Now playing on YouTube

We knew it was coming. Google realized it was time to stop giving content away and to recognize that it is an entertainment medium that has every right to monetize that content. In short, Google had to go Hollywood, with professionally made videos generating advertising revenue.

And Hollywood Google has gone, with a vengeance.  Writes Mike Hale of the New York Times:

The redesign is a muted but firm declaration that the party is over. It’s YouTube’s strongest step away from what will be seen as its short-lived early heyday as a largely unregulated repository of funny cats, anonymous guitar masters, angry Asian bus riders and countless other weird and wonderful things.In place of that free-for-all will be a new YouTube, more commercial, more predictable and, its owners hope, more televisionlike. (See A New YouTube, Herding the Funny Cats)

Back in June 2010 we gave our opinion of the westcoastification of YouTube: “Hollywood, there are millions of us who don’t want YouTube to mature,” we wrote. “We like it just the way it is — embarrassingly sophomoric, amateurish, LOL hilarious, pathetic, dopey, dirty, funky, and utterly counterculture. It belongs to We the People. Can’t you go co-opt some other industry? We can think of a lot of them that could use your genius, your money and your values.”  (See Do We Want YouTube to Grow Up)

YouTube is now just another slick media site owned and operated by Big Hollywood. Polished, professional and in danger of becoming…boring.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Richard Curtis

Just when you achieved competence in Klingon and Na’vi you’re going to have immerse yourself in Dothraki.  At least if you want to fully enjoy the HBO production of The Game of Thrones.  Otherwise, how are you going to be able to say “The stallion that mounts the world has no need for iron chairs!’

Why you would utter that phrase in any genuine language let alone an artificial one is quite outside the reach of this posting.  The translation will be found in Athhilezar? Watch Your Fantasy World Language, Amy Chozick’s fascinating New York Times article about “conlangers,” a bizarre human subspecies whose unique area of competence is the invention of artificial languages. Though you might imagine that a convention of conlangers would scarcely fill the walk-in closet of a condo, in fact the Language Creation Society is a thriving little professional guild.  One of its members, the same fellow who invented Dothraki, is working on Barsoomian for the forthcoming John Carter film. [Actually it's Paul Frommer - see Comments]

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Here’s a piece we ran when Avatar came out.

Chay’ Na’vi Dajatlh HollI’Daq?

If you’re a fan of  Clash of the Titans you’re in for a real treat: two titanic lobbying groups are on a collision course.  Ground zero for the impact is the United States Congress. The issue is piracy.

Bills currently being written in House of Representatives committees are aimed at curbing search engines like Google and Yahoo that link to illegal file sharing and bitTorrent websites, and stopping payment facilitators like PayPal that enable transactions for unauthorized books, movies and music. (In fact, you can use Google to link to free versions of Clash of the Titans here, but we urge you to be very careful  clicking on links to free downloads as they may be phishing for your bank account information.)

Among the parties lobbying for passage of a tough law are the movie and music business, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the book industry (see Authors Guild President Scott Turow’s testimony before Congress). Even big unions like the AFL-CIO are pushing for passage, because piracy, particularly the offshore brand, steals American jobs.

On the other side of the issue are Yahoo, Google, Mozilla, the Tea Party and a lobby-full of freeists including, predictably, the Civil Liberties Union, all rallying under the banner of Down With Censorship. “Naturally,” writes Edward Wyatt in the New York Times (Lines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills), “the howls of protest have been loud and lavishly financed, not only from Silicon Valley companies but also from public-interest groups, free-speech advocates and even venture capital investors. They argue — in TV and newspaper ads — that the bills are so broad and heavy-handed that they threaten to close Web sites and broadband service providers and stifle free speech, while setting a bad example of American censorship.”

“Google itself,” Wyatt informs us,  “has hired at least 15 lobbying firms to fight the bills; Mozilla has included on its Firefox browser home page a link to a petition with the warning, ‘Congress is trying to censor the Internet.’” Texas representative Lamar Smith takes a different view of the Silicon Valley pressure groups: “They’ve made large profits by promoting rogue sites to U.S. consumers,” he contends.

