Is Another Suit Against Google Book Search Coming?

I think so.

Google has arbitrarily stepped in as an uninvited third-party to put “in print” thousands (perhaps millions) of books that have been out-of-print.

Being out-of-print is grounds for an author to demand a reversion of rights granted in the original contract.

That basically ends the business arrangement between writer and publisher.

The publisher took a commercial chance, it didn’t work out, the book was never kept alive, it stopped earning money, and the writer should have all rights reverted and be free to make commercial deals elsewhere.

Google has upset this equation by putting those books back “in print” and has suddenly jeopardized the future livelihoods of thousands of writers as we enter this age of eBooks.

Publishers holding contracts that long ago should have reverted can now claim grounds of works being “in print” even though those damned publishers never did the deed themselves.

And what’s more: they probably never, ever intended to do that deed, either!

I really don’t give a damn what a limited author’s group and a limited collection of publishers have agreed to.

Neither one of them speaks for me. Neither one of them can speak for any other writer who is not party to this agreement.

Google is going to find itself having to negotiate with individual writers for the rights they mistakenly believe they have been granted by this “settlement.”

This is a settlement only between Google and those two parties.

The two parties suing Google do not at all have the right to speak for every writer out there.

I foresee writers getting together and filing suits either singly or in groups.

That big 67% to “rightsholder” is still bullshit, when it comes to conventional book contracts. Some of these contracts will not contain provisions for electronic rights and I’d damn well bet money that publishers are going to dole out only the printed book royalty rate — and the lowest rate they can get away with too.

That 67% should bypass publishers who have kept works out of print — that money justly belongs solely to the writers.

Google, stop dancing around your desks.

This isn’t over.

Sony Reader Revolution Cam #11

This is Day 29 of 30!

Tomorrow Dave Farrow emerges from the window!

This is what he looked like at 2:17PM EDST today:

And right now there’s a substitute reader — using the gorg-o-licious red Sony Reader!

Reader Revolution cam live video!

Sony Reader Revolution Cam #10: SMOOCH!

My timing is perfect. 7:40PM EDST tonight:

The Smooch heard round the Internet!

More hot action at the Sony Reader Revolution cam.

Google Book Search: Medialoper FTW

The Google Book Search Deal: Winners and Losers

Two items. I didn’t realize this:

Google: It’s hard to overstate how important this agreement is for Google. Google has essentially acquired the digital rights to the long tail. At least the portion of the long tail that’s locked up in out of print books. That’s a VERY long tail.

Emphasis added by me.

And I didn’t know this bit at all:

Amazon: Amazon’s 190,000 Kindle titles look puny compared to the millions of books Google now has access to. Granted many of those Kindle titles make up the big head of consumer demand, as opposed to the long tail. Still, Google now has the ability to monetize millions of books Amazon can’t, if for no other reason because they’re out of print. What’s more, under the new agreement Google has the right to sell printed copies of those books via print on demand. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Google still has a few more surprises in store for us. Android may turn out to be more than just a mobile phone platform.

Emphasis added by me.

Holy cow. Millions of out-of-print books are now POD candidates!?

Yes, that’s good for Google, but now all those contracts in the hands of the dying dinosaurs of print will never, ever be prised from their greedy, grasping claws!

Amazon lost, yes. But writers have just been screwed again!

Google Book Search: Now Legal

I don’t have to link to the settlement stories. Besides, the only one that really matters comes from the Non-Suit Suits over at Pan Macmillan who are — just like Suits — on the ball when it comes to the dough:

[. . .] the settlement money will partially be used to fund an independent, not-for-profit Book Rights registry which will work towards ensuring authors and publishers receive the money they are owed under the agreement, and the revenue split between the rights holder and Google is set at 63-37 respectively, which is surely the right way round.

Emphasis added by me.

Unlike Amazon’s criminal split: 65 to Amazon and 35 to be fought over tooth-and-nail between dying dinosaur print publisher, writer, and writer’s agent (or simply given as chump change in one paltry coal lump to a writer who direct publishes).

I noted Google Book Search once before.

Then I noticed what it was doing to writers — and I stopped.

Now I can go back to linking to it, since it will mean money in the pockets of writers.

