Discussion: Jeff Bezos was on “The Daily Show” last week to promote the Kindle2, and the talk about ebooks seems to be going more and more mainstream.
Indigo.ca has a way to allow chapter-by-chapter purchase of books… if the books range from $4.99 to $19.99, wouldn’t $0.99 per chapter tend to surpass the price of the full book? There’s also that little thing regarding serial rights…
Interview: Mike, Mike and Lorrie talk with Amber Benson about Life After Buffy(tm)… being an author and the differences between working on solo novels and on the collaborations with Christopher Golden.
Amber also talks about how she wanted to venture into the realm of supernatural story-telling, but not following the typical tropes in current urban fantasy trends.
Her newest novel, Death’s Daughter, focuses on Calliope Reaper-Jones, the daughter of Death, who has to step into the role of CEO of Death Inc after her father’s kidnapping.
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MIke, I feel your pain. At the moment I’m cleaning up my apartment, a six-month project… I think there’s a fossilized half a pizza in there somewhere. However, you realise you’re not a true bachelor if the archeologists can survive for more than five minutes without a hazmat suit.
On the whole ebook thing, I simply cannot read lots of text on an LCD screen – trying to do so on one as small as the iPhone would probably render me blind inside six months. For people like me, an e-Ink device is the way to go.
And for publishers, maybe give http://www.lulu.com a try – they claim to pay authors 80%, which is a pretty good deal for the authors.
I put out my book through Lulu, and I’m pretty happy so far. Haven’t actually sold enough books to get a check yet (not too worried though; it took Dubshack months to get his first check).
Great intreview with Amber Benson! She always comes of as a very lovely person. The book sounds a tad Terry Prathetty, but I’ll defenitly buy it.
I’d like to point something out here regarding Amazon. There’s a whole Kindle “mentality” that involves browsing the bookstore by searching. So, for example, Mr. Stackpole, I have searched your name in the Kindle just now. There’s “A Secret Atlas” for $5.59.
So now I click on the sample. And I can read it. Once you have the sample on the Kindle, you’ve made the first opening shot on the sale. It comes down at that point to content.
At the end of the sample, it reads “Buy Now” or “See Book Description.”
It does not mention price. So at this point, if I like it, I click the button, and 30 – 40 seconds later, I would have your book.
Now I’ve seen people in bookstores, wandering around. Sometimes they pick up books. Sometimes they read it. But what you get with the Kindle is you get your book in front of people ALL THE TIME. They have to make that decision to delete your sample or buy your book all the time. Every time I click on the Kindle now, regardless of whether or not I have bought your book, I have to make the decision to buy your stuff.
“A tad”? It sounds like a complete rip-off of Terry Pratchett’s Susan! I really, really hope this woman has not read any of his DW Death novels…