‘Imagine If Ebooks Had Come First’: Must-reading for your Luddite friends
"Imagine if ebooks came first. Imagine if Gutenberg had not created the printing press but the Kindle. Now, hundreds of years later, we are beginning to experiment with this new medium...
Media retail chain Hastings may close its doors
It may be that Amazon is just about to drive another retail chain out of business. This time it's media chain Hastings, whose 126 stores sell movies, music, and books. The...
Writing on an Amtrak: Mobile devices in our lives
I'm ensconced in the lounge car of an Amtrak train en route to Chicago---one of those places that's supposed to be paradise for writers wanting to get things done. So I...
Billionaire-created Gawker bankruptcy: Bad legal news for book writers, too
Donald Trump---he who has incited violence at his rallies---isn’t the only billionaire thug in the news.
Peter Thiel (photo), the Silicon Valley investor, took umbrage when the Gawker site called him gay, a...
Quick look: Google Pixel C tablet
I'm visiting my parents in Southwest Missouri for their 50th anniversary celebration, and briefly staying over at their house. During that time, I had the opportunity to examine the Google Pixel...
How to edit ePub files manually: A handy overview
Here's a handy overview of the basics of manually editing ePub, the industry standard format for e-books---courtesy of Kotobee.
Yes, sometimes Calibre, Scrivener and the like are enough for creating e-books, especially for...
Print + digital = a growing business in book bundling: Interview with Shelfie’s Peter...
Peter Hudson, co-founder and CEO of BitLit Media, now known as Shelfie, has grown his startup book bundling firm significantly since I spoke with him last, in December of 2014.
In this...
New York Times socks writers $1,884 for quoting fewer than 300 words: ‘All the...
Journalists and other writers, including the e-book variety, rely constantly on fair use in quoting big shots such as Donald Trump.
Without fair use, the collective IQ of the writers' output would drop 20 points. Trumpian...
Could Apple app subscription model portend changes to e-book royalties?
Michael W. Perry called my attention to an interesting pair of articles dealing with some newly-announced changes to Apple's iTunes app developer model---one on the Verge and one on MacNN.
The most...
Discount-sale royalties and other first world publishing problems
Yesterday, Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader called my attention to a blog post by UK picture book author James Mayhew concerning how discounts on book prices can affect author royalties....