Book Review: The Deadman: Hell in Heaven – Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin

I’m not a fan of gambling. I once watched a friend of mine place $1000 worth of $1 bets on roulette in the space of half-an-hour before heading to the ATM to get more money to throw away. I’m pretty sure I could have found more fun things to do with that grand, and not all of them would have been immoral. Since I’m not a fan of gambling I’m not a fan of horse racing, a sport that exists merely in order to gamble. In spite of that, I feel the need to use horse-racing vernacular.

Since I have begun receiving each Deadman novella prior to release, I feel like I’ve had the inside running on the Darby winner. Hell in Heaven is the third in the series and once again it is a winner! It will be on sale from tomorrow (4th May) so grab it. If you like a well written, pacy, horror thriller, this book, and series, is for you.

A quick recap is in order, but I’ll try not to add any spoilers, the last time I did friends disowned me, even though I was saving them from The Crying Game. The hero of this series is Matt Cahill and his trusty axe. In the first book, Matt recovered from a mild case of death to discover that he could now see the evil eating away at people’s souls. This lead him to discover he had picked up a nemesis he dubbed ‘Mr Dark’. In the second book Matt has set out to track down Mr Dark and introduce him to his axe. To find answers he stops off at a mental hospital. Nothing bad ever happens in a mental hospital. Now in the third installment Matt has stumbled into Heaven, population 136, actually 137: they were expecting him. Matt may be able to see evil, but does it have to be evil that makes bad things happen?

This series has kept me rapt from the first page, quite an accomplishment considering that the authors have been running a baton relay of writing. Fortunately these authors are the Jamaican sprint team doing the 4x100m relay, each stage just gets better and better. A few thrills, a bit of mystery, a strong overarching storyline, a cool lead character and a few horrifying bad guys, should keep people glued to their e-reader (unless you prefer to read dead trees, in which case glued to the page). Also I should note the bonus chapters for the next installment of the Deadman series, The Dead Woman, will be by David McAfee and appear to promise the series will keep going strong.

Fun Articles, Humor, Reading, Writing

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Internet Pirate, Yar!

I can remember back to when computers were nothing more than green text on a black background and made terrific boat anchors. Then suddenly they exploded, usually from a spilt drink or frustration in the 10 minutes it took for anything to load. Just as I was leaving high school the interwebz was suddenly all around us and promised to deliver us information, e-commerce, media and porn. This coincided with computers becoming faster, hard-drives becoming bigger and teenagers becoming hornier.

And that is when media piracy really took off.

Sure Napster popularised it a few years later and the music industry starting jumping up and down about it later again, but someone had forgotten to tell these people that the game had changed. I didn’t have to buy the entire Primus CD for the two songs I was actually going to listen to, now I could have a copy of those two songs on my computer, either downloaded from friends or copied off the CD.

I think we were all waiting for the music industry to catch up. At some point we were expecting all of our favourite songs to be available online for sale. But our computers were growing, so it wasn’t just music, we wanted our TV and movies as well. Why couldn’t we just grab a copy off the internet when we wanted? Where was the store that sold this stuff? And would they sell Debbie Does Dallas?

Well, sensing the growing change in consumer behaviour, the desire for an online store to sell entertainment, the music industry, movie industry and other media decided to band together and sue kids for millions of dollars each.

Brilliant! Rather than sell people stuff lets sue them! What a marketing and sales master stroke.

Instead of responding to consumer demands, the industries concerned decided they didn’t want to play. They thought that would be the end of that. Of course in a free market economy you have to expect the market to dictate terms, not anyone else. Piracy became embedded.

Now of course it isn’t the media industry’s fault that their products were being pirated, it was them damn pesky kids with their computas and iGizmos and and theys gots no respects for da rulz……… The e-generation were blamed for the down-turn in music sales and for massive losses to the music and movie industry. I like the assumption that every download must equal a lost sale, talk about a non-sequitur.

None of these arguments, discussion or history are really relevant though. I’m going to coin a new term SCREEN-GAZING which is the e-version of navel-gazing, because all of this piracy discussion is essentially nothing more than screen-gazing. Lets have a look at the real data that needs to be discussed.

