Sony Exits eReaders and eBooks

The ebook phenomenon was created by the Gutenberg Project, by all accounts, way back in the late eighties/early nineties.  As a project it has been very successful and introduced the world to a natural evolution of reading.  However it took the likes of Sony to turn this pioneering work into the industry it is today.

Sony took a leap of faith, created superb electronic devices  and an eBook store at a time when it was far from clear that there was a market for this.  And to be fair they created what could only be described as a niche product, bought by a few, coveted by many, myself included.  The reality is that the early eReaders were expensive, and that was a deterrent to many of us to buying one.

Then along came the big A, who managed to popularise the eReader and eBooks as no one else had, achieving economies of scale coupled with their marketing capabilities. Sony had a few choices at this point and history will probably show they tried several avenues.

Initially they tried to compete with Amazon on price, but instead of re-engineering their product line to produce less expensive devices they kept on building high quality products, just with less features. It was never going to appeal to the consumers who now had a choice of products, and it didn't work for die-hard Sony fans either.

Over time they have seen their market presence stagnate as Amazon's rockets.  What should they have done? Well, in my opinion - and if you delve through my blog posts over the last few years you will find I've been quite consistent on this - they should have met Amazon head on with full featured devices manufactured to a lower price point. Sure there would have been a reduction in the life of each device, but the speed of change in the technology and the industry means we all change our devices fairly regularly anyway. And Sony had an ace that should have given them the edge - they stayed with an industry standard format - EPub - that Amazon shunned.  Books bought for the Sony or other EPub compatible devices could be legitimately shared, whereas Amazon have forged a singular path that benefits only themselves.

So Sony have announced that they are ceasing production of eReaders - itself not a surprise as I have been forecasting the demise of the dedicated eReader for some time - plus they are exiting the eBook world as well.  They are closing down their eBook store and transferring their library to Kobo who is continuing to remain a thorn in the side of the big A. I guess that without the hardware business the eBook side didn't make sense to a manufacturing company like Sony and by all accounts their sales only account for about 2% of the total market share anyway.

Nonetheless it is a sad day for the industry, but it is a decision that probably makes a huge amount of sense for Sony and maybe, in a perverse way, it will help make the industry stronger by being more focussed on a smaller number of manufacturers.  Only time will tell.

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Blame the Triple Breasted Whore

Last weekend I went to see the live theatre production of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show, an ambitious performance that attempts to draw inspiration from all five books of Douglas Adams' famous trilogy.  To be fair, most of the production covered the original subject matter from the original radio series, but by carefully excising some significant parts of that story the cast were able to shoehorn some less familiar parts of the H2G2 story.  I may have missed it, but one omission appeared to be the triple breasted whore of Erotica.

It seems I'm not the only person to have missed references to erotica.  A British national newspaper pointed out, or exposed in the parlance of the industry, that WH Smith, a stalwart bookseller of the British high street and the internet was selling erotica on its website.  It answered a question I asked myself in passing some time ago but never bothered to research.

You see, Smashwords, the eBook aggregator that supplies self published books to Apple, Sony, Kobo (and by inference WH Smith as they have tapped into Kobo's catalogue) and Barnes& Noble, to name a few, has forged a home for erotica books alongside many other genres.  Now I don't write or read erotica, but I don't judge those who choose to either.  It's just not my bag.  My guess is that if Smashwords hadn't become the distributer of eBooks that it has then it would have faded into insignificance as a niche seller of erotica books by now.  What Kobo may or may not have realised and WH Smith clearly didn't was that once the authors of the erotica market had achieved the formatting standards required by Smashwords their books were eligible to be shipped to all of the above eBook sellers unless they excluded them themselves.  Apple realised this about a year ago and started to vet the content of the eBooks they took from Smashwords.  This was a very public happening that Kobo and WH Smith should have been aware of but clearly didn't think it worthy of following, possibly because it requires effort and therefore costs money.

Now WH Smith have been outed by the newspaper they have taken their eBook store down completely, Kobo have removed a lot of eBooks, possibly everything they have received via Smashwords.  I haven't carried out a lot of research (spotting a pattern here?), but I can confirm that my books, which do not contain erotica, have disappeared from Kobo.  My guess is that once W H Smith have identified all of the self published books, regardless of content, then they'll restore their eBookstore.  Which means that they'll resume selling 50 shades (originally a self published book) and of course the Hitch Hikers Guide, along with its harmless references to the triple breasted whore.  They will stop lots of erotica being available, and that's fine, but many other good books are going to be blocked from the public.

Smashwords owner, Mark Coker, is understandably outraged by the reaction.  I'm actually surprised it has taken this long to come to a head.  The self published phenomenon has trundled along unregulated for quite a while.  It has challenged the established publishing industry and caused it to take stock.  That is healthy, the old way of working wasn't moving literature forward as well as it could and the prices were, and to some degree remain, too expensive.  But one price has been the lack of control over self published books.  Apple have taken some control over this matter; it's time the other eBook sellers do so too. 