Last May, when Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt declared in unequivocal terms that he opposed any effort to curtail Google’s right to link to piracy websites like Pirate Bay, we declared “Game Over.“  Now, with US lawmakers taking up the issue, there’s a glimmer of hope that the game is back on.

But it’s only a glimmer, and if our legislators are true to form, the Right-to-Information promoters will either kill the bill or water it down to the same kind of joke that is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That piece of legislation is ostensibly designed to punish pirates, but the Silicon Mafia prevailed on the lawmakers to create a “Safe Harbor” provision that gives accused infringers a period of time in which to respond to accusations. Safe Harbor also puts the burden of proof on rights holders, causing them to go through  hoops of flame to prove they are the true owners of the stolen content.

We have been criticized for supporting tough antipiracy measures because they might lead to government censorship. The chances of the pendulum swinging from its current position to state censorship are so absurdly long they are not worth discussing.  Meanwhile, the pirates continue to screw legitimate copyright owners while the search engines hold down their arms and legs.

Richard Curtis

In Pock’s World, a thrilling story of adventure and suspense by master storyteller Dave Duncan, five flawed individuals must decide the fate of an entire world.

On the outskirts of the Ayne Sector sits Pock’s World. Years ago, humankind settled the planet. Now, it might or might not have been infested by humanoid aliens, hidden amongst the populace, waiting to interbreed and use humans as incubators for their parasitic spawn.

Five people are chosen to travel to the quarantined Pock’s World to find out whether it should be sterilized of all life–a ruthless priest, a scandal-seeking reporter, an ambitious politician, a bureaucrat, and a questionable billionaire. Each has his or her own agenda as to what they wish to find on that distant planet. Instead, they discover the unexpected–a web of deceit, love, politics, and religion. With very little time left, there don’t seem to be any simple answers in the complicated universe of Pock’s World.

“Entertaining, fast-moving and thoughtful SF, with engaging characters.” – S. M. Stirling

You can purchase the e-book of Pock’s World here, or click here to buy the printed version published by Edge.

Harvey Tattelbaum was a village rabbi. But what a village! And what a rabbi! He’s written a delightful book that makes a perfect Chanukah gift. It’s avaiable either in paperback or e-book format.

In the late fifties and sixties, Greenwich Village was the quirkiest, most charming, jazzy, eccentric and urban of environments, the center of all that was both quaint and “cool”: brownstones and beatniks, coffeehouses and college students, folksingers and freethinkers, poets and “prophets.” Into this fascinating mix of cultural archetypes came a young rabbi, Harvey M. Tattelbaum, who became known as the Village Rabbi of the Village Temple.

The spirit of Sholom Aleichem infuses his Tales of the Village Rabbi, a touching and laugh-out-loud funny memoir of his tenure at a small synagogue in the heart of Greenwich Village. Though his years in this magical place were productive and soul-filling, rabbinical training hadn’t exactly prepared him for the bikers, thieves, ex-cons, eccentric old ladies, drug-users, cleavage-baring brides and other Village denizens he encountered while serving the congregants of his spirited little temple.

Rabbi Tattelbaum shares his insider’s tales-both downtown and uptown-of wayward weddings (and funerals), contentious temple boards, irreverent interfaith shenanigans, heartaches and triumphs. But the Tales also reveal a deep personal struggle with some of the most profound philosophical problems of ancient and modern religion and are filled with a warm, humane and rational approach to spirituality and religious meaning.

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 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. Many of the witnesses to the tale are long dead, the trail of evidence is chancy at best. Surviving witnesses 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 of 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 devastating report. It demolishes the myth fueling the new Christian movement. He is set to return to Rome when an extraordinary -  in fact miraculous – event changes everything…including Varro’s own deepest convictions.

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

RC

If you’re stuck for gifts for the men in your life you might consider some E-Reads books that our surveys tells us are popular among males. Included are:

Sunday In Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute by Bill McWilliams
Using long established historical records and contemporary journals as well as recently-released war-time documents, Bill McWilliams has created a brand-new minute-by-minute narrative of the Day that Will Live in Infamy. Told from the point-of-view of dozens of characters from Generals and Admirals and politicians and diplomats down to deckhands and private soldiers and also innocent civilians at all levels, this panoramic overview of one of the most traumatizing and shocking events in American history puts the reader in a spot where they can understand the big picture of strategy and tactics as well as the intimate detail of what the chaos, violence and sudden death felt like to people immersed in the surprise of an armed attack on American soil.

