J. A. Konrath, creator of the bestselling Hyperion Press series featuring Chicago cop Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels, has upended convention by signed with Amazon for the latest book, Shaken.  After Kindle brings it out as an e-book,  a print edition will be released early in 2012.

Konrath is no stranger to Kindle, but because he’s bringing Shaken out as an original, the event marks a dramatic shift.

“I’m excited to be able to release the Kindle edition of ‘Shaken’ several months before the physical version is available to purchase,” Konrath writes in a press release. “Since it’s easier, faster and cheaper to create an e-book than it is a physical book, Kindle owners will get to read the seventh Jack Daniels before everyone else.”

In a Q and A conducted with himself, he asked “Aren’t you going to piss off traditional publishers?” His answer: “Traditional publishers had a chance to buy Shaken last year. They passed on it. Their loss. Their big loss. Their big, huge, monumental, epic fail.”

Konrath obviously exemplifies the motto, “Don’t get mad, get even.” Read the rest of his self-interview here.

Richard Curtis

You call it multitasking. Christine Pearson calls it rude.  Pearson, a business professor who lectures on the subject of incivility, is talking about texting during meetings.

“I define incivility as behavior, seemingly inconsequential to the doer, that others perceive as inconsiderate,” writes Pearson, co-author of a book about it, in the New York Times. “Electronic devices lead to more incivility because of their powerful ability to claim our attention — no matter where we are or what we’re doing. No one likes to be snubbed, of course, but the offense can take on a new edge when the winner is a machine.”

Pearson’s book is called The Cost of Bad Behavior. And just what exactly is the cost of this egregious behavior? For one thing, says Pearson, you may suffer the resentment of your colleagues who have to “pick up the slack caused by the wandering attention and diluted energies of their e-cruising colleagues.” Also, it’s a kind of insult to your fellow workers, who may feel that the unspoken message you’re communicating to them is, “You are less important to me than my cellphone/P.D.A./laptop/latest gizmo.”

Incivility can  redound to your own detriment, too.  “In my research, I’ve learned that when employees behave in an uncivil way, their colleagues may take retribution. They might withhold information — for example, by ‘forgetting’ to include the offender’s name on a final product. Or they might see to it that he or she ends up with a less desirable task next time. Or they might even refuse to work with the person again.” In other words, the ultimate cost of abusing texting privileges could be not just ostracism, but your very job.

But perhaps the most insidious effect of inappropriate texting is the dangerous self-delusion that multitasking increases your efficiency.  Not true, says Pearson, citing sociological evidence. “Neuroscientists tell us that dividing our attention between competing stimuli instead of handling tasks one at a time actually makes us less efficient,” she says.

This reinforces something we’ve said again and again about e-books: any task performed on a screen – such as reading – can be distracting and possibly even detrimental. “My own research shows that people are continually distracted when working with digital information,” says Gloria Mark, a University of California professor who studies human-computer interaction. “They switch simple activities an average of every three minutes (e.g. reading email or IM) and switch projects about every 10 and a half minutes. It’s just not possible to engage in deep thought about a topic when we’re switching so rapidly.”  (See The Medium is Screens. The Message is Distraction.)

The problem is particularly acute for young minds. Christine Pearson’s Sending a Message That You Don’t Care may be aimed at adults,  but it applies in spades to children. Another reason to curb your child’s texting habits -  as if you needed excuses.

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.

Fans of John Norman’s Gorean saga (we’re up to Volume 28 and counting) will be happy to learn of the forthcoming debut of Gor on Audio.  Brilliance Audio will release Tarnsman of Gor, the first volume, on June 15th 2010.

According to Chronicles of Gor website, the place for all things Gorean, the second novel (Outlaw of Gor) is scheduled for August 15, 2010, Priest-Kings of Gor for October 15, 2010, and Nomads of Gor for December 15, 2010. Next year, on February 15th, 2011, Assassin of Gor will follow and on April 15, 2011, Raiders of Gor will be released. Each book will be available in four different formats. Tarsnman for instance will be in a seven CD audio version, a single CD MP3 version, an online download, and two special Library editions with Brilliance’s unprecedented lifetime replacement guarantee. Prices vary depending on the chosen format. The total duration of the audio production is 8 hours. Subsequent books may vary in production time.