The survey interviewed 1,700 music consumers age 13-60 and found that music is important to social networkers: 39% have embedded music in their personal profiles.
70% said they embed music to show off their taste; half said music is a good way to reflect personality.
Some other survey findings:

Some 53% of people actively surf social networking sites to find music.

30% said they went on to buy or download music that they had discovered on a social network site (for MySpace, the proportion is 36%).

On popular sites the numbers of people who use sites to find music increase – for MySpace and Bebo, 75% and 72%, respectively, and 66% for YouTube.

46% say they wish it were easier to purchase music they had discovered on social networking sites – for example via a “buy now” button on the site.

The number of those saying they illegally download music tracks has increased, from 40% in 2005 and 36% in 2006 to 43% in 2007.

Only 33% cited the risk of being prosecuted as a deterrent against illegal downloading, compared with 42% in 2006.

Nearly one in five respondents – 18% – claimed an intention to download more unauthorized tracks, up from 8% in 2006.

After a dramatic 40% increase in the number of legal downloaders between 2005 and 2006, only 16% growth occurred in the number of legal downloaders from 2006 to 2007.

22% of legal downloaders admitted that they had not paid for a track in the last six months.

84% agreed that digital downloads of older music should be cheaper; 48% said they would be prepared to pay more for newly released music.

So basically iTunes had been on the map for 4 years by the time this survey was performed, downloading had been around for a decade. Big congratulations to the industry for making those inroads into making music accessible. Almost half of the kids would like easier access to music to buy, and most thought it was too expensive.

Another survey shows that downloads of media were decreasing. So clearly the impact of actually selling media to people that they want was a good thing for lowering pirating. Just the industry hasn’t reached enough of the market yet.

How do you dissuade people from illegal downloads? The traditional approach for punishing pirates would be imprisonment, pilloring, flogging, enslavement, branding, keel hauling, and/or hanging. Given how well that worked in ridding the world of pirates maybe we should consider other methods.

Someone was really bright and had a look at what parental guidance did to downloading.

Who would have thought that parenting had a role in being a law abiding citizen?

What does all of this mean? Well pretty much media – be that ebooks, movies, music, TV shows – need to be easily accessible and priced appropriately. There also needs to be some responsibility taken by everyone to make sure that people expect to pay for media. This can’t be draconian, it has to be encouraged, and part of that encouragement comes from the ease of access and prices that people can afford. And now I hold my breath. Wake me after I pass out waiting for a solution rather than another blame game.

Book review

Book Review: Season of the Harvest – Michael R Hicks

I’ve lived and worked in agriculture for pretty much all of my life. Aside from that short trip to Alpha Centuri to save the universe from Krag the Merciless I can safely say that agriculture is something I have spent a lot of time around and am at least peripherally aware of. Which always makes techno-thrillers and sci-fi books like Season of the Harvest hard to review.

I often wonder if ex-military guys sit down and read a book and think “like we’d ever do that”. I know every scientist would love the GC mass spectrometer that the CSI labs have on TV – nothing like a weeks work being turned into a 5 second task to get scientists hot under the collar. Do police and law enforcement people find it hard to enjoy any book or TV show due to the errors? They have those stairs at booking for a reason, push the guy down them a few times! So many little things that we writers and readers just don’t realise are crap.

In part of my research I found out that one thing that annoys gun ~~nuts~~ enthusiasts is that they hate the smell of muzzle flash being described as “cordite”. You see cordite hasn’t been used in bullet manufacturing for a long time, subsequently a writer describing the smell of cordite after a gun battle is showing ignorance. Clearly never having the need to use a gun to shoot random people is a major character failing in writers.

But are they showing ignorance? This is fiction after all.

To most readers describing that post-gunshot smell as cordite elicits the correct sensory appreciation. Gun powder, ho hum; cordite, ah-hah specific smell! For CSI we know that a case that would normally take months and go through several different investigators and result in absolutely none of the CSI team needing to shoot anyone, has to be wrapt up by your show’s stars in the 42 minute show time.

So really the research and reality of the writing or show only has to be enough to move the plot and characters forward. This is fiction after all.

As a result I can say that I really enjoyed Michael’s novel. He kept up a cracking pace and kept a very tightly woven narrative. At one point about three quarters of the way into the book I remember thinking “there is no way they can get out of this one”. So much tension!

