Get ready to wave bye-bye to Google ... and frankly, good riddance. Speaking personally, I've had a very rough deal from the Big G, and will be extremely glad when it's bumped off the stage, and something newer, better ... stronger and more sentient comes along -- which is due later in the year. Like this:
An invention that could change the internet for ever
Revolutionary new web software could put giants such as Google in the shade when it comes out later this month. Andrew Johnson reports...
Sunday, 3 May 2009
The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.
The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet's Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.
Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.
Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.
Tom Simpson, of the blog Convergenceofeverything.com, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."
Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts.
The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.
...read the full feature here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html
...It's brilliant. Admittedly, Wolfram Alpha still an uneducated genius at this point (read the article!) but ... how long does it take a genius with a mind the size of the WWW to soak up, cross-reference and comprehend the entirety of human culture?
Give them six months. And then, Google will have to compete with the OTHER thousand pound gorilla in its forest. And at that point, the question will be, "Who's in charge?"
The rot didn't set in at Google till after the original business was sold off, and a bunch of dollar-greedy morality police got hold of it. All the money grubbing, the cheating of publishing partners in the Adsense program, the filtering-out of content the high-mucky-mucks in the Boardroom don't like (anything gay, or gay-friendly, for a start). All this is the result of human intervention in the search engine's protocols...
And the same thing could happen to the Wolfram Alpha model. If money-grubbing morality police get hold of it, it'll just do a faster, smarter, better job of cooking the books and skewing the internet off kilter --
In fact, in a worst case scenario, Google will buy it, or controlling shares of it, and promptly reshape it in the Big G's image, so that more money sluices home to The Goog, advertising continues to stuff the web like a Christmas turkey, some people get ripped off royally, and others vanish off the face of the internet because they've been filtered out of existence.
But maybe, just maybe, the owners and developers of the new search engine will have a leeetle bit more integrity, and won't sell out. Settle for twenty billion dollars instead of shooting for the cool half trillion. Maybe the "self organizing internet" is something that can actually come to pass. Maybe the self-styled morality police won't be able to get in there and organize the internet from the standpoint of Creationism, Republicanism, or some brand of 'ism which seeks to shape the thinking patterns of the whole globe in its own image.
We can hope. I, for one, am hoping! You know me ... the eternal; optimist.
Ciao for now,
MK
Monday, May 4, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
That bloody pulp mill project is back!
The Gunns pulp mill project is rearing its haggish head again. Click on this to see the campaign ad full-sized and readable:
for more info, or to be involved, go here:
https://www.getup.org.au/campaign/NoPulpMill&id=622
for more info, or to be involved, go here:
https://www.getup.org.au/campaign/NoPulpMill&id=622
Saturday, April 25, 2009
gay ebooks: adventures in bookseller country
I have my bookseller's hat on today. I won't morph back into a writer for at least another week. This week, and for the next 4-6 days (in a lull from work), I'm a bookseller. And the challenge is ...
How the blithering heck do you draw readers' attention to new formats for old titles?
It's dead easy to draw their attention to books that are new; but unless you're a hack producing a brand spanking new 35,000 word shortie very month, your basic list won't change appreciably over six months. What's changing is the formats in which books are available, and the venues they're available from.
And readers don't seem to notice.
So here's the experiment: a bloody great icon that actually SHOUTS a fair bit. Check this out:
How the blithering heck do you draw readers' attention to new formats for old titles?
It's dead easy to draw their attention to books that are new; but unless you're a hack producing a brand spanking new 35,000 word shortie very month, your basic list won't change appreciably over six months. What's changing is the formats in which books are available, and the venues they're available from.
And readers don't seem to notice.
So here's the experiment: a bloody great icon that actually SHOUTS a fair bit. Check this out:
Amazing what you can do in 84k, isn't it? Anyway, this whopping great attention-grabber is getting pasted to the browser pages for each of the books as they appear at Smashwords and Kindle -- I'll get around to Mobipocket later. Just don't have the time to get to it right now.
