tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297332991452330832024-02-07T01:52:47.415-08:00AG ClaymoreA.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-5372671250545017452013-11-22T05:00:00.000-08:002013-11-22T08:25:36.985-08:00Release of The Orphan Alliance<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwGBbAkCln5iHvSLgcM979p7FFIZ7rDoi3Ci-cVFgUtS44i7ORuzae62t8tTK4cb4s3YQESshrrcTKIftfQ7yrCP3pUqZ_0qjc14HEY5aPy4MnY2STABzwUlMVaR5g-u_y9qNCkNgSirn/s1600/Orphan+Alliance+small+50+percent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwGBbAkCln5iHvSLgcM979p7FFIZ7rDoi3Ci-cVFgUtS44i7ORuzae62t8tTK4cb4s3YQESshrrcTKIftfQ7yrCP3pUqZ_0qjc14HEY5aPy4MnY2STABzwUlMVaR5g-u_y9qNCkNgSirn/s200/Orphan+Alliance+small+50+percent.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">At long last, </span><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Orphan Alliance</i></span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
(book three in the <i>Black Ships</i> series) is now live wherever eBooks are sold! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">The release price of two dollars will remain in effect until Nov 27. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">I prefer to
offer a price break from the very start. That way, readers who’ve been
patiently waiting for the new release don’t feel ripped off, two weeks into the
launch, because I’ve suddenly come out with a sale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Alliance-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B00GT706OS/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Orphan Alliance</i></span></a></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US"><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Third in the '</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/A.G.-Claymore/e/B005MG760E/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Black Ships</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">' Series</span></span></i></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">An
unlikely alliance of Humans and Midgaard has seized a foothold in the Dactari
Republic only to be cut off from all support. For three years, our fleet has
heard nothing from Earth except for an automated message warning of a highly virulent
infection.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Now, a
lone ship has appeared bearing fear, pestilence and hope and its presence
forces a decision on fleet command.</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">We can
destroy the ship and all the potential it represents, choosing instead to play
out the hand already dealt to us, almost certainly leading to a steady decline
in personnel. Our only other option is to embrace the deadly gift carried by
the Pandora and become something new. With Earth at its most vulnerable, a
decision must be made.</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"></span></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">And
the fight must go on.</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(94,000 words)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia, serif;">To help place the
title within the Black Ships ‘verse – here’s a nifty little infographic:</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0pp-HOCXnT-lbRFjbH-UF4Da8pKObKNQAOFaq03C4PzOQkY3YB3sCKdmrAIE6WdsNiQFDhGPmkvLGpQqlYQtDxJGyOg-i2G83d5a3oOfsQsIzsxd55KiwAppSZu5jIYjdQOSUb7wNUwZB/s1600/Titles+in+the+Black+Ships+series.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0pp-HOCXnT-lbRFjbH-UF4Da8pKObKNQAOFaq03C4PzOQkY3YB3sCKdmrAIE6WdsNiQFDhGPmkvLGpQqlYQtDxJGyOg-i2G83d5a3oOfsQsIzsxd55KiwAppSZu5jIYjdQOSUb7wNUwZB/s640/Titles+in+the+Black+Ships+series.jpg" width="545" /></a></div>
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The two side series are novellas (ten to twenty thousand words each). I'll keep the prices of the novellas at less than a quarter of a full length story. The <i>Orbital decay</i> line will likely run to four stories, so It only seems fair to price the episodes at a level that won't penalise readers for picking them up as novellas rather than as a full length compilation.</div>
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<ul>
<li><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Ships-G-Claymore-ebook/dp/B0071OU90O/" target="_blank">The Black Ships</a></span></i></b> is a full length novel beginning with the world as we know it, except for the presence of a small, medium-term manned presence on Mars. We find that there are others out there who may be interested in the resources of our solar system. </li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Metamorphosis-Black-Ships-G-Claymore-ebook/dp/B007DDTPBC/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Metamorphosis</i></b></span> </a>is a short novella that explores the background of Liam Kennedy, a character who shows up in <i>The Black Ships</i>. He plays a role in The Dark Defiance, so I thought I'd release his credentials to the public and introduce his young son, Tommy, who plays a major role in future stories.</li>
</ul>
<li><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Defiance-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009B4ODQS/" target="_blank">The Dark Defiance</a></span></i></b> is the second full length story. It takes place a decade after the first story, and follows the events of a trading crew. The<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> <span style="background-color: white;"><i>Völund</i></span></span>, one of the first Human vessels able to reach out to the fringes of a long dead empire, has been sent out to find minerals that aren't easily found near Earth. The crew soon find that business is a sure way to get drawn into your partner's troubles and they end up exposing Earth to a new risk.</li>
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<li><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-Claymore-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Orbital Decay</a></span></i></b> is a novella that develops the scientific and practical impact of discoveries made during the events of <i>The Dark Defiance</i>. Curiosity might just kill the cat (the cat being our species) this time.</li>
<li><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Cure-Orbital-Decay-Claymore-ebook/dp/B00CP970G6/" target="_blank">Kill or Cure</a></span></i></b> is a sequel novella (sequella?) that starts us down the path to recovery. Whether we miss a turn along the way remains to be seen.</li>
</ul>
<li><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Alliance-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B00GT706OS/" target="_blank">The Orphan Alliance</a></span></i></b> Is the latest of the full-length stories and it's set three years after the events of <i>The Dark Defiance</i>. It follows the challenges faced by our species as we deal with an implacable enemy to our front, and a crumbling home world to our rear. A way forward is offered, but it may mean the end of the species.</li>
<li><i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Counterweight</span></b></i> is slated to be the fourth full length story in the series and it's set fifteen decades after the events of <i>The Orphan Alliance</i>. There's a sample at the end of <i>The Orphan Alliance</i>.</li>
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A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-22676705396730775272013-11-14T14:30:00.000-08:002013-11-14T14:30:33.333-08:00Blender and World Building - How a Picture Can be Worth More than a Thousand Words<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDdNpwazzJj247V6a5_YS65pe4rC7CTjIMll-IwsTF0bhQkWEk_oLTYFXaZFX_-vz1PP4axerQDr0_T9QypSDbJKfT0V3ewhYhk82i8c90r4yG2L4r15DPZDk9tCbnojHAIsPg2cXJEvZ/s1600/Weirfall10quarter.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDdNpwazzJj247V6a5_YS65pe4rC7CTjIMll-IwsTF0bhQkWEk_oLTYFXaZFX_-vz1PP4axerQDr0_T9QypSDbJKfT0V3ewhYhk82i8c90r4yG2L4r15DPZDk9tCbnojHAIsPg2cXJEvZ/s200/Weirfall10quarter.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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A few weeks ago, I found myself stuck on a story. I’d been working on the outline
for <i>The Orphan Alliance -</i> third in the <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/A.G.-Claymore/e/B005MG760E/" target="_blank">Black Ships</a></i> series - and I was
starting to draw a blank. I went upstairs, got the coffee pot running and joined my daughter in the great room. She proudly pointed out the
tower she was building. It was straight on the left side, with long
extensions coming out from the right. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She really does have a flair for architecture...</div>
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I told her she was on to something interesting. "Yeah, it's super neat," she said solemnly before scampering off to find more blocks. I sat down with a sharpie
and sketched a rough outline of an alien arcology, based on her project. Arcologies are massive,
single-structure cities and I’ve always been fascinated by the concept. My
daughter pronounced it acceptable and awarded me with a crayon ‘Cause you have
to color it now!’. <o:p></o:p></div>
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By the end of the
afternoon, I had a passable model built on my laptop using <a href="http://www.blender.org/" target="_blank">Blender</a>. Blender is
a free, open-source 3D animation program with a very active and supportive
online community. The process of creating and refining the image allowed my
mind to start considering my fictional alien setting from a more practical
perspective and I soon had a very detailed understanding of the city and its
inhabitants.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This image is
nowhere near to the kind of quality that
a real graphic artist would be able to achieve but, for a writer trying to
initiate the creative flow, it’s certainly worth more than a thousand words.<o:p></o:p></div>
A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-59333369308485436262013-05-08T09:44:00.000-07:002013-05-08T09:47:12.352-07:00'Orbital Decay' Freebie on Kindle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Crh3_LKxymp0IOst7jSebpt8Cwe2nFhqzo1T9Gncha7nBeLcTJoeqkoWx6hfvZ2o1wx_RiRc019KGcSWpxAuPooiXzcZTkUaCzRbxpLPC6zwBi9huIps56NVdVpVdrURf-dEyyCP0YQg/s1600/KILL+OR+CURE++COVER+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Crh3_LKxymp0IOst7jSebpt8Cwe2nFhqzo1T9Gncha7nBeLcTJoeqkoWx6hfvZ2o1wx_RiRc019KGcSWpxAuPooiXzcZTkUaCzRbxpLPC6zwBi9huIps56NVdVpVdrURf-dEyyCP0YQg/s320/KILL+OR+CURE++COVER+small.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<em>Kill or Cure, </em>the sequel to <em>Orbital Decay</em>, will be going live on Amazon this evening! As part of the celebration, <em>Orbital Decay</em> will be free on Amazon Kindle-Select on May 9, 10, 17, 24 and 31.<br />
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These are zombie stories for folks who don't ordinarily read zombie stories. I know that sounds like I'm writing for a very restrictive reader base, but there are a heck of a lot of folks that don't read zombie fiction. The hard part is in convincing them that it's worth a try.<br />
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This story line grew out of research done by one of the characters in the<em> Black Ships</em> series, but it can be read as a stand-alone. It explores the results of longevity research run amok. <br />
