If Microsoft keeps introducing the tablet, will they finally get it right?  We’re about to find out. At next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, MS will present what, by our count, is its fourth tablet.  Not v. 4 of the same tablet, mind you – the fourth of four different machines.

The presentation will be made by MS’s CEO Steve Ballmer, and this time the company does expect to get it right.  The only problem is that another Steve got his tablet out first and has a multimillion unit lead.

Presumably by next month there will be a name for Ballmer’s device. The first, launched about a decade ago, didn’t really have one.  Then came the HP Tablet, released less than a month before the other Steve released his, but the HP flopped.  Then came the Courier. Came – and went. In April 2010 Microsoft announced that it would no longer support the Courier.

How will the No-Name differ from its Apple rival?

The device, manufactured by Samsung, is “similar in size and shape to the Apple iPad, although it is not as thin,” writes Nick Bolton of the New York Times.  “It also includes a unique and slick keyboard that slides out from below for easy typing.” It will run on the Windows 7 OS “but will also have a layered interface that will appear when the keyboard is hidden and the device is held in a portrait mode.” One source speculates it will run on something called Windows 8.

The marketing strategy may tilt in the direction of business applications. Has Apple left that niche open? “The company believes there is a huge market for business people who want to enjoy a slate for reading newspapers and magazines and then work on Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint while doing work,” said one observer.

If it feels like you’ve heard this story before, well, you have. Read Microsoft Snoozed its Way through Tablet Revolution.

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.

What makes Rex Corvan the world’s greatest reporter? It’s not the video camera implanted in his right eye. It’s not his popularity with news audiences everywhere. What makes him a great reporter is his determination to run toward the story. With a killer on his tail, hopefully Rex can run fast enough.

With his video technician Kim, Rex unravels the mystery of Matrix Man, a dangerous program controlled by a secret group looking to subvert the government. They’ve already infiltrated the White House with deadly results. Now, they’re coming after Rex and Kim.

If Rex can break the story, it’ll be the scoop of a lifetime. As long as his lifetime lasts long enough to get it done….

If you love Matrix Man you’ll find many more wonderful William C. Dietz science fiction novels on his author page.

It’s actually happened. Google Editions,  delayed for months while its developers built its stupendous inventory and refined its delivery system, has opened its doors under a new “DBA” (Doing Business As): Google eBooks.

You’ve been waiting so long that you probably need a refresher course in what it is that will make Google eBooks unique.

Earlier this year, PC World’s Ian Paul wrote: “Unlike Google’s biggest competitors, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which rely heavily on restrictive DRM, Google’s store will not be device-specific – allowing for e-books purchased through Google Editions to be read on the far greater number of e-book readers that will flood the market in 2010″

Now you’ll be able to download Google’s vast library on just about any device available. Since most publishers have not given their content exclusively to Amazon or B&N, you’ll be able to find and buy it from Google editions and read it on whatever device you fancy. But the content will not be stored on your device or on the hard drive of your computer. It will be stored in what Google poetically calls “The Cloud” but more prosaically is simply Google’s server farm.

The royalty deal Google offers publishers is 63 % of gross sales. This compares favorable with the 50% offered by most e-retailers. But Google is also offering to partner with retailers. If you decide you’d like to open an e-book retail store but don’t know how and where to acquire the content, Google will furnish it. Your company would get 55 percent of revenues less a commission for Google.

“Google’s e-books would reportedly be indexed and searchable like many books are now through Google’s Book Search,” says Paul. “Unlike titles offered through e-readers, Google Editions books would not have to be accessed through a dedicated reader or special application.Instead, any device with a Web browser will be able to access a Google Editions book. After you purchase and access your online book for the first time, it will be cached in your browser making the book available when you’re offline.” (Details in Google Editions Embraces Universal E-book Format)

As counterintuitive as it may sound, Google eBooks may prove to be a bonanza to independent bookstores. Julie Bosman writing in the New York Times tells us that “Google Editions will allow users to buy e-books from Google or from the Web sites of independent bookstores, which have yet to find a way to compete with Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple on the electronic front. E-book customers would be able to set up an account for buying books, store them in a central ‘library’ online and read them on Internet-connected computing devices, including smartphones and tablets. Millions of books would be available free.”

E-Reads is loading its books into the Google’s bookstore and we look forward to partnering with them.

Richard Curtis
Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

We’re not sure if the website’s founders had a double meaning in mind when they named it “Chilling Effects“, but it sure sounds that way.