This was a nice mix of sci-fi and thriller and reminded me a lot of James Rollins. This is especially since there are similar themes to Rollins’ novel The Doomsday Key. Just imagine that with aliens!

This brings me to my two criticisms of the book, remember I really enjoyed this book. The first was the narrative structure: it was very well done up until about halfway through when more points of view started to be included. Nothing wrong with that but it broke from the flow established earlier on. Having the cat have a point of view for a scene was my shark jumpy moment. The second point is about agriculture: why don’t people research agriculture when writing instead of listening to scare-mongers and political groups? I know why, it makes for a much more thrilling read than saying “we’ve doubled world population, have less farming land, and yet we still fed the world, yay us!” I guess it would just be nice to have someone say “you rock” rather than “you shouldn’t use chemicals” once in a while.

I guess the real CSI guys might be also dreaming of magical lab equipment too.

Fun Articles, Humor, Reading

Comment on Comments – A review of reviews

In case you haven’t been aware, there has been a few arguments riding the blogosphere this past week. The first was about the value of e-book or self-publishing being regarded as lesser than traditional print publishing. The second has been about the self-publishers who have commented on negative reviews of their books. Jenny at the Inner Bean has blogged and started some forum discussions on this topic.

Now I love the fact that several authors have posted here following one of my reviews. Essentially my reviews are promotions of books I have enjoyed reading, so them commenting doesn’t feel out of place. But reviews on Amazon and some review sites are not exactly the places to weigh in with a response.

Let us take an example of a review on Amazon:

Julia Argandona, of Costa Mesa, CA Review (‘17 of 59’ customers found this ‘helpful’):

I haven’t read this book yet but I can’t wait to read it so I am reviewing it early. The other people on Amazon who say don’t read it are brainwashed stooges of the Catholic religion, which has been sexually abusing children for 100’s of years. Who needs it? I already LOVE this book

I think the most important thing to note about this review is not that she hadn’t read the book, nor that she is clearly a fan of the author or genre regardless of the content of this particular book, no the important thing to note is that 17 of 59 other customers actually found this review helpful.

I’ve never driven a car, I’ve never held a license to drive a car, but I’m ever so keen to teaching my kids to drive. Can’t Wait!

Obviously everyone is entitled to an opinion. The internet has become a playground for the dispersal of opinions and porn. So we have to admit to ourselves that some people on the internet will not only be naked, but they will also have the intellectual might of a cheese cracker. I think it is safe to ignore these people, unless they look good naked.

But what about the normal or intelligent people and their opinions? Clearly all rational opinions will be in agreement. As a result you will never see a negative review for a book (or anything else) coming from someone worth listening to. Even if the book sucks.

I recently discovered that ~50% of the general public doesn’t believe in man made climate change and are willing to argue with the 97% of scientists who can prove it is happening. So opinions don’t have to be related to facts or evidence. There is a point here, but I’m not sure how it relates to internet nudity.

So even in the best of circumstances, when you are 100% right and the opinion holder is 100% wrong, telling people that is the case is just a waste of time. Remember, the best book ever written – Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – currently has 19 one star reviews on Amazon. This means that 3% of reviewers, despite being wrong, didn’t enjoy this masterpiece, proving that you can’t please everyone, so don’t bother arguing with them.

Of course reviewing the reviewers is all Anne Rice’s fault. She started it.