The saga will be narrated by the astonishingly versatile Ralph Lister, and if you’ll click here you can hear some samples of his voice.  (Quicktime 6 or higher may be required)

Which voice – or voices – will he use for Gor?  We can’t wait to learn!

The Gorean Saga is E-Reads’ bestselling science fiction series. Visit the John Norman page to see a complete list of all titles in the series plus the wonderful Telnarian Trilogy, Imaginative Sex, and other classic Norman works.

Richard Curtis

Bob Tedeschi, informally surveying available book-reading applications in the Personal Tech section of the New York Times, awarded laurels to Kobo.

The reason? Unlike other e-book reading apps you can use Kobo to read on any device (except Kindle).

“The books you buy from most of these apps are, for now, readable only within the company’s apps. It is as if you have to travel back to the bookstore every time you want to open the book. That is not a major headache, as long as the apps that support your e-books survive forever, with the support of the major hardware manufacturers. But if Amazon folds its apps, or if you decide you want to read your books on another e-reading app, the books will be far less useful.”

Which is why Tedeschi has settled on the Kobo.  In a rapidly shifting e-book terrain it’s impossible to  predict which format will retain standing a few years (or even a few months!) from now.  Not even Kindle format has a lifetime guarantee – your lifetime, that is. Armed with your Kobo reader, you don’t have to worry about waking up to learn the digital gods have removed your format while you slept.

“I’m starting my own digital library through the Kobo iPad app, and I plan to hedge by not buying a lot of books in the near future,” declares Teseschi.

Details in E-Reader Applications for Today, and Beyond

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.

As of this writing, the top ten titles on Amazon.com’s Kindle bestseller list are free. Does that devalue the list in your mind?

Before you say yes, ask yourself whether you’d rather have a #10 book on the for-pay bestseller list or a #1 on the free list? Motoko Rich, former book biz reporter for the New York Times, wrote that “if a free e-book rises to the top of the Kindle best-seller list — or Barnes & Noble’s ranked list of free e-books — it automatically gives an author more visibility. ‘When you push to No. 1 of any best-seller list, that in itself seems to beget publicity,’ said Brandilyn Collins, who writes suspense novels with Christian themes and whose novels “Exposure” and “Dark Pursuit” were No. 1 and 2 on the Kindle best-seller list earlier this month and remain in the Top 10 (and are still available free).” (See With Kindle, the Bestsellers Don’t Need to Sell.)

Whether you see it that way or not, Amazon has decided to split off the frees from the for-pays. Publishers Weekly‘s Rachel Deahl reveals that Amazon’s practice of lumping the two together “will soon no longer be an issue. A representative at the e-tailer has confirmed that the company will be splitting its Kindle bestseller list, creating one list for paid books and another for free titles. The date for the switch is vague—the rep would only say it will happen in ‘a few weeks’—but the switch will certainly be noticed.”

As counterintuitive as it may sound, I’m not sure I think this is a completely desirable shift.  While traditional listkeepers would recoil in horror at the idea of folding giveaway e-books into the paid bestseller list, digital technology has turned so many traditions on their ear – why not this one?  As I said to Ms. Deahl, who interviewed me for her article, popular free e-books reveal as much about consumer tastes as popular sold ones.

Another consideration is scale. Maybe it’s more important for the fledgling e-book business to concern itself with quantity rather than quality. Bestseller lists are generated by the velocity of sales in any concentrated time period. Most free e-books, like most paid ones, sell at a modest velocity.  Perhaps we can learn from those that move rapidly, even if some of them do so because a publisher is hyping them.

That said, splitting the list does give us a significant new way to judge e-book consumption.  We can now compare what people are reading to what they are buying.

The changeover in Kindle metrics may have another effect, according to Ms. Deahl: “After Amazon splits its lists, writers may soon find more competition—and potentially less payoff—for getting to the top of the free downloads list. Then again, maybe not. Getting to the top of any heap, as author Brandilyn Collins told Rich in the Times, is a good thing.”

