Posts tagged ebooks
20,000 Mockingbirds: On The Changing Unchanging Nature of Books
While working myself through the back-list of the Nebula Awards for Best Novel, I came across Slow River by Nicola Griffith, a dark science fiction novel set in the not too distant future. At one point the protagonist tells an anecdote which is highly relevant to everyone with an interest in electronic reading or digital…
The Beauty Of Paperless Publishing
Everyone talks about how ebooks are great because they cost less, ship faster and don’t kill trees. And it’s all true, but even before a book hits the (virtual) shelves, the production process has changed significantly. The way it used to be 10 years ago when I had finished a first draft of a story…
Print On Demand Revisited: Lulu vs. CreateSpace
Before I started experimenting with creating ebooks for Kindle & Co last year, I briefly looked into print on demand services. Since in the pre-Internet days I had always been printing and xeroxing stories to share them with friends and family, I was only happy to find out that I could finally “outsource” my time…
Ninety-Nine Cents For Your Thoughts
When I was 11 years old I lived in a small town. We spent most of our time outdoors, playing in the woods or riding around aimlessly with our bicycles. Another popular activity was to go deal-hunting in the two $0.99 cent stores on main street. Equipped with our modest allowances and an insatiable curiosity…
The Problem With Ebooks…
If you dig beneath the surface, many people’s problem with ebooks is not that they don’t smell. Jani Patokallio writes: Crippled by territorial license restrictions, digital rights management, and single-purpose devices and file formats that are simultaneously immature and already obsolescent, they are at a hopeless competitive disadvantage compared to full-fledged websites and even the…
Piracy is Free Promotion?
I always told myself that if someone stole my stuff and put it online that it would be like free advertising. Only that never anyone seemed to care enough to steal my stuff. Piracy seemed like a gesture reserved for the rich and famous. Free promotion? Maybe, but not for me. Yesterday, however, I had…