In 2010 Give Some Back

I could have used that advice … back in 1975. Including the slap.

Bookmark this. You will need it for the upcoming year.

Beware of 2010.

Quote: Writer M.J. Rose

Best of ‘09: M.J. Rose on Changing the Way Authors Get Paid

Now, more and more books are not being published, but instead are merely being printed.

The Metadata Decade Begins

They Learned Something Everyone Needs To Know

Read this carefully.

IROSF Suspending Publication

Thu, December 31, 2009 (04:49 AM)

Seattle, WA, 12/30/2009 – After six years of publication the Internet Review of Science Fiction (irosf.com) will cease operations after the February, 2010 issue. Publisher L Blunt “Bluejack” Jackson and Editor Stacey Janssen expressed their gratitude to all the subscribers, contributors, authors, and especially the volunteers who made IROSF such a success since its first issue in January, 2004.

Continuous financial shortfalls added to the challenges of publishing IROSF, and Jackson has expressed his intent to turn to new challenges related to the economy and logistics of Internet publishing. “What we learned with IROSF and AEon Speculative Fiction was that neither traditional nor community-driven economic models met our needs, and that the complexity of managing a distributed volunteer pool burned people out, despite a steady increase in revenue and readership. Our plan is to use this knowledge, and the ready availability of new distribution channels, to create the kind of environment that would have empowered the editors to achieve the success that IROSF’s superb content always deserved.”

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

I’ve heard various models proposed for publishing’s future. It seems like they’ve tried one of them — and it failed.

Someone clever needs to go bathe them in some money so they will tell the tale and save everyone else what could prove to be a very expensive wasted effort.

— thanks to @johnottinger

Five Things Book Publishers Still Need To Learn

Because, really, I need to bang my head against a wall yet again.

1) You are not competing with one another for readers.
Stop thinking of the TV model, where — once upon a time — three national networks actually competed for viewers because there were no VCRs, DVRs, or Internet to time-shift their programs that ran simultaneously. People do not read Simon & Schuster or Doubleday or Random House. They read writers. If I read Ken Bruen right now, it doesn’t mean I can’t read Christopher Fowler later. One book does not cause me to “miss” another book, as watching a program on ABC once made me miss a program on CBS.

2) The only time you compete with one another is for talent.
You let yourselves be suckered into book auctions to prove this. You still prove this by offering best-selling talent ridiculous contract deals that are going to blow up in your face within the next two years. That talent can cut their own deals now with other companies that are hungrier than you.

3) You are competing these days for attention.
Here I am on the Internet, instead of reading a book. Here you are, reading this instead of a book. Gotcha. But it’s not just the Internet, it’s music, movies, what’s left of TV, and it’s especially videogames. Videogames, in fact, are not your competition — they are your enemy. They are stealing away your future customers. How are you going to entice them back?

4) Bookstores and distributors are no longer your customers.
Tower Records, Blockbuster Video — that’s the future of bookstores. You now have to reach readers, the final customer standing, directly. The traditional distance between you and readers is disappearing. Instead of dealing with this new closeness, you’re letting Amazon, Sony, Google and — too soon — Apple step in as new intermediaries. This is suicidal. Even Fox and NBC realized this and created Hulu to battle both Apple and Google (YouTube). What are you doing?

5) Technology companies are out to rob you blind.
Amazon, Sony, Google, Apple are the new four kingdoms. Who knows Simon & Schuster, Random House, Doubleday, et al? No one. Ask anyone, “Who published The DaVinci Code?” and they’ll say, “Dan Brown.” The technology companies are counting on your past — and continued — complacency, lack of technical know-how, lack of focus and vision, and brand invisibility to strip mine you into oblivion. Google is stealing your future: metadata. Fight back.

When The Truth Finally Comes Out, It Is Brutal

Ten reasons why an Android phone is not a phone for me.

This is excellent. The first truthful account I’ve read.

Some choices quotes:

For whatever weird reason the tech news scene tends to grant everything coming out of Google with premature praise.

Welcome to the Planet of the Tech Gadget Whores. It’s a rude awakening, isn’t it? They’ll open their mouths to any insertion by a large corporation so they can flaunt their early access to shiny things. That’s what matters to them — not you, the reader and potential purchaser.

I don’t consider it to be a consumer’s primary task to fix a flawed smart phone OS

Exactly! People shouldn’t have to fix something that’s supposed to be a tool. I’ve been down this road investigating the Palm Pre. People told me of all the shortcomings and all of these ridiculous patches that would “fix” them. Who in their right mind wants to have to deal with that? I’ve been down this road with the original Palm OS and hacks. Been there, done that. Go get lost now.

It’s Google’s freaking operating system and they should have imposed at least basic means of quality assurance to make sure that Android partners provide a consistent experience to consumers.

This is what Palm isn’t getting: they can offer that. Unfortunately, they’ve retreated into the crowded and cutthroat cellphone space instead of swerving and avoiding it altogether with a mini-tablet. They would have been well ahead of the game by now. The lust of the market would have caught up to them and they’d own the mini-tablet space right now instead of people looking at the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the Camangi WebStation, and the upcoming Dell Streak, Notion Ink Adam, and the ICD device. Without having to devote resources to the telephony aspects of a device, they could have conquered all the current shortcomings in webOS and it would have been a superior product to what it is now.

Go read that post. It’s the kind of writing we should come across every damn day on the Internet. Instead we are constantly fooled by the hype of self-interested whores.

Plastic Logic eBook Trademarks

Five trademarks.

Summary: Que, Que, Que, Thinair (ThinAir?), Thinaire (ThinAire?).

Full filing records after the break.

Apple Trademarks “Finder”

One day I will have to compile my own database of Apple trademark filings. I would have thought they had already trademarked “Finder.” It’s been in use since 1984!

2010 In Review

Everyone has already told you what 2009 was like.

And some think they’re telling you what 2010 will be.

I will instead tell you what 2010 was.

Seth Godin: No Power Buyers Equals Death

It’s not the rats you need to worry about

Even though his posts are short, I don’t read Seth Godin because I think most of the time he’s full of it. Not his fault. He’s a marketeer. They’re paid to be full of it. And then to convince us we should be full of it too. The “full of it” being whatever it is they’re pimping.

The above post, however, is absolutely breathtakingly and spectacularly correct.

It caused me to coin the term “power buyer” for the type of customer he’s talking about.

These are people who want what they want when they want it and are willing to pay for it.

These are the people who see the value in the things they purchase.

As opposed to most of the louts on the Net who think everything “wants” to (read: should) be free.

Which group of people can help you pay your rent and buy your food? The first or the second?

When you lose that first group of people, you’re at the mercy of the second.

And then you go out of business.

Previously here:

Guy, The Bookstores Are Already Dead