All Writers Should Sign The Anti-Google Books Settlement Petition!

Petition Letter to the Judge of the Google Book Settlement

The following petition will be sent directly to Judge Chin by January 28th, 2010, and will also be attached as an exhibit to the brief to be submitted to the court by the NWU, ASJA, and SFWA. After that it may be used in publicity for our side of the issue.

Everyone who has joined my list of authors opposing the Settlement will be a signatory of the letter — except those who don’t want to be.

Signing the letter does not involve you in a legal action of any kind; we are simply submitting an opinion to the court. But if you don’t want your signature on the letter, just write me at googleputsch@bookviewcafe.com or at the Book View Cafe blog and say: Take my name off the letter, please.

You must do so by January 25th, 2010. After that the letter and signatures may be out of my hands.

The list is still open — people may continue signing on until January 25th. I invite you to join us in defense of authors’ rights!

And my heartfelt thanks to all of you who are speaking out with me this way.

— UKL

Writer Ursula K. Le Guin is not shutting up about this.

Add your name and help her give some back!

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

The Google Book Robbery: I’m Not Alone
The Great Book Bank Robbery
Is Another Suit Against Google Book Search Coming?

Previously here:

The Authors Guild Leadership: 21st Century Chamberlains
Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Nails Authors Guild
And You Will Trust Google With All Of Our Books?
This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning
Mark The Words Of Dave Winer
Sergey Brin: Also Absolutely Inexcusably Clueless
Google Thinks It Owns Our Books!
The First Step Towards A Google Book Search Solution
Google Always Had POD Planned
God Bless Marybeth Peters Of The Copyright Office!
Google Books Settlement Notes #2
Tomorrow: Google Books Settlement Deadline For Writers
Cooler Adds Google’s One Million ePubs Of Crap!
Google Books Settlement Notes #1
Google’s Great Writer Rip-Off
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
The Capitulation Of Print Publishing
Reject The Google Book Search Settlement!

Apple’s iSlate Gives Book Publishers False Hope

Disney bought Marvel for over four billion dollars.

Four billion dollars!

In my lifetime I have seen a comic book company aimed at children go from being printed on rotten paper with the worst four-color printing and a rotten distribution system to something that became worth four billion dollars.

Marvel. Comic books. Adults were ashamed to work in comic books!

Marvel! Home of Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk, Man-Thing, Ant-Man, X-Men.

Think about those characters.

Shockingly Brain-Dead Stupid: Creating An iTunes LP

How-To: Create Your Own iTunes LP

Really, absolutely none of this is something a writer would want to deal with to create a digital book for the iSlate.

Dealing with metadata and the like in iWork’s Pages had better be masked with a nice sensible form to fill in. Hand-editing XML is a curse.

Previously here:

iWork Is Apple’s Thermonuclear Bomb
2010 In Review
Oh Give It Up. Steve Jobs Wins.
One Step Closer To Apple Digital Books
The 7 Principles Of Apple
The Fine Print = Apple iTablet WIN!
Hybrid iPhone/Print Book Glimpse Of The Future
Apple Will Break Open The Digital Book Floodgates
The iPod Decade And The Steve Jobs Effect
Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Apple + iTablet
Steve Jobs Sees The Future Of eBooks
Apple’s Absolutely Brilliant eBook Strategy
How Steve Jobs Wins, Part Two
What REALLY Delayed The Apple Tablet

The Metadata Decade Begins

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.

The Authors Guild Leadership: 21st Century Chamberlains

Actual photo of Authors Guild letter being displayed by leadership

The Authors Guild has responded to the resignation letter of noted writer Ursula K. Le Guin.

This fragment of a sentence is emblematic of the absolute cluelessness of the organization’s alleged leadership:

Since creating a search engine is rather simple

What the fuck?

No, really.

Do they think a search engine is no more than the Search function they use in Microsoft Word or Open Office?

What the hell is wrong with the leadership of this Guild?

How is it possible to have leadership this inept, this ignorant, this clueless?

You have given away trillions of dollars of valuable metadata! You have condemned all current and future writers to peonage! You have annihilated the publishing industry completely!

All of you: RESIGN! TODAY!