From the Author to the Some of the Negative Voices Here, September 6, 2004

Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work. In fact, the entire development of my career has been fueled by my ability to ignore denigrating and trivializing criticism as I realize my dreams and my goals. However there is something compelling about Amazon’s willingness to publish just about anything, and the sheer outrageous stupidity of many things you’ve said here that actually touches my proletarian and Democratic soul. Also I use and enjoy Amazon and I do read the reviews of other people’s books in many fields. In sum, I believe in what happens here. And so, I speak. First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren’t even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it. And you are giving a whole new meaning to the words “wide readership.” And you have strained my Dickensean principles to the max. I’m justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you? Now to the book. Allow me to point out: nowhere in this text are you told that this is the last of the chronicles, nowhere are you promised curtain calls or a finale, nowhere are you told there will be a wrap-up of all the earlier material. The text tells you exactly what to expect. And it warns you specifically that if you did not enjoy Memnoch the Devil, you may not enjoy this book. This book is by and about a hero whom many of you have already rejected. And he tells you that you are likely to reject him again. And this book is most certainly written — every word of it — by me. If and when I can’t write a book on my own, you’ll know about it. And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art. Back to the novel itself: the character who tells the tale is my Lestat. I was with him more closely than I have ever been in this novel; his voice was as powerful for me as I’ve ever heard it. I experienced break through after break through as I walked with him, moved with him, saw through his eyes. What I ask of Lestat, Lestat unfailingly gives. For me, three hunting scenes, two which take place in hotels — the lone woman waiting for the hit man, the slaughter at the pimp’s party — and the late night foray into the slums –stand with any similar scenes in all of the chronicles. They can be read aloud without a single hitch. Every word is in perfect place. The short chapter in which Lestat describes his love for Rowan Mayfair was for me a totally realized poem. There are other such scenes in this book. You don’t get all this? Fine. But I experienced an intimacy with the character in those scenes that shattered all prior restraints, and when one is writing one does have to continuously and courageously fight a destructive tendency to inhibition and restraint. Getting really close to the subject matter is the achievement of only great art. Now, if it doesn’t appeal to you, fine. You don’t enjoy it? Read somebody else. But your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies. I’ll never challenge your democratic freedom to do so, and yes, I’m answering you, but for what it’s worth, be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you, especially those of you who post anonymously (and perhaps repeatedly?) and how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly responses. Now, to return to the narrative in question: Lestat’s wanting to be a saint is a vision larded through and through with his characteristic vanity. It connects perfectly with his earlier ambitions to be an actor in Paris, a rock star in the modern age. If you can’t see that, you aren’t reading my work. In his conversation with the Pope he makes observations on the times which are in continuity with his observations on the late twentieth century in The Vampire Lestat, and in continuity with Marius’ observations in that book and later in Queen of the Damned. The state of the world has always been an important theme in the chronicles. Lestat’s comments matter. Every word he speaks is part of the achievement of this book. That Lestat renounced this saintly ambition within a matter of pages is plain enough for you to see. That he reverts to his old self is obvious, and that he intends to complete the tale of Blackwood Farm is also quite clear. There are many other themes and patterns in this work that I might mention — the interplay between St.Juan Diago and Lestat, the invisible creature who doesn’t “exist” in the eyes of the world is a case in point. There is also the theme of the snare of Blackwood Farm, the place where a human existence becomes so beguiling that Lestat relinquishes his power as if to a spell. The entire relationship between Lestat and Uncle Julien is carefully worked out. But I leave it to readers to discover how this complex and intricate novel establishes itself within a unique, if not unrivalled series of book. There are things to be said. And there is pleasure to be had. And readers will say wonderful things about Blood Canticle and they already are. There are readers out there and plenty of them who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you. And I am warmed by their response. Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face to face exchanges on the road — these things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post. But I feel I have said enough. If this reaches one reader who is curious about my work and shocked by the ugly reviews here, I’ve served my goals. And Yo, you dude, the slang police! Lestat talks like I do. He always has and he always will. You really wouldn’t much like being around either one of us. And you don’t have to be. If any of you want to say anything about all this by all means Email me at Anneobrienrice@mac.com. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 1239 First Street, New Orleans, La, 70130. I’m not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more! Thank God! – Anne Rice

She also doesn’t abide by fan fiction, because it’s her work DAMMIT!

Fun Articles, Humor

Enhance Your E-Reader

The smell of e-books just got better

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book. Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

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Book review

Book review: Dead Man’s Eye – Shaun Jeffrey

This little beauty has been at the top of my Kindle list for a long while now. Much like Steven L Hawk’s book, I stumbled across this via the book cover under a post on the Kindle Boards. Score another one for forums and great book covers!

Now according to Goodreads I’ve been reading this one for a long time. In reality though I’ve been reading this at lunch times when not Beta reading other novels (actually I think this is more novella length). So the fact that this book has kept me interested with my short spurts of reading for the first 50% shows that it is well written. I decided today that I couldn’t wait for another work week to finish it; I did so and enjoyed every moment.