Taking all the books off sale should be, at most, a short term solution.  While  I agree that under the current paradigm, like the one it left behind, good, well written books may or may not be successful but in general badly written books of any genre should fail.  The issues around the subject matter of some books being objectionable to people need to be addressed - the young and the vulnerable especially should be protected from inadvertent exposure and WH Smith is right to want to remove them from their catalogue, but it's really important that a sense of perspective is maintained.   Smashwords is looking at a voluntary metadata process where authors declare if their book is unlikely to be suitable for Apple or Kobo.  I think this is pie in the sky - some authors may play ball, but some, perhaps many, might ignore it.  Also, I suspect that Sony and B&N may go down this route sometime soon.

What I suspect Smashwords needs to do is what Apple have been doing - adding a vetting process to all books before they accept them in their premium catalogue.  I'm sure most of this could be automated with perhaps a process for the public to alert them to books that have slipped through.  Then they can earmark any books that contain offensive (to some) subject matter - we're talking about incest, rape and other unpleasant subjects here.  They can then alert any resellers who want to limit their exposure to corporate risk who want to avoid these books.  They could also dispense of the prude filter they put on their website and just keep such books corralled in a subsection that potential readers have to overtly access.  That way, trust in the self published book industry would be restored and newspapers would be free to move on to something else to disrupt.

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Who Wants to Live Forever?

Since Gutenberg had his big idea, books have changed lives.  They've imparted wisdom, humour, excitement and pleasure.  There have been a few dogs along the way, but that's art for you.  With the exception of a few notable examples, most of the books printed between the invention of the press and a few years ago have quietly found their way to landfill, recycling or have been used as kindling in long dark winters.

Because once we've read a book, with few exceptions, we don't revisit it.  Historically a printed copy has been passed around the family and friends before being thrown away; some copies have been read and re-read due to being stored in a library, but ultimately most of the books ever printed don't exist anymore.  And those that do are probably sat on bookshelves unread for decades and will remain there until the ultimate ignominy - the house clearance that marks the final act in our lives.

While I'm sure someone from the British Library can hazard a guess at the total number of unique books published ever and can probably point you towards actual copies of many of them, in reality the majority of books from the distant through to recent past don't exist at all any more.  One of the main reasons for this is because printing books was an expensive process, actually still is, and consequently once a book fell below a  predetermined level of sales it wasn't printed any more.

So, at any given point in time there were only so many titles in print and for a long time there have been more titles out of print than in.  But now we're in the eBook era and any books published electronically will, technically, live forever.  Is that a good thing?  Is it even desirable?

Sure, many books will date.  Some will date within days of publication, others will last a few years.  Some, very few I suspect, will become classics like the works of Austin and Dickens.  But all will be available forever.  Many will appear timeless because they are deliberately locked in a specified period in time, such as Nineteen Fifties Americana gumshoe novels, others will be placed in an undefined 'near future' that is never reached.  Detective stories, high adventures, pure romance, we'll always want them.  Language will evolve to make the older works sound strange, archaic - and of course those books that try to predict the future will always be hopelessly way off beam when compared to the true passage of technology development - but a yarn is a yarn, right?

So some books, more than traditionally considered normal, will still be available many years after the author has shrugged his or her mortal coil and may, possibly, satisfy a whole new generation of readers.  But we're witnessing an interesting phenomenon right now that I believe is only going to increase - not only has every person got a book inside of them, as the adage goes, they all seem to be publishing the bloody things .  So there's a lot of new books hitting the eBookstalls every day.  Some are poor, some are OK, many are damned fine reads and a very small number, in strict proportion to how it has always been, are exceptional.

So this is good, yes?  Well, maybe.  I don't know about you, but I find looking for books to read to be a bit of a chore, trawling through lists of books on Amazon or Smashwords or whichever eBookseller you prefer. Sure, we're given tools to help us choose.  Amazon have a daily deal which increasingly seems to be pushing books I wouldn't impose on my worst enemy's Kindle.  I have a theory that right now they are pushing KDP Select titles, but can't prove that at the moment.

All the eBook sellers provide tools to filter down, but these are pretty blunt tools.  Even if I knew what my favourite sub-genre was, I'd probably name it something different to whatever Amazon and co decide to call it.  I'm not even sure what sub-genre my own books should belong in, and I know them as well as anyone could, so I have difficulty in deciding on what the correct sub-genre I want to read from is called.  For the record, I think my non comedic novels are science based thriller or adventure stories, but that usually translates as Sci-Fi.  Sure, some of the science I use is theoretical in nature, but it really does occupy and feed real clever people around the planet, other speculative science I use is practical and being developed as we speak.  But the science is only part of the vehicle for the stories, so perhaps the science bit is a red herring.  Perhaps I ought to classify my books by what they're not - they're not vampire teenage romance fantasy porn, for example.