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Even though this series of novellas will impact the main, <em>Black Ships</em> story line, it isn't necessarily a prerequisite for those who wish to go straight on to the next, full-length title, <em>The Orphan Alliance</em> (going out to beta readers next week). I don't want to <em>force</em> anyone to read zombie fiction so I've written the next main story with that in mind.<br />
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Here's the blurb for the freebie:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>ORBITAL DECAY</strong></span><br />
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<b jquery1368030250089="158">A Black Ships Novella - <em>Fourth in the series - First in the</em> Orbital Decay <em>series</em></b></div>
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Detective Sergeant Ben Mark's life is falling apart. It's been a long, painful process for years but the pace has just accelerated dramatically. A suicide turns into the case from Hell as Ben realises that Dr. Mortensen was the victim of foul play.<br />
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And he may not be the last.<br />
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Ben's own life is in danger as he struggles desperately to uncover what Gaia Biodesign is doing on their orbital lab, and why they are willing to kill to keep it quiet. As he races to uncover the truth, he learns that the entire species may be the next victim.<br />
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Just as humanity is finally reaching for the stars, a terrible mistake may knock us back into the Stone Age. <br />
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If anyone is left alive...<br />
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<i jquery1368030250089="171">(approx 18,000 words)</i> </div>
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Get it for free on May 9, 10, 17, 24 and 31. Remember to check the price before clicking the download button! (links below)</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">US and other territories</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">UK</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Germany</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Orbital-Decay-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">France</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.es/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Spain</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.it/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Italy</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.jp/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Japan</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Canada</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com.br/Orbital-Decay-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009Z713PK/" target="_blank">Brazil</a></div>
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Here's the blurb for the second in the series.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>KILL OR CURE</strong></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An Orbital Decay Novella – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Second in the series<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even the simplest of plans can go horribly wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ben and his small group were only hours away from their destination. Just three more hours and he could have handed the four researchers over to government personnel, but an unfortunate military operation leaves them stranded in South Carolina. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Three more hours and the burden of responsibility would have been lifted from his shoulders. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The dead are dangerous enough, but the living are proving to be an even greater threat. As banks and distribution networks collapse, ordinary citizens resort to desperate measures and Ben’s group make a tempting target. As they fight their way forward, they are faced with a hard decision. Do they stop where they are and try to build a new life out of the chaos or do they push on?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our species is ultimately doomed, but a new one will take its place, if it can survive the fall of its predecessor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">(approx 24,000 words)</span></i></div>
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A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-62771191297665278822013-03-27T09:12:00.002-07:002013-03-27T09:12:52.980-07:00eBooks and the Myth of Market Penetration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxzJLqFdqVMmasAQIzPUYpXdJM9OIg5avOnr3aB0Sk8U-7p5db68kHDDERURqfiulCX6m-Cgu1lil8NQxay2TYBmTHoJM0um7RcuWGv-sqszQ1Odc9_8iBrrctq6fDrFwni_gjwsLnYLZr/s1600/RIP+typeset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxzJLqFdqVMmasAQIzPUYpXdJM9OIg5avOnr3aB0Sk8U-7p5db68kHDDERURqfiulCX6m-Cgu1lil8NQxay2TYBmTHoJM0um7RcuWGv-sqszQ1Odc9_8iBrrctq6fDrFwni_gjwsLnYLZr/s200/RIP+typeset.jpg" usa="true" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Stabilization – it’s been a buzzword lately in the industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of folks are claiming that eBooks are close to reaching some kind of saturation point and that they’ll stabilize at a certain percentage of the market. Usually the claim falls somewhere in the forty percent range.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are a couple of things that make me think this might be wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, the reach of eBook stores run by companies such as Apple and Kobo is constantly growing. Both of those stores<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>give authors easy access to fifty countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amazon now has separate sites for nine countries and sells to the rest of the world through the US site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The second (and more important) point deals with the fate of the brick and mortar side of book sales. eBooks are an incredibly disruptive force in the market. It’s not so long since the demise of Borders and, yet, folks still talk about stabilization as if nobody else could be in trouble. Barnes & Noble recently announced plans to close somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty stores a year for the next decade.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Call me a jaded cynic, but when a CEO tells us that they need to cut a few stores, it usually means that there’s still a whole iceberg of bad news sitting under the water. Add to this a bad holiday report,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where the Nook division showed a 13% dip for the nine week period leading up to years end, and you suddenly understand why they might be offering a free Simple Touch with the purchase of every Nook HD tablet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">B&N are one of the few remaining bastions of high volume paper book sales. Every time a company like this rolls over and stops swimming, the shift accelerates. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the number of outlets shrinks, the efficiencies of the old model wither away. With fewer places taking large orders, the print runs will likely get smaller and the cost per unit will go up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the trend continues, we may even see the return of the book salesman, driving around their little territories with a vanload of books. Somehow, I doubt they can find anyone willing to hawk books to gas stations or corner markets anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t get me wrong, I love bookstores. They’re a great place to pick up a pound of dark roast, a new novelty mug, a nice scarf and maybe even a few toys for the kids, but they haven’t sold me a book for two years now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I know the graphic would seem to indicate that I want to see an end to paper books, but it isn’t the case. I just happened to think of it while writing this and thought it might be fun to make an image like that. Frankly, the more options that readers and writers have, the less chance that any one company or group will be able to get a stranglehold on the industry. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The reader is the gatekeeper now. It ought to stay that way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-65061721049492987372013-03-14T09:00:00.000-07:002013-03-14T09:00:17.802-07:00Orbital Decay Free on Amazon until March 16<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsC8QPe6JjgIGiq0297M5Qc42j2UZbRIMITpec1UoRnKG2KY9Ak_TODYtCLeMc7nMpDCix-bY3VzbrSGTzJZDYt-TZaXaBb8OH4KkbeCx10SDHdGWcD8j_OaLTeFn2a4_8gs1oH9UbWMZb/s1600/Orbital+Decay+Cover+Frosted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" psa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsC8QPe6JjgIGiq0297M5Qc42j2UZbRIMITpec1UoRnKG2KY9Ak_TODYtCLeMc7nMpDCix-bY3VzbrSGTzJZDYt-TZaXaBb8OH4KkbeCx10SDHdGWcD8j_OaLTeFn2a4_8gs1oH9UbWMZb/s200/Orbital+Decay+Cover+Frosted.jpg" width="149" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I’ve forgoten to post about this, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Z713PK" target="_blank">Orbital Decay</a></i> is free until Saturday night, 16 March. It’s fourth in the series, but can be read as a standalone without any confusion for readers who are new to the series. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">For an un-publicised freebie, the response has been pretty good so far. It’s topped the High Tech and Horror (freebie) charts in a few countries after the first day.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The next book, under the working title of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Orphan Alliance</i> is in my editor’s hands and should be out by the end of the month. It follows the fortunes of the Human/Midgaard alliance as they bring the fight to the Dactari Republic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The next story on the whiteboard is going to be another fifteen to twenty thousand word episode in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orbital Decay </i>line. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><o:p><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Z713PK" target="_blank">Orbital Decay</a></strong></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">A Black Ships Novella - <i>Fourth in the series</i> </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><br />Detective Sergeant Ben Mark's life is falling apart. It's been a long, painful process for years but the pace has just accelerated dramatically. A suicide turns into the case from Hell as Ben realizes that Dr. Mortensen was the victim of foul play.<br /><br />And he may not be the last.<br /><br />Ben's own life is in danger as he struggles desperately to uncover what Gaia Biodesign is doing on their orbital lab, and why they are willing to kill to keep it quiet. As he races to uncover the truth, he learns that the entire species may be the next victim.<br /><br />Just as humanity is finally reaching for the stars, a terrible mistake may knock us back into the Stone Age.