xkcd has a really great comic today, which touches obliquely on a number of aspects of modern digital life. Randall Munroe has dug back through various historical sources to find some terrific observations on how terrible everything is now and how much better it used to be…in print sources dating from 1871 to 1915. An awful lot of reading is involved to go through it, and I don’t like to think about how long it must have taken Randall to gather them all. Those following the kerfuffle about the quality of self-published books might find the quote I clipped to...

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer or high-falutin’ financial analyst, and this is my personal opinion, not TeleRead’s. I just call them as I see them. I ran across this article from Motley Fool blogger Mark Hibben, and felt it was worth calling out as the example of arrant fear-profiteering it is. I could sum up the article thus: “DOOM! DOOOOOOM! (By the way, pay us.)” To be fair, the post opens with a reasonably cogent and accurate summary of the issues surrounding the Apple anti-trust case, not unlike the one I posted a few days ago. But it goes off the rails...

Seriously, that’s what it’s become at this point. We’ve seen traditional publishers attack self-publishing with all the fervor of a Catholic denouncing Calvinism, and it’s not surprising to see self-publishing advocates respond in kind. In particular, my attention was drawn by this counter-rant by Libbie Hawker on The Seattle Vine. Hawker’s rant, of course, has its own problems. She takes aim at writer John Green, who has the temerity to thank all the other people who helped him get his book in shape to be published in an acceptance speech for an award. ...

You won’t see this kind of success story out of just any self-publishing writer, but it’s great when you come across it. CBS News reports on a couple going by the pseudonym “Jack and Jasinda Wilder” who have five children, and who hit a financial crisis when one of the kids’ illnesses and cuts at work meant they lost most of their income. Uncertain what else to do, the Wilders started writing, turning out “a series of sometimes steamy romance novels” which they self-published. The books picked up Internet buzz and before they knew it they were earning...

How can you keep paper library books relevant in an increasingly digital age? Thinking outside the box in where you put them. Or perhaps thinking inside the box. A few weeks ago as I was bicycling home from my day job, my eye was caught by a little box sitting in the yard of one of the suburban homes as I passed. (On the east side of Fremont a couple blocks north of Sunshine, if you’re in Springfield.) It looked not unlike a birdhouse, but instead of birds, it had books! A sign exhorted passers-by to take some and leave some. It...

In light of the recent discussion about selling Amazon-exclusive versus cross-platform, I reached out to my friend, small-press published author Phil Geusz, to ask him about his sales experiences with Amazon versus other platforms. Geusz’s most successful novels to date have been his David Birkenhead series, a space-navall retelling of the Biblical story of King David. (I had mistakenly been under the impression that Geusz self-published, a gaffe I’ve made before with our founder David Rothman’s novel. Amazon has done so much in the way of making self-publishing feasible that it’s sometimes hard to remember there’s a level between...

The Guardian reports that author Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, is finally giving the go-ahead for an e-book version of her popular 2003 novel to be published through new independent e-book site Zola Books that her agent is starting. She is also writing a short-story-length sequel for the site. Niffenegger said that she was sitting on the book not because she was a “weird book luddite,” but because she was “preserving [her] ebook virginity” because she didn’t feel e-books had lived up to their full potential yet. Then Zola Books came along, based on the principle...

In case you hadn’t noticed, the trial of Apple on serving as the ringleader for the agency pricing trust has just closed out its first week, with an expected two more to go. Fortune has a decent recap of the issues at stake, as well as some cogent analysis of why this case could very well go to the Supreme Court. It appears the case may not be quite as cut-and-dried as Judge Cote’s pre-trial remarks suggested. Another Fortune piece suggests she may be beginning to see some things Apple’s way. It appears the ruling is going to...

Unlike some of our writers, I wasn’t fortunate enough to be able to attend BookExpo America, so I end up having to learn about it second-hand. But I happened across a blog post that led me to another that led me to some interesting articles, which in turn led me to wonder, are the Big Six (soon to be Big Five?) publishers completely out of touch with the consumer side of their industry? Taking it in chronological order (the reverse of how I found it), it started with a Q&A by Macmillan CEO John Sargent, and a panel on library e-books...

I had occasion to visit web e-reader Ibis Reader last night for the first time in a while, and found a notice on their front page dated May 17th: “Ibis Reader will be shutting down soon and is no longer accepting new users. Existing users should download their books by selecting the ‘Download this book’ link on the left side of any reading page under the table of contents.” There is no other information about the shutdown anywhere on the site. The “About” page still extolls the virtue of the reader, and the Threepress Consulting blog has not been updated since...

Well, it’s that time of decade again. Someone in Congress has finally—or, rather, once again—taken note of how the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions step all over consumer rights and introduced legislation to try to balance the scales. Ars Technica reports that three Democrats and a Republican, including California rep Zoe Lofgren, have introduced the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013. This act would rewrite the anti-circumvention provision to make DRM-breaking illegal only if it’s done in order to “facilitate the infringement of a copyright.” Non-infringing uses, such as ripping DVDs, unlocking cell phones, and so on, would presumably be allowed....

DRM opponents should be sending love letters to the Japanese Digital Comics Association. As of March 26th, its “streaming manga” website JManga (which I covered here before) will stop selling new manga—and as of the end of May, manga already purchased will become unavailable to view. And there is no way to download and back up manga files that have been purchased from this site—they can only be read online. At the end of May, loyal customers can kiss goodbye all the money they have ever spent at the site. Unused purchase points will be refunded as Amazon gift cards, but...