But I digress.  The point is, finding a good book is difficult and with the immortality we're facing for books, is going to get a whole lot harder.  I think we can discount best seller lists if we want to find something that is good and new, even if we can trust them.  Let's face it, the likes of Apple and Amazon are hardly falling over themselves to qualify how books get on the lists.  Then there's user reviews.  Some are really helpful, some are highly questionable.  Most probably don't accurately reflect the general opinion, certainly I've found many reviews to be more generous about a book than I would be, while others are unnecessarily harsh.

Trawling through the lists of books is pointless; a great title and superb cover may draw you to read the blurb, but that is still a terrible way to choose a book, let alone judge it.  Titles and covers are art forms in their own right and the skills to write a really good blurb are way different to the skills needed to write a killer novel - many authors will readily agree that the three hundred word blurb took proportionately longer to write than the three hundred thousand word opus it describes.  But a good title, great cover and superlative blurb do not guarantee a half decent book and I suspect I've breezed past many a great book in a dismissive manner because I've made a shallow negative judgement about the title or cover.

Personal recommendation from someone you know and trust has got to be a powerful and accurate way of finding books, but finding that person is always going to be a challenge.  Finding that a person you know and trust also likes the same kind of book as yourself is a coincidence worthy of an eBook plotline, in fact.

So, how do we find the books we want to read?  I think that there needs to be a tool that provides a better way of drilling down, something that pulls the essence of a book out in a way that helps us to decide whether it is for us or not.  I don't know the answer but I think I stumbled across a possible way forward the other day.  I noticed a Tweet from a fellow author who asked whether his writing style was more like John Le Carre or Graham Greene.  I nearly replied with 'I don't know, which was the most arrogant?' but I resisted.  However there is mileage in this approach.  All books have something in common with other, previous books.  Think of any really successful and popular book and it is likely that you can relate it to another book, often by an earlier author.  It's all about standing on the shoulders of giants, if we're sensible and read widely enough.

My idea is that we start a database that readers use to map books together by - not just the best and most successful but any that they've read that they think have a positive link to other books they've read.  Not copies but in style, genre, pace, detail.  Initially the list will be worthless, but over time, with enough help from the many good readers on this planet a web will form and once you've read a book and enjoyed it you could follow the book's web and find out what other books are considered to be related in a positive way.

By doing this we can build a map of the world of books that may make their immortality worthwhile.  I won't be constructing this database, by the way, because I'm too busy right now writing my latest book about a seventeen year old blood sucking nymphomaniac with a penchant for humping the occupants of middle for diddle earth.  And I've no idea if it will be linked to any other books that have passed before it, but it's possible!

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iPad mini Launched in US

Well, I wasn't too far out in my guesses, admittedly inspired by a thousand other blogs and web articles.  An hour or so ago Apple unveiled the iPad mini as expected.  What wasn't expected was that Apple have taken a more liberal approach to pricing, in dollars anyway.

The basic iPad mini - 16GB, WiFi only - is being pitched at US$329.  I suspect that the competition from Google and Amazon have caused a few sleepless nights over in Appletown and have influenced the price.  In a fair world this price would translate to just over £200 UK given today's exchange rates, but I guess we may have to wait a bit longer to find out.  It's often the case that US products are sold Pound for Dollar over here.  If it is, then I think the mini will be well overpriced.

Doubling the capacity to 32GB increases the price by $100 and another ton of greenbacks doubles the capacity again to 64GB.  Now, if the conversion is fair that puts the 64GB version at under £350, which would be a steal, hence it's likely to be nearer £499, which isn't.

As expected there's 4G versions, at about $130 more per version, and they should start shipping a couple of weeks after the WiFi versions ship.  That'll be mid November, then, as the WiFi are scheduled to start shipping 2 November in the US.

As I suspected, there are two cameras so you can Skype and take photos.  Cool.  The screen is just sub 8 inch, as has been heavily rumoured.  Like the iPhone 5, and again as expected, the device comes with the new smaller form factor connector.  So a bit of Gnashing and Wailing going on.

Apple are believed to have ordered 10 million of the blighters and expect to sell 5 million between now and Christmas.  It's not all sweetness and light in Appletown, though, as they expect to lose a million full sized iPad sales as part of the 5 million mini iPads.  But I suspect they hope to dent a larger number of Amazon Fire and Google Nexus 7s in the process.

Maybe they will, but the UK pricing will be key.

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Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

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Nook Launch in UK

Barnes & Noble, who are apparently the largest bookseller in the world, are about to launch their best-selling Nook eReaders in the UK. And about time too.  This incursion into the UK has been rumoured for at least a year.  There was a time recently that it looked like B&N were going to hook up with British bookseller Waterstones.  That should have been a good fit - Waterstones have a high street presence and are highly regarded as a bookseller.  They have also been hit by the rise in eBooks - show me a bricks and mortar bookshop that hasn't - and they were very critical a year ago about Amazon and in particular the Kindle eReader family.

So it was a bit of a surprise earlier this year when they decided to hook up with Amazon to sell their products in store.  Incidentally they also have an eBook store that only seems to sell EPUB books that won't run on Kindle devices but should on virtually every other device, including the Nook range.  This is like a  Ford dealer selling GM parts only!