And when you "click here to buy..." you're teleported to a new page in my bookstore with this header -- which again is shouting, deliberately:
Interestingly, I've had readers in Finland, new Zealand and Japan who downloaded all of LEGENDS to their iPhone. That was amazing and gratifying --
Speaking of LEGENDS: it's being hammered into shape right now. Proofread (at last!) and formatted. It'll be on its way to market in about ten days, I do believe. It wasn't until I'd assembled the whole thing into one file to export it to the DTP program that I realized how long it was. According to Microsquash, it runs close to 94,000 words. Which is a lot longer than I thought it was.
Anyway, today I'm a bookseller, and while I've got this particular hat on, I guess I can talk a little bit about the new bookstore which is being designed right now. It's going to be very slick indeed ... SQL and Joomla and Apache whatever, and so forth. I've been looking at designs, and was a little bit drawn to this one:
That one is a template from a company called vjtemplates (http://www.vjtemplates.com/) -- and they have some great templates, but they all suffer from the same problem: they're "off the shelf." Nothing exactly fits what I want and need, at the same time as being fairly expensive (A$125 or so). The above template is not bad, but I find it too bright, too "in your face" for my own tastes. Which isn't to say it's not a great design -- it is. It's just not for me.
So there's nothing for it: the new bookstore is going to get done from scratch. DreamCraft to the rescue. Joomla, SQL, Apache and ... ummmmm. Right. It's also going to get a new domain to live on (or does one live IN a domain?)
This is where I am today. The bookseller has taken over, and I admit, I remain uneasy about the situation with Amazon. I went to the Big A t'other day and searched on "gay romance." I paged down through 200 books, and not a single Keegan title was anywhere in the list. Meaning, if you don't know who Keegan is, you won't be finding me at Amazon by browsing!
Lately, I've been spending a few hours here and there analysing traffic stats (Statcounter is marvelous for this), working out where readers and coming from, how the find me, what course they navigate around the sites and blogs, and what they buy in the end. It's actually extremely interesting.
Here's the info that fell out of the data: over 90% of all my sales are "driven" from my own pages. Not Amazon, not Kindle, not nuthin'. Almost all sales are coming from my own pages.
Okay, then. That's the ball I need to take up and run with. It was suggested to me a looong time ago that Amazon was a great place to be in, because people would find you by browsing. But I don't think the pundits who say this know too much about how "adult content" books are squirrelled away into the darker, dustier corners of the search engine! Thanks to the balls-up of a couple of weeks ago, everyone knows that something is not quite right at the Big A.
Since then, I've been working on a way to ... well, not to "beat the system," but to make the system work FOR me, instead of against me. I mentioned on Live Journal a little while ago that I had a Bright Idea --
It looks even brighter now than it did then, guys. Seriously, stay tuned. It'll take a wee while, because it's a lot more complex than I'd imagined, but I'm into something good here.
Gotta go back to work now, so --
Ciao for now,
MK
Friday, April 24, 2009
Keegan's Week: "proper" gay books. Uh huh.
I fielded a weird question the other day -- and the worst part of it was, the person was absolutely serious, and intended at least half of it as a sincere compliment. "Your work is so wonderfully written," she said, "why don't you write proper books?"
And I went blank. Utterly. For about ten seconds. You might have thought I was having a "senior moment," but in fact the processor was whirring, trying to make sense if the question, only to land back at the hurdle --
What the bloody hell is a "proper" book?
Of course, what she meant was, why don't I write heterosexual books? Or, to slightly rephrase the question so it'll make sense to the rest of us, "Your work is so wonderfully written, why do you write gay books instead of proper ones?"
Deep breath, now. Be calm. Count to ten. In Klingon.
Well ... who in the [expletive deleted] says that gay books aren't proper books? The next thing these people will be saying is, John Barrowman isn't a "proper" singer or actor. And Tchaikovsky wasn't a "proper" composer, and T.E. Lawrence wasn't a "proper" army officer, and Nijinsky wasn't a "proper" dancer. Or that gay people are not "proper" people. And I'm Not. Going. To. Go. There. Period.
Be happy: have a nice day, yes?