The Great Siege by Ernle Bradford
Suleiman the Magnificent, the most powerful ruler in the world, was determined to conquer Europe. Only one thing stood in his way: a dot of an island in the Mediterranean called Malta, occupied by the Knights of St. John, the cream of the warriors of the Holy Roman Empire. A clash of civilizations was shaping up the likes of which had not been seen since Persia invaded Greece.

Determined to capture Malta and use its port to launch operations against Europe, Suleiman sent an armada and an overwhelming army. A few thousand defenders in Fort St. Elmo fought to the last man, enduring cruel hardships. When they captured the fort the Turks took no prisoners and mutilated the defenders’ bodies. Grand Master La Vallette of the Knights reciprocated by decapitating his Turkish prisoners and using their heads to cannonade the enemy. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked; none given.

The Siege of Malta is not merely a gripping tale of brutality, courage, and tenacity, but the saga of two mighty civilizations struggling for domination of the known world.

The Blood We Shed by William Christie

The United States Marine Corps is a legendary fighting force. Literally thousands of books and movies have glorified its history. But now a Marine veteran has written a novel that opens up the curtain and provides a look deep inside the modern Corps: the good, the bad, and the sometimes just plain embarrassing.

Lieutenant Mike Galway takes command of his first platoon and it is not at all what he bargained for. What he anticipated was the challenge of training a unit of disciplined Marine infantrymen to go to war. Instead he finds himself responsible for a group of unruly American teenagers, for whom he has to become a combination of surrogate father, psychologist, high school principal, marriage counselor, financial advisor, conflict mediator, and drug and alcohol therapist. The results are frequently hilarious, always frustrating, and sometimes heartbreakingly tragic.

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 man-eater’s killing spree.

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…

Out of the Ashes by William C. Johnson
Ben Raines is searching for his family in the chaos that remains after devastation hits America. Thieves and gangsters take the streets in the aftermath of nuclear apocalypse. Fearful American citizens band together searching for a leader. Luckily, there is Ben Raines, a rebel mercenary, soldier and patriot. Ben forges together the remains of the cities to join with the Resistance forces and create a new future for America. During their struggles, the final battle arises with an attack by government forces. Will they be able to rebuild America? And will Ben Raines find his family?
Out of the Ashes is the first novel of a gripping series that takes you further than you dare to imagine into a post-Apocalypse world

Meds by Ray Garton
One hot summer day, a man in a business suit running wildly down a busy street attacks a woman and her toddler, neither of whom have ever seen him before.

… As he waits in his pickup truck for his wife to finish shopping, a man decides to take the shotgun off its rack, go inside the mall and open fire on total strangers.

… While waiting to see her doctor, a woman takes a knife from her purse and begins stabbing others in the waiting room.

Something is making people become violent and murderous…something they all have in common. When Eli Dunbar discovers what it is, he becomes afraid, because it’s something he has in common with them–a drug prescribed to him by his psychiatrist. And now Eli is a ticking time bomb.

Do you know all of the risks your prescription drugs might pose? Does your doctor? Or has the manufacturer hidden them from the public in the interest of profits?

Meds…a thriller with deadly side effects.

Okay, all you street corner prophets. Given the depressing if not depressed economy, last year’s dismal holiday retail sales, the meteoric triumph of e-books, the advent of bookstore showrooming that drives customers out of bookstores, and the bankruptcy of Borders, how do you think bookstore sales will fare over the 2011 holidays?

If you said Down the Crapper, go back to Prophecy 101 and relearn the first two principles: #1, Never Give a Specific Time Line. And #2, The Odds That a Prediction Will Be Correct are 50-50.  Julie Bosman, covering the book beat for the New York Times, reports that “The initial weeks of Christmas shopping, a boom time for the book business, have yielded surprisingly strong sales for many bookstores, which report that they have been lifted by an unusually vibrant selection; customers who seem undeterred by pricier titles; and new business from people who used to shop at Borders, the chain that went out of business this year.” Sales are up as much as 16% over the same period in 2010.