Obviously something didn't gel between B&N and Waterstones so that rumour ended, however the whispers of a UK launch have continued.  A couple of weeks ago B&N sent out a press release stating that they would be in UK stores and although their website indicates that the release is still imminent it looks like they are here now.  The stores selling the Nook products are:  Argos - the no-frills catalogue store; Blackwells, the academic bookstore; Foyles, a London based independent bookstore; Sainsburys, the major supermarket chain;  Currys/PC World, the major UK digital equipment retailer; John Lewis, the classy department store chain and its supermarket arm Waitrose.  Some of these are touting the products online right now.

Initially it is the e-Ink devices being sold first, the Simple Touch and the GlowLight, pitched at £79 and £109 apiece.  Disappointingly the Nook HD and HD+ aren't slated for release just yet - before the Christmas buying season would be good but the lack of a release date makes me wonder if they will make it in time - and the proposed pricing isn't looking too promising (from £159 for the 7 inch version) in the light of the Amazon Kindle Fire release announced a few days ago.

So, should we be jumping for joy at another eReader device?  Well, yes.  For starters, the Nook range comes highly recommended and the basic units are priced competitively.  They also use EPUB, so you can buy eBooks from a multitude of sources and load them up.  Like all the best eReaders they let you download wirelessly direct from the B&N bookstore, which unfortunately doesn't appear to be up and running over here yet, but you will also be able to buy books from the other stores too and transfer them by USB.  I suspect that most books available in one store is also available in the rest, but you may get price variations you can take advantage of.

I personally think everyone should have an e-Ink eReader; a Nook, Kindle, Kobo, whatever.  They are usable in daylight and the batteries last forever, or at least a month, and are an affordable route into the world of eBooks.  I don't know about you, but I've detected a shift in opinion on the whole eBook/eReader thing over the last few months.  I'm not getting the 'I prefer to read real books' speech from people who've never actually tried an eReader, but I am getting a lot of questions from persons previously resistant to the concept.   I also think this is the last year e-Ink devices will sell in serious numbers, perhaps more than ever before, but the potential of the multi-functional tablets will take over completely by this time next year.

In the meantime, why not take advantage of the increased competition provided by the Nook range to introduce yourself or a friend to eReaders this season.  It may not be your last chance, but perhaps your best chance to hammer out a deal.


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Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

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Access All Areas

I was recently in Alicanti, a surprisingly pleasant coastal city in mainland Spain.  Alicanti is a modern city based on a medieval port, vibrant and cultured.  It's also a heck of a lot warmer than the towns and cities I frequent in the UK.  Walking around the town I became aware that the local telecoms provider was providing free WiFi around the whole area.  Connecting wasn't problem free, but at least the intention was there and that counts for a lot.

Back home in the UK I'm not aware of any town or city that has managed to create a free WiFi area.  Locally there are pockets of access - The Cloud is used in McDonalds and in Wetherspoons that I know of.  I have occasion to frequent both establishments now and then - one for coffee, the other for beer and curry (Wetherspoons' Thursday Curry night is a very popular draw that tests my liver every few weeks or so).  But outside of these places the access to WiFi is limited - the odd cafe here, patchy reception in some bookshop there, dedicated WiFi pushing a department store down your throat somewhere else.  But nothing comprehensive or consistent.  No ability to access the WiFi out in the street while sat on a bench taking in the architecture or deciding which stores to offer your patronage to.

Now I'm sure there are significant technological challenges with making WiFi free more generally, but as Alicanti has shown, it can be done.  I can see a model being developed where promotional advertising linked to the town or city could be used to offset the costs involved, but honestly the real drive has to be the economy.  Or the lack of an economy, to be blunt.

British towns and cities are really struggling to pull in tourists and shoppers right now.  There's a lot of belt tightening going on and no shortage of locations to not spend your cash in.  Although free WiFi is unlikely to convert any given town or city into the hottest location for shopping, my guess is that whichever ones strike first will reap the most benefit.  There's no shortage of smart phones and tablets, recession or no recession, and 3G is patchy in many locations, as well as being slow.  Being connected, having access in all areas, is fast becoming an aspiration for all users of these devices.  As Cloud based storage becomes more commonplace there will be an increased demand for access to those clouds wherever we are, whenever we want to.

So contact your local Chamber of Commerce, lobby your local Council, send your MP an email - if he or she doesn't do email, then you're probably wasting your time anyway - and let's see if we can get the UK towns and cities connected.  Let me know how you get on, too, because I'm off to Alicanti.  They've got free WiFi.

And it's warmer there!

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Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

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Kindle Paperwhite - Future or Past?

Amazon have been very busy this last week.  In fact they've been very busy all year, probably, but this week has seen them announce not one but two new eReaders in the UK.  First off is the much awaited and frequently erroneously announced Kindle Fire.  Originally launched in the US nearly a year ago it has been tipped on some blogs as being due here last January, then March and finally definitely Summer.  Pah, where do these bloggers get their information from?

