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Author Encourages PDF Pirates

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:53:04 +0000

Today’s post will provide a little more information related to the whole free vs. paid content debate. Most authors would love it, of course, if people gave them quadrillions of dollars per copy sold, but Peter Cooper took a practical approach when he recommended that individuals pirate PDF versions of his book.

Cooper wrote, “I believe free electronic copies can significantly increase mindshare and print sales. With a book like Beginning Ruby, the majority of readers want a print book, so it seemed a no-brainer to keep sales strong in a market with growing competition.”

However, that’s where he ran into a problem: his publisher didn’t want to make the ebook free.

So Cooper suggested (or for legal reasons, at least sort of put forth the idea with a wink) that people pass his book around different Pirate-type sites and RapidShare. His publisher might sue, he warned, but he won’t. Which seems like a pretty swell thing to do.

Whether this changes how you feel about giving stuff away is completely up to you, of course. Maybe there’s an anti-Cooper out there who can prove he lost money due to piracy and is none too pleased about it. This is just something writers should take under consideration.

Giving Readers More Reasons To Buy

admin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:23:19 +0000

One school of thought has it that, after the text of a book makes it online, the author’s screwed. Everyone will just spend a few hours in front of their computer monitors, reading it, and never purchase the novel. But – even assuming this is correct – the problem may not be too hard to address.

Simply try, if you can, to make your book more than a book. It could be as easy as turning it into a keepsake – think of the leather-bound, silver-studded pieces of art that J.K. Rowling created not too long ago. Or some construction pocketbook could come with inches and centimeters marked off on the edge.

Or you could take some extra-special steps. Mike Masnick writes, “I was excited to hear from JC Hutchins, who was telling us about the way he’s selling his new novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art. . . . [T]he story goes beyond the book itself. . . . If you Google the names of certain characters, you can find their webpages and blogs (and accounts on certain social networking sites). The phone numbers on the business card work. You can email characters in the story, hear voicemails and hack into different websites and emails, as well.”

Masnick later continues, “Hutchins works to come up with interesting ways to ‘connect with fans,’ including the ability for fans to ‘commit themselves’ as patients to the psychiatric hospital at the center of the story. The story in the book revolves around a therapist at the hospital who uses an individual’s ‘personal effects’ to help treat them — so this part lets you submit your own backstory and whatever ‘personal effects’ you want, in order to ‘become a patient.’”

Try to come up with similar ideas and you’re liable to generate buzz and increase sales.

Scribd Might Make Vanity Publishing Cool

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:01:50 +0000

For the longest time publishers have had the power over who gets known and who doesn’t. Fortunately, in this century, we have the Internet, and services like Scribd, which allows authors to upload their manuscripts, set a price, and keep most of the money from sales.

Scribd touts itself as the YouTube of the publishing world. Scribd allows users to upload pretty much any document format, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc., and share as they like. Readers unattached to glossy covers can download the documents and print, read, embed, or share. Authors can charge for downloads, keep 80 percent of sales (as compared to a meager two percent), and control how the e-book is distributed.

Today, Scribd announced a deal with publishing giants Random House and Simon & Schuster, among many others to make books available and offer sneak preview chapters and excerpts.

While Lulu (print on demand publisher) has held steady at 800,000 unique monthly viewers, Scribd in the past few months has rocketed past seven million. Already that’s a significant opportunity for authors looking to bypass the wait-and-hope approach and to take publishing matters into their own hands. It could even be a bridge between authors and powerhouse publishers, displacing agents and giving those risk-averse publishers a good indication of a book’s potential.

Though vanity publishing was forever on the lower rung of the publishing world—a sign an author couldn’t get published otherwise—I think this will change with technology. Vanity publishing will become a way for authors to self-promote at no financial risk or risk of signing away all their publishing rights.

Duotrope: The Anti-Writer’s Market

admin — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:16:59 +0000

Not to disparage a fine in-print tradition, but I’m fairly certain published writers tell other aspiring writers to pick up a copy of the latest Writer’s Market tome as some sort of initiation process. They slyly (forgive the adverb) hide their snickers and contempt of potential competition by directing the uninitiated to wade through a morass of irrelevant for-black-gblt-nurses-who-write-spiritual-sonnets-only publishers running the operation out of a basement.

This is the 21st Century and anyway that’s just mean. That’s why you gotta love a resource like Duotrope Digest—like all good things, the site relies on donations. Google can’t really define “duotrope” as a word, and it sound a bit like swallowing, but this online digest/resource is seriously useful for writers wanting to get published.