Shaun has done a great job with this book. The premise is set up quickly and smoothly, the characters are well done, the plot flows nicely, and despite treading an oft trod storyline the book manages to remain fresh and interesting. I should add something about paranormal thrillers and the like, but the back cover synopsis really says it all.

I couldn’t finish this post without saying a little about a debate that seems to have erupted on the interwebz regarding the quality of indie vs. traditionally published books. Having just finished this book and Beta read Steven and Rex’s work I feel the need to make a comment.

Why is it that traditional publisher’s advocate themselves as some bastion of quality publishing? For some reason traditional publishing is claiming that it has been discerning the wheat from the chaff for all time, making sure that grammar and spelling mistakes don’t exist, that only good stories make it to the consumer.

Of course they do such a good job of this. I agree completely.

I mean JK Rowling was rejected by a dozen publishers, Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 was rejected because no-one could tell if he was being satirical or funny, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was rejected by 20 publishers, Stephen King’s thumbtack holding up his rejection notices had to be replaced with a nail, and Rudyard Kipling was told he didn’t know how to use the English language. Great job! Check this and this for more.

I think that these guys are all great examples of people who deserved to be rejected. There is no way that any author could possibly produce a good book that would be rejected. There is no way that any author could produce a book that won’t be filled with spelling and grammatical errors without a publisher. Just wouldn’t happen.

Indie and self-published author’s like Shaun Jeffrey and Steven L Hawk are great examples of author’s who clearly take pride in their work. They have editors and put out professional publications. There is no magic that publishing houses bring to the table. Can we acknowledge that self-publishing is just as legitimate as traditional publishing. Hocking el al. have proved that, lets move on.

Fun Articles, Humor

Define Irony

Yes that is right! Someone has released an e-book on Kindle that is critical of Kindle’s. Why The Kindle Will Fail by Rick Munarriz

From the reviews it sounds like the book is a review of the Kindle that the author has decided to turn into an e-book. Given the book title, the format and where he is selling it, he clearly can’t be taken too seriously. Opinions have to come from an educated point of view; how can a point of view be educated with this much irony?

It reminds me of a lovely cartoon that I think sums up a lot of opinion based articles:

Book review

Being a Beta Reader – Peace Army by Steven L Hawk

What I love about the digital age we now live in is that it has suddenly made communities possible again. All those little sullen teenagers who make statements like “life is pain” can now find other people to bother. For readers and writers it means that, like a readers festival, we can gather in corners of the internet and proudly proclaim “I can read and I actually enjoy it!”

This means that now authors can speak to a writer’s group from the comfort of their own couch. Or they can speak to fans directly without having to wait for a book tour or festival. Writer’s can now grab some readers and ask them “Is it good enough?” and they can tell them “Yay!” or “Ow, my brain!”

I have previously mentioned how I stumbled across Steven’s first book here. Well, when I congratulated him on his first book in an email, he suckered me into being a Beta Reader. By suckered I mean he offered me a free copy; by Beta Reader I mean I got to read it before anyone else!

Now normally a traditionally published author would have a team of publishing house people take a large cut of their book sales in order to tell them to rewrite it so that it is a teenage vampire romance novel – because they are hot right now. But in the world of the indie author, or is that the e-book author, no one can afford to end up co-writing with James Paterson. They have to find ways to turn out a quality product with as few costs as possible. Of course some authors aren’t concerned with things like spelling or grammar, and just release a book. True professionals, like Steven, wouldn’t dream of releasing anything but a professional quality book.

Enter the community.

Once again we find ourselves in touch with our peers. Instead of it being because we all live within a day’s horse ride of one another, now it is because the internet has connected us. Authors can help other authors. Fans can be friends with their favourite authors. Sure, you still get the annoying argumentative people who think ignorance is an opinion, but that is why the internet invented pwnage.

Now my experience in being a Beta Reader has been very positive. By the time I had a copy in my Tablet PC it was clear that Steven had done a lot of work on the novel – Peace Army. I actually spotted less typos, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in his entire novel than in the middle section of the final Harry Potter novel (you know, the part were Harry, Ron and Hermione are wondering around camping for ages and you wonder when something will actually happen, but nothing does). Since Steve was still sending this book to an editor, myself and the other Betas were tasked with trying to spot plot holes, non-sequiturs, and frivolous inclusions of zombies. I really have to commend Steven on a novel that could have been something I was paying for, not reviewing.