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><br />If anyone is left alive...<br /><br /><i>(approx 18,000 words)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-83957543662422456892013-03-06T19:43:00.001-08:002013-03-06T19:43:53.105-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ten years I’ve waited. The new SimCity looks visually stunning and the game itself appears to have the best mix of complexity and usability. No more running pipes – just drop in your roads and your power, sewage and water are ready to go. So why haven’t I rushed out to pick up a copy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You have to be online in order to play it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It doesn’t matter if you just want to try a single player city, you have to connect to the EA servers in order to launch the software.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The servers are already maxed out and a lot of gamers are unable to get in. I’m a little leery of dropping a sizeable chunk of cash for the opportunity to be at the mercy of EA’s budget decisions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And what happens down the road if they stop supporting the game? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The always online requirement works for games like Call of Duty because few players even bother with the single player campaign, they’re in it for the online play (and who wants to waste time on a campaign that’s ten percent gameplay and ninety percent cinematic anyway).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It works even better for Blizzard, where users pay a monthly fee to access their characters.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe that’s the plan with Sim City? Perhaps they have plans to release DLC that requires a subscription fee. You download the ‘Space Exploration’ module and pay five dollars a month to use it… The digital rights management angle is probably the main reason for the always online requirement, but I have a feeling that they’re going to lose more sales from this requirement than they will from piracy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Either way, if I can’t play it offline, I’ll pass for now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-91847731172926424312012-11-10T19:38:00.002-08:002013-03-14T09:07:58.415-07:00To Boldly Float ... Orbital Airships<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_vIPMv65LF6b0NBZeUXrkawq4-uMXtUjJcuJg62cJvcXIVjenmi5CujNfsFylAMOOZQDrEfghI0ylILQqw7TGF4hO0CoH5F5BgE0JYZ6d47OyKpFGTBE4YJ0JGS3q9Izh2lCoUOKaGvL/s1600/0236.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" psa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_vIPMv65LF6b0NBZeUXrkawq4-uMXtUjJcuJg62cJvcXIVjenmi5CujNfsFylAMOOZQDrEfghI0ylILQqw7TGF4hO0CoH5F5BgE0JYZ6d47OyKpFGTBE4YJ0JGS3q9Izh2lCoUOKaGvL/s200/0236.jpg" width="200" /></a>They’re still at it. The folks at JP Aerospace are still chipping away at their orbital airship concept. I had seen the concept on the web while writing <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B0071OU90O" target="_blank">The Black Ships</a></em> and thought it might be an interesting way to get large ship modules into space. I didn’t realise, at the time that anyone was actively working on such an idea, but these guys really seem to believe in it. There are still quite a few problems to iron out, such as high-altitude buoyancy and heat transfer, but the thing that really catches my imagination is size. At seven times the size of the Hindenburg, where the heck do you park the thing? For a look at what they're working on, drop by their blog here: <a href="http://jpaerospace.com/blog/">http://jpaerospace.com/blog/</a> </div>
I’m hoping they pull it off. There’s a certain elegance to the idea of massive airships, slowly lifting cargo into space. It almost seems anachronistic - I love stuff like that. <br />
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The image above is not from JP. I was just playing around with an open source program called Blender. I had created a model of an airship while writing <em>The Black Ships</em> and thought it might show scale better if I built the Golden Gate bridge and put them together. Then I got carried away and turned it into an animated fly-by, complete with crowd sounds and police radio chatter. <br />
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Tons of fun, but I got very little writing done that day...A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-15727373403947925062012-11-05T09:36:00.002-08:002012-11-15T08:20:30.651-08:00Release of Orbital Decay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKd7Y6_gkXV49YErjkdeMZ-Wkf7f7xIm_mbdYpkRH65IRvbT4mQt0f8jYK_GO4SZyzDXTPXL10K-F7BpPxUpawzT6t5lVaE1FKAUF_nQDNelZzWGXNjP9p7Y3FxjDg_0HElGiVaUAeCz2A/s1600/Orbital+Decay+Light+Text.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKd7Y6_gkXV49YErjkdeMZ-Wkf7f7xIm_mbdYpkRH65IRvbT4mQt0f8jYK_GO4SZyzDXTPXL10K-F7BpPxUpawzT6t5lVaE1FKAUF_nQDNelZzWGXNjP9p7Y3FxjDg_0HElGiVaUAeCz2A/s320/Orbital+Decay+Light+Text.png" width="238" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Z713PK" target="_blank">Orbital Decay</a></strong> is now released on Amazon for all territories. This 18,000 word novella occurs after the events in <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Defiance-Black-Ships-ebook/dp/B009B4ODQS/" target="_blank">The Dark Defiance</a> </strong>and it revolves around the discoveries made by Jan Kennedy during the homeward flight of the <em>Völund</em>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a story of the <em>Living Impaired</em> and it will end up changing everything for the Human/Midgaard alliance as they struggle to keep their enemy at bay in the next, full length installment of the series.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Interest permitting, a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>side-series of novellas will grow from the <strong>Orbital Decay</strong> story, describing events on Earth as we try to survive the outbreak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-size: large;">A Black Ships Novella - <i>Fourth in the series</i></span> </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><br />Detective Sergeant Ben Mark's life is falling apart. It's been a long, painful process for years but the pace has just accelerated dramatically. A suicide turns into the case from Hell as Ben realizes that Dr. Mortensen was the victim of foul play.<br /><br />And he may not be the last.<br /><br />Ben's own life is in danger as he struggles desperately to uncover what Gaia Biodesign is doing on their orbital lab, and why they are willing to kill to keep it quiet. As he races to uncover the truth, he learns that the entire species may be the next victim.<br /><br />Just as humanity is finally reaching for the stars, a terrible mistake may knock us back into the Stone Age.<br />If anyone is left alive...<br /><br /><i>(approx 18,000 words)<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-57771998176354885902012-09-26T10:37:00.001-07:002012-09-26T10:38:08.063-07:00The Dark Defiance <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihMivw3YGo9FE_zyKGvougFJFw_EXExnCn2fDQmLZ399w_VYl4AIPcT7V8wRNz2Jq280mvo5krD45hUurtQLZ9hg1TlqjlzcjTYl2x5i0WH_k0YelDuRhXrc_6mX0D59QLP4byQbfhR99u/s1600/The+Dark+Defiance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihMivw3YGo9FE_zyKGvougFJFw_EXExnCn2fDQmLZ399w_VYl4AIPcT7V8wRNz2Jq280mvo5krD45hUurtQLZ9hg1TlqjlzcjTYl2x5i0WH_k0YelDuRhXrc_6mX0D59QLP4byQbfhR99u/s200/The+Dark+Defiance.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009B4ODQS" target="_blank">The Dark Defiance</a></strong> is live on Amazon. I’ve spent the last week knee deep in the next story and I’ve just realized that I haven’t really done anything to let folks know that the sequel to The Black Ships is now up and selling (and selling rather nicely, considering the complete lack of marketing on my part). Frankly, I avoid twitter like the plague lately. Every time I open it, I’m bombarded with book spam and direct messages with links to virus sites. Conventional wisdom tells us that it’s a hot place to market books, which means it’s probably too late to get in the game. 'Conventional wisdom' seems to be a clever euphemism for ‘obsolete concept’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So here’s my marketing plan – spend all day writing and stay off the social media. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I digress. Here’s the blurb:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009B4ODQS" target="_blank">The Dark Defiance</a></strong></span></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">A Black Ships Novel - Third in the series</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> <br />In the decade following Earth’s narrow victory over the Dactari invasion attempt, Humans have reverse engineered much of their enemy’s technology. From captured data, they learn that the Dactari Republic is merely the successor to a much larger empire; one that died out long before Humans mastered the secrets of iron. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Many worlds of the old empire have been left untouched by the republic, and a race begins as the factions of Earth struggle for trade dominance with the independent planets.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The crew members of the Völund have each left Earth for their own reasons. They quickly find themselves embroiled in intrigue, conflict and outright war as their path, paved with good intentions, leads them straight to a hell of their own making. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">They must follow their path to the very end to learn the ultimate fate of mankind. <br /><em>(Approx. 90,000 words)<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
