So, presumably everyone’s familiar with the agency pricing model for ebooks, right? Essentially, publishers set prices rather than the retailer (such as Amazon). This generally results in more realistic pricing for ebooks vs their print counterparts, and keeps open the possibility that some publishers and authors might actually make money on books.

But that’s no good for consumers, apparently. Media Bistro (among many, many others), points out that a law firm is representing two clients (and opening up for more) in a class-action lawsuit against five big publishers and Apple.

I could explain the details but you’re better off reading some of the media reports, along with the (obviously slanted) post about it on the Hagens Berman website.

Wow.

Discuss.

Google’s bought eBook Technologies.

(No, not patents related to digital text. There’s actually a company called eBook Technologies. Guess they couldn’t brainstorm their way out of that genericism.)

Details on TechCrunch, among others: just follow the link.

What’ll they do with it? Lord only knows.

Death match between a tribble and Snooki's hair. Who wins? I promise we'll get to this.

Every time I read a post about the kindle (or other e-readers) I get one of three things:

1. “I think e-readers are bad and the death of the book is nigh because most people are ignorant slobs who will steal books and woe is me!”

2. “The Sony kindlepadnook is the bestest thing evers and everyone who doesn’t have one is stupid welcome to the STONE AGE!!!”

3. “I decided that I would make an intellectual effort to compare the experience of digital text to that of physical books for the sake of a logical comparison, though I want to disclaim any support of horrifically large and abusive companies such as Amazon, et al.”

Kyle Minor recently posted a review of his kindle experience on HTMLGIANT, and it certainly falls into the third category. Judging by the posts and literary work of Kyle’s that I’ve read, he seems to be a very bright character. But I’m worried by things like this: “Am I distrustful of million-tentacled corporate monsters like Amazon? Very.” Not because I’m a corporate whore, but because it points the finger in the wrong direction.

Yes, large corporations are scary, because they have lots of power and little accountability, and that frees them to act like sociopaths whose sole focus is on the self. Sure. Understood. But isn’t there something larger at play here? Corporations don’t start out as gigantic evil monsters. They can only have real influence and power over the marketplace if consumers allow it. If few people bought items from Amazon, then Amazon would not sell millions of different products for low prices. They would only be able to sell items that were being purchased. But because they’ve established an effective business model, they’ve grown and expanded their influence because consumers keep coming back. Ultimately, we’re all to blame, right? People who spend money? So saying, as Kyle does, that there’s very little he can really do about such a company, is the easy way out.

But it’s also the easy way out to say that it’s consumers’ fault and we all need to fix things if we want them to be better.
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Question: Is this good or bad?

Just two news items that might be of interest. These are from earlier this month, but I’m sometimes slow when it comes to current affairs.

From Daily Finance: “Connecticut Attorney General Targets Amazon, Apple in E-Book Antitrust Probe.”

From The New York Times: “Biggest U.S. Book Chain Up for Sale”

So, both are signs of the evils of e-books? Or, this is just normal stuff that happens when the market (and the world) adjusts to new technology and market models? Questions, comments, concerns?

Neither of my parents went to college, nor did their siblings, my sibling, or my cousins. I used to be smug about being the first in my family to complete an advanced degree, but it turns out that it doesn’t matter what educational or ethnic background your family have. What determines the number of years you’ll complete in school is the number of books in your home.

Salon’s Laura Miller recently wrote about two new studies on the subject. One found that the number of books in a home directly correlates with how many years of school a kid will complete.

The study (authored by M.D.R. Evans, Jonathan Kelley, Joanna Sikorac and Donald J. Treimand) looked at samples from 27 nations, and according to its abstract, found that growing up in a household with 500 or more books is “as great an advantage as having university-educated rather than unschooled parents, and twice the advantage of having a professional rather than an unskilled father.” Children with as few as 25 books in the family household completed on average two more years of schooling than children raised in homes without any books.

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I was going to start this blog off with a confession about different files and programs I may or may not have pirated in my life, but then I thought better of it. You never know who actually reads this thing. Instead, I’m going to provide a couple links that argue the possible effects of pirating digital media and the future of authors and artists who create such media.

The first link is to Scott Adam’s blog. You might know him as the Dilbert cartoonist. He basically argues that within his lifetime authors won’t exist:

I predict that the profession known as “author” will be retired to history in my lifetime, like blacksmith and cowboy. In the future, everyone will be a writer, and some will be better and more prolific than others. But no one will pay to read what anyone else creates. People might someday write entire books – and good ones – for the benefit of their own publicity, such as to promote themselves as consultants, lecturers, or the like. But no one born today is the next multi-best-selling author. That job won’t exist.

As an author, my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that the media content of the future will suck because there will be no true professionals producing it. But I think suckiness is solved by better search capabilities. Somewhere out in the big old world are artists who are more talented than we can imagine, and willing to create content for free, for a variety of reasons. And so, as our ability to search for media content improves, the economic value of that content will approach zero. Read more »

let’s just call it a meme, shall we?  us barkers are kinda fascinated with our bookshelves.  i am no exception.  in fact, sometimes i like sitting on my couch and just staring at all the pretty spines.  undoubtedly, i’d be better off actually reading those books (especially since my “unread” shelf is now threatening to dwarf my “read” shelf), but it feels nice to simply bask in their glow occasionally.  this may be related to my long-held theory that bookshelves are the nerd’s equivalent of trophy cases.  big game hunters have their stuffed buck, star quarterbacks get their golden-urn-on-a-pedestal thing, and i have moby-dick, or the whale.  there are about 1,001 other reasons why bookcases are awesome, but i think i’d be suspicious of any reader who said pride and/or aesthetics had absolutely no influence on their decision to store shitloads of books in their home.

i’ve often deluded myself with the idea that in addition to a crappy job market and the unportability of health insurance, it was the sheer volume of books i own that was a major impediment to the unfettered traveling lifestyle i so coveted.  “sure, i’d pick up and be off like alexander supertramp—but, man, my delillo books alone wouldn’t fit in a backpack.”  moving from chicago to spokane last september was a grueling exercise in prioritization for me.  “should i bring all three of my ernest p. shackleton* books, or my microwave?”  Read more »

On Friday, Amazon removed all Macmillan books from its site after what is believed to be a year-long dispute over ebook prices. Macmillan wants titles to be listed closer to $15 while Amazon wants to retain the $9.99 price–despite the fact that this is hurting publishers and writers. Sort of a strange move for a company that got its start in book sales, but it makes sense when you look at the many-headed monster that Amazon has become and realize that losing one publisher will hardly bring the company to its knees. Read more »

Electric Literature just released its second issue

So, imagine for a moment that you and all your amazingly talented literary type friends are put in charge (by the publishing gods) of revolutionizing the book business, the way we read, where and how and when we get new literature. What would you do? Take a minute. Think about it. The sky’s the limit. Maybe you’ll wander through fantasies of guerrilla poetry-fare where you go to the grocery story and stuff boxes of mac and cheese with lyric poetry for busy, unassuming moms to pick up for their poetically malnourished families. (I saw this done in a movie.) Or your dreams might be even more radical, interrupting congressional hearings to deliver, fully with costumes and props, your latest short story about the virtues of cannabis for the modern American family. The whole thing would be broadcast on CSPAN. These ideas sound fun. They might even get you some press, if they don’t get you arrested (or maybe if they do get you arrested), but would they really revolutionize the way we find and read literature? Probably not, but there’s a new literary journal, Electric Literature, that just might have the right idea. Read more »