News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, giveaways on this and other blogs, and other cool stuff. Books & Ebooks in the News: Giuseppe Leto Barone. Used under Creative Commons licence (CC BY-ND 2.0) “Why Amazon Supports… Read more »
News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, giveaways on this and other blogs, and other cool stuff. Worth Reading: “Decrying the evil empire of publishing while piloting one of its battle cruisers?” Traditional & indie author Bob… Read more »
An Open Letter to Goodreads: Dear Goodreads, I don’t know if you expected the storm of protest that greeted your announcement of Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads. I’m sure you’re finding it upsetting, but I hope that you’ll pay attention to the real concerns buried among all the sky-is-falling negativity. It… Read more »
Worth Reading: “What If the Google Reader Readers Just Don’t Come Back?” (MC Siegler, TechCrunch) “A new candidate for “World’s Worst Index” — and some indexing advice” for self-publishers, from Michael N. Marcus. As an indexer, the indexes shown here make me both cringe and laugh hysterically. This is why… Read more »
On Thursday, Amazon and Goodreads both announced that Goodreads has become an Amazon subsidiary. To be precise, Amazon’s press release states that it “has reached an agreement to acquire Goodreads”, while Goodreads’ announcement to its readers phrased it “We’re Joining the Amazon Family!”Reactions on Goodreads range from delighted… Read more »
Worth Reading: “R E S P E C T”: Artist Lee Moyer answers author Jim Hines’ questions about sexism and objectification in his art and SF/fantasy art in general. It’s a thoughtful, well-articulated argument that recognizes the issue while pointing out that artists are, in general, responding to industry demands… Read more »
Worth Reading: “Enough Feisty Princesses: Disney Needs an Introverted Heroine” (Lindsay Lowe, The Atlantic) “Plagiarism and the link: How the web makes attribution easier — and more complicated” (Matthew Ingram, paidContent) “The Used eBook Trojan Horse” (ebookp*rn blog) Books & Ebooks in the News: “Book of Kells now Free to… Read more »
I’ve got some fun stuff on this week’s News & Notes. You’ll also notice that I’m still tweaking the format for this feature, going for shorter descriptions and more lists of links. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think! Worth Reading: Author Susan Froetschel (Fear of Beauty)… Read more »
Cover fail: This is just so wrong, I’m still shaking my head in disbelief. So, apparently, are a lot of other folks. I guess that whoever self-published these three public-domain novels hasn’t actually read them. On a happier note, Joe Konrath posted an excellent article on “How to sell ebooks”… Read more »
Happy Groundhog Day! By D. Gordon E. Robertson (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons Do you suppose he’ll see his shadow this year? I hope so; we haven’t had much winter around here this year (the last cold snap excepted), and I know the kids would… Read more »