This revival of an ancient (pre-2000 AD) practice is not without its problems. Without going into too much depth, I am actually a professional editor and have a few science degrees – some of them are from real universities! So not only have I been asked to rewrite entire articles that consist of the 7 words you can’t say on television, but I’ve made it coherent. So it is likely that I can contribute something of value as a Beta or editor. As a result I think that authors need to still be reliant on doing a good job themselves, finding Beta’s who can give positive criticism of value, and not be in too much of a rush to publish.

Of course I should offer up a few comments on Steven’s book. Peace Army is an interesting follow-up to the novel Peace Warrior. Once again Steven has hearkened back to the science fiction novels of old, while having an interesting take on a future Earth. The last third of the novel flew past and I had to remind myself to make notes as the book came to its finale. Even if Steven released this book right now without further changes and editing I’d not only be buying a copy myself but would recommend it for anyone who loves sci-fi. Keep an eye out for its release.

All just a little bit of history repeating:

Uncategorized

E-Books: The Publishers Strike Back

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Fleeing the evil Publishing Companies, the indie and mid-listers have formed a base on the interwebz. Their new base is threatened though, as the Publishers have discovered their location and have sought to invade it themselves. Through their alliance with Amazon, Smashwords and other e-book publication platforms, the indie and mid-listers confront the Publishers and learn a dark secret – they still want to be published in paper.

I’ve been following a few conversations about e-books and the new industry for awhile. There are some interesting perspectives out there, ranging from some of the large publishing houses “We want the industry to stay exactly the same” to the kid in his room “I’ve just published 25,000 words of unedited crap – I is famus”. Both extremes are rather annoying, one might as well be sitting in a corner with their fingers in their ears shouting “La la la, I am not listening” whilst the other group really should have gone to the Dagobah system and learnt from Yoda the ways of the dictionary.

A fellow West Aussie has had an intriguing set of Aussie authors and publishers guest post on his blog recently. The result has been The Grand Conversation. Having not, as yet, published anything I can quite comfortably say that this entire conversation gives great perspective to anyone about to or wishing to enter the industry. As a long time reader though, I am qualified to cast as many aspersions on the industry as the next blogger. I am fickle, read my post!

Are the publishers really to blame for the current woes of the industry? Woes? I’d almost say that with e-books out there now it is an exciting time. Not so exciting if you planned on making a visit to Borders or Angus and Robertson stores any time soon, but with winners there must be losers. I’d actually say that book stores and publishers combined to make e-books and online shopping so attractive.

I’m sure I’m not alone in having traveled to a book store hoping to get the latest from Author X only to find it isn’t in stock, which is amazing considering how prolific Author X is. Or possibly you have experienced wanting to stock up on your favourite author only to find the shelves bereft of those titles. Lets also face the fact that you are more likely to find a celebrity biography than you are to find much in the way of scifi, or similar genres (unless you are talking specialist independent stores). In fact quite often the bookstores with the best ranges tend to be second-hand bookstores. The range in e-books, despite only having a few 100,000 titles available, is vast and getting bigger daily. The e-book range also includes a lot of authors that we haven’t heard of, or had limited distribution under the previous publishing model.

It isn’t just the range of books available online or in e-book format, it is the pricing. Sure we have the Aussie online Dymocks, A&R and Borders charging trade paperback prices for an e-pub file, but the smarter companies are pricing their books under $10 and the independents are pricing under $5 – often as low as $0.99. Quite simply you can have a book in your hot little e-reader a minute after you readjusted your backside on the couch for much less than comparative entertainment. This is a big win for authors and readers alike. You no longer have to run the gauntlet of James Paterson, celebrity chef, cricket captain tour diaries and store clerks who can’t read.

Wait, haven’t I just absolved the evil publishers of blame for the dearth of decent documents? Well no. At some stage publishers decided to set up a business model that meant they lost money on a lot of titles to make money off of a few titles. I too would like to give the cast of Jersey Shore millions of dollars in advances for an “autobiography” ghost written by a clearly suicidal struggling author, to then release a book aimed at a target market not known for their ability to read. Makes sense to me. Most of what publishers produce is hit and prefix. With these grand mistakes they have essentially set themselves up to require 12 James Paterson books in a year and can’t take the chance on anyone new.