Ostensibly, Chilling Effects was created to provide evenhanded information to both content providers and content consumers about intellectual property rights. But to this observer it displays a definite libertarian, Information Wants To Be Free bias. It is filled with legal and paralegal references to assist those poor unfortunate filesharers and fences who receive takedown notices from authors and publishers whose copyrights have been infringed. Chilling Effects suggests the copyright owners are the abusers and the pirates are the victims. Not much is said about the chilling effects of theft on the creators and legitimate owners of those works.

The organization providing this guide to the perplexed is a pretty prestigious roster of eggheads. It is described as “A joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law clinics.”  We’re sure they’re well meaning and have done their homework in the letter of the law, but the spirit seems to have eluded them, and we have to wonder if they’re familiar with the definition of a liberal as someone who’s never had his pocket picked.

So, what guidance do these sages offer? “Do you know your online rights?” the home page asks. “Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you.”

“Anecdotal evidence,” the site declares, “suggests that some individuals and corporations are using intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to ‘chill’ legitimate activity.”

Chilling Effects is “gathering a searchable database of Cease and Desist notices sent to Internet users like you. We invite you to input Cease and Desist letters that you’ve received into our database, to document the chill. We will respond by linking the legalese in the letters to FAQs that explain the allegations in plain English.”

Spend some time on the Chilling Effects website and tell us if it sounds to you as if this outfit is providing aid and comfort to the bad guys. Or are we just being oversensitive because we’re tired of getting our pockets picked?

For a complete archive of postings about piracy-related topics visit Pirate Central on the E-Reads website.

Richard Curtis

Ray Garton’s horror/suspense novel  The Girl in the Basement is about a young, abused foster boy who finally ends up in a decent home.  But the hero is not exactly Charles Dickens’s Pip, and there is something disturbingly indecent going on in this “decent” home.

15-year-old Ryan Kettering has spent his young life in a series of mostly abusive foster homes. But his luck has changed. Now he’s in the Preston house, where he has a budding romance with fellow foster child Lyssa. But something strange is going on in the basement.

Maddy is a slow nine-year-old girl who is kept in the basement. Sometimes she talks in a gravelly adult voice. Sometimes she seems to know things about others that she couldn’t possibly know…and predicts things that always come true. And sometimes people from the government come by to spend time with Maddy down in the basement.

Maybe Ryan’s luck hasn’t changed as much as he thinks.

Maneater by Jack Warner

Most hunts end in a death. This hunt begins with one–Lanelle Jackson’s. A wild tiger has escaped its cargo truck and now roams the dense forests of the Appalachian Mountains. When deer and wild boar run out, the tiger turns its growing hunger towards man. Now it has a taste for easy prey. With a body-count on the rise and the media coming in, Sheriff Grady Brickhouse calls upon Jim Graham, a tiger hunter trained in India to end the maneater’s killing spree.

However, Graham is retired, and at 73 his body isn’t as fast as it used to be. The only edge Graham holds now is a nine-year-old boy who has somehow bonded with the tiger. But, it’s a bond that makes him protective of the beast, even as it circles ever closer to hurting the ones he loves. This hunt will probably be Graham’s last. The question is, will it end with the tiger’s death or his own?

In Maneater, author Jack Warner crafts a tightly suspenseful adventure novel where death hides in the shadows of small town life. It will have you straining to hear the low growl of the wild before it’s too late…

Ever wonder what it’s really like to be a kid in a candy store? Go to a nearby Costco and you’ll find out. But before you do, arm yourself with Larry Gerston’s revised and updated 2011 edition of The Costco Experience. It takes you to, in, through, and out of this amazing center of shopping frenzy and big-box economy. The book provides keen insight, valuable short-cuts, and common sense thinking on how to make warehouse shopping a successful endeavor.

But there’s more! Beyond helping you conquer Costco, the 2011 edition provides organizational skills and techniques that you can use everywhere. Decision-making, prioritizing, negotiating, self-discipline, and other important attributes are applied to shopping at Costco in ways that help you live your life on your own terms. And the best part is that you transfer these skills to other parts of your daily routines. Costco is more than a warehouse store and shopping at Costco is more than a purchasing exercise. Read the book and you’ll see why the Costco experience can be fun and profitable. It’s almost therapy on the cheap, but a lot more entertaining.

His life all but ruined because of a bad rap he took for murdering two guys to prevent a rape, Reid Bennett relocates in a quaint backwater town in Canada. Then the corpses show up. German shepherd Sam by his side, Bennett does what he has to do, and none of it is in the police officer’s manual.

