Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Epublishing
May 11, 2011 | Wednesday | 63 Comments
First up: the link that sent listservs on fire and had everyone pulling that old manuscript out from under the bed. Bella Andre, kicking ass and taking names. I wish the headline were a little less “Anyone can do this!” because I don’t necessarily believe that anyone can make a $100,000-go at digital self publishing. I think Bella Andre was a perfect example of Seneca’s definition of luck: when preparation meets opportunity. It’s not as if it’s as simple as tossing your self published work up on the wall and having spaghetti and hundred dollar bills rain down on you…
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November 17, 2009 | Tuesday | 16 Comments
Jane Litte, Angela James, Malle Vallik and I are quoted in an amazing article about romance readers and digital books. Here’s the catch: much like a book that rocks in the content but makes you cringe in embarrassment at the cover, you must skip past the headline to get to the good part. Well, no, you can’t really skip it because it’s the first thing you see, so let’s get to that first: When it comes to format, romance readers are promiscuous Just like authors have no control the cover art or titles of their books, journalists have little control…
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May 05, 2009 | Tuesday | 57 Comments
If you missed the great awesome news: RWA has a new chapter, the Rainbow Romance Writers, a GLBT Romance chapter. WOO HOO! How awesome is that? Mazel tov! I first heard the news from RWA President Diane Pershing at the Princeton romance conference, though she asked at the time that the announcement not be made until the final details had been filed - so I didn’t mention it then. There was, however, applause and squeeing at the time. No comment on who exactly was squeeing. So while I was waiting for the official word from RWA, which went out 1…
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February 15, 2009 | Sunday | 57 Comments
Since the Tools of Change conference, I’ve been thinking a lot about women, technology, eBooks, and most of all, complacency. While I have some specific standards about fiction, particularly romance, I’ve never been one to really question corporations. I figure, if they make decisions I don’t like, I won’t shop there, if I can avoid it. But with ebooks, and specifically epublishing, the community and the market are too small. If Amazon does things I don’t like, I won’t swear not to shop there because the fact is, I do, for many different things. I’ll be frank: with this site,…
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January 28, 2009 | Wednesday | 11 Comments
Hot on the heels of the Time article about how epubbing has changed publishing, another print news source has examined the ebook. As usual, I take a silly pleasure in reading Crain’s New York Business because it’s a newspaper devoted entirely to something I don’t know jack-all about, but I always learn something. This week, there’s an article about… the “newest ‘it’ gadget”—e-book readers. Really? Is it new? I would have said that a year ago when it was Jane in the wilderness trying to convert us from the trees, but since I fell out of my treehouse into the…
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January 27, 2009 | Tuesday | 73 Comments
Today on the Consumerist, there is an article detailing that 30% of books sold for the Kindle are now more than $9.99. As a Kindle owner, I must say, that chaps my hide. I remember clearly that part of the sales tactics (though not guaranteed as a contract between me as the buyer and the company as the supplier, which is an important point) was the repeated statement that hardbacks were $9.99. The article is scathing, and I can well understand why people are pissed off. Chris Walters mentions that publishers are the ones setting their own price points on…
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June 23, 2008 | Monday | 20 Comments
I love how the article title calls it “the new E” - new? Are you kidding with the “new?” - but there’s a rather complimentary, if somewhat befuddling article in PW today about the ebook erotica industry titled The New E in Erotica. I’m laughing mostly because I just finished writing about the “E” in romance for The Book, discussing erotic romance and epublishing and their respective ties to the genre. Is this reporter looking over my shoulder? Creepy! Avon’s Red, EC, Aphrodisia and Wild Rose Press, as well as authors Cheyenne McCray, Noire, Lora Leigh, and Colette Gale are…
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May 12, 2008 | Monday | 13 Comments
Teddy Pig, who I would love to call “my favorite shit stirrer” but someone will totally accuse me of being homophobic, has a majestically awesome article on his blog about website design for e-publishers. Not only does he name some of the most annoying habits of some epub sites - like changing the entire URL on a book when it’s released from a “coming soon” link to an entirely different, non-intuitive link. That has driven advertisers on our site crazy because they don’t know until the last friggin’ minute what the URL will be. Bad, bad bad! But by far…
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