Will E-books manage to rescue the novel from the publishers? Find out in Return of the Reader.

Book vs E-book: lets call it a draw.

Book review

Book Reviews – The Dead Man: Face of Evil by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin

Before this review, in the interest of full disclosure, I should state that I have known Lee since last week when he sent me a pre-release of this book. We go way back. Now onto the review.

This was another book that I read during my lunch break. Please don’t tell my boss, as I read more of this on the first day than my lunch break technically allowed – of course I still have enough overtime to miss a week of work so I don’t feel so bad. Needless to say this book is far too engrossing for its own good. I highly recommend reading it when you have more than a half hour lunch break.

Lee and Will are the first in a team of 8 to write this Dead Man series. Face of Evil can be regarded as a stand-alone novella, but it does set things up nicely for more to come. This is primarily a thriller with aspects of horror, with a generous smattering of the paranormal. I’m not really a horror fan, I don’t really need those details, but here it isn’t overriding and the paranormal/horror aspects add nicely to the tension. The release date is February 20th, which is today for me, tomorrow for Americans (yes I’m coming to you from the future), so keep an eye open for this one.

I can’t wait for the rest of this series.

Fun Articles, Humor, Reading

Going For Broke

Everyone will have now read, seen or heard the news that Borders and Amazon have been heading up a fetid creek for far too long. In the land of Oz (the non-magical and not infested by Munchkins version) the media are now weighing in.
See this article

You see I’m to blame. I brazenly buy books from places other than big chain stores. I have a Kindle and enjoy reading e-books. I am, in short, the devil incarnate and will be sacrificed on a pyre of celebrity biographies, cookbooks and other non-selling book store stock.

A Recent Photo of Me.

Lets take a look at some of the points that were made.

I’ll play devils advocate here and talk about taxes first. There are only two sureties in life; taxes and whining about them. In the non-Munchkin land of Oz we have a 10% goods and services tax (GST) on everything except food. This means that imports don’t have this tax, because they aren’t Australian. I guess we evil overseas book buyers paying taxes to a foreign country should pay another tax for daring to participate in the global economy. That way I can be more involved in the global economy with taxes in multiple countries.

Recently we also had a change in the Aussie dollar, it reached parity with the US dollar. For those who haven’t studied economics, this means that if I have one Australian dollar I can trade it for one American dollar, I know because I saw an article on it – tricky stuff that economics. Now that means that if I wanted to, say, buy materials that are needed to print books they would have gotten cheaper. Equipment upgrades, cheaper. Printing ink, cheaper. So clearly a stronger Aussie dollar must mean that it is harder to compete…………

The threat from online sales is, of course, just terrible. How dare our country sign up to a fair trade agreement and actually have its citizens abide by it. Who’d have thought that when you have a business competing in an international market it would mean that you would have to compete with stores all over the globe?

Of course this means that me and my evil kind are killing retail jobs.

One point that Bob Carr (former politician – which means dodgy) makes is about how it is all the government’s fault that books cost so much. He states that they would be 33% cheaper if only his benevolent company Dymocks was able to buy their books from overseas instead of locally. 33%? I think it is basic maths time for this particular businessman.

As an example I will use the latest action-thriller by Andy McDermott. His book Empire of Gold (which I’m looking forward to getting my fiendish hands on) has just come out recently and is available from Dymocks in Australia, or for the evil book buyers, from Amazon.
Dymocks Australia online price: $24.79 (paperback)
Amazon: $9.99 (paperback) or $24.63 (hardcover)
So let us take 30% from the Dymocks price:
$24.79 – 30%(7.44) = $17.35

Well, I’m not a maths genius, but at a guess I’d say that being able to buy a hardcover at USA retail prices for the same price as the paperback retail in Australia is not exactly a 33% difference for a paperback. In fact, to buy it would be more like a 60% difference between the paperback prices. So I’d have to say that I’m not looking as evil as I first thought.

I wonder where that other 33% is going? It certainly isn’t into royalties for writers. I’d just like to be reminded what the wonderful companies that have just left a hole in the heavenly book retail world went bankrupt not paying (analogy: imagine that the authors are Marsellus Wallace, the publishers are Butch, the retailers are Zed and Maynard, and in this version Butch just does a runner). While we are on the subject, I’m unsure whether Dymocks is a discounting chain store driving every other book store out of business or The Coalition for Cheaper Books.