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A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-4911014718248441802012-04-17T08:59:00.000-07:002012-04-17T08:59:04.316-07:00Hints and Memes at the London Book Fair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve just read an interesting article in the PW Daily. The London Book Fair had their annual CEO panel and it included, among the traditional publishing CEO’s, Donald Katz, the CEO of Audible.com – an Amazon entity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was refreshing to hear the traditional memes about the publishing business being challenged at their source for once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, Katz called Bloomsbury’s Richard Charkin out on comments that Amazon didn’t take very good care of it’s writers, citing the generous royalty rates given to Kindle authors. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Also, in two interesting comments, Katz stated that </span><span lang="EN-US">“Publishers should never start another imprint,” (is Amazon now happy with their stable of imprints?) and also that territorial rights should go away. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Does this signal a change in the way Amazon will handle sales in the 30% zones?</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Link to the article </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/london-book-fair/article/51549-london-book-fair-2012-ceo-panel-questions-sustainability-of-the-book-business.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=7a3fbe210f-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.</span></span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"></span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-66909923192994210402012-03-12T15:15:00.000-07:002012-03-12T15:15:22.866-07:00Researchers Find Evidence of Non-Author Tweet Account<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50ro30wgjcmmf-gL0gr_pFZmbbzS02vvjq-WL6fG5d4KMH4KAFvEigCZj3w_DVh13IS4d12oKIHrZBSzYpFQ-AEH1k6z2t6AQomVmEhOm8HKZ6kzmNq-TjgftRBGj4i-K-B6yBOHL1uWQ/s1600/The+Blueberry+Approximation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50ro30wgjcmmf-gL0gr_pFZmbbzS02vvjq-WL6fG5d4KMH4KAFvEigCZj3w_DVh13IS4d12oKIHrZBSzYpFQ-AEH1k6z2t6AQomVmEhOm8HKZ6kzmNq-TjgftRBGj4i-K-B6yBOHL1uWQ/s320/The+Blueberry+Approximation.jpg" width="240" yda="true" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In a shocking announcement this morning, scientists at the Benton Coldwater research facility, deep underneath Geneva, claim to have captured evidence of a non-author twitter user. Though it may be many months before independent confirmation is provided, other research teams are already applying for grants that will help them do just that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The team was startled when their twitter screen suddenly displayed that holy grail of researchers everywhere, a non-book tweet. ‘Thinking of getting some blueberries…’ the electrifying missive declared. “We almost missed it,” admitted senior researcher, Howard Anthidae, “but now that we’ve led the way, it will be up to others to re-create the conditions and prove us right or wrong.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Our lab under Sudbury may be just the ticket,” enthused senior Canadian researcher Tim Wharton. “Many have claimed such a user to be a theoretical impossibility, often going so far as to compare them to leprechauns, elves or honest politicians. Once we have the funding to buy a computer, we’ll get to work on filtering out the book tweets. We just do the pure science,” he added. “It will be up to the business world to figure out how to monetize it.”</span></span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-4408750039218875402012-03-05T11:32:00.000-08:002012-03-05T12:45:02.122-08:00Book Trailers - Are They Worth It?Lately, everybody is putting up book trailers. They range in quality from a couple of stills set to music to a full production with actors and licenced music. Even some of the big publishing houses are springing for trailers when a new title comes out from an established author. I recently saw one for a writer whose work I have been reading for a decade now. I have to admit, I started hearing alarm bells when I saw it.<br />
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The bells weren't part of the soundtrack, they were in my head as I watched a couple of actors with bathmats strapped around their waists (they were supposed to be cavemen). They spent a couple of minutes wandering through the forest and starting fires. It was almost enough to scare me away from the book. If I hadn’t enjoyed her previous work so much, I probably would have passed on her latest title based on my impression of the trailer. I bought it and found it to be the worst edited thing I’ve ever read from a major house. My wife, also a big fan of this author was annoyed that we had paid so much for an eBook only to find that it was such a mess but I digress.<br />
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As I said, if it wasn’t an author that I’ve read before, I wouldn’t have bought the book. Maybe a decent or really good trailer would pull me in to read a new author, but a poorly made trailer would just scare me off.<br />
I like the idea of doing trailers for my titles but it scares me to think how easy it is to chase away a potential first time reader. I have one for my ‘Black Ships’ short story - ‘Metamorphosis’ and I can think of a few things that I would like to change. As an example, the text panel appears too soon after the title animation and messes up the pacing.<br />
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Fortunately, I created the animations using Blender, an open-source 3D animation program that allows me to go back and edit the environments and re-render. <br />
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I am still a new user to Blender but if anyone who sees the video has a comment or critique, I would welcome their input. I realize that it still needs work. <br />
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So the question that a lot of writers are probably asking is – “Do trailers do anything for the title?”<br />
With bookstores closing, we need a new way to increase title visibility. <br />
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If the answer is yes, the second question is – “What kind of things are good for a trailer and what should we avoid?”<br />
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I think hiring someone to stumble around the woods in a bathmat is probably not going to help. <br />
Showing faces probably takes away from the reader’s prerogative to imagine the characters.<br />
Showing some of the architecture could help to set the mood?<br />
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Let me know what you think, and what you may have found from your own experiments.A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-66396034610276030742012-01-26T07:11:00.000-08:002012-02-01T10:36:24.365-08:00eBook Cover Design Software<br />
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<span id="goog_1836597851"></span><span id="goog_1836597852"></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0071OU90O#reader_B0071OU90O"><img border="0" gda="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmDfu-mnXo4xu9s5N7YW48detkw3ElYp4nKslNI1DZT11NTwclVhBUALoY0nicjS1KOml-mtCSTyctABXVU3WYxF1TsnTA3cA1bzeHtMZjKEudyBcO5LwVyt3jJV3dV5vs6JqS4jhNpdh/s400/black+ships+cover+from+scratch+6.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">I’ve just finished loading “The Black Ships” on the Kindle Direct site and find myself at loose ends. I can’t get my head back into “Firebringer” just yet so I thought I would put together a quick post about eBook covers. After using Paint.net to do the cover for “Prometheus bound”, I had planned to use it for my latest release - until I discovered an amazing bit of open source software called </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.blender.org/"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Blender</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">This really is more than just a piece of software, it’s a community. Though the program may look a little intimidating at first glance, there are hundreds of brilliant, helpful users who take the time to create video tutorials. Following the lessons from such visionaries as Andrew Price at his site </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.blenderguru.com/"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Blender Guru</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"> or the insanely gifted crew over at </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://cgcookie.com/blender/"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Blender Cookie</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">, I soon found myself creating realistic images from three dimensional scenes that I built with my own stubby fingers (I wasn’t born to play the piano – that’s for sure).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">I’m not ashamed to say that I let my imagination run amok. I was deep in the midst of a complicated scene of a partially destroyed ISS habitat on the surface of Mars when I received a notice on my blog dashboard of a new post from </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">David Gaughran</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">. David’s blog is always worth a read and the post in question included a reminder of the importance of good cover design. He steered readers to </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/01/book-cover-design-and-the-problem-of-symbolism/"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Joel Friedlander’s</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> site where, among other things, the importance of simplicity was stressed in the design of a cover that would display at less than an inch in height on the retailer sites.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvNMW9Y-a5YMgOSE69NNNRRFSXA7Emu5Z4OGPY8CTNZrp2x1EXDitcf9ciJ3qMXfzn_L2dOc6lblRPqR89DIAtj5o7cRXC2XJ8ohib90W87Vb5gcseal-f6bfK4cjV6ZtEY-6Z0ggf_cW/s1600/black+shjps+original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gda="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvNMW9Y-a5YMgOSE69NNNRRFSXA7Emu5Z4OGPY8CTNZrp2x1EXDitcf9ciJ3qMXfzn_L2dOc6lblRPqR89DIAtj5o7cRXC2XJ8ohib90W87Vb5gcseal-f6bfK4cjV6ZtEY-6Z0ggf_cW/s200/black+shjps+original.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I took another look at the complicated scene that I had spent an entire day building. It would never work for an eBook cover. I went back to the drawing board and came up with a simple concept – an orbital image showing the sun rising over Mars. Three hours later, I was looking at my new cover. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">After I loaded the book, I realized that I could animate the cover. Ten minutes later, I had a short video version of the cover with some music and ambient ship noise. Sure, I can’t put that into the book itself (not currently, anyway) but I can load it to the video link on the KDP book page.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Meanwhile, I can use the various three dimensional models created while learning the software and generate video sequences from them to build a book trailer.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I’ll keep you posted on how that works out. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">PS. Animated cover below, not much but it's a start.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyXoA0lm8SfnxUZ_Z5wZGeSRcmC0-ETBEgx4QF9pHqRNNjbl4bbgmDjNTLdxPHCvO_8mmrmlxuhi0KClUAK8Q' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-47997928696671049052011-12-04T11:00:00.001-08:002011-12-04T11:04:36.755-08:00The Christmas Season - One Hundred Marketing Channels and Nothing On<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With Christmas just around the corner (and down the hall a bit), I find myself a little overwhelmed by the vast array of ‘Must Have’ gadgets. Just looking for an eBook reader is an exercise in frustration. If I want to use eInk, then I have to go with one of the walled gardens like Kobo, Sony or Amazon. If I want something less restrictive, then I have to pay three times the price to get an android tablet and load the apps that I want. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I almost fell for the marketing and bought an android tablet from one of the walled gardens but found that it was no different than it’s eInk brethren. Sure, you can surf the web but if you think you can install any app you want just because it’s running android, you’re in for a shock. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Buyer beware.