tinpra

by Nathan Bransford

It's difficult to overstate how big of a deal it is to bookselling culture that the Department of Justice is reportedly planning to sue five publishers and Apple for colluding over e-book prices*.

In order to understand why this is a big deal, here's a brief recap of what led us here (this summary is described in greater detail in my post Why Some E-Books Cost More Than the Hardcover).

Wholesale vs. Agency

At the time Amazon kicked off the modern e-book market with the introduction of the Kindle, e-books were sold according to the traditional wholesale model. Essentially, publishers set a cover price and they got half, the bookseller got half. If a book was listed at $25, publishers got $12.50 on an e-book sale, the bookseller got $12.50.

Problem was from publishers' perspective, Amazon was selling some e-books at $9.99 and taking a loss on those sales, all the while locking readers into their proprietary format. Not only did this devalue what consumers felt a book "should" cost, publishers were worried that competitors wouldn't be able to enter the e-book space because they wouldn't be able to compete with Amazon's prices. No competitors would mean a virtual monopoly for Amazon, and publishers were presumably concerned about Amazon's ability to then dictate terms.

Along comes Apple and the iPad. Steve Jobs talked the publishers into the agency model - publishers set their own prices and they get 70% of the proceeds.

( Read the rest of this really fascinating post on Nathan Bransford's blog )

FYI, Nathan's blog is great for writers/authors and readers. Great community and, as a former agent, now writer, he has amazing insight into the publishing world. I can't recommend him highly enough.

via krool1280

[Allegedly] The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.
( Read more... )

Just finished reading lieueitak's House fic The Centre Does Not Hold written for the musicfest ficathon. It's House/Cuddy though likely not in a way you'd expect. Go. Read. Comment!

I haven't kept up with this in a while, and while I'd like to say I've read a gazillion books betw the last time I posted and this one...it probably isn't true.

Anywho, recent reads: Bad Prince Charlie by John Moore. Not as funny as it wanted to be (it's a spoof of a whole scifi/fairytale spoofing genre) but still interesting.

Time after Time edited by Denise Little, an anthology of time-traveling related stories. I liked most of the stories (about 10?). A few of them were great. One of them was too ambiguous to satisfy.

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris from the Souther Vampires series. Another nice new addition to the series. The series often gets compared to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, but I've stopped reading Anita Blake and am hungrily looking forward to the next installment of the Southern Vampires. By this point in Hamilton's series, things were already starting to get out of control and the audience just didn't know it yet. Harris has a much firmer, and more realistic, grip on her series. And I loves it!

Just finished reading In the Black by feldman. If feldman has an LJ, I don't know since I got this from a random rec-page. If you're into either Firefly or Farscape, go read. It's a crossover fic featuring Crichton and River that's so perfect you'll feel bereft when it's over.

i just finished off Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn (whom i love). it's the first in a series.

i've also been reading a bunch of fanfics but i'm really really bad at keeping up with them. even the ones i like. anywho, two recent ones are Shadows into Demons by Abi Z. for La Femme Nikita, and Seed Pearls by honorh for Doctor Who (9th). neither of them counts as a novel or even a novella, i think, but both good. i started reading HonorH's Out of Joint, a Doctor Who/Firefly crossover, but it's not done :'( for updates and such you should check out her lj.

I feel like i'm incredibly behind on updating this. Which means either I've skipped a book or two....or I haven't been reading nearly as much as I thought i was :(

Anywho...listening to Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
reread Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

no novel-length fanfics...just bits of randomness. guess i haven't read a lot lately :( does re-reading my partially done 2005 nano-novel count?

Recently finished reading Transformation by Carol Berg, the first in the Rai-Kirah trilogy. At least that's what I think it's called. Love Carol Berg. Have I mentioned that? I should have. I actually bought the book. Put down cash. I seriously believe in the library, but Carol I'd willingly buy.

Am in the midst of finishing Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder. I don't know that I'd buy her stuff, but I'd wait anxiously for the library to get it and put it on hold.

So I picked up and finished Patricia Brigg's Blood Bound from her new Mercedes Thompson series. Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, oh my.

Am now reading Kim Harrison's For a Few Demon's More. More vampires, more werewolves, plus witches, demons and pixies (and fairies and elves and every other thing that's not supposed to exist). From her Hollows, or maybe Rachel Morgan, series.

Am also reading Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias. No vamps, no wolves, no witches or pixies or fairies or elves, but there may or may not be demons. I haven't gotten that far yet ;)

currently reading The Gates of the Gods by Martha Wells. love, love, love Martha Wells. i first discovered her when i randomly bought City of Bones, one of her older books. what a lucky buy, considering i usually borrow from the library.