In fact, the properness of gay books is increasing greatly -- not exponentially, but nicely. It turns out that 10% of the male half of the population is gay anyway; and about another 15% on the male side of the fence is ac/dc by inclination, which makes 25% of the part of the population that shaves and dreams of power tools would enjoy a gay narrative ... and about 25% of folks on the female side of the fence like to read gay books, for boatloads of reasons. Some are themselves gay; some are straight enough to fancy the hell out of beautiful guys; some get a kick out of the homoerotic; some love a romance but don't like guy/gal romance, because it almost always seems like the gal is getting s/exploited. Some are "modern age" enough to see as far as the romance, and genuinely don't believe gender matters.
That's 25% of the population as a whole, folks.
So, for every million literate people who read, there's 250,000 who would enjoy a gay book, in the highly unlikely event they were ever in a position to see one, and have the opportunity to actuallt buy it.
That's eight times the population of Fairbanks, Alaska. It's about equivalent to the entire population of South Australia that lives outside the metropolitan area. It's about 8.5% of the entire population of New Zealand (I think; if I'm wrong on this one, it won't be by much -- and feel free to give me a kick).
In a country like Australia with something like 20 - 24 million souls, depending on who you talk to, and who's being counted into the complement, you probably have something in the order of about 16 million literate adults, and about 12 million who actually read --
So, three million Aussies would enjoy a gay narrative, if they were allowed to make the reading choice, at the store, or wherever they get their books.
But if you walk into a bookstore down here and look for gay books, you'll soon start to wonder if anyone's publishing them at all. And the reason is that every bookstore down here is an outlet for a chain. It's B&N, it Dymocks, it's A&N, it's the book department in Kmart or WalMart or Target or Myer, or whatever.
No gay books. Why? Because gay books do not sell enough copies, per title, to attract the attention of the distributor. Each individual title might sell 400 right across this country, IF they were shelved with the generosity or impunity with which het books are shelved. But they're not shelved with such catholic generosity...
Why? Many reasons. Management is terribly aware of minors and the elderly, who form a significant part of their customer base; they're equally aware of the religious minority, for whom the "god" books are shelved alongside yoga, holistic food and Relaxation for Uptight Dummies.
Not wanting to offend anyone, Management literally hides the gay books: top shelves, bottom shelves, dark corners, out of reach, out of sight. And -- what a surprise! -- the books sell poorly.
Gay books are seldom advertised on magazine pages or in windows where the average reader would see them. Same reason for not putting a nice, big ad in the window down at Dymocks. And as per magazine advertising --
Do you know what an ad in a major literary magazine costs?!! An ad to run in one issue would put about $2 on the checkout price of each copy of a gay title! Not going to happen, people. (Few mainstream, print media book reviewers will review a gay book ... saaaame reason. Minors, the elderly, and the God Squad.)
So ... gay books don't sell bigtime, and another reason for this is that they're double-marginalized. They're already in the "gay" category at any online bookstore. Then, they're ... what? Gay-SF, or gay-fantasy, or thriller, or western, or historical, or romance, or erotica, or ...
Uh huh. Double-marginalized. So you have someone saying, "Gee, I'd love a new gay book, but I don't want SF, and I've read enough breeches-rippers (the gay equivalent of the bodice-ripper) to last me a lifetime. Uh ... I don't like westerns. I'm not in the mood for a murder mystery..."
Double jeopardy. The gay writer has two hurdles to get over, not one, and if each hurdle is a "filter," then gay books get filtered twice, before any sale is made.
Meaning, a hell of a lot of gay books are sold, but not that many of any individual title.
Another thing that's killing gay book sales, at least in this country, is that books are so expensive. Small printruns make for expensive books, and few people can afford to buy many, when the damned things are $32 and upwards. A lot of readers are landing at the book exchanges, where you can trade something you've read and pay $2 to the store, and get something you haven't read before --
Guess what doesn't often get traded? Right. Gay books are seldom traded (for which the reasons are many), so you probably won't be able to pick up a new one at the book exchange ... and even if you could, the publisher and the writer wouldn't know a thing about it.