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">DVD’s are even worse. The latest transformers release is a pared down, movie only disc with no special features. The marketing team doesn’t even bother to come up with a catchy name for this obvious double dipping anymore. You will buy this AND the special edition, or Michael Bay will be very unhappy with you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not wanting to fall for this, I have made my own version by mixing random NASCAR crashes with scenes from “Blow down” where various buildings are demolished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel the character development is on par with the original and the environmental impact is reduced because I don’t intend to burn it onto a disc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Speaking of environmental impact, anyone remember the “Earth Day” version of Avatar? How exactly is it environmentally friendly to release a bare bones DVD on Earth Day when you plan to dangle an extended version in front of everyone’s face a few weeks later? They even expected you to throw the extended version in a landfill and go buy the 3D version when it came out. I hear that it comes with a free lunch with the director who will lecture you about your carbon footprint (you have been buying too many copies of the same movie, after all…).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I'm trying to take my lead from the folks who read indie novels. They tend to ignore the endless marketing and self promotion and do their own research. They prefer to rely on word of mouth, review blogs and random chance to find good books. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who knows, if you ask around, you might just find out what your friends and family really want, rather than just getting whatever the local tech store tells you to buy.</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-41503721222885571752011-11-09T10:53:00.000-08:002011-11-09T10:53:50.510-08:00Indigo Sells Kobo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2LcRLXvGPws22w6b3yayyur-4hQ7QSNdtN4tendJssXRoXQ6mHAc0UEf5rjW61xw21NhYX-qN27V0ft-rvKuAAdr43HYJwU8GFTHghmTQBifhN6PtEETiB2cD9H8IRmXWoP5Ec2qnGuG/s1600/books+vs+Ebook+white+Bckgrnd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2LcRLXvGPws22w6b3yayyur-4hQ7QSNdtN4tendJssXRoXQ6mHAc0UEf5rjW61xw21NhYX-qN27V0ft-rvKuAAdr43HYJwU8GFTHghmTQBifhN6PtEETiB2cD9H8IRmXWoP5Ec2qnGuG/s320/books+vs+Ebook+white+Bckgrnd.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I woke this morning to find this in my inbox - </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/devices/article/49436-japanese-company-rakuten-buys-kobo-for-315-million.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=5c6796c607-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kobo sold to Japanese company, Rakuten Inc</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. I am literally speechless (perhaps in part because I write in the basement and there is nobody to talk to down here). In a reporting period that showed overall decrease in revenues, sales in the Kobo division are up 219% over the same quarter last year. In their </span><a href="http://images.chapters.indigo.ca/images_2005/Content/Articles/En/AboutUs/PDFs_IR/PressReleases/Indigo2011AnnualReport.pdf"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">annual report for 2011</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Kobo is front and center; part of their bold march into the future of reading. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This move comes as a bit of a surprise.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Indigo has seen some growth from their general merchandise which would explain why a quarter of their floor plans now seem to be filled with mugs, decorative globes and knick-knackery. In their latest release, they have indicated that they will be focusing more on this part of the business. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure they can sustain mug and notebook sales if customers stop coming in to look for books. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the interest of fairness, Indigo CEO Heather Reisman recently revealed in an </span><a href="http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/business_briefings/56208--indigo-sells-kobo-a-q-a-with-heather-reisman"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">interview</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> with Canadian Business that she doesn’t believe they have the war chest needed to keep the Kobo division competitive. The new Japanese owners are talking about putting over a hundred million behind Kobo’s next phase.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps this is the right move for Kobo, with this new financial backing, they might be able to cut back on their backlog of pending titles. Publishers interested in doing short term sale prices would be able to do so without having to keep their titles off the Kobo shelves (pricing delays have been a bone of contention for some time now). As an owner of a Kobo Touch I have to say that it is a truly excellent product and I hope to see it succeed. Still, this all seems unfortunate for Indigo.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even so, I wish them all the best (after all the acquisitions, they are pretty much the only place left in town where I can buy books). </span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-62911154199450316552011-10-14T11:35:00.000-07:002011-10-14T11:35:37.019-07:00And Someday, Our Way of Life…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYeNGgRjWGLuKyb4rShzuczEXzypw5sEfrEYntquZldG2mvSR82xG-EZo8T4rIS-cAg_mvjuEs15bK9q-uwk1MxtACO1DPZlBs36xu23P330-ZFKiB6rJmcA5UwSPzL2h_68egAGgQ7Eb/s1600/Carthage_EL_shekel_2250013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYeNGgRjWGLuKyb4rShzuczEXzypw5sEfrEYntquZldG2mvSR82xG-EZo8T4rIS-cAg_mvjuEs15bK9q-uwk1MxtACO1DPZlBs36xu23P330-ZFKiB6rJmcA5UwSPzL2h_68egAGgQ7Eb/s200/Carthage_EL_shekel_2250013.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Polybius stood beside Scipio Africanus as the general surveyed the burning carcass that was Carthage. As Rome’s greatest enemy went up in flames Scipio wept and grasped his companion’s hand. “It is a glorious sight,” the General explained, “but I confess a dreadful foreboding that the same fate will someday befall our country.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He was right and if Polybius had not been an historian, we may never have known of Scipio’s moment of prescience. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His words are more than a famous example of ‘I told you so’, they are an immutable law of nature. Just as generations grow old and pass away, so do civilizations. Whether it is the Aztecs, the Babylonians, the Egyptians or the Romans; all great civilizations carry their ultimate doom within their genetic makeup. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The same is true of our current system. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our economic systems are rotten at the core and the only thing our elected leaders can think of is to pour more money down the hole. They gave bailouts to the big corporations, allowing the chief executives to protect their hefty bonuses while the public get nothing. Meanwhile, Greece teeters on the brink, French banks tiptoe around the word ‘run’ and Germany is printing deutsche marks so they can be ready to leave the Euro at a moment’s notice. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The rampant consumerism that has propped up the system is grinding to a halt. Most of the driveways in my city are filled with the owner’s vehicles. This is because their garages are filled with jet-skis, ATV’s weekend motorcycles and last year’s LCD TV’s (gotta have LED now…). How much of that was paid with cash and how much involved a payment plan that still bleeds money from their accounts?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When the system finally falls apart, how far will we be knocked back?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I ask that question every time I look at my children.</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-14288708182979493462011-10-05T23:08:00.000-07:002011-10-05T23:08:22.875-07:00The Sleeping Giant Awakes - eBooks and India - Pt 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPtYx7aGEED2D2IcrQXeutSicUok0CJH8-15LwXFdG8N2Ye1A3f4p6M6Uex0a2zJ7HWQ9URmRy7x5F-rJLeb6VM7JHHsBtvSHRj3MBoISRo0kQVtV6ZZWMehGRen8lGXSyH-KQ7M3IWNXj/s1600/The+old+and+the+new+Mysore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPtYx7aGEED2D2IcrQXeutSicUok0CJH8-15LwXFdG8N2Ye1A3f4p6M6Uex0a2zJ7HWQ9URmRy7x5F-rJLeb6VM7JHHsBtvSHRj3MBoISRo0kQVtV6ZZWMehGRen8lGXSyH-KQ7M3IWNXj/s320/The+old+and+the+new+Mysore.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Back in July I posted about the potential impact that India would have on the eBook market if a device were offered with the right price tag. Then in July I continued with a second installment noting , among other things, the potential for the educational system. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Imagine my surprise when I saw an article at </span><a href="http://www.thepassivevoice.com/10/2011/announcing-a-60-android-tablet/#comment-12193"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">The Passive Voice</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> announcing that the Indian government has inked a deal with Montreal tech firm Datawind. I did a quick search and found a flurry of corroborating sources such as this article from </span><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/241156/indias_lowcost_tablet_is_made_by_canadas_datawind.html"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">PC World</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. The deal is for an initial order of 100,000 Aakash Android tablets at an initial price of $50 per unit though Datawind believes they can bring the price down with higher volume. The initial order is believed to be destined for a subsidised program at the nation’s universities.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As to volume, the government expects to buy eight to ten Million units before the current fiscal year end. That price is going to start sliding down to the sweet spot pretty fast.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Though the unit can handle web browsing, video and double as a cell phone, it can also handle eBook apps. Remember, were talking about the second largest population on Earth and with a unit price closing in on that magic 0.5% of per capita GDP, we are going to see a massive shift in how books are consumed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Every now and then, I manage to anticipate the news. I just usually don’t get excited enough to write about it…</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-53618067286709814852011-10-01T13:49:00.000-07:002011-10-01T13:49:08.729-07:00Death of a Salesman - Part 2 Bookstores Tired of Selling Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfFnXJ8Sa_nZHDgHWG0jXa_Xn8hDLyENST6lMVXlRxl3skRvi1kPzM_ktlP0naxicLhOyOe0lJHR0PHMkmubFHoAIU7ue34ZELgHL-c8RCS3ZF2opxiddP1MMoa3zwq-JqfX9oyp4sf_Eq/s1600/796px-Borders_bookshelf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150px" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfFnXJ8Sa_nZHDgHWG0jXa_Xn8hDLyENST6lMVXlRxl3skRvi1kPzM_ktlP0naxicLhOyOe0lJHR0PHMkmubFHoAIU7ue34ZELgHL-c8RCS3ZF2opxiddP1MMoa3zwq-JqfX9oyp4sf_Eq/s200/796px-Borders_bookshelf.