Duotrope is a database fiction and poetry writers can search to find not just publishers, but descriptions, pay scales, length requirements, genres, and awards. They even keep track of acceptance/rejection rates, average response time, whether simultaneous submissions are okay, et cetera. Pretty much all the questions an aspiring literary type would want to know.

Anyway, beats hurting your eyes and wasting highlighter ink right?

Automated Content Will Unmake Existence

admin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:31:46 +0000

Chess is one thing, but if we get to the point computers can best humans in the arts—those splendid, millennia-old expressions of the heart and soul of human existence—then why bother existing? Fortunately, computers have yet to match us in music or writing or dancing or even drawing—the lines are straighter, but that's not even the point, and good luck uploading an actual right-brained imagination.*


The preceding paragraph may seem obvious to you, so deeply obvious that the assertion takes shape as an immovable stone at the center of your being. Computers creating art is an upsetting concept mostly because of what it means about humans: They, their feelings, their thoughts are predictable (or at least probable), down to the last letter, down to the last limited thought. If so, an algorithm calculating all probabilities can reproduce all scenarios, can predict all outcomes, and can even tell your story for you before you even know you have a story. 
It's all very quantum and post modern. Jorge Borges' short story from over half a century ago, "The Library of Babel" is about an infinite (perhaps infinite) library filled with every story, and every variation of every story. At the end, Borges (or an avatar of Borges) finds comfort only in an idea that there is some overarching meaning to the infinite (perhaps infinite) repetition. 
Which is the most human of thoughts, of course, the concept of meaning. Which is also very predictable of humans. Just wait until quantum computing takes off. Just wait until they find that boson "god" particle. Just wait till they flip the Grid this summer, all of which probably won't unmake existence somehow. Meaning, a human desire, as predictable and probable a pursuit as it is now, will become something they'll try to replicate—meaning, the thing itself, and not the pursuit. 
And they'll fail, I think.  It should make sense on paper: reality is something humans have yet to fully capture in art or mathematics due to obvious limitations; the right algorithm, then, should produce the most mathematically sound representation of reality and, therefore, meaning, if either of these things exist and are not, merely, human projections. But at least, like quarks and bosons and dark matter, reality and meaning will have an existence in theory, if not by direct observation, in nicely balanced equations, eventually reproducible in text or images via some crafty algorithms. 
Here's why I think they'll fail. Aside from the more abstract idea that meaning finding itself negates itself (think of it this way: meaning and proof of meaning are matter and antimatter; when the two meet there is nothing), to produce human art a computer would have to find, feel, absorb reality to the point it is overcome, to the point it sobs for release. A computer perhaps could replicate every possibility but could never transfer the energy art requires to exist in the first place. 
Proof? If proof exists of anything, this could be offered up as an example of it. Science Daily's title is apt: Why Musicians Make Us Weep And Computers Don't. The article details a study conducted by neuroscientists comparing brain responses to music played by humans and to music played by computers:

The study also revealed that the brain was more likely to look for musical meaning when the music was played by a pianist.






"This is similar to the response we see when the brain is responding to language and working out what the words mean," says Dr Koelsch. "Our results suggest that musicians actually tell us something when they play. The brain responses show that when a pianist plays a piece with emotional expression, the piece is actually perceived as meaningful by listeners, even if they have not received any formal musical training."  


Why this complex, existential, quantum-theoretical, post-modern monolog? First, I find it comforting to think that scientists' efforts to negate themselves (and thus, the rest of us) are doomed to fail in matters that, um, matter. Second, do a search on automated content. Yes, algorithms already exist to replace writers and content producers; they are there as algorithms to fool other algorithms, ones from search engines. 

 
While such technology exists to generate money for humans via a kind of Internet pollution, content consumers tolerate certain parts per million so long as algorithms know their place, so long as we can recognize them when we seem them, even if computers can't. 

 
Phil Parker, though, has "written" 200,000 books with the help of an algorithm and a small staff (of people, not wood). A few people have even bought them, even if some of the titles aren't all that thrilling. One thing I'll stake my existence as a writer on, though: there's not an ounce of soul in all 200,000. 

 
Not that I've read them. 

 
Point is: Real content speaks to real readers/listeners/viewers. Real success online comes from real content producers. 