Anyway, Amazon have announced that the second version of the Fire is going to be launched October 25th and is being pitched at between £129 and £159 depending on the version.  Plus an extra tenner if you don't want Amazon adverts pushed onto the home screen.  I'm not sure how that will pan out over here - it seemed to be accepted in the US, but we Brits are a tad conservative over things like this.  For me, I'd probably consider one £10 payment to be acceptable to eradicate what could be years of unwanted ads.

The pricing is very good, anyway.  It trounces the pricing for Google's Nexus 7, so it will be interesting to see how Google react to that.  But I don't think Google are Amazon's main target. Apple are.  Apple must be having tons of meetings right now to decide on how much to pitch the iPad mini at - they tie their own hands behind their own backs by always pricing gear at £x49 and £y99 price points, where x and y are usually unreasonably largish numbers like 4 or 5 when considering iPads and iPhones, however if they pitch the mini too close to the normal iPad price there will be little incentive to buy it, and too high above the Amazon offering will have a similar effect that boosts Amazon sales too.  I think a £199 iPad mini is more likely now thanks to Amazon than it was before.  £249 is also likely, but anything higher is chancing their arm.

The other announcement from Amazon is the launch of the Kindle Paperwhite.  This is a traditional eReader, that is it can be read in sunlight and has a battery life that lasts close to the life of the universe.  It also has built in lights so that it can be read in the dark, probably the major limitation of this technology in the past, much like real books.  The built in light isn't that innovative - Nook's have been doing it for months - but it does fill in a perceived gap in the Kindle range.  But like the paper based books the Paperwhite seems to trying to replace, it is probably as doomed.  The pricing isn't that keen - £109 for the basic WiFi and an incredible £169 for the 3G version so if you're strapped for cash, go for the basic Fire, otherwise stretch to the HD version would be my advice.  OK, you can read the Paperwhite outside and in the dark, but to be fair I don't do either of those two activities that often, individually or together.  It's not that I'm against the Kindle eReaders - I've used one for two years now and it felt like the future at first, in fact it's been a great journey, but one trick ponies have a natural life cycle.  I expect I'll still be using my Kindle for years, but I doubt I'll ever replace it with another e-ink device.  Now my Nexus - I suspect I'll always have a tablet close to hand for the rest of my natural.

Amazon have a comprehensive line up as we approach the holiday season, or Christmas as we insist on calling it in secular Britain.  I'm sure they will do well, but I think tablets will outsell e-ink devices by a significant margin this year and I suspect that next Christmas the Amazon line up will be quite different. They'll probably persist with e-ink devices for a few more years, but don't expect any major developments beyond internal lighting and I expect they will quietly drop them over time.

The real battle over the next two months will be around tablets, with e-ink devices running a very poor second.  Next year it will be all about tablets.

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Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare!

The Half Life of Dedicated eReaders

The term half life is drawn from physics and refers to the time it takes for the energy in a radioactive substance to naturally deplete to half.  Generally the first half is relatively rapid with the second half taking an exponentially longer time.  In physics, it is the first half that matters as that is the  most energetic period.  The second half matters to those left to cope with the radioactive residue.

It can be used analogously in other ways too.    Some of the older readers, if they cast their minds back far enough, will remember Video Cassette Recorders, VCRs, introduced in the 1970s and lasting until DVDs and Hard Drive recorders usurped them in the new Millennium, devices rapidly being usurped by the growing Clouds.  There are plenty of VCRs still kicking around and plenty of legacy films and home movies to go with them, but no new material has been produced for them in years.  Some users will hang on to their devices until they grind to a halt, but most of us moved on years ago.  The half life was probably about twenty years, maybe more, and in hindsight will appear to have been rather a long period for modern technology such as dedicated eReaders, for example the Amazon Kindle.

Regular readers will know that I've been a user of the Amazon Kindle for quite some time, possibly I was one of the earliest adopters this side of the pond.  It's a fine device and I've read dozens of books on it.  However I've recently become the owner of a Google Nexus 7, the seven inch tablet released a few months ago.  Naturally I downloaded the Amazon Kindle App as that provided me with access to all of the books I've bought.

Having just spent nearly two weeks on holiday in Spain, with me reading four or five books on the Nexus 7 and with my other half reading a similar number of books on my Kindle it occurred to me that the Kindle and other dedicated eReaders still have an advantage over the tablets computers such as the Nexus 7.  Namely, their ability to be read in full daylight.  I did manage to read the Nexus on the beach but it was reasonably difficult at times whereas the Kindle managed superbly.  However, like most people, I don't read on beaches, or outside come to that, very often, so the advantage is marginal.

Now compare the added utility of using the Nexus, as I did, to access my emails, surf the net, view photographs and even draft this blog and it is clear that the cost differential doesn't add up to much at all.  Plus, if there isn't someone at Apple, Amazon, Google, Asus or one of the other major manufacturers of tablets working on a way to make them more readable in direct sunlight then I'll eat my recently purchased and now, thanks to the British weather, effectively redundant straw hat.

