BACKSTRIP

The actual stupid thing Amazon did

John Scalzi on the Amazon thing:

Note to Amazon: Real people do not give a shit about your fight with Macmillan. Real people want to buy things. When your store takes them to a product page on which they cannot buy the thing on the page, they will not say to themselves, “Hmm, I wonder if Amazon is having a behind-the-scenes struggle with the publisher of this title, of which this is the fallout. I shall sympathize with them in this byzantine struggle of corporate titans.” What they will say is “why can’t I buy this fucking book?” Because, you know, they are there to buy that fucking book. And when you don’t let them buy that fucking book, they aren’t going to blame Macmillan. They are going to blame you.

Amazon pulls its head in

Well, that didn’t last long. Amazon has “capitulated” on its decision to wipe Macmillan from its stores.

According to a post on the Kindle forum:

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy! In a nutshell, Amazon says the price is absurd (which it is), but rather than banning Macmillan and anyone who follows their lead, it will keep their high-priced books on the Kindle and let the market decide.

That Amazon initially thought otherwise just shows how complacent it had become.

Where I’m at: the 2010 Edition

Crikey. Forgot about this thing.

Well, not really, I just haven’t been giving it much attention, at least not since September. Neglect is probably the right word, which is perhaps even worse. It’s like saying to your cat, ‘no, I didn’t forget to feed you, I just chose not to.’

In fact, like a cat, it seemed to rebel in its own way. A few image links in the CSS were mysteriously severed, and I’m afraid to go back and look through the archive to see what else might be wrong. That’s why the first thing I did was rework the template into something a bit simpler, lo-fi and mobile friendly (and if it’s not friendly enough, then you can hit the mobile button at the top).

So what have I been doing? Towards the end of last year, I spent most of the time being a journalist. You can find some of my words in the printed versions of a few publications around the place. I put the finishing touches on some new book concepts for Quarto, and I’ve just started work on another book that’s due to hit the stands in December. Can’t say anything about it right now, but it’s in the general science and health category. And, of course, The Shakespeare Encyclopedia should now be well and truly out and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

I should wrap up my post-grad degree in information science this year and I’ll hopefully release a couple of game prototypes over the coming months. I wouldn’t call them games, they’re really demonstrations of particular game mechanics that tap into some core aspects of psychology. I think of them as game ‘seeds’ — hopefully they’ll inspire developers much more capable than I to build something playable around them. I’ll cover them in more detail over at Trembling Hand.

So, back to this thing (see that? My first post in four months and I’m talking about myself again). Oddly, the busier I am, the more I blog, so there’ll be more posts popping up here. I’ll try and keep them more focused on the publishing industry (specifically books), and things related to information theory, so if either of those things interest you, then stick around. Thanks to the coming of the iPad, reactive Amazonian business tactics and the Great Google Swindle, I’ll have no shortage of things to say.

Map of Banned Books

Banned Books Week 2009 is in full swing. This year, there’s even a map showing where specific books are being challenged (in the US), and the reasons why.

The map is far from complete:

There are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 513 in 2008. But the total is far larger. 70 to 80 percent are never reported.

Not too fond of book censorship? Go here.

(Via Michael Zimmer.)

Shame, Yale.

Yale University Press won’t be publishing the images of those Islamic cartoon caricatures in its book about said Islamic cartoon caricatures, because its advisors advised that bombs might go off somewhere, at sometime, by someone.

That an academic publishing would act so unacademically is depressing. But censoring itself to prevent imagined violence only validates extremist methods. For shame.

It’s on: Open Book Alliance versus Google

In response to the Google Book Search Settlement, a bunch of party-poopers are forming the Open Book Alliance, which opposes Google’s and anyone else’s book digitization process unless it is: “undertaken in the open, grounded in sound public policy, and mindful of the need to promote long-term benefits for consumers rather than isolated commercial interests.”

Here’s a glimpse at this unholy alliance:

• Amazon
• The American Society of Journalists and Authors
• The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses
• The Internet Archive
• Microsoft
• The New York Library Association
• Small Press Distribution
• The Special Libraries Association
• Yahoo

Frankly, I’d find it hard to go against the Internet Archive, one of the most noble and important projects in human history, on any matter. But throw in libraries and a smattering big tech, and you have one hell of an opponent.

Should manga be worthy of its own museum?

Of course it should. If it has cultural and artistic significance, it’s probably worth keeping around. The Democratic Party of Japan doesn’t agree:

The DPJ strongly urged Prime Minister Taro Aso, who is known as a big fan of manga, not to build the facility aimed at collecting and exhibiting manga and animated films.

Although funding for the project gained Diet approval as part of the fiscal 2009 supplementary budget in late May, the DPJ has said that if it wins the election it will scrap the plan and shift part of the money to social relief for single-mother households.

More here, including responses from people who probably hate single mothers and/or their households (i.e., the apparently struggling content creation industry).

What should Shakespeare sound like?

John Bell on ‘proper’ Shakespearean accents:

“As long as our actors are taught to exploit the timbre and range of their voices, to experiment with their emotive power, to employ clear diction and sharp articulation, accent is no consideration. We are speaking in our own country to our own audience. Until we are comfortable with our own voice, we can never own the material, be it Shakespeare or any other.”

Google to grow into a tiger, eat our culture

Lawrence Lessig’s rundown of the Google Book Search Settlement is perhaps the best articulation of the ‘against’ position I’ve seen. He urges us not to look at Google as a kitten, but rather a tiger cub that can’t help but grow into a vicious man-eater.

In particular, Lessig talks about how the Settlement changes the print-based ‘ecology’ of ‘free access’, which guarantees access to published information, to an ecology of confusion and complexity that will actually inhibit access, despite Google’s intentions. He draws an analogy to film documentaries, where each snippet in the film may have separate negotiated rights and agreements attached to it, making it exceptionally difficult to legitimately clear all the rights, and consequently, not worth the effort to do so. More fuel for the pro-piracy camp, in fact.

Lessig’s ultimate point is that the balance has been shifting too far towards commercial interests. Where once we had publicly supported and legally recognised institutions (libraries) that guaranteed access to cultural works, we are moving towards “permission culture” with a “tendency” towards access, but not a “guarantee” of access. This is partly a consequence of moving towards digital publishing environments, which makes it all the more pertinent to refine our legal and public institutions around access, rather than leaving it up to Google and the Author’s Guild.

Interesting stuff and well worth watching if you’re not up to speed on the issues surrounding this monumental change to publishing and copyright.

Authors, say ‘no’ to Google … or ‘yes’

Panic, confusion, fear … that’s what happens when you mash together Google, the centuries-old book publishing industry, and one of the most complicated legal settlements in the past 30 years.

In this round, the authors get their chance to be confused. Should they opt in or opt out?

William Morris says they should opt out of the settlement:

“Now they’ve got this license to sell your books at a pre-negotiated one-time royalty that you’re stuck with unless a court changes the settlement,” Eric Zohn, an attorney in business affairs at William Morris, said in an interview. “It’s like a legislative change. Under copyright law, you don’t have anything without express written consent from the copyright holder. Now the court is saying Google is free to sell your book unless you expressly tell them not to.”

The Author’s Guild says William Morris doesn’t know what’s going on:

“[Here’s] the deal in one sentence: unless you want to sue Google, there’s no good reason to opt out of the settlement. If you want to allow your book to be searchable in Google’s database, and you want to be fairly compensated for Google’s use of your work, and you want to retain complete control over whether, and how, your book is displayed or sold to users, you should remain in the settlement.”

Way to go, AG. Sounds like sunshine and rainbows from here on in. Now how about getting onto this and this.