One of the biggest surprises is that “glossy, expensive hardcover books have emerged as sleeper successes,” says Bosman. There’s a brisk trade in books of $75 and more. To what can we attribute this counterintuitive if not perverse surge in consumer commitment to print?  Our guess is that now that consumers have had a few years of e-books, they are starting to distinguish between books they merely want to read but not own, and those they want to read and own.

But that raises another question: why aren’t they buying them on Amazon and BN.com to take advantage of heavy discounts? Many book lovers we’ve spoken to have said they would rather pay list price and support their local bookstore than get a high discount that may lead to the demise of that store.  If you thought writers were strange, what can you say about readers?

One book we think you will want to read and own is The Oxford Companion to Beer by Garrett Oliver, arguably the world’s authority on the beverage.

Here is Oxford University Press’s product description for the book:

For millennia, beer has been a favorite beverage in cultures across the globe. After water and tea, it is the most popular drink in the world, and it is at the center of a $450 billion industry.

The first major reference work to investigate the history and vast scope of beer, The Oxford Companion to Beer features more than 1,100 A-Z entries written by 166 of the world’s most prominent beer experts. Attractively illustrated with over 140 images, the book covers everything from the agricultural makeup of various beers to the technical elements of the brewing process, local effects of brewing on regions around the world, and the social and political implications of sharing a beer.

Garrett Oliver is the Brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery and author of The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food. He has won many awards for his beers, is a frequent judge for international beer competitions, and has made numerous radio and television appearances as a spokesperson for craft brewing.

RC

Digital Book World‘s Executive Editor Jeremy Greenfield recently released a document circulated inside the Hachette Book Group that was purportedly not intended to be seen by outsiders.  The report rebuts the commonly sounded criticism that legacy publishers are no longer relevant.

Subsequently J. A. Konrath, popularly acclaimed as the voice of independent publishers and legacy publishing’ s most articulate critic, issued a confutation on the DBW website.  Both debaters scored points. What are we to believe?

Right off the bat one thing I’m not sure I believe is that HBG’s internal memo was not meant to be seen by the public.  Nothing about it is confidential, nor is anything in it surprising. Though the arguments presented in their white paper are cogently assembled, there is nothing in it that we haven’t heard promulgated for the last decade. It isn’t as if a highly placed executive leaked a plot for HBG to launch a hostile takeover of Amazon.  The report looks like it was intended to be leaked.

Deliberate or not we’re glad it was leaked, for it forcefully reminds us of everything that Old Publishing has done for books, authors and literary culture for which we ought to be grateful (and many of us are).

Let’s hear the salient points of Hachette’s paper, then hear what Konrath had to say about it, then try to make some sense of both positions:

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Publishing [says the HBG paper] requires a complex series of engagements, both behind the scenes and public facing. Digital distribution (which is what most people mean when they say self-publishing) is just one of the components of bringing a book to market and helping the public take notice of it.

1. We find and nurture talent:

• We identify authors and books that are going to stand out in the marketplace. HBG discovers new voices, and separates the remarkable from the rest.

• We act as content collaborator, focused on nurturing writing talent, fostering rich relationships with our authors, providing them with expert editorial advice on their writing, and tackling a huge variety of issues on their behalf.

2. Venture Capitalist: We fund the author’s writing process:

• At HBG we invest in ideas. In the form of advances, we allow authors the time and resources to research and write. In addition we invest continuously in infrastructure, tools, and partnerships that make HBG a great publisher partner.

3. Sales and Distribution Specialist: We ensure widest possible audience:

• We get our books to the right place, in the right numbers, and at the right time (this applies equally to print and digital editions). We work with retailers and distribution partners to ensure that every book has the opportunity to reach the widest possible readership.

• We ensure broad distribution and master supply chain complexity, in both digital and physical formats.

• We function as a new market pioneer, exploring and experimenting with new ideas in every area of our business and investing in those new ideas – even if, in some cases, a positive outcome is not guaranteed (as with apps and enhanced ebooks).