By the way, we should take a cue from Ms. Deahl and refer not to “free bestsellers”, a grammatical car wreck if there ever was one, but to the “free downloads list”.

In any event, do read Amazon to Drop Free Books from Kindle Bestseller List

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 and Publishers Weekly.

There’s ASCAP, there’s BMI, and now there’s…um…Milun Tesovic?  Well yes.  Tesovic’s MetroLyrics.com hopes to give those established music licensing organizations some serious competition.

Both BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) are in the business of licensing and distributing fees and royalties on behalf of composers and lyricists. But some business has fallen in the cracks thanks to the Internet. “For songwriters and their publishers…, the ubiquity of lyrics on Web sites presents both opportunities and problems — especially when it comes to getting some of the sites to pay royalties for use of the lyrics,” writes Joseph Plambeck in the New York Times. “For decades, printed song lyrics lived in relative obscurity, relegated to album sleeves and sheet music. And until now, they provided no significant source of revenue.”

Enter Milun Tesovic. When he was 16 he saw the Internet as a possible ally in the struggle to identify revenue generating opportunities in lyrics. Now, eight years later, MetroLyrics “drew about 13.5 million unique users in March and generated close to $10 million in revenue in 2009.” reports Plambeck.   Tesovic shrewdly elected to bring third-party aggregators into his fold, instead of treating them like adversaries.

There’s a lesson to be learned for publishers trying to put book pirates out of business: if you can’t lick ‘em, partner with ‘em.

Read about Tesovic and some other lyric-hunters in Lyrics Sites at Center of Fight Over Royalties

Richard Curtis

“Today they censor nipples, tomorrow it’s editorial content,” said a spokeswoman at Bild, Germany’s newspaper whose high circulation can be laid at the breasts of the topless “Bild girls.” A number of German weekly newspapers sport similar titillating images.

You’ll find them in German newspapers, but you won’t find them on the iPad, according to William Boston writing in AOL News. “Apple’s cyber police removed Stern’s gallery of nude photos and forced Bild to put some clothes on the ‘Bild girl.’

“Stern.de, the Web site of the German weekly magazine, has now installed what its CEO Chris Hasselbring calls an ‘erotic filter’ to ensure that no content in violation of Apple’s rules makes it onto the Stern app for the iPhone or iPad. But Hasselbring and other German publishers are not happy with the situation,” writes Boston

“Jobs’ blitzkrieg against German nudity on his iPad could have far-reaching consequences for the publishing industry if he is allowed to dictate what content is allowed and what should be verboten,” Boston points out.

What’s behind Jobs’s nipple fixation? “In an e-mail allegedly from Jobs that was published on the TechCrunch blog,” Boston says, “Jobs dismissed his critics, saying: ‘We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.’”

By squeezing nipples off the the iPad Jobs raises many questions

and even more hackles. Are Ingres’ nudes okay but Playboy centerfolders out? And if so, why?  Who makes those decisions?  Men’s nipples okay?  And why do men have nipples, anyway? What about male organs? Michaelangelo’s David, is that a go or no-go? Is there a Hays Office-type review board populated by censors triaging images of breasts? And are there still openings for that position?

Oh yes, one more question: what century are we in, again?

After reading iPad’s Nipple Ban Arouses Ire of German Publishers you’ll have lots of questions of your own, we’re sure.

Richard Curtis

“We will not only undersell Amazon, but we make this guarantee: if you find a book cheaper on Amazon, we’ll refund the difference plus 10 percent.”

That’s the offer that Borders Australia made to its customers as reported by Neerav Bhatt in ITnews.com.au. The feisty antipodal book chain “announced plans to launch online bookstores powered by e-books download service Kobo and sell its own e-book reader devices,” writes Bhatt.  Kobo expects to launch on May 19th with over 1 million e-books, newspapers and magazines.

Casually mentioned in the story is the projected list price of Kobo’s reading device: AUS $200. That’s $180 in Yankee dollars, about US $80.00 less than the Kindle.