Here is where it gets mildly interesting. A few years ago, when readers were still in the habit of sending a few words of feedback, I used to hear that someone had picked up one of my books at a book exchange in, say, Madrid or Munich or Manchester -- Europe, where gay books are treated with a lot more generosity by booksellers. Secondhand dealers in Europe will trade in gay books, where many (most?) of our local dealers are still not quite "there" yet -- inordinately concerned about the minors and elders and religious bods ... which is no bad, thing, in reality. Taking care of kids, and not giving cardiac episodes to others is a laudable goal in itself.
Fact is, the Internet is a far better place to do business. The people who find you deliberately came a-hunting. One seldom has to deal with folks who arrived on a gay page by accident.
There's also a "book swap" subculture out there, where books are changing hands in every direction...
And a writer has to wonder how many sales he or she has actually achieved. Say, 5,000 or 10,000 when the book was new (depending on the printrun -- and they're all over the place, there's no "norm"), plus an extra 1,000 or 2,000 per reprint ... and then, the swaps, the trades, the book exchanges -- for decades.
So, actual "sales" might be way ahead of anything the publisher knows about. Think about that. Nice. I mean, we don't earn royalties on the swaps and trades, but it's so nice to know that new people are buying the old books.
The last thing that makes it tough for gay writers is the sheer volume of the competition. It's astonishing. There are so many gay titles being published these days -- it's a a lit-fest. Heaven on a stick for anyone who has an ebook reader gizmo -- most of these books are available digitally, thank heavens. Makes them reachable for Aussies and Kiwis, because there's no shipping to pay. Postage across the Pacific. Yee-ouch!
Speaking of ebooks and gizmos, I'm still looking for just the right deal on a bit of hardware to do the job, and my hunt has brought me to this quarry:
And I went blank. Utterly. For about ten seconds. You might have thought I was having a "senior moment," but in fact the processor was whirring, trying to make sense if the question, only to land back at the hurdle --
What the bloody hell is a "proper" book?
Of course, what she meant was, why don't I write heterosexual books? Or, to slightly rephrase the question so it'll make sense to the rest of us, "Your work is so wonderfully written, why do you write gay books instead of proper ones?"
Deep breath, now. Be calm. Count to ten. In Klingon.
Well ... who in the [expletive deleted] says that gay books aren't proper books? The next thing these people will be saying is, John Barrowman isn't a "proper" singer or actor. And Tchaikovsky wasn't a "proper" composer, and T.E. Lawrence wasn't a "proper" army officer, and Nijinsky wasn't a "proper" dancer. Or that gay people are not "proper" people. And I'm Not. Going. To. Go. There. Period.
Be happy: have a nice day, yes?
In fact, the properness of gay books is increasing greatly -- not exponentially, but nicely. It turns out that 10% of the male half of the population is gay anyway; and about another 15% on the male side of the fence is ac/dc by inclination, which makes 25% of the part of the population that shaves and dreams of power tools would enjoy a gay narrative ... and about 25% of folks on the female side of the fence like to read gay books, for boatloads of reasons. Some are themselves gay; some are straight enough to fancy the hell out of beautiful guys; some get a kick out of the homoerotic; some love a romance but don't like guy/gal romance, because it almost always seems like the gal is getting s/exploited. Some are "modern age" enough to see as far as the romance, and genuinely don't believe gender matters.
That's 25% of the population as a whole, folks.
So, for every million literate people who read, there's 250,000 who would enjoy a gay book, in the highly unlikely event they were ever in a position to see one, and have the opportunity to actuallt buy it.
That's eight times the population of Fairbanks, Alaska. It's about equivalent to the entire population of South Australia that lives outside the metropolitan area. It's about 8.5% of the entire population of New Zealand (I think; if I'm wrong on this one, it won't be by much -- and feel free to give me a kick).
In a country like Australia with something like 20 - 24 million souls, depending on who you talk to, and who's being counted into the complement, you probably have something in the order of about 16 million literate adults, and about 12 million who actually read --
So, three million Aussies would enjoy a gay narrative, if they were allowed to make the reading choice, at the store, or wherever they get their books.
But if you walk into a bookstore down here and look for gay books, you'll soon start to wonder if anyone's publishing them at all. And the reason is that every bookstore down here is an outlet for a chain. It's B&N, it Dymocks, it's A&N, it's the book department in Kmart or WalMart or Target or Myer, or whatever.