     
^{*Computers have yet to really match us in commerce, either, but I thought I'd dance around a little in the introduction with my artsy-fartsy tendencies. Computers have helped with mathematics for our insistence on commerce. Likely, an algorithm one day, once the necessity for humans is sufficiently negated, will show how illogical and unnecessarily complex an existence based upon exchange really is. Want is a decidedly human invention.}



Amazon Is the New Oprah
admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:51:30 +0000
Every writer knows getting your book featured on Oprah (your presidential candidate, etc.) is the shortest path to bestseller. But Oprah’s so last century (and so your mother’s Oldsmobile). Online, an Amazon.com endorsement becomes the coveted limelight. 
I haven’t read David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but around 90,000 people have so far after a couple of months. Okay, well, 90,000 books have been printed by HarperCollins thanks to Amazon’s promotion of it. For two solid weeks before the book was released, Amazon pasted the book onto its homepage and offered a 40% pre-order discount. 
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that heavily clouted HarperCollins published it. A nice blurb from Stephen King didn’t hurt, either, and tells you Wroblewski has earned his place on stage. 
And this is his debut novel in a literary world where brand names are important to publishers and readers. 
If one isn’t lucky enough to get Oprah, Amazon, HarperCollins or Stephen King to go to bat for him, there’s always the ebook, or print-on-demand services like lulu.com. Call me old school, though: When my book is finished and published (by somebody eventually), the hard cover will sit on my bookshelf like a trophy, and the satisfaction of doing it the hard way will sit at the front of my lips.     



More Free Ebooks and Where to Find Them
Mariella — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:09:50 +0000
Want some more free ebooks? Well, who ever says no to free stuff in the first place?
As a follow-up tothis post, I’m going to tell you of a little known lode of ebook goodness. It might be a little bit more complicated than surfing to a particular web site and downloading right off the bat. It took me a while to get used to the process but I believe it’s worth every ounce of effort. You don’t have to worry about groping in the dark though – I’ll be teaching you all you have to know. Or at least the very bare essentials.
First thing you’d have to have on your computer is mIRC. In case you don’t have it, go to Sysreset.com and download a copy. Sysreset is mIRC bundled with special features which I won’t discuss any further to spare you the headache. Contrary to popular belief, you won’t have to pay anything to use mIRC, not even after your “30 day evaluation period” has elapsed. Just click on “Continue” at the welcome screen and enjoy the program’s features without worry.
There are already too many mIRC tutorials out there so I won’t go into details. I’ll give you a tree-tops view of what should be done, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it all out for yourselves. After you have downloaded and installed sysreset, run the program. A window will pop up prompting you to input a nickname.
At the Status window, type: 
/server irc.irchighway.net
â€¦and press enter. You will be connected to the irchighway server. We’re now a step closer to the hidden repository of free ebooks. 
I know of two channels in irchighway with enough ebooks to get you busy for weeks to come. At the Status window again, type:
/join #ebooks

and

/join #bookz
You will be connected to two ebook server channels. 
Congratulations! You’ve now reached our secret ebook havens.
However, figuring out how to download the ebooks is the tricky part. Here are some simple guidelines to follow:
1. If you want to find a particular book or author, you can use either “@find” or “@search”. There are subtle differences between the two, but both will automatically find what you’re looking for. 
Example:

@find James Joyce OR @search James Joyce

@find Wuthering Heights OR @search Wuthering Heights
2. The ebooks you download from these channels are from “servers”. These are people who share their collections. To get an entire list of collection from any server, type “@” before the server name in the channel text box.
3. Listings are in this format: !

Copy and paste the entire line from the “!” to the file extension into the channel text box and press enter. You will be put on queue and the ebook will download when it’s your turn.
4. Ebooks in these two channels could be in various formats including: .htm, .txt, .lit, .pdf, .pdb, etcetera. If you’re not familiar with some of them, simply search for the extension and download the corresponding program. For Microsoft Windows OS, I recommend downloading .lit files which use Microsoft Reader.
 See, not rocket science after all, eh? You might get a little confused at first but trust me, once you see all the ebooks in there you’ll get over your befuddlement. If you’re into audio books too, there’s also a channel where you can download free audio books. 
In the Status window of the same server, type: /join #audiobooks
The downloading procedure is basically the same as that of the ebook channels.  
As a bonus for all of you, here is my collection of Agatha Christie ebooks in varied formats (.htm, .lit, and .txt). Unfortunately, I can’t list all of their titles due to the huge number. The file is big somewhat (10.4MB) and you will need either WinZip or WinRar. 
Do you know of any other ebook repositories? It would be great if you could share them with us.