This coming winter is clearly looking like the year tablets come of age - I doubt Apple's dominance will be broken but the emergence of devices like the Nexus 7 such as the new Amazon Kindle Fire and the B&N Nook which  is strongly tipped to be launched in the UK before the Christmas season will create a new swathe of tablet users.  It's possible that e-ink eReaders such as the basic Kindle and the Kobo Touch will still sell well but my guess is that they will sell lower numbers than last year.  e-Ink devices have had their half life and although they will still sell in niche numbers and will continue to be used for the odd hot holiday for many years to come my guess is that it is true tablets that will rule the roost for the next couple of years.

I'm not making any forecasts about the half life of tablets, however - they appear to be here to stay at the moment but I guess we all thought that about the e-Ink Kindle a couple of years ago.  But I may make a video about the rise and fall of e-Ink, available on either VHS or Betamax, available from all good video shops soon.

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Take a look at my books, read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare

Dancing With Amazon

When I launched Project:Evil at the end of July I set the price at free as an introductory price. I've done this before, notably with The Last Simple which had been set to free for months with relatively little interest.  I like the idea of giving a few books away: it lets the early adopters a chance to try, perhaps to recommend.  It's also a painless way to check if your product is working OK without asking consumers to pay for the privilege.

However, the only problem with this approach is that it seems impossible to get Amazon to play ball.  I know, I'm probably a tad too small to persuade them to do anything, but I can see shed loads of free books listed, they even have a top 100 list for free books.  They just don't let authors decide to list for free.

Unless, that is, they've taken the Amazon shilling and signed up for KDP Select.  Regular readers will know that I'm a tad underwhelmed by Amazon's blunt attempt to bribe authors to give them monopolistic control over their books by pumping a fund to reward KDP Select members whose books get borrowed from the Amazon library.  I'm not a fan of monopolies in general and really don't agree with bribery so I've chosen to refrain from joining.  However, one of the benefits of being a KDP select member is that you can list for free four days a month.

Anyway, I got over the disparity, listed Project:Evil on KDP for $0.99 and on Smashwords (and therefore Apple, B&N,Kobo, WHSith, Sony etc) at $0.00.  And it seems to have been quite a popular price point with literally hundreds of copies downloaded on Amazon and B&N that I know of - the eBook return figures are incredibly slow sometimes from some eBook sellers.  There was an interesting side effect of the launch - The Last Simple was discovered and twice as many copies have been downloaded of that compared to Project:Evil over the same period.

With the launch of the BLOMI website I decided to lift the promotion - it had run for over a month and I'm pleased that there are a lot of you guys and gals out there who have had the chance to read a couple of my books for free, but it's time to move onwards.  So on Saturday I instructed Smashwords to raise the price to the same level as Amazon, but realised that it does take time to take effect with the main eBook sellers - if you hurry you may find both books still listed for free for the next few hours.

So this morning I was a little surprised to open my Amazon sales account to see that four copies of Project:Evil had been purchased overnight, which is nice, and that they had been price matched to $0.00, which was unexpected.  Now what I don't know is if Amazon stumbled across this, whether someone contacted them and if they did if it was sparked by me putting a price on Smashwords or not.  Whatever the trigger, it is still being pulled as I'm heading for a hundred such price-match downloads today already.  Obviously there's a word circulating somewhere in the US!

Anyway, I'm expecting the price match situation to continue for a few days until the other stores catch up with the price change, so if you've been thinking about downloading Project:Evil or The Last Simple and need it to be free then I'd suggest you take a look right now - I don't know how long this can last.

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Take a look at my books, read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Why not investigate the secret world of DLFs? here

Favour Requested

In my blog yesterday, The Wild, Weird and Wacky World of ePublishing I reported on the mad pricing adopted by Amazon for my eBooks.  I wrote to Kindle Direct Publishing to ask why the prices were bouncing all over the place and got this reply:

Hello Ray,

I can confirm your Kindle books are priced the same as you have chosen.

If you're browsing in the Kindle Store from a location outside of the United States, you may see a price higher than what you listed on the KDP website. 

All items available in the Amazon.com Kindle Store are listed in U.S. dollars (USD). The availability and pricing of titles in global Kindle Stores may vary by home country or region, including taxes and other operating costs.

We understand and share your concern about prices, and we will continue our efforts to reduce costs and offer the best possible prices to customers in every region. 

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.


So, it appears that the books are priced as I requested.  Or put it another way, as I'm resident in the UK, I can't prove otherwise.  Now I know I get a fair amount of traffic from the US whenever I post a blog.  So here's my request - could anyone over there check out Skin on Amazon please?  I have it listed at $3.99 on Amazon but according to this link:


http://www.amazon.com/Skin-ebook/dp/B004KABAH8/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1343938851&sr=1-5&keywords=ray+sullivan

it is priced at $6.42.  What would be even better is if you could search Amazon directly (search Kindle Store>Ray Sullivan) in case the URL above implies the request has come from outside of the US, just to remove any arguments.