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">In years past, I used to work for a company that sold general merchandise. It made the lion’s share of it’s revenue from groceries and by lion’s share – I’m talking about somewhere between thirty five and forty Billion dollars a year. I know, you’re thinking ‘Andrew, that’s pretty vague. A Billion here, a Billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.’ Well, you’re right but I can’t be bothered to look up the exact numbers on their latest quarterly statements and l like throwing Billions around like candy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Anyway, when my employer realized how much higher the profit margin was for GM, they decided to give it more space. They did this by building larger stores. People kept coming to buy groceries but they started to buy a lot more GM (bathmats, pillows, strollers, automotive, clothing, books…). Profits increased and shareholders were happy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">The reason I mention this is because of what I am seeing in the bookstore down the street. Over the last four years, I have noticed that the impulse purchase racks by the checkouts have been multiplying. At some point a couple of years ago they evolved, becoming heavy duty floor displays and they moved out onto the sales floor. Firmly established in their new habitat, they continue to displace the weaker species – books.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">With eBooks doubling their market share every year, you would think they would reflect that in the pricing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but they don’t. Publishers often list eBooks for 60% more than the paperbacks. So you have the industry cannibalizing the eBook market to bolster sales of paperbacks even while reducing the square footage where those sales happen.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">They are killing their business at both ends.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Frankly, when I see the type of impediment pricing I don’t think “I’ll just spend twenty minutes getting to the bookstore to buy the paperback like a good little consumer.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">I log onto Amazon or Smashwords and look for a new indie author (more on that in the next post).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">We tend to assume that businesses know what they’re doing. In reality, this tends to be false. If you need further proof, then have a look at the bookstore down the street. They are slowly but surely getting out of the business of selling books. Roughly a quarter of their floor plan is dedicated to selling general merchandise, and that’s not counting the space taken up by the Starbucks franchise. Where books used to sit, we find coffee mugs, note holders, and various knick-knacks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">In another couple of years, this will reach a tipping point. People like to go shopping for books and sure, they might pick up a mug while they’re heading for the checkout but nobody will say; ‘Let’s go to the knick-knack store’. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">A shame, really. They might have decided to pick up a paperback at the impulse rack by the checkouts.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"></div></span>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-7469278244632042302011-09-24T08:48:00.000-07:002011-09-24T08:48:46.316-07:00Publishing to KDP using Mobipocket Creator<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn_yF7OgmwfdWkJNyCACSvkPAKlD62VUbuy_YTiUbha54kODawbAUFfVTWNk1assH68xkAQBRyxYmE8Fln4Tx4Pkqz-uAK7EefpjStgzyWcPmjKpBFMHBJ31EUJW5Y-OEHJv2xA_biBgnd/s1600/Prometheus+cover+Romans+jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="200px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn_yF7OgmwfdWkJNyCACSvkPAKlD62VUbuy_YTiUbha54kODawbAUFfVTWNk1assH68xkAQBRyxYmE8Fln4Tx4Pkqz-uAK7EefpjStgzyWcPmjKpBFMHBJ31EUJW5Y-OEHJv2xA_biBgnd/s200/Prometheus+cover+Romans+jpeg.jpg" width="150px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After I had finished converting my book at Smashwords, I decided to take a crack at converting for Kindle Direct Publishing. From looking around, I soon found that the best way to go about it (for me, anyway) was to use </span><a href="http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mobipocket Creator</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(free). Just so you don’t rush into this, be aware that you will need to do some HTML editing in order to get your table of contents and NCX to work. It that seems daunting to you, don’t give up just yet. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before you decide to sit back and wait for the long heralded Smashwords/Amazon deal, take a side trip over to </span><a href="http://www.cjs-easy-as-pie.com/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">CJs Easy as Pie Kindle Tutorials</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and read your way through the excellent series of tutorials that are posted there. I’m not sure who exactly CJ is but from the profile picture It would seem that the author is some kind of sentient winnebago. Species aside, a determined KDP publisher will find everything needed to get their book ready to launch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some things to keep in mind first:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1 – Mobipocket wasn’t compatible with IE9 when I used it a couple of months ago. I had to de-install IE9 and that allows IE8 to get back to work (it was still there all along – just hiding in the shadows).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 – You will need to save your book as an HTML<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>document and then clean up all the garbage that isn’t needed for your eBook (CJ can help you there as well).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3 – You will need to do a fair bit of editing in HTML (See CJ’s Tutorials) so if you feel comfortable with the idea, make sure you have a decent HTML editor. I used </span><a href="http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Komodo Edit</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> (Free – open source) and found it very easy to work with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4 – Use the </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000234621"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">kindle Previewer</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> from Amazon to see how the book will look and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">work</i> before you upload it. Use it to check the cover page as well as the functionality of the Table of Contents and the NCX. Make sure the progress bar shows at the bottom and go through each page of your book. This is your last chance to make your first impression.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This process took me the better part of three days, thanks largely to the issue with IE9. Had that not been the case, I probably would have converted </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prometheus-Bound-Firebringer-ebook/dp/B005GXLKXC/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1316874311&sr=1-5"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prometheus Bound</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> in a day. If I had to do it over again (and I will in December), it would take an afternoon. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you feel up to it, then best of luck and be sure to leave a comment on CJ’s tutorial site; that winnebago worked very hard to share it’s knowledge with us humans!</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-67509964252634325902011-09-06T13:58:00.000-07:002011-09-06T13:58:54.739-07:00Bonus without Borders - Fear and Loathing at the Bookstore<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVu-1U9LiTn041L4T4k1eYXqGxsheiJBpmuH0AWQja2SaBB5tOVdRIWCS3pNyO54vAz76qEvqzxyCNTndGVX27WYqofNnzcbVXaMjz3flEZ-8is9fHBnvJ8BbyOZLNlX2qGVrhMU9W0Unh/s1600/110423-G-JY570-610.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVu-1U9LiTn041L4T4k1eYXqGxsheiJBpmuH0AWQja2SaBB5tOVdRIWCS3pNyO54vAz76qEvqzxyCNTndGVX27WYqofNnzcbVXaMjz3flEZ-8is9fHBnvJ8BbyOZLNlX2qGVrhMU9W0Unh/s1600/110423-G-JY570-610.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">By now, everyone is aware of the continuing saga unfolding at Borders. The latest twist, just reported in </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/48581-borders-bonus-for-some-class-action-for-others.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=000ad47d1e-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Publishers Weekly</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> gives us valuable insight into the underlying sickness that continues to infect our economic engine – greed may or may not be good, but stupid doesn’t go away when you put on a suit and tie. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At a time when rank and file employees are fighting to get their severance pay, their former employer is fighting in court to ensure that the top fifteen management employees get severance bonuses of $125,000 each. To put that in perspective, it’s two and a half times the annual salary of one of their store managers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What makes them worth so much money and why do we continue to accept such bloated compensation as reasonable? Back in April, </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/borders-to-amend-bonus-plan-for-executives-seek-sale-or-reorganization.html"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bloomberg</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> reported on how many millions would go to the top five executives based on how much money they could return to the shareholders. Does anyone really believe that executives are worth millions a year? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A surprising number of them turn out to be hopelessly inadequate and got there simply because they know the right phrases and when to use them. They talk about creating value and having passion for the job, but at the end of the day, they make a ton of bad decisions and end up jumping ship with as much loot as they can carry. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To carry the metaphor just a bit further, consider that those large severance bonuses are justified by all their hard work on behalf of the debtors (while employees fight in court for severance pay). It’s little different than the officers of a cruise ship ramming an iceberg and then taking one life boat each, brandishing their flare guns to keep the passengers from joining them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They like to put their feet up, and they deserve it – don’t they?</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-92055588735274573582011-08-26T18:03:00.000-07:002012-03-29T12:10:08.699-07:00Publishing an eBook with Smashwords<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiZzn8Idn4aD9CX639UcOq2RFHUsPY4JS3ta2wWi-jItD0AKrhTtBAPr7UO9srMZ50dS1Y_2T4m8c4vVrcIEVzThCP0w5HtJRUpBvMPqRL30TeXYWPc0qnYNP8-KCa7C6_zLHh3T9iRiZ1/s1600/SW_Horz_Color.