No gay books. Why? Because gay books do not sell enough copies, per title, to attract the attention of the distributor. Each individual title might sell 400 right across this country, IF they were shelved with the generosity or impunity with which het books are shelved. But they're not shelved with such catholic generosity...
Why? Many reasons. Management is terribly aware of minors and the elderly, who form a significant part of their customer base; they're equally aware of the religious minority, for whom the "god" books are shelved alongside yoga, holistic food and Relaxation for Uptight Dummies.
Not wanting to offend anyone, Management literally hides the gay books: top shelves, bottom shelves, dark corners, out of reach, out of sight. And -- what a surprise! -- the books sell poorly.
Gay books are seldom advertised on magazine pages or in windows where the average reader would see them. Same reason for not putting a nice, big ad in the window down at Dymocks. And as per magazine advertising --
Do you know what an ad in a major literary magazine costs?!! An ad to run in one issue would put about $2 on the checkout price of each copy of a gay title! Not going to happen, people. (Few mainstream, print media book reviewers will review a gay book ... saaaame reason. Minors, the elderly, and the God Squad.)
So ... gay books don't sell bigtime, and another reason for this is that they're double-marginalized. They're already in the "gay" category at any online bookstore. Then, they're ... what? Gay-SF, or gay-fantasy, or thriller, or western, or historical, or romance, or erotica, or ...
Uh huh. Double-marginalized. So you have someone saying, "Gee, I'd love a new gay book, but I don't want SF, and I've read enough breeches-rippers (the gay equivalent of the bodice-ripper) to last me a lifetime. Uh ... I don't like westerns. I'm not in the mood for a murder mystery..."
Double jeopardy. The gay writer has two hurdles to get over, not one, and if each hurdle is a "filter," then gay books get filtered twice, before any sale is made.
Meaning, a hell of a lot of gay books are sold, but not that many of any individual title.
Another thing that's killing gay book sales, at least in this country, is that books are so expensive. Small printruns make for expensive books, and few people can afford to buy many, when the damned things are $32 and upwards. A lot of readers are landing at the book exchanges, where you can trade something you've read and pay $2 to the store, and get something you haven't read before --
Guess what doesn't often get traded? Right. Gay books are seldom traded (for which the reasons are many), so you probably won't be able to pick up a new one at the book exchange ... and even if you could, the publisher and the writer wouldn't know a thing about it.
Here is where it gets mildly interesting. A few years ago, when readers were still in the habit of sending a few words of feedback, I used to hear that someone had picked up one of my books at a book exchange in, say, Madrid or Munich or Manchester -- Europe, where gay books are treated with a lot more generosity by booksellers. Secondhand dealers in Europe will trade in gay books, where many (most?) of our local dealers are still not quite "there" yet -- inordinately concerned about the minors and elders and religious bods ... which is no bad, thing, in reality. Taking care of kids, and not giving cardiac episodes to others is a laudable goal in itself.
Fact is, the Internet is a far better place to do business. The people who find you deliberately came a-hunting. One seldom has to deal with folks who arrived on a gay page by accident.
There's also a "book swap" subculture out there, where books are changing hands in every direction...
And a writer has to wonder how many sales he or she has actually achieved. Say, 5,000 or 10,000 when the book was new (depending on the printrun -- and they're all over the place, there's no "norm"), plus an extra 1,000 or 2,000 per reprint ... and then, the swaps, the trades, the book exchanges -- for decades.
So, actual "sales" might be way ahead of anything the publisher knows about. Think about that. Nice. I mean, we don't earn royalties on the swaps and trades, but it's so nice to know that new people are buying the old books.
The last thing that makes it tough for gay writers is the sheer volume of the competition. It's astonishing. There are so many gay titles being published these days -- it's a a lit-fest. Heaven on a stick for anyone who has an ebook reader gizmo -- most of these books are available digitally, thank heavens. Makes them reachable for Aussies and Kiwis, because there's no shipping to pay. Postage across the Pacific. Yee-ouch!