If someone could do this and post the findings on the blog or by emailing me at ray dot sullivan @ rocketmail dot com I would really appreciate it.  There's a free copy of one of my eBooks (you choose) for the first person to let me know.  Thanks.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $7.99

The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $5.99

The Journeymen is available for $8.99

Skin is available for $9.99

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books.

To View My books In....

Kindle US Store

Kindle UK Store

Kindle DE Store

Kindle FR Store

Kindle IT Store

Kindle ES Store

Smashwords

WH Smith

Kobo

More Cut Price eBooks

A few months ago Smashwords, the indie publishing website, ran a month long promotion, with participating authors offering their eBooks at discounted prices, some  for free.  It's a great idea, it puts a load of books of every genre, in front of readers at the same time. If you've been cruising past a couple of titles, wondering if they are worth investing your three or four dollars in, then it gives you the opportunity to road test one or more of them for less.

Well, they're doing it again.  From midnight 1 July Pacific time (don't ask, I lost that plot a long time ago)  for one month they are running the Summer/Winter sale.  Why Summer/Winter?  Well, Smashwords is an international eBookseller and they've noticed that as those of us in the northern hemisphere are loading up eBooks to read on the beaches, our southern friends in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and many, many other fine places are looking for something to curl up with to while away the long winter nights.

Lots of authors take part.  Some put one or more of their books on the sale for free as a loss leader, to let you see what their writing style is like, while others discount one or more at 25%, 50% or 75% of their normal Smashwords selling price.  I'm taking part too, so you need to note the following code if you've been deliberating over downloading one or more of my books, but felt they were a little pricey.  To keep things simple, I've opted for the 50% discount code for the four paid for books:

Book Title and Link	Coupon Code
Parallel Lives	SSW50
The Journeymen	SSW50
Skin	SSW50
Digital Life Form	SSW50

My parody on the writing style of Dan Brown, The Last Simple, is already discounted at $0.00 and is automatically included in the promotion, apparently.

You need the coupon code to get the discount at checkout.  I'm fairly certain that it will be the same code for any book listed at a 50% discount, but check out the author page of your favourite eBook author before entering it, just in case.

If you fancy a browse through the books on offer, Smashwords are going to put a link to the various contributing books on the Smashwords homepage.

All of the above books will still be for sale at Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WH Smith, Kobo, Sony and many other eBook sellers at the normal prices, so if you want to pay full price, you can.  If you've never bought from Smashwords before, here's some tips:


You will have to register with them.  I forget the specific questions, but I don't recall them being too intrusive.   Then, when you have chosen a book or books and make your way to checkout you get the chance to enter any promotional codes applicable.  Then download.  If you're downloading to an iPad then it just pops the book onto the bookshelf, it's that easy.  If you are using a Kindle, then it's slightly fussier, but it's not too much of an issue.  You download onto your PC - try to select a location you can find again - then connect your Kindle to your PC.  Once you've connected using the USB cable your Kindle will be detected as a disk drive - drag the book into the part of the Kindle drive that your other files are stored.  I can't comment on Kobo, Sony etc devices, but I expect the process will be similar to either the iPad or Kindle.


So, set your diary to check out the Smashwords Summer/Winter sale.  It's on for a month, however authors are permitted to pull their books out at any time - some may set a threshold of cut price sales for the promotion.  If you've been looking at a specific book, check it out early.


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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $7.99

The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $5.99

The Journeymen is available for $8.99

Skin is available for $9.99

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books.

To View My books In....

Kindle US Store

Kindle UK Store

Kindle DE Store

Kindle FR Store

Kindle IT Store

Kindle ES Store

Smashwords

WH Smith

Kobo

Project: Evil - The Christmas Party part 3

 ‘I’m off to shoot the runner up on the Elimination Karaoke, shoot the DJ once he’s finished playing all my requests, shoot the tribute band once they’ve finished their set and shoot the airship captain once he’s finished his drinking.

‘That’s unreasonable,’ said Daw, checking the company position on shooting contractors, but finding that it was actually considered reasonable, even mandatory.  ‘By all accounts he’ll have dropped us off and be halfway home before he stops drinking.’  O’Feld shrugged, at least it freed up his diary a little.

A distraught looking engineer joined them, his shirt open at the neck, his tie trailing low on his shirt, a pencil lodged firmly behind his ear.

‘They’ve added a four by two metre stainless steel table inside the rocket,’ he said. Brian shrugged as best he could in a bullet proof tuxedo.

‘Sorry about that, the workshop manager fitted it to facilitate site meetings before NoDangerStyleUK fitted the windows. Then he found he couldn’t get it out, something about the windows having an anti-jumping restraint on the hinges,’ he said. The engineer turned purple and started waving sheaves of paper showing complicated calculations on it.

‘This is a four stage rocket with motors designed for three, carrying four henchpersons and fifty thousand armadillo droppings instead of a box of experimental mice. And now you introduce an additional stainless steel table four hours before we ship to the South Seas. Have you any idea what this does to my calculations?’ he asked. Brian scanned the calculations carefully.