This is going to take some getting used to for me.

And all of this puts Google one more step closer to crushing Amazon’s eBook monopoly ambitions.

Book Trailers: Um, No.

Weekend Chat: 3 Reasons Why Book Trailers Don’t Work

Every week I receive and search for great book trailers to promote on Christian Fiction Blog. In the beginning I was excited about what I found. It was a new concept, so I was game. However, after a few months of posting book trailers and reading others I’ve come to a conclusion. Book Trailers Don’t Work and here’s why:

She’s right.

I have in my Bookmarks a site that collects book trailers. I rarely go there.

What’s better than a book trailer?

Video of an author reading an excerpt of his work, like Christopher Fowler does here.

Audio of an author reading his work, as Cliff Burns does here.

Look what audio did for Mark Jeffrey:

His first podiobook, Max Quick 1: The Pocket and the Pendant, has received over 2 million downloads to date.

Go on, point me to a book trailer with as many views!

I was initially excited about the idea of book trailers too. But the more I saw, the less I liked them. So many are just so bad, I can’t see how they can generate any interest in the book being flogged.

Plus, the very idea of watching a video for something to be read seems, to me, just bizarre. A local talk radio station once spent a great deal of money advertising on TV. That seemed bizarre to me too.

I believe there is a hierarchy:

Reading
Audio
Video

And each one competes against the other. I’d rather read a book than listen to it. I’d rather listen to radio than see it. I’d rather watch video for stuff that’s best suited to it. (On this last point, how many of you have read a book based on a TV series and came away with the uneasy feeling that something was simply … missing?)

Also, since most books being sold have free excerpts available to read, why settle for someone else’s poor video advertising interpretation instead? Why, in fact, run the risk of repelling people from a book? Attention is precious on the Internet.

The money being spent on book trailers could be better used hiring a temp to do nothing more than go through the Internet day after day and find likely blogs to market books to via email invites. I really doubt that people going to YouTube, Vimeo, Veoh, et al, are there to find something to read.

Hmmm … and you know, even hiring a temp isn’t cost-effective. Why should each publisher reinvent the wheel? This is a business for someone sharp out there. (And if such a business already exists, the people running it aren’t very sharp. Why the hell hasn’t my email box been swamped with book stuff? I receive tweets from three publishers. But have they even tried to follow-up with emails? Noooo!)

Generating interest in eBooks as eBooks is going to be even more difficult because the most likely way people will encounter them is via an eBookstore, a promo email from such a store, or a website or blog. There are no shelves to browse. On the Internet, the shelves are invisible.

Just before I was about to post this, I got this via Twitter: Study: When it comes to influence, bloggers beat friend lists

Half of all those surveyed who identify as “blog readers” (people who read more than one blog per month, a fifth of total survey respondents) say that blogs are important to them when it comes to making purchasing decisions. But they don’t necessarily find them to be all that reliable: only 15 percent of blog readers, and five percent of all those surveyed said that in the past year they had trusted a blog to help them make a purchase decision.

That’s still higher than the number of people who said they used social-network recommendations, though: ten percent of “blog readers,” and four percent of all those surveyed.

I have a MySpace account. For a time, I used it daily. Now, hardly ever.

I disagree with the philosophy of such aggregator sites. MySpace has gotten singularly annoying, outright censoring links that are passed on to me via MySpace Mail or Bulletins. Plus, MySpace pages tend to be bloated as hell and I dread clicking links because I never know if that click is going to freeze up my browser and force me to crash-restart it.

I can see the appeal of such sites for those who really want to network with people they actually know. But beyond that, it becomes a very annoying marketing machine with a very high noise-to-signal ratio.

I know that writers and publishers are on MySpace. I’m beginning to think that’s a mistake. I don’t see it being a good strategy for eBook awareness except to that limited MySpace audience. And if you’re going to put that amount of effort into MySpace, why not the larger Internet?

Sony Reader: More Distribution

Hmmm … Sony PR needs to get on the ball here and put me on their email list. I’m finding major Sony Reader news in rather obscure places!

Zondervan distributes Sony Reader (scroll down)

Zondervan is a major in its field. It’s clear now that the eBook reading device most Americans are bound to encounter in person is the Sony Reader.