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiZzn8Idn4aD9CX639UcOq2RFHUsPY4JS3ta2wWi-jItD0AKrhTtBAPr7UO9srMZ50dS1Y_2T4m8c4vVrcIEVzThCP0w5HtJRUpBvMPqRL30TeXYWPc0qnYNP8-KCa7C6_zLHh3T9iRiZ1/s1600/SW_Horz_Color.png" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjINMRZmWaCIwnd7mC6D3cXNBiLw23_bNcaTUcW13St2m64ARcP1XvPFMicNUQJcxBcY2S5i_liNH1ikLc-D_nbdGxz379cWfeeVTFgd8tcau6VOcS687cst4BIBLSA-F8fXUr43lodVzb2/s1600/Prometheus+bound+Animated.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" dea="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjINMRZmWaCIwnd7mC6D3cXNBiLw23_bNcaTUcW13St2m64ARcP1XvPFMicNUQJcxBcY2S5i_liNH1ikLc-D_nbdGxz379cWfeeVTFgd8tcau6VOcS687cst4BIBLSA-F8fXUr43lodVzb2/s320/Prometheus+bound+Animated.gif" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/73159" target="_blank">At Smashwords</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like so many aspiring authors, I felt that I had a really good idea for my debut story. After six years of trying to write part time, I finally took the plunge and began to work full time on the story. After so many years of struggling to get the story sorted out and find my voice, I was alarmed at how quickly everything was coalescing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I really needed to find an agent. I had been putting it off because I had heard so many stories about how hard it was to find a good agent. The struggle to find a willing publisher would be even worse. I was starting to realize that finishing and editing the book wasn’t even half the battle. It would be years before my story ever saw a sale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then, as I surfed the various sites and blogs looking for advice I started to stumble onto authors like </span><a href="http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">Joe Konrath</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and </span><a href="http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">David Gaughran</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. David is an excellent author and recent convert to ePublishing. His </span><a href="http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">blog</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and his latest eBook <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/74884"><span style="color: blue;">Let’s Get Digital</span></a></i> is a highly inspirational resource for eAuthors. Joe is a well established author and one of the leading prophets of the eBook revolution. His blog, </span><a href="http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> is something akin to a masters degree in self publishing your work. This is where I first heard of Smashwords.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Smashwords is a game changer. For an author new to the digital publishing world, getting your book into the major retail sites can seem just as daunting as the traditional publishing process. Smashwords takes that headache off your hands by converting your file for you and shipping it out the major sales sites. They have an automated ‘meatgrinder’ program that converts your file into all the major formats, and human staff that vet the file. Once your file is shown to be free of major flaws (they aren’t editing it for you, just a review of cover quality and general appearance) your book ships out to major retailers. There is no charge for this conversion, they get paid by a commission of 15% for each sale. Not bad when you realize that a traditional author would be lucky to get 15% percent of the sale, let alone 85%!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Congratulations! Just like that, you are a published author!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t go rushing off to buy that bottle of Champaign just yet. You still have to put in some work to get ready for the conversion. You still need to format your book. Fortunately, Mark Coker’s </span><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Smashwords Style Guide</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> provides a comprehensive review of all that needs to be done in order to get your masterpiece into premium distribution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nonetheless, I did hit a few small snags. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first was the page breaks. I had put in page breaks to keep the chapter headings at the top of the screen. The style guide warns that the breaks might be stripped out during conversion and that you should put a couple of hard returns before and after so that some separation will be preserved. My problem was that too many of my chapters were ending so close to the end of a page that I had empty pages between chapters. I fixed this by taking out the two hard returns that sat in front of the page break.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next issue that I came up against was my navigation points. Despite trying to be careful, I somehow managed to double up on one of my bookmarks and ended up with an extra chapter tag that led nowhere. I spent the better part of a day trying to track it down (the engineer in me likes complicated problems). I finally accepted that I could blow away the whole index and rebuild it in an hour. Finally – success – sort of. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I failed my first vetting because I had colored text. I didn’t figure the dark grey text in my chapter headings would be an issue, but Smashwords is very clear about text needing to be black. Colors can disappear on some screens. I changed them and re-submitted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I failed my second vetting because I had colored text. I was kind of confused by this one – I had selected the entire document and changed the whole thing to black font so what could I have missed? Then I looked at the very end where the ‘About A.G. Claymore’ links were. I had to change the hyperlinks from blue to black. I fiddled around for a few frustrating hours before I realized that they weren’t going to change colors unless I changed the underlying hyperlink style in Word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally, I had a convertible document. It went back through the meatgrinder and into review status on my dashboard. Within a couple of days I was pleased to see my status upgraded to ‘approved’! The book is now for sale at all major retailers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All you have to do to start the process is – well – start the process. The two or three days that I spent formatting the first novel will likely only take a few hours for the sequel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The only question you have to ask is this; do you want a traditional publishing deal where your books might get a couple of months shelf time for pennies a sale, or do you want them to sell as eBooks for as long as you want, for dollars a sale?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Smashwords can help you with that, when you’re ready. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-60654804062168875912011-08-22T14:44:00.000-07:002011-08-24T10:31:23.698-07:00Death of a Salesman - Legacy Publishers and eBook Pricing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA538I08FtH0UKfquRSf1sltKUBYiFbCrvh4Mwhu7mObhzuyax3vktzcIboloEs7aHwRZrOPdFCheV7S5lR0WZvD_dxZq9GmHRkL0egJTMDFlQpUGrHfMTr6RbwyFg6HhQ-jkEo61t5Rc7/s1600/books+vs+Ebook+white+Bckgrnd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150px" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA538I08FtH0UKfquRSf1sltKUBYiFbCrvh4Mwhu7mObhzuyax3vktzcIboloEs7aHwRZrOPdFCheV7S5lR0WZvD_dxZq9GmHRkL0egJTMDFlQpUGrHfMTr6RbwyFg6HhQ-jkEo61t5Rc7/s200/books+vs+Ebook+white+Bckgrnd.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div> <span style="font-family: Calibri;">Looking through the Kobo site, I noticed a strange thing - the prices are upside down. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As an example, Robert Ludlum’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bourne Objective </i>(Okay, it’s really Eric Van Lustbader’s work at this point) sells for $14.99 as an eBook. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a world where the vast majority of self published eBook authors are trending towards the magic $2.99 price point, this seemed like a real kick in the teeth. Out of curiosity, I decided to check what a paperback would cost. Going to their main site, I was stunned to see that the paper back retails for $10.00 – 67% of the eBook price. On the face of it, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then I remembered </span><a href="http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">David Gaughran’s</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> analysis in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">let’s Get Digital</i>. The big publishers are trying to protect the sales of their physical books. That means you pay for paper, printing, distribution and sales outlet overhead even when you’re simply downloading a copy of the file off their server. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, what does this mean for the major publishers? With the deep discounts on physical books and the prohibitively high pricing on eBooks, it doesn’t seem like much will be left for the author. How long before the Van Lustbaders of the writing world look at the money they could be making if they left the big firms? It’s not like they need the ‘marketing reach’ of the traditional publishing houses. They are already known brands. They could move their stories as eBooks far more effectively if they weren’t up against the pricing policies of their publishers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Having worked for a company with yearly revenues of more than $35 Billion, I have witnessed some breathtakingly bad decisions. The logic may have worked within the confines of the decision, but it often failed to account for the company’s health as a whole. This may be happening now with the big firms. They think chasing everyone away from the lifeboats will save the ship but there really is no saving the ship – those lifeboats are their future. Maybe it’s not the final straw for the legacy publishers, but it could be one of the nails in their coffins. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How long before we start to see an exodus of major authors?</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-65725420740849983832011-08-17T15:44:00.000-07:002011-08-17T15:44:04.548-07:00Phone Scams & Hide-a-Beds<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRczZA9YtU_ku4_iesVJMeSzfyr7i8ssKkgnBUVhO6WnEpHGcXlHgSGxacB1M6iD1kqtLGc6KnhgpvxH2Igb4qPGaoJOWQtVo-luKl_VDmNm_u1zWniZ7vVky8s2fVxx8zc_Si4_2zWgXu/s1600/website_skype_phone_298471_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="188px" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRczZA9YtU_ku4_iesVJMeSzfyr7i8ssKkgnBUVhO6WnEpHGcXlHgSGxacB1M6iD1kqtLGc6KnhgpvxH2Igb4qPGaoJOWQtVo-luKl_VDmNm_u1zWniZ7vVky8s2fVxx8zc_Si4_2zWgXu/s200/website_skype_phone_298471_o.jpg" width="200px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=298471&searchId=f7a42fe7211f98ac7a60a285ac3a9e87&npos=406">Skype Phone</a> by re-ality<br />