‘So, you need to get another pot of beige paint?’ he said, handing the engineer the paper bundle back.

‘What do you think?  We can't let an unpainted stainless steel table blast off into space.  To cap it all, B & Q are shut until the morning,’ ranted the engineer, storming back to the party.

‘Will engineer blood do as a substitute?’ asked O’Feld.

Two hours later found the senior team sat amid a pile of slaughtered henchmen. Not drunk, just slaughtered.  Daw sighed, he had less than an hour to recruit, train and deploy fifty replacements, it was past midnight and he was pissed; but it was the raffle prize to thank for that.  It was O’Feld’s raffle prize to thank for the slaughtered henchmen, actually, as well.  As Christmas parties went, it was a pretty good result.  O’Feld blew the smoke emanating from the barrel of the machine gun he’d won in the raffle, looking really pleased.

‘Right,’ he said, looking at his watch, ‘what’s the order of play?’  Brian looked at the list he’d prepared, then at the machine gun.  He hoped O’Feld still had some bullets left, he’d rather hoped that O’Feld would have waited for the Secret Santa, which of course was why he’d arranged for it to be first prize. He looked around the group.  Froshdu was still there, not because of the Secret Santa – he’d only be interested in that if the fat fella in the red suit was being spit roasted and served in pitta bread.  He was still there because he’d found the stash of food Brian had hidden, the food the Head of Catering had supplied.  The Head of Catering was also there, eying the parcel in front of him cautiously, and reasonably given that he’d found out that Brian had supplied it.  O’Feld was there, of course, impatiently fiddling with the paper wrapping provided by the EVIL Officer and Daw sat next to him, nervously.  Daw was always nervous when he was sat next to O’Feld and O’Feld was opening a parcel – if it didn’t explode, then usually O’Feld did.  Finally, his face a picture of enthusiasm, sat the EVIL Officer.  Daw decided to open his parcel first.

‘Oh, it’s a dice,’ he said, holding the cube up.

‘Strictly, a die,’ corrected O’Feld. ‘I thought that was appropriate,’ he gloated.  Daw examined the die, read the six faces in turn.

‘Kill, Maim, Kill, Maim, Kill, Maim and Kill,’ he read.  ‘I really could have done with this last week when recruiting for the Charity Liaison Officer post, bloody do-gooders,’ he said, slipping the die into his pocket.  Froshdu picked his parcel up and ate it without removing the wrapping.  Daw’s jaw dropped; when he’d bought the leather shoes he really thought Froshdu would like them.  On his feet, not in his stomach.

‘A bit chewy,’ grumbled Froshdu, burping, ‘but very tasty.  Loafers?’ he asked.  Daw nodded, it had seemed an appropriate name for a present for Froshdu.  The EVIL Officer opened his parcel gingerly, trying to work out who had bought it for him.  So was Brian.

‘A kilo of raw beef?’ he said as he held the dripping meat in front of him.  ‘I don’t eat raw meat,’ he said, looking suddenly at the Head of Catering.  Before he could react, Froshdu grabbed the meat and tucked in.

‘That’s what I was hoping,’ he said, biting off a sizable chunk.  Brian did a quick head count and realised that he and the Head of Catering had bought each other presents.  Both men set their parcels aside, both hoping theirs wasn’t on a time switch.

‘Can I open mine now?’ asked an excited O’Feld.

‘Sure,’ answered Brian, adding, ‘would you like me to hold your machine gun for you?’  O’Feld pulled at the wrapping paper excitedly while Brian ensured there was a fresh round in the breach.  He’d taken the liberty of writing the EVIL Officer’s name on the bullet.  He really hoped the prat had taken his advice, and when O’Feld held the book up, he knew he had.

‘The wisdom of Doktor Negatif?’ asked O’Feld, turning the book around and reaching for the machine gun.  The EVIL Officer obviously hadn’t picked up on O’Feld’s anger as he nodded enthusiastically.

‘Look inside,’ he said, reaching over.  O’Feld glowered as the man pulled the book open, revealing two hundred and twenty blank pages save for the first page, which had a signature in it.

‘No wisdom, and I even got him to sign it,’ said the EVIL Officer, leaning back.  O’Feld roared at the joke.

‘Brian, put that in the library in the secret island lair,’ he said, passing the book to Brian.

‘Library?  What library?’ he asked, only to be greeted with the look he’d expected the EVIL Officer to have received.  There was only one room that he could convert at short notice to a library.  It looked like he was joining the other managers in podworld.

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The characters, companies and places referred to in Project: Evil are fictitious and any resemblance to people, companies, businesses or places is entirely coincidental

If you've enjoyed this chapter of Project: Evil then check out the blog every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday as the story unfolds and, if you haven't done so already, why not follow the blog.

If you know someone who has a warped sense of humour please pass them the link to my blog so that they can enjoy 'Project: Evil'.

I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)
The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books

To View My books In....

Kindle US Store

Kindle UK Store

Kindle DE Store

Kindle FR Store

Kindle IT Store

Kindle ES Store

Smashwords

WH Smith

Kobo