Speaking of ebooks and gizmos, I'm still looking for just the right deal on a bit of hardware to do the job, and my hunt has brought me to this quarry:
The Acer Aspire One netbook. It's at least as functional as even the most advanced dedicated ebook reader, with a color crystal brite screen, and a keyboard that some reviewers say is a joy to use ... and it's less than half the price of a good, dedicated ebook reader. On sale, you can get the thing for A$350, which is just about right for my budget. So my fingers are itching to reach for the credit cards... 8" screen, weighs under a kilo, like handling a hardcover book. Boots up in 8 seconds, loads a browser in another 10, wireless, 2 card readers, 3 USB ports and VGA out. And you have GOT to like that. Yes, I know, the battery life is about 2.5 hours, running the browser and modem with the screen at 60% brightness. Now, turn the screen down to 30% and run just the Mobipocket reader on the local system -- no connectivity, no graphics. Ebook reader. Check. Should go about 4 hours between recharges, even with the silly little 3-cell battery that ships with the machine; and that'll do fine.
Still on the subject of ebooks -- I've been busy in the last week, making more available at Smashwords:
$10.95, for iPhone, Mobipocket, Palm Pilot, and more...
$10.95, for iPhone, Mobipocket, Palm Pilot, and more...
...so, there you are. Proper books for your proper ebook reader. Proper gay books, at that. Somebody try telling John Barrowman that he isn't a "proper singer," and his albums are not "proper" albums, because when he sings a lovesong, he's singing about a guy he adores not a gal. I'm not saying JB would bestow a black eye; but if he did, I do believe Scott and Mel would be standing there shaking hands, patting backs and saying, "Well done, mate."
I mean -- seriously!
Cheers,
MK
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Gay ebooks galore ... and loving it!
New titles at Smashwords -- if you've been hankering after your favorite Keegans in a format to suit your iPhone, you've come to the right place!
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!
The intention is to have 12 or so titles at Smashwords by the end of April ... and then, a major newsletter. I the same time frame, there NARC and HELLGATE series will be going up to Kindle, and the whole shebang will be online at Mobipocket. Then --
We'll be launching a new bookstore. This is the exciting part, and I don't want to say too much about it at this point, because it's very, VERY complicated. But I will add this: it's the most exciting thing that's happened in a rather long time.
Oh -- there are five Keegans at Smashwords now (a good glbt book haul for your smartphone), and the next titles planned to go up are Aquamarine; Fortunes of War; The Deceivers; Storm Tide; Windrage; Tiger, Tiger; The Winds of Chance ... and then I'll catch my breath.
Seriously -- it's easy. This generation of the "Meatgrinder" is like clockwork. Books slide into the Smashwords catalog without a hiccup -- it's easier than Mobi, and I thought that was simple.
One more thing that should be of interest to both writers and readers:
Jim and Tim Hutchinson have a fine idea: One Chapter Challenge, wherein authors park an attractive sample of their work on a new website that's being robustly marketed. For writers, this looks like an excellent opportunity. For readers too -- the theory is, you'll get saddled with a lot less dross if you can read a swatch of the book before you lay down your plastic! Most writers are offering a chapter or five online on their webpages ... but in its infinite wisdom, Amazon has no such facility. You have to buy "cold." Bad idea, that. So I was in at One Chapter Challenge with The Swordsman, Nocturne and Twilight, and am wishing the brothers Hutchinson all the best in the project. It deserves to succeed. How about a little support, guys? Check it out!
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!The intention is to have 12 or so titles at Smashwords by the end of April ... and then, a major newsletter. I the same time frame, there NARC and HELLGATE series will be going up to Kindle, and the whole shebang will be online at Mobipocket. Then --
We'll be launching a new bookstore. This is the exciting part, and I don't want to say too much about it at this point, because it's very, VERY complicated. But I will add this: it's the most exciting thing that's happened in a rather long time.
Oh -- there are five Keegans at Smashwords now (a good glbt book haul for your smartphone), and the next titles planned to go up are Aquamarine; Fortunes of War; The Deceivers; Storm Tide; Windrage; Tiger, Tiger; The Winds of Chance ... and then I'll catch my breath.
Seriously -- it's easy. This generation of the "Meatgrinder" is like clockwork. Books slide into the Smashwords catalog without a hiccup -- it's easier than Mobi, and I thought that was simple.