Abominable Kindle And The Oprah Effect

Kindle fanboi site* says: Oprah Effect on Kindle confirmed by Google Trends – Oprah creates highest Kindle interest since launch.

Which, gee, the uninformed might be very impressed by seeing.

However, let me dispel that malarkey.

This first chart is Google Trends for Kindle vs. Sony Reader for all time periods across the entire world:

Click = big

Notice how the Sony Reader is no laggard and has massive interest outside the United States!

OK, well those scores mean nothing, Kindle fanboiz shout, because the Sony Reader has been out longer.

Fine. Let’s compare around the world for the just the past thirty days:

Click = big

Again, the daily searches for Sony Reader outpace the Kindle!

And finally, let’s just do within the United States for the past thirty days:

Click = big

And there’s the Oprah Effect. Without it, the pace would have favored the Sony Reader.

But has the Sony Reader been trumped by Oprah?

No. I’ll come back to this chart in the days after Dave Farrow emerges from the DataVision window.

Let’s see The Farrow Effect.

I expect the Sony Reader to be higher and the Kindle to have plummeted back to earth.

*(He characterized me as a “Sony Reader fanboy” — but who’s the one with an entire site devoted to one device, hm?)

Update On Sony Reader Sold

Blogging about the Sony Reader from 38000 Feet

I’ll quote only a little.

3. The interface is slow and clunky. I said the same thing about the iliad – but the iphone has spoiled everything else. Friends who were with me when I bought it couldn’t get their brains around the lack of a touchscreen and the slow responses of the physical buttons. The PRS-700 seems a lot better.

4. The flash between page turns is pretty annoying. Hard to tell how annoying after only a quick ‘read test’ – and that was going to be what *this* flight was for. Sidetracked by the net instead!!

Once I’ve read a whole book on the Sony, I’ll post more comments. But it seems like a pretty cool toy so far. (And there’s *plenty* at the Borders in Silver Spring if you’re taking this as a recommendation!!)

Go see the rest.

— Via Twitter from sell_ebooks

Previously here:

One More Sony Reader Sold

eBooks: Rent Or Own?

Are eBooks Wise Dot Com?

An interesting opportunity from the current download ‘buy to own’ is ‘rent to read’. As libraries of works become permanently available why would you want to own digital books, which are hard to share and offer little other than convenience? Why not rent on demand? It doesn’t stop the consumer buying perpetual access, or a physical digital bundle; we merely question why you would buy a download that could be as obsolete as an 8 track in only a short time? The file could be read online with rich functionality, reference linking, multi media materials such as podcasts, videos and even games tied in. Imagine you want a quick read and log on via the mobile, you continue your read in a café via a laptop, then at a friends house via their PC and finally to bed with the physical book itself. The digital access control is not in the device but the centre making it friendlier.

If library can offer digital books for free, why buy them anyway? Now is that wise?

Emphasis added by me.

For me it’s still wise to buy and own.

In another post he slams the Plastic Logic device this way:

Imagine carrying a tablet around with you with a screen 2.5 times larger than the Kindle, weighing two ounces more and a third of the Kindle’s thickness. It will enable you to read your daily news digitally and is the latest ebook eink device to hit the market. Today many of us get our news feeds free direct to our mobiles and PCs, but that obviously is not seen as the answer for these technology people. Some may say that it is technology for the sake of technology.

Emphasis added by me.

I’d say his argument for rental over ownership is “technology for the sake of technology” too.

How many disasters must we witness? New Orleans after Katrina. Houston after Gustav. And even small personal ones: the missed train, the delayed or canceled flight.

In the case of Big Disaster, no electricity. No WiFi. Sometimes not even cellphone service. Oops. There goes the rental model. Whereas, with ownership, advance notice of possible disaster makes a person fully charge their devices. And with eBook ownership, those books are right there to be read on-demand.

In the case of small disaster, there is no guarantee of wireless access. Will the plaint of the future be, “I wish I had downloaded it!”?

And, oh, notice in the first quote he mentions a physical book. What, a rental? (No, I won’t allow you the wiggle room of a library loan. That is premised on “infinite libraries,” having every book a person wants. In New York City, the NYPL doesn’t have every book I want.)