracts that grant the exclusive right to publish ‘in book form’ or ‘in any and all editions’ to include the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats. Our agreements also contain broad non-competition provisions, so that the author is precluded from granting publishing rights to third parties that would compromise the rights for which Random House has bargained.”

If Random’s position sounded familiar to some, it’s the same one that the company used in 2001 when it sued Rosetta, an e-book startup that offered digital editions of books by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., William Styron and Robert B. Parker, having secured them directly from the authors. Random had published the books before there was such a thing as the Internet, but nevertheless considered a book to be a book no matter what form it took. Random’s request for an injunction was denied by the court, and Random then filed an appeal. It too was denied.

Random and Rosetta eventually settled, allowing Rosetta to continue publishing the books but leaving unresolved the issue of who controls e-rights to books where the language defining them is ambiguous.

By issuing its letter to agents today, Random House reasserted its position that, ambiguous or not, the publisher considers the language in its contracts to grant it ironclad control over e-rights. Anyone who believes otherwise is advised to take a good sniff before venturing over the perimeter of Random’s territory.

Richard Curtis

Kassia Krozser, whose Booksquare blog (in her own words) “dissects the publishing industry with love and skepticism,” has dissected Nat Sobel’s plea to publishers to withhold e-book reprints of hardcovers, and she bluntly declares “You are wrong.”

In a two-part posting, Responding to Nat Sobel, Cranky-Style, she amplifies on her judgment. Sobel’s statement was originally published on the E-Reads website and has provoked such publishers as Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Harper to declare that they will delay e-book reprints for months after publication of hardcovers. You can read about those policy announcements here.

Sobel and his partner Judith Weber have individually replied to Krozser in comments on her website. Says Sobel: “The economy of all publishing is at stake here for both publisher, agent and author. Keeping hardcover books alive [we are the only country in the world with a viable hardcover market] is essential to the intellectual health of this country.” He adds: “I love electronic books. I have a Kindle. And use it. The story behind all of this is fear of survival.”

Judith Weber draws a parallel to DVDs of motion pictures:

These comments seem to ignore the fact that Mr. Sobel never suggested that books not be released in electronic format, only that their release be delayed beyond the period of the initial hardcover release. When the mass market paperback business was thriving, millions of readers waited to buy books when they came out (usually a year later than hardcover release), but they didn’t refuse to buy the books they wanted to read. If readers today don’t want to pay the higher price of hardcovers, they will, similarly, wait a few months until the books are available electronically, or a little longer until they can find them in paperback reprint. To cite the movie analogy again, many people wait until DVDs are released, rather than paying the high cost of a night out at the movies, but they still see the movies they want to see.

You can read their remarks in full, plus many more incisive comments, on Booksquare here.

Whichever side of the argument you take, we all passionately agree that this is about the future of the book business and the survival of authors.

Richard Curtis

Saying Barnes & Noble clearly rushed the Nook out prematurely “in hopes of stealing some of the Kindle’s holiday cheer,” tech columnist David Pogue issued a sharp critique of the device in the New York Times.

Here’s an abstract of Pogue’s analysis:

• “That ‘color touch screen,’ for example, is actually just a horizontal strip beneath the regular Kindle-style gray screen…Worse, the touch screen is balky and nonresponsive…It takes nearly three seconds to turn a page — three times longer than the Kindle — which is really disruptive if you’re in midsentence.“
• “It takes four seconds for the Settings panel to open, 18 seconds for the bookstore to appear (over Wi-Fi), and 8 to 15 seconds to open a book or newspaper for the first time, during which you stare at a message that says ‘Formatting’.”
• “’Over one million titles?’” Yes, but well over half of those are junky Google scans of free, obscure, pre-1923 out-of-copyright books, filled with typos.“
• “Fact is, Amazon’s e-book store is still much better. Of the current 175 New York Times best sellers, 12 of them aren’t available for Kindle; 21 are unavailable for the Nook.”
• “Kindle books are less expensive.”
• “What about the Nook’s built-in Wi-Fi? It’s there, but you get no notification when you’re in a hot spot. And if the hot spot requires a login or welcome screen, you can’t get onto it.“
• “And the ‘loan e-books to friends?’ part? You can’t lend a book unless its publisher has O.K.’ed this feature...Furthermore, the book is gone from your own Nook during the loan period (a maximum of two weeks). And each book can be lent only once, ever.“
• “It’s buggy. In four days, my Nook locked up twice and displayed an ‘Android operating system has crashed’ message twice.“

Does Pogue have anything good to say? Well…”Now, the Nook may have some hardware advantages — a removable battery, a memory-card slot and (because of narrower plastic margins) a slightly trimmer shape — but the Kindle is still a better machine. It’s faster, thinner, lighter and much easier to figure out. Its battery lasts more than three times as long (seven days versus two).”

The bottom line for Pogue? “Those missing features are symptoms of B&N’s bad case of Ship-at-All-Costs-itis.”

Read the full review here.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.