• We act as a price and promotion specialist (coordinating 250+ monthly, weekly and daily deals on ebooks at all accounts).

4. Brand Builder and Copyright Watchdog: We build author brands and protect their intellectual property:

• Publishers generate and spread excitement, always looking for new ways make our authors and their books stand out. We’re able to connect books with readers in a meaningful way.

• We offer marketing and publicity expertise, presenting a book to the marketplace in exactly the right way, and ensuring that intelligence, creativity, and business acumen inform our strategy.

• We protect authors’ intellectual property through strict anti-piracy measures and territorial controls.

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J.A. Konrath argues:

Publishers should stop trying to convince themselves and others that they’re relevant, and start actually being relevant. Here’s how:

1. Offer much better royalties to authors.

2. Release titles faster. It can take 18 months after a book is turned in to be published. I can do it myself in a week.

3. Use up-to-date accounting methods that are trackable by the author, and pay royalties monthly.

4. Lower e-book prices.

5. Stop futilely fighting piracy.

6. Start marketing effectively. Ads and catalogue copy aren’t enough. Neither is your imprint’s Twitter feed.

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If I were refereeing this bout I’d award a draw.

• Gatekeeping. Legacy publishers unquestionably offer invaluable gatekeeper judgment and curatorial support to authors in countless ways.  But they also need to recognize the emerging populist culture that elects its own stars and superstars through a viral networking system that is alien to Old Publishing culture.
• Royalties. The traditional book industry offers half the royalty paid by independent e-book publishers, and about one third of that paid by Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  But traditional publishers have far higher overhead, and it goes to support the personnel, infrastructure, risk capital and a multitude of other services that self-published authors cannot easily find. The greater the investment the more return the investor is entitled to.
• Fast Release of Books. True, self-published authors can get their books out in a week, but seldom can they get those books into bookstores, or keep them there, because they lack the kind of sales, marketing, promotional and publicity resources that enable legacy publishers to “make” bestselling books and authors and create exciting events that are worth waiting twelve or eighteen months.
• Monthly Royalty Statements. Traditional publishers cannot issue royalty statements month or even quarterly but I’m not sure they need to.  Most authors are perfectly content to receive semi-annual statements as long as they are clearly and fairly accounted.  The fact that they often are not, and publishers continue to rely on a preposterously archaic returns-driven business model, is the tragedy of the book industry and one for which they have paid dearly. 
• High E-book Prices. Because they are afraid that cheap e-book sales will cannibalize print-book sales, legacy publishers must artificially keep e-book prices high. This paradox is inextricably ingrained in the book industry’s culture and there is not much to be done about it.  On the other hand, self-published authors who elect to issue their books in paperback via print on demand have discovered that the price of their books is twice that of books done via print runs by traditional publishers. 
  
• Piracy. Piracy remains the Number One threat to the future of book publishing both traditional and alternative, and must be countered by every author and publisher that values the right of creators to their own creations.

Perhaps the future of book publishing will draw on an amalgam of the best that the old industry and new one have to offer.  There is room for both models, but both models also have room to improve and thrive.

The original Hachette memo may be read here.  Hachette Explains Why Publishers Are Relevant

J. A. Konrath’s rebuttal may be read here. Konrath Responds to Hachette Document

Richard Curtis

In Legacy, the prequel to Eon, Greg Bear continues to explore the possibilities presented by the asteroid Thistledown, a remnant of a lost human civilization. The Way is a tunnel through space and time that leads to other worlds, some more like planet Earth than Earth itself. It is perhaps the most formidable discovery in Thistledown and with it come disputes as to the nature of the Way and how it should be used. The Way can be reached only through Axis City, the only space station of Thistledown. The ruling body of Axis City, the Hexamon, has decreed that other worlds reached by The Way must be left untouched as an insurance against future needs of the human race. But then the Hexamon hear of a group of clandestine colonists who have settled on one of the new worlds. Olmy Ap Sennon is an eager young career soldier who must go and investigate this illegal colony, and at the same time confront his own humanity. As he witnesses the hardship and beauty of the outlaw human colony, he learns what it means to struggle with war, ecological disaster, love, and death.