One more thing that should be of interest to both writers and readers:
Jim and Tim Hutchinson have a fine idea: One Chapter Challenge, wherein authors park an attractive sample of their work on a new website that's being robustly marketed. For writers, this looks like an excellent opportunity. For readers too -- the theory is, you'll get saddled with a lot less dross if you can read a swatch of the book before you lay down your plastic! Most writers are offering a chapter or five online on their webpages ... but in its infinite wisdom, Amazon has no such facility. You have to buy "cold." Bad idea, that. So I was in at One Chapter Challenge with The Swordsman, Nocturne and Twilight, and am wishing the brothers Hutchinson all the best in the project. It deserves to succeed. How about a little support, guys? Check it out!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Gay vampires on the phone!
On your phone, specifically. On your iPhone, that is. And not any old gay vampires ... Mel Keegan's, uh, gay vampires.
In fact, NOCTURNE and TWILIGHT are at Smashwords as of this writing, which means these books are now available for Palm Pilot, Sony Reader, any device that can work with the Mobi Reader app, and of course -- Stanza, which your iPhone is going to love.
Gay vampires on your phone. Seriously!
This is something I have come to envy keenly: folks who have an ebook reader. I don't have one, because you could buy a used car for the price of the dadblasted things, in this country. I'm starting to look at a thingamajig called a netbook. They're about A$600 here, and all I want the thing to do is display ebooks and maybe YouTube videos, and possibly play music.
And if there were any remotest chance of getting gay vampires on said device --!
Anyway, if you're into the ebooks for iPhone, this one is for you:
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!
So there you are -- and just to make sure the pea-brained Googlebot can make heads and tails of this page, I'm going to say it a couple more times (the next part is for pea-brained spiders, not humans, so feel free to ignore the following) ... gay vampire ebooks for your iPhone! Yes, at last, gay books in ebook format, featuring romance, adventure and vampires ... gay style, the way Keegan readers like it best!
There. All done!
In fact, NOCTURNE and TWILIGHT are at Smashwords as of this writing, which means these books are now available for Palm Pilot, Sony Reader, any device that can work with the Mobi Reader app, and of course -- Stanza, which your iPhone is going to love.
Gay vampires on your phone. Seriously!
This is something I have come to envy keenly: folks who have an ebook reader. I don't have one, because you could buy a used car for the price of the dadblasted things, in this country. I'm starting to look at a thingamajig called a netbook. They're about A$600 here, and all I want the thing to do is display ebooks and maybe YouTube videos, and possibly play music.
And if there were any remotest chance of getting gay vampires on said device --!
Anyway, if you're into the ebooks for iPhone, this one is for you:
US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!US$10.95 for iPhone, Palm Pilot, Kindle, Mobi and more!So there you are -- and just to make sure the pea-brained Googlebot can make heads and tails of this page, I'm going to say it a couple more times (the next part is for pea-brained spiders, not humans, so feel free to ignore the following) ... gay vampire ebooks for your iPhone! Yes, at last, gay books in ebook format, featuring romance, adventure and vampires ... gay style, the way Keegan readers like it best!
There. All done!
Independent publishing -- and bookselling -- rock!
I'm still on the subject of Amazon censorship -- last time, honest engine! -- and I'd like to give you something to think on.
Thanks to Vashtan at Live Journal for this:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/13973.html
And to pique your interest -- so that you buzz off over there and read the rest! -- here's a couple of choice paragraphs:
Amazon’s "Glitch" Myth Debunked
by Francine Saint Marie
I am the author of the LAMBDA Notable Book, The Secret Keeping [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419682369], as well as The Secret Trilogy [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438240570], Girl Trouble [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438202105] and several other popular LGBT paperbacks sold on Amazon.com.
All of my novels have been aggressively censored by Amazon since (at least) January of 2008, when they were first released as Kindle editions and promptly rigged in the Kindle store so as not to register any sales ranks and bestselling categories, or to show up properly in Amazon search results. I have also experienced mysterious "sourcing fees" applied by Amazon to the list prices of my LGBT paperbacks, as well as the deletion of five-star customer reviews of them, the removal of their "in stock" status, and a host of other handicapping techniques which are still in effect today.
