ePub eBooks From Apple Will Use FairPlay DRM

This has never been a question in my mind so I’m really shocked to see posts around wondering if the ePub eBooks sold through the iBookstore will have DRM.

Of course they will!

The Threshold

Every. Thing. Changes. Tomorrow.

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.

The iSlate Factor People Are Missing

The introduction of the iSlate is going to be a Richter-scale value shock in the industry.

Even if it comes in at a whopping US$999 (which I really hope it will not!), it’s going to reset the scale of value of everything.

From time to time, I go to J&R in Manhattan, a large electronics retailer. I go to check out prices and to see what’s new. And sometimes even to buy.

Quote Of The Day: Writer Moxie Mezcal

Moxie Mezcal Interview

I’m going on record as saying I hate hardcovers. I mean, sure there’s probably some archival value to it, and maybe you need a sturdier binding for something like the Oxford English Dictionary, but other than it – there’s no reason you’re making me pay $30 for the fucking hardcover for new releases. Just give me the cheap paperback and the ebook right away, you godless-fucking-swine.

There is more awareness in this interview than any others I’ve seen with writers lately. And it’s infected throughout with great stuff I could quote. Go read.

Moxie Mezcal website
And read her Guerilla Fiction Manifesto there!

Previously here:

Edgar Allan Poe Knew The Score In The 1800s!
What Publishing Fears: The John Galt Maneuver
Writing Quote Of The Year: Paul Witcover
She Who Measures
Writer Peter Watts Beaten, Arrested
The Invisibles
Book Publishing Thinks It’s A Darwin Exception!
eGether Is The Future Of Book Marketing
Writer Eddie Wright: Broken Bulbs
Quote: Writer Moriah Jovan
Quote Of The Day: Kathy Sierra
How It All Works
YOUR Creation, YOUR Work, YOUR Art
For Writers Only
Twilight Of The Suit System
Writer Declan Burke: A Sad Post
Quote Of The Day: Jenn Topper
And Just Who Are You?
The D In DIY
Think And Grow … Um, What?
DIY Does Not Mean Do It FREE
Writers: DIY Or Die!
Curation: A Dead Idea Of Dead Thinking
Quote Of The Day: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Because.
Writer Jason Pinter On What Matters
Keeper Quotes
Why Read?
The Amanda Fucking Palmer Effect
Who Stole The Audience?
Prominence Versus Influence
Pay The Artist!
TV’s Bonanza: With Charles Dickens
A Contrast In Scale
Advice Too Good To Lose

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!”

Notes For Monday December 7, 2009

As the economy continues to tighten, I wandered around the Net for some information about books and hard times.

Presented here, without regard to accuracy, is what I found.

[A] lot of small companies — mine included — started in the teeth of a recession. It’s easier to start a business than look for a job at the start of a recession. People still buy things, but companies are reluctant to take on the cost of an employee when revenue prospects are uncertain.Posted by Susan Nov 11, 2008

The 7 Principles Of Apple

I’m not sure that Apple has anything as stupid as one of those Mission Statements cobbled together by marketing and PR Suits who believe hollow, pretty words = reality.

What I do think is that if we were able to overhear conversations at Apple, we’d be able to tease out the things that make that company do what it does. But we don’t need such eavesdropping power, however, because we can also derive Apple’s principles from its actions.

Writer Declan Burke: A Sad Post

Woe Is Me, Etc: A Failing Writer Writes

It really is becoming as stark as that. I decided over the weekend, after interviewing James Ellroy, that it is actually immoral of me to steal time to write fiction when I could be writing freelance material that will actually earn real money. And that’s not even factoring in the time I steal away from my family on the ‘writing’, a catch-all word which includes, these days, reading and blogging too. Someone who liked my books asked me over the weekend, rather facetiously, how come I haven’t sold a million books. I said, rather facetiously, that it was because no one put a million dollars worth of advertising spend behind them. It’s not quite that simple, of course, but there’s a significant element of truth in that.

I can’t argue with his priorities in this post.

However, he acts as if he’s some obscure bloke no one has ever heard of.

Hell, I haven’t read him yet — but I’ve heard of him. I’ve seen him cited or mentioned by writer after writer in that genre!

Sarah Weinman beat me to a post about this, so I get to link to her too: On Giving Up the Fiction Ghost

Like her, I hope he’ll change his mind.

This is a tumultuous time in publishing. People such as myself won’t buy print any longer. I want digital. So do all those others out there who have spent lots of money on Sony Readers, abominable Kindles, other crappy eInk devices, as well as the sleek iPhone and iPod Touch. We don’t want to have to decide which damned paper brick to lug around. And we’re too smart to be suckered into paying exorbitant print prices for lightly-tarted up text files under the guise of ePub for Seniors. This is seriously hurting many writers who are innocents in the crossfire between the pearl clutchers of print who won’t publish most writers in e at a reasonable price and a new marketplace with demands that are bound to change very soon.

For all writers who are contemplating throwing in the towel: Just keep writing. It will all work out.

Quote Of The Day: Jenn Topper

I’m unsure anything needs to be priced more than $10. It’s a fucking book, not a piece of gold.

Consumption Paradigms: PART I