Dead in the Water launched Ted Wood’s mystery career and the fictional adventures of Reid Bennett. But what brings readers back for book after book is Sam, Reid’s German shepherd. Publisher’s Weekly described Sam thus: “…a multitalented utility infielder who can ‘keep,’ ‘track,’ ‘seek,’ “fight,’ ‘guard,’ sniff out cocaine and corpses, save lives and generally pinch-hit for a dozen patrolmen.” Fans plead, “Whatever happens to Reid Bennett, don’t touch a hair of that dog’s head!”

E-Reads is in the process of releasing all 10 titles in the Reid Bennett detective series. You’ll have to read them all to find out if anyone touched a hair of Sam’s head.

– Richard Curtis

A few weeks ago, a writer named Jeff Tohline emailed me asking a simple question: “What is the single biggest mistake writers make when querying you?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Meets“, I fired back at him. “As in The DaVinci Code Meets Genesis. As in Crime and Punishment Meets The Shining. As in Buffy Meets Dracula.” “Send me a ‘Meets‘ and you’re deleted,” I said. Perhaps I was a bit arbitrary, but that phrase, derived from Hollywood pitch lines that were clever in their day (the 20th century) but have become a stale convention in ours. So – writers beware.

Tohline’s query was sent to some 100 of my agent colleagues and the comments by the 50 who responded are well worth every aspiring writer’s time. I didn’t find anyone else who complained about “meets” but I did discover that…

Three agents complained about “Go to my website for a sample of my work…”, four about pitching their book’s sequel, five about unproofread queries, nine about queries addressed to “Dear Agent”, and fourteen about authors who have no clue what the agency handles or what its submission guidelines are.

Many agents amplified on their peeves.

Michael Murphy of Max & Co.: “The answer to your question is an easy one. The single biggest mistake writers make when querying me is sending manuscripts for areas I do not represent. On my website, in all my interviews, and I believe in most websites that list areas of interest for each agent, it is quite clearly stated that I do not represent YA, prescription (How To) nonfiction, nor genre fiction (SF, fantasy, romance, thrillers). Yet almost half the queries I receive are for these very categories.”

Gina Panettieri: “Don’t try to cut corners by simply referring agents to your website rather than writing a well-prepared query. It’s great to let us know about your website and we can check it out to get more info about you and your book, but we’ll only do that IF you’ve intrigued us with your knock-out query!”

Pam Ahearn: “‘This will be a bestseller and make you very rich.’ Let’s start with getting the agent to read 5 pages before you start thinking about the fortune you’re going to help them make!”

Heather Mitchell: “It all comes down to the writing. An agent’s first peek at the quality of the writing comes from the query letter. You would be amazed at the number of authors who write long, drawn out, messy queries. A query letter should be a tease – a taste for more to come. Don’t give it all away on the first date, and please, show up clean and polished.”

Want to know why your submissions come back from agents faster than a tennis serve? Read The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make When Querying Literary Agents.

Richard Curtis

“Enhanced e-books” was one of the most overused catchphrases in 2010. Publishers stampeded to load up conventional e-books with all manner of enhancements ranging from author out-takes to big-name intros to film and video clips. The idea was to justify boosting the price of their souped-up e-books.

Some of these products were interesting, entertaining and attractive, But were they worth those extra bucks? Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of the Wall Street Journal asked that very question in Testing Enhanced E-Books.

Ana Maria Allessi, publisher of HarperMedia, says definitely yes. “When both digital editions are available, and consumers are given the choice, in half the cases they’ll pay more for extra content,” she says. Sourcebooks’ publisher Dominique Racca thinks so too: “I can imagine a product where you multiply by 100 percent because it has so much more value than the non-enhanced editions.”

But a very different view was expressed by Tony Woodlief, oddly enough in the Wall Street Journal too. He had a one word explanation for why most enhanced e-books will flop.  Click here if you’d like to learn what it is.

And if you’d like to hear it expressed poetically…

Publishers expressed enchantment
With the notion of enhancement.
Audio, video, music, flix,
Bangles, baubles, Bar Mitzvah pix.
A tune or two was all it took
To constitute a mobile vook.
They tossed in every kind of crap
And designated it an app.*

Richard Curtis

* From 2010 (The App) by Richard Curtis with permission of Publishers Weekly, PWxyz, (c) 2010 Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The Wall Street Journal.