Has anyone noticed that e-book prices are coming down, and royalties going up?

While you ponder, read Borders Australia Lays Down Challenge to Amazon.com

Richard Curtis

Now any writer sane or dotty
Calls himself a twitterati,
Producing literary treasures
In hundred forty unit measures.
The future Milton, Pope or Keats –
Immortalized in deathless tweets!

Had anyone told me, when I wrote that bit of doggerel, that five months after it appeared in Publishers Weekly Twitter would donate its archive of 10 billion tweets to the Library of Congress, I would have compelled him to undergo a full brain scan.

But once again life has imitated art. According to Randall Stross writing in the New York Times, Twitter and the national library believe that scholars might one day mine the archives for insights into our age.” Taken together,”writes Stross, “they are likely to be of considerable value to future historians. They contain more observations, recorded at the same times by more people, than ever preserved in any medium before.”

Think of it as a 5 terabyte time capsule. And where are you going to find space to store 5 terabytes? Says Stross: “Ten billion Twitter messages take up little storage space: about five terabytes of data. (A two-terabyte hard drive can be found for less than $150.)”

But aren’t these communications private?  Not according to Twitter’s general counsel. When you hit the Tweet button you are going public with your message.  And now – just think! – your idiotic gems will be preserved for all posterity, Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame condensed into a dazzling starburst of 140 characters.

Here’s Stross’s article: When History Is Compiled 140 Characters at a Time

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.

Poem excerpt from “The Year of the Tweet” by Richard Curtis, (c) Richard Curtis reprinted from the 2009 year-end issue of Publishers Weekly, December 21 2009 Reed Elsevier Magazines. 

I recently had the privilege of serving on a panel hosted by Publishers Weekly introducing Google Editions to an audience of publishing professionals. As reported by Calvin Reid in PW, Google executive Chris Palma presented his company’s vision of an online marketplace “where books can be searched for, bought and stored on the internet and read anywhere, any time, on or off line…Google Editions is a venture that combines Google’s overarching ability to aggregate millions of online consumers with ‘remote connectivity that allows the ability to create giant economies of scale.’”

Google Editions launches this summer.

After the event I reflected on what this means for authors, agents, publishers and readers and I realized that it is far more than simply another retailer jumping into the e-book space.  Far, far more. By moving the retailing of e-books into the cloud, Google has leapfrogged over its rivals, creating what may well be the last word in delivery of books to readers. If Google can bring it off it will level the lopsided advantage currently enjoyed by Amazon.

Of course, the idea that your book is stored in some nebulous nexus in the heavens beyond the reach of pirates, hackers and evil cyberwarriors is a myth. There actually is a there there; “The Cloud” is a bank of well guarded servers – very much located on terra firma – on which book content is cached for access by your browser.  But the image of pure, disembodied functionality is an immensely compelling paradigm, an ideal to strive for.  I call it virtual publishing.

I’ve been thinking about virtual publishing since the day I conceived E-Reads.  Given the slow but inevitable dissolution of a publishing industry based on tangible objects, and the disintermediation of anything that comes between author and reader, it stands to reason that a publishing operation could be reduced to a few servers managed by a handful of people, and that is the ideal I have striven to attain. Though it’s an oversimplification to say that a publishing company could be nothing more than an untended server, it’s not an absurd one. In  a virtual publishing model, information exits a server in the form of book content uploaded to retailers or customers; and information enters in the form of electronic fund transfers. Books out,  money in.

Admittedly it is far easier for a newcomer like E-Reads to achieve virtuality than for traditional publishing houses with their extensive legacies of brick and mortar editorial offices, printing plants, warehouses and a medieval distribution system depending on vehicles.  Nevertheless, Google’s cloud model points the way to a more virtual, efficient delivery method, one that reduces the number of human, physical and technical intermediaries between author and reader to a handful.

The flight to virtuality has been and will continue to be disruptive for traditional publishers.  But it is a necessary step in the evolution of a publishing industry struggling to transform itself.

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.