30 Free Amazing eBooks
admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:32:32 +0000
I’ve read several reports in the news lately of a decrease in book sales in the US and European markets. Whether this is due to a dwindling interest in reading as a past time or simply because many people are turning to e-books and other digital means for their dose of literature remains to be seen. Personally, I’m still devoted to the old paperbacks but from time to time I like to sample some of the free publications available on the Net.
As many of us are approaching our summer holidays we’ll have more time on our hands to open a book or search online for something to read. I’ve scoured the 4 corners of the Internet to save you the trouble of searching. Below is a personal selection of over 30 great short stories, novellas and novels, both classic and contemporary, that are available for free download. So whether you have 15 minutes or 15 days to do a bit of reading this summer, at least you can’t say you couldn’t afford it! Let me know if you read anything from the list and let me know of any other ebooks I have overlooked. Help spread the word and digg this article. Thanks and enjoy!.
Short stories (source= The New Yorker Achives.)

Still-Life by Don DeLillo: “Short story about a man who survives the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and moves back in with his estranged wifeâ€¦”


Suckers by V. S. Naipaul: “Short story about an English art dealer who takes a lower-class lover near his fatherâ€™s houseâ€¦ I used to go down from London at weekends to see my ill father. One of my big worries was finding someone to look after his house. In old books, you notice thatâ€¦”


Mother’s Son by Tessa Hadley: “Short story about a mother finding out that her son is having the sort of affair that she once had with his fatherâ€¦ Alan Armstrong was going to get married again. Christine didn’t think she cared. She was making notes for a lecture on women novelists and modernism. Just asâ€¦”


The Rabbit Hole As Likely Explanation by Ann Beatie: “Short story about a woman who is taking care of her demented mother, only sheâ€™s not stable herself, nor is her brotherâ€¦ The womanâ€™s mother claims she wasnâ€™t invited to her first wedding, and that the woman is the product of a former family that her father had. The womanâ€¦”


A Beneficiary by Nadine Gordimer: “Short story about a young woman who discovers a secret about her parents while sorting through her late motherâ€™s possessions. Her mother had been cremated. There was no marble stone incised, â€œLaila de Morne, born, died, actress.â€ Her daughter, Charlotte, had her fatherâ€™s surname and was as close to himâ€¦”


Hanwell Senior by Zadie Smith: “Short story about a character named Hanwell, his father Hanwell Snr, and the fatherâ€™s rare appearances in the sonâ€™s life. Hanwell Snrâ€™s â€œfeckless and slapdashâ€ ways made him â€œworse â€¦ than a cruel man.â€ He came to Hanwell like a comet, at long intervals. When Hanwell was six, in the lateâ€¦”


The Stolen Pigeons by Marguerite Duras: “Short story about an old French womanâ€™s relationship with her daughter-in-law. From Bugues, you could see the old Bousque womanâ€™s head rising in the distance, above the hedge of trees that separated our land from that of her children. Her body was bent at the waist, thanks toâ€¦”


Teaching by Roddy Doyle: “Short story about an alcoholic high-school teacher and his childhood experience as a victim of sexual abuseâ€¦”


A Tranquil Star by Primo Levi: “Short story in two parts, the first part about the lifespan of a star, the second part about an astronomer and his familyâ€¦Once upon a time, there lived a peaceful star. The star was very big and very hot, but use of these adjectives brings difficulties, for an elephantâ€¦”


On Chesil Beach by Ian Mcewan: “Short story about a young couple’s wedding night in a Georgian inn in Dorset, Englandâ€¦ They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. They were sitting down to supper in aâ€¦”

Classic Novels (Source=The Classic Bookshelf)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: The fable of the scientist who creates a man-monster. The dire and terrifying consequences of giving it life are beyond his imagination, as the creature inflicts murder on the human race.


Heat of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: In this tale of colonial exploitation, the narrator, Marlowe, journeys deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men.


Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy: This is the second part of Tolstoy’s semiautobiographical trilogy which established his reputation in Russia as a major writer.


The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Vain Dorian Gray has “sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.” While Dorian remains young, his portrait ages and reflects his hedonistic lifestyle, as he pursues a “madness of pleasure” with little regard for anyone else. Oscar Wilde’s controversial The Picture of Dorian Gray has become a classic commentary on narcissism, decadence, and the wages of sin â€” told in a thoroughly enjoyable novel full of suspense and surprise.


Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: The theme of this novel is the contrast of a patient and generous love with unscrupulous passion. Bathsheba is courted by the brilliant Troy, the obsessive Boldwood and the faithful Gabriel Oak. The third is successful in his suit, but only after violence and murder have eliminated the other two.


The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo. The novel presents a powerful conflict between good and evil, embodied in an epic saga that is complicated by the hero’s discomfort with the implications of his own actions.


Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky: The apology and confession of a minor mid-19th century Russian official, “Notes From Underground”, is a half-desperate, half-mocking political critique and a powerful, at times absurdly comical, account of man’s breakaway from society and descent ‘underground’.


Dracula by Bram Stoker: Arriving at Castle Dracula, the vast ruined home of a Transylvanian nobleman, a young English visitor finds himself thrust into a realm of sensation and horror beyond his most nightmarish dreams. His experiences give rise to an urgent campaign to destroy the vampire count, to eliminate Dracula’s cult of the living dead, and to triumph over a centuries-old evil. Bram Stoker’s masterpiece is a thriller of such hypnotic intensity that it has captured millions of readers around the world and inspired its own literature and mythology of the supernatural.


Walden: Or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau: “‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation’ In 1845 Henry David Thoreau left his home town of Concord, Massachusetts to begin a new life alone, in a rough hut he built himself a mile and a half away on the north-west shore of Walden Pond. Walden is Thoreau’s classic autobiographical account of this experiment in solitary living, his refusal to play by the rules of hard work and the accumulation of wealth and above all the freedom it gave him to adapt his living to the natural world around him.


The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo: The story of Quasimodo, the hunchback bellringer of Notre-Dame cathedral and his devotion to the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda. When the demented archdeacon Frollo sets out to abduct Esmeralda, he uses Quasimodo to do the evil deed on his behalf. However, Quasimodo turns from captor to saviour.

20th Century Novels (Source=miscellaneous)

Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka: Gregor Samsa awakes one morning in his family’s apartment to find himself transformed overnight into a gigantic insect.


The Home and the World (1915) by Rabindranath Tagore: Set on a Bengali noble’s estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip. Her attempts to resolve the irreconciliable pressures of the home and world reflect the conflict in India itself, and the tragic outcome foreshadows the unrest that accompanied Partition in 1947.


Hunger (1920) by Knut Hamsun: Set in Oslo, this is a compelling trip into the mind of a young writer, driven by starvation to extremes of euphoria and despair. Whilst never quite falling into the abyss of suicide, Hamsun’s narrator is forever on the verge of losing it.


Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922): Siddhartha is a Brahmin on a quest for self-discovery through suffering trials of temptation of luxury, wealth and sensuality, and adventures. The novella draws on elements of Hesse’s own life.


The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy(1926): The book begins: “The young man who, at the end of September, 1924, dismounted from a taxicab in South Square, Westminister, was so unobtrusively American that his driver had some hesitation in asking for double his fare. The young man had no hesitation in refusing it.”


Time Regained by Marcel Proust (1931 trans): In this, the final volume of Remembrance of Things Past, as the various threads which have emerged through the vast novel are brought together, and sometimes resolved, Marcel considers the nature of time and its effect on himself and the people has has known.


Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald (1934): The story of Dick and Nicole Divers, rich Americans holding court in their villa on the French Riviera during the 1920s. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that bind them.


A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev (1934): Although loved and admired by both her husband, Islaev, and her friend of long standing, Rakitin, Natalya Petrovna falls in love with the young tutor, Belyaev, who has been engaged to teach her son. Bewildered by her own emotions, she is nevertheless quick enough to take advantage of the offer of a husband for her ward Verochka, who she realizes is a rival for Belyaev’s affections. Unwittingly a catalyst, Belyaev does not understand until it is already too late how disturbing a presence he has been in the stuffy, isolated world of the Islaev country house.


The Shape of Things to Come by H. G. Wells (1935): When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy an unpublished dream book’. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105.


Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce (1939): Forget trying to sum this novel up!


Animal Farm by George Orwell (1946): Having got rid of their human master, the animals in this political fable look forward to a life of freedom and plenty. But as a clever, ruthless elite takes control, the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared in the same old way.

Visitor Recommendations (ongoing list, please contribute)

The Whore of Mensa by Woody Allen (suggestion by Nostrich)