Since the first quarter of 2008 to the date hereof, I (and my team) have, in vain, relentlessly pursued Amazon about their insidious censorship of my titles. Through telephone calls, e-mails and forum posts, we have repeatedly demanded that they cease and desist burying my novels in their browse tree and otherwise hindering my sales. We have also urged them to provide all authors with "equal access" to their site features and a "level playing field" upon which to compete. As Amazon can confirm, the cry "missing sales ranks" and "discrimination" was Team Saint Marie’s mantra in 2008, and it was even the title of a widely read "thread" we posted in the Kindle publishers’ forum, which Amazon hastily deleted. Indeed, "missing sales ranks" and "discrimination" was the subject of many circular (and recorded) phone conversations with Amazon’s representatives, not to mention an awesome number of e-mails!
-----end of quote!
Now, please! Go and read the rest ... and maybe Keegan won't be sounding so paranoid.
You know me: I'm a LOUD supporter of indie anything, being it writing, publishing, film making, bookselling, the works. Indie Rules. Indie is best -- globalize the "power," beat monopolization. In my world view, it's all about human rights, of which gay rights is a crucial (in fact, watershed) subcategory.
Thanks to Vashtan at Live Journal for this:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/13973.html
And to pique your interest -- so that you buzz off over there and read the rest! -- here's a couple of choice paragraphs:
Amazon’s "Glitch" Myth Debunked
by Francine Saint Marie
I am the author of the LAMBDA Notable Book, The Secret Keeping [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419682369], as well as The Secret Trilogy [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438240570], Girl Trouble [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438202105] and several other popular LGBT paperbacks sold on Amazon.com.
All of my novels have been aggressively censored by Amazon since (at least) January of 2008, when they were first released as Kindle editions and promptly rigged in the Kindle store so as not to register any sales ranks and bestselling categories, or to show up properly in Amazon search results. I have also experienced mysterious "sourcing fees" applied by Amazon to the list prices of my LGBT paperbacks, as well as the deletion of five-star customer reviews of them, the removal of their "in stock" status, and a host of other handicapping techniques which are still in effect today.
Since the first quarter of 2008 to the date hereof, I (and my team) have, in vain, relentlessly pursued Amazon about their insidious censorship of my titles. Through telephone calls, e-mails and forum posts, we have repeatedly demanded that they cease and desist burying my novels in their browse tree and otherwise hindering my sales. We have also urged them to provide all authors with "equal access" to their site features and a "level playing field" upon which to compete. As Amazon can confirm, the cry "missing sales ranks" and "discrimination" was Team Saint Marie’s mantra in 2008, and it was even the title of a widely read "thread" we posted in the Kindle publishers’ forum, which Amazon hastily deleted. Indeed, "missing sales ranks" and "discrimination" was the subject of many circular (and recorded) phone conversations with Amazon’s representatives, not to mention an awesome number of e-mails!
-----end of quote!
Now, please! Go and read the rest ... and maybe Keegan won't be sounding so paranoid.
You know me: I'm a LOUD supporter of indie anything, being it writing, publishing, film making, bookselling, the works. Indie Rules. Indie is best -- globalize the "power," beat monopolization. In my world view, it's all about human rights, of which gay rights is a crucial (in fact, watershed) subcategory.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Couple of URLs for you!
A brief update on Amazon apologizes profusely ... hands up, anyone who believes any of this ...
If you think I'm just being paranoid, you have GOT to see these:
http://blog.vromans.com/amazonfail-the-cost-of-freedom/
and
http://www.slate.com/id/2213037
Woah. Paranoia is the least of it, guys! "...they aim to be nothing less than the sole provider of media on the planet." Eeep.
Cheers,
MK
If you think I'm just being paranoid, you have GOT to see these:
http://blog.vromans.com/amazonfail-the-cost-of-freedom/
and
http://www.slate.com/id/2213037
Woah. Paranoia is the least of it, guys! "...they aim to be nothing less than the sole provider of media on the planet." Eeep.
Cheers,
MK
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