Thoughts on the state of the publishing industry.
You heard about it here eighteen months ago when the project first started, now it’s done. I am pleased at long last to announce the release of Throwing Lead: A Writer’s Guide to Firearms (and the People Who Use Them). Here’s the back-of-book copy: While they may be an indispensable …
I’ve been waiting for this day a long time. When I first wrote Down From Ten as a screenplay, a production company in Canada was going to be handling rights clearances for the Alan Jay Lerner music incorporated into one of the scenes. When I did the podcast, ASCAP was …
We all know that adventurous types like Joe Konrath, and established types like Kris Rusch, and insanely successful types like J.K. Rowling have been having a ball publishing ebooks on their own–and we know that weirdos like me are going to do it because we’re maverick by nature and like …
So, the latest-and-greatest panic rumor is that Amazon is going to create a “Netflix for books,” where any Amazon Prime member can download (presumably) any ebook they want for nothing more than the cost of their Prime membership. People on the net–particularly paranoid authors and lugubrious tech writers–have been speculating …
I’m going way out on a limb here. I’m only a lay enthusiast in the field of economics, not an expert in the field, but I’ve got a middling amount of business experience in a variety of different fields, and a strange notion has been growing on my mind lately: …
Apologies to those who are already tired of this–it’s threatening to become a hobby horse. Looks like with Google+, Google is going where every stupid lawyer has gone before: claiming “a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute …
Dropbox keeps trying. They’ve changed their TOS again–if you’re watching and waiting for them to get their act in order, check the link and see where they’re at now. Meanwhile, Gigacom has posted an interesting analysis about what the public reaction to Dropbox might mean for the future of online …
ECtimes posts an excellent analysis of why Dropbox’s TOS situation continues to be a problem for its users–and compares the current (revised several times since Friday) wording to the wording of some other, similar services. Worth a gander. —addendum— There are more updates on the Dropbox situation at my new …
Dropbox has posted a public explanation for their rapid TOS changes today. As suspected, the email they’ve gotten from concerned users hasn’t gone unnoticed–that’s a good thing. Am I now recommending them? Hell no. Assuming the best of intentions, I think they are in error about the kind of license …
Most people why buy a book or pick it up from the library just want to read it–that’s an excellent thing! Sometimes, though, us authors get email from fans who, for whatever reason, what to know what extra they can do. If you’re in that camp, this is for you. …