Under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/">Attribution 2.5 Generic License</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another one of those calls – Because you are a valued (insert random company name here) customer you are entitled to receive (insert wildly unlikely reward here).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was working at a desk job, I often went along with it just to waste their time. I would ask a million questions and act excited while slowly giving out false credit card information. I figure I’m entitled to a little compensation: they are trying to rob me after all. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The last time it happened at work, I spent five minutes on the phone with the guy, trying to convince him to buy an old hide-a-bed couch that we had in our cellar. I was kind of amazed that he stayed on the line for so long. He kept telling me that he might be interested in the couch, but could he please have the information needed to sort out my credit card problem first. I finally told him that I had to go because I didn’t <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>think he was serious about the couch at all. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I even had someone claiming to be from the bank, except it wasn’t the bank that I dealt with. “A problem with my account?” I said, anger creeping into my voice. “The proceeds from selling the condo are in there,” I yelled, as my co-worker stuck her head over the cubicle wall with a raised eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you lost over two hundred grand of my money?” I could almost hear the heart palpitations on the other end of the line as my would-be thief imagined what he could do with all that cash. I kept him on the line for at least ten minutes while I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">went to look for my account information.</i> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I got back with a fresh mug of coffee I could hear him talking to someone in the background in hushed tones. I tapped the phone on the desk and they went silent. “OK, I have my statement here, what exactly do you need?” He was in the middle of telling me how I needed to give him the account number and online banking log-in when I cut him off. “Wait, did you say (insert random bank name here)?” When he confirmed that it was indeed that bank, I delivered the Coup de Grace. “Oh, I my account is with (insert MY bank name here). You must have the wrong number!” I sounded SO relieved. “You really scared me there!” I told him with the air of one who is re-living a frightening moment with an old companion – he hung up without another word. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It seems to me that the police don’t really seem to take this stuff seriously. They repeatedly claim that they aren’t able to do anything about it. Is it really that easy to hide from the police even when they have your phone number? Why do police shows like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Law & Order – Elevator Inspection Unit</i> always show someone sitting there with a pile of gear, tracing the bad guys call? Shouldn’t it be more realistic?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Got the number, Captain! 555-1234.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Well, nothing we can do with it - our hands are tied.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kind of annoying really. With the money they blew on that tracing gear, they could have bought my old hide-a-bed for their break-room.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At least the Canadians have come up with a “do not call” registry. You send in your phone number and it goes on the list. Companies then have to subscribe to the list so they know who they can legally call. Even better, the scam artists subscribe to the list so they know who they can illegally call – no more random dialing for them! Personally, I can’t wait for the “Don’t mug me because I walk dark streets at night with tons of cash in my pocket registry” Should be a roaring success…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, I have to go. I’m helping the King of a small European nation move his cash out of the country. All I have to do is put enough <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seed</i> money in his account here, so the Bank will give him a higher interest rate when he transfers his money.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sounded like a really nice guy on the phone… </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-44590848084255417452011-08-15T14:53:00.000-07:002011-08-15T14:53:07.206-07:00The sleeping Giant - eBooks and India - Pt 2<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfBvSYPnwhmNmtwdK6Utb1Jv8xfthcwJmFbOgqd78lh4Y8VgvI9Gl4tJu0zJQUo_LeOyD-vfcjOAV4kCFCgTBXFz658xe6UoKCOZbxEqW67VNtJVOGDv8hsy-7zwswTHQEGmwwhSfn417O/s1600/The+old+and+the+new+Mysore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfBvSYPnwhmNmtwdK6Utb1Jv8xfthcwJmFbOgqd78lh4Y8VgvI9Gl4tJu0zJQUo_LeOyD-vfcjOAV4kCFCgTBXFz658xe6UoKCOZbxEqW67VNtJVOGDv8hsy-7zwswTHQEGmwwhSfn417O/s320/The+old+and+the+new+Mysore.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>The old and the new</em> - Mysore, India Photo By A.G. Claymore</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A few weeks ago, I posted about the potential that India represents in the eBook market. Days later, Amazon announced that they were in talks with possible Indian eCommerce players (purely coincidence, I assure you…). So now we stand back and wait to see how it plays out. You might say we are in the eye of the hurricane. One of the leading eBook retailers is taking the worlds second largest population seriously, but what form this will end up taking is still unknown. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Library is undoubtedly important. One of the biggest points of discussion about eBook penetration tends to be the language targeted libraries. Amazon has a decent library for the German market with more than 150,000 titles. Kobo recently came to the game with 80,000 German language titles and a German version of the Kobo touch eReader. It will definitely be one of the major factors in India. They were producing literature on the sub-continent when my ancestors were still following wild herds. A lot of the existing literature will be public domain. Making local heritage available as free eBooks would go a long way towards naming a winner in the eReader race. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just thinking of the potential makes my head hurt. The state could even subsidize the readers for the school system. If you could provide texts in eFormat, that could eliminate literally tons of books that get beat up and replaced on a continuous basis. A child could sign out the reader at the start of the school year, loaded with the texts (on a mass license) and then return it at year’s end, or buy it out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That brings us back to the one issue that can make or break the eBook revolution in India. The price. In North America, eReader sales took off when the price hit 0.5% of per-capita GDP. I believe it a reasonable assumption that that kind of metric is directly transferrable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If eReaders in India were to cost 0.5% of per-capita GDP then you will be able to walk into a tech store in Bangalore and hear the same thing I hear down the street at Indigo – “sorry, we carry that model of eReader but they sell out the same day we get a shipment in.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, what is that magic price in the Indian economy? Roughly Rs. 530, or twelve dollars US. If someone figures out a way to provide a good reader at that price, tied to their own library, they’ll ride the hurricane all the way to the bank. </span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329733299145233083.post-66327382561723041602011-08-01T10:52:00.000-07:002011-08-05T22:56:13.301-07:00Once you start down the dark path - forever will it dominate your destiny...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk09Mrd1tgKkW5S5vdpyT9kJHW1UYy6yz5f4NG0SJ5YKcXA3gDfsutERqwqSqC75wkQxt9ddrAR8CKLHl4Zf3o92IalO2vG6dN4CQJaRMo4PB-XVh2fs79PjKlAjMu4dHAPqhdqJceLsuc/s1600/Bookstore+pub+image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk09Mrd1tgKkW5S5vdpyT9kJHW1UYy6yz5f4NG0SJ5YKcXA3gDfsutERqwqSqC75wkQxt9ddrAR8CKLHl4Zf3o92IalO2vG6dN4CQJaRMo4PB-XVh2fs79PjKlAjMu4dHAPqhdqJceLsuc/s320/Bookstore+pub+image.png" t$="true" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=287467&searchId=7d8949bcbf85067fceda9f84a6affb6b&npos=107">Books</a> by Katmere under <br />
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/" target="new">Attribution 2.5 Generic License</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Until a few weeks ago, I was one of those people who always said that they would use an eBook reader but that the tactile experience of holding a ‘real’ paper book would always be king. There was something about the feel of the pages that you just couldn’t replicate. Right?</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">A week ago, we bought a second Kobo and I've loaded it with the usual collection of old public domain books. I also have newer releases that I want to read without waiting a year for the soft-cover. That counts as a point already – lower price (slightly) and quicker release. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">What really pushed me past the tipping point was reading while holding my three month old son. I was holding the Kobo (this is not an ad, it’s just what we bought), and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to hold a paperback or hardcover the same way. I would have to hold a finger against the spine to hold it open to the right page and it would be tricky when I got to the part of the book where the spine is cracked. Most of our books get re-read several times and, sooner or later, they start to fall apart.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And forget about turning a paper page without waking my son…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">As I slid my thumb over to change a page, I realized that I had crossed over to the dark side of the – umm – market? The convenience is hard to ignore. I still love our personal library with its hundred linear feet of shelving. It will get one further expansion when we move it into the new office downstairs but that's the end. We'll probably do most of our reading with eBooks except for series that we have already started on hardcopy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">I don’t think eBooks are going to fade away. They will probably consolidate into one universally accepted format but I think it is a bit late to keep saying they are future. They are already past the point of no return. Hard-copy sales continue to plummet and eSales continue to climb. Check the published quarterly returns of any major book seller.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Putting it another way - How many of you still buy vinyl records?</span></div>A.G. Claymorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06109502266487845431noreply@blogger.com0