Previously here:

Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Nails Authors Guild
And You Will Trust Google With All Of Our Books?
This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning
Mark The Words Of Dave Winer
Sergey Brin: Also Absolutely Inexcusably Clueless
Google Thinks It Owns Our Books!
The First Step Towards A Google Book Search Solution
Google Always Had POD Planned
God Bless Marybeth Peters Of The Copyright Office!
Google Books Settlement Notes #2
Tomorrow: Google Books Settlement Deadline For Writers
Cooler Adds Google’s One Million ePubs Of Crap!
Google Books Settlement Notes #1
Google’s Great Writer Rip-Off
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
The Capitulation Of Print Publishing
Reject The Google Book Search Settlement!

How Book Publishing Will Lose: eBooks Vs. Smart Digital Books

Two Major Publishers To Hold Back E-Books

“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback,” said Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp. “We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible.“

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Carolyn Reidy, is it difficult to be this clueless?

Let’s see … not a single Harry Potter book has been released in electronic format.

Yet is every Harry Potter book available in every electronic format?

Yes.

All you’re doing with this delay is saying: “Hey, kids! Rev up your scanners and bleed our writers to death!”

This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning

GPS Makers Just Got Lost Due to Google Maps for Android 2.0

Google has trumped just about every other navigation service on the phone and will own a majority of the portable GPS market within two to three years.

I won’t spew more words. I’ve already said it here in several posts.

This is the situation in one picture:

And if you can’t tell which represents print publishing and which is Google, then you should get the hell out of the way.

eBook Notes For Thursday, October 15, 2009

Shadowmancer author Graham Taylor stops writing to care for sick daughter

Here are the two bits important to writers:

Mr Taylor, who writes under the name GP Taylor, became a leading light in the literary world when he sold the rights to his first book, Shadowmancer, for £314,000 – three times the advance JK Rowling got for the first Harry Potter story.

And:

Mr Taylor sold his motorbike to self-publish his first novel Shadowmancer, a parable about Christianity and black magic set in the 18th century.

It was snapped up by publishers Faber & Faber and went on to top the best-seller lists for 15 weeks.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Best wishes to his unfortunate daughter.

Walmart.com cuts prices on yet-to-be-released books

Walmart.com is cutting the prices of popular books even before they hit store shelves.

The online division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday that it is pricing the top 10 pre-selling books on its website at $10 each, including free shipping.

The $10 price represent a 66 percent cut on the $28.99 listing price for Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue: An American Life”, or a 64 percent cut on the $27.99 price for Michael Crichton’s “Pirate Latitudes.”

The titles will not ship until November, but eager consumers can now place orders for the books online — representing “pre-sales.”

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

More evidence that desperation rules the print book industry and is feeling pressure from the eBook Bubble.

eBook Notes For Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Originally I was going to drop the term “eBook” from the title, but I think people who see links to this at other sites would get all confused.

Hon Hai makes 80% of world’s e-books

Daniel Johnston iPhone App

Speaking to New York Times, Daniel Johnston said: “If they make it into a real video game, it might work out, I guess. I don’t even know what an iPhone is.”

iPhone App Store a “pile of rubbish” – Braben

“There’s a little bit of a ‘gate keeper’ thing with Nintendo which raises the bar very slightly because you’ve got to have dev kits, but that’s a good thing,” he said. “Look at iPhone; there are so many games that aren’t up to scratch, without being too negative about it. It’s very hard to find the good stuff amongst the rubbish.”

Singer-actor Tyrese invents comic book superhero

The third issue of “Mayhem,” which is downloadable from iTunes, is the first to go digital. It features an interactive version of a comic book with sound effects, page turns and even voiceover.

And tellingly:

There’s this digital revolution that’s out there but the comic book world has not embraced this digital revolution on a level that it should be embraced on. And so I reached out to my contacts and I set up a meeting … and this is my baby.

Boldface emphasis added by me.

And this classic:

CNN: Artist Jim Lee is very big in the comic book world. How did he get involved in this project?

Gibson: I found Jim Lee on Twitter … and we just kind of took it from there.

Manga version of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ a hit in Japan

The manga book describes both Hitler’s autobiography and his infamous Nazi manifesto in the unlikely form of easy-to-read comic pictures and captions.

Since it was published in Japan last November, its popularity has soared, with sales of more than 45,000.

More Metadata Problems in Google Books: Word Clouds
— I’ve been overdue in writing another metadata post, but this item is so important, I wanted it published now.