Clearly I’m so evil and my kind are the cause of all problems in the publishing world. It could never be the fault of antiquated business models forgetting that there are only two important parts in the publishing industry, namely the readers and the writers, everything else is clearly expendable. Excuse me while I pay a 70% royalty to a new author for a book that you can’t buy from a publisher or store.

Book review

Book Reviews – Peace Warrior by Steven L Hawk

I have mentioned before how I am a chronic procrastinator. As part of my procrastination I frequent various forums that discuss topics of interest. Whether it be weightlifting, woodworking, reading or writing, I’ll be there ready to pwn some newb (really I’m a nice guy). Anyway, over at Kindle Forums I stumbled across Steven’s book and was inspired to read it. Basically the cover interested me enough to inspire a download of the sample. It was a lunch time and I wanted something to read, this book fit the bill nicely.

I can’t remember how far I was through the sample before I was convinced to purchase the entire book, but it was within a few pages. This book was reminiscent of my favourite science fiction novels and had me hooked. Not bad for the first book by a self published author.

Steven has done a great job with the book and this is a very entertaining read. It is clear that he has drawn on his military background, whilst not boring the reader with it. I can recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sci-fi or thrillers. Imagine a Buck Rogers type scenario with aliens and you are most of the way to understanding this book. Steve has set up good pacing, an interesting take on the themes, and makes it an enjoyable journey for the reader.

So if you get the chance, look up the indie authors like Steven, they are giving readers something more than just another James Paterson release.

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E-book: A New Hope

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A long time ago, in a publishing house far far away, the novel was created. It was a time of unrest for the publishing empire as they sought to grow their industry, promote authors, create an audience and inspire the world. The empire grew and prospered and many got rich, some of them authors.

The empire changed though; the e-book arrived, promising a new age in the empire. Rather than embrace the e-book, the empire struck out and became recalcitrant. A small band of mid-listers and indie authors formed a rebellion embracing the ways of the e-book.

Honestly who can understand major entertainment companies? The music industry, the movie industry, the publishing industry, they are all guilty of resistance to change. A new way to deliver their products to their clients, while cutting out costs and intermediaries, is handed to them on a platter and what do they do? Embrace it or demonise it?

Sure, the music industry took a hit on sales because they no longer controlled the medium of consumption. But does anyone remember what was topping the charts the year after mp3s hit it big in 1999? The answer is ‘N Sync, Madonna, Celine Dion and Britney Spears. Definitely worth buying their albums. The point being that the music industry was late to the party and they combined it with generic pop music releases. That’s like mixing prescription drugs with alcohol only to realise that it doesn’t actually get you wasted.

When you actually take a look at the music industry you don’t see the new market as being plagued by downloads, but rather enhanced by them. Aside from that initial euphoric rush on downloads the music market eventually woke up next to Britney Spears and realised what a big mistake that last few years had been. They alighted that train wreck and downloads are now not really impacting upon real sales. Sure the music industry will point out that downloads are still high, but who would honestly pay for a Britney Spears album? I’m surprised anyone downloads her music. Maybe they have the Chinese firewall technicians downloading terrible western music to keep them focused on not allowing the west in.

The people who download music these days were either going to browse and buy or never buy (studies are showing this more and more in the past 3 to 5 years), so e-media is a good thing for sales now. I can confirm that downloads have actually increased my buying habits. It has also given me easy access to a much larger market of music. My local music store never used to stock much in the way of Pirate Death Metal (yes that is a real genre), but now I can download an album, see if the Arrr’s are rocking and then buy the album to support the artists and their scurvy mates. With all the options now with e-books, free samples, cheap prices, access virtually anywhere, and the fact that you can find something other than James Paterson’s latest, makes e-books a great new market.

So e-books are the New Hope. Then can boldly go…….. sorry wrong Star Something.

Right now the e-book is booming at a whopping ~10% of the market, definitely time for publishers to worry. They have a Death Star, a fleet of Imperial Cruisers and the e-books have Harrison Ford. Great things are coming, even if it is ruined eventually by a crystal skull.