TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » Chris Meadows

Motley Fool Uses Apple Anti-Trust Suit to Scare People into Paying It

Chris Meadows — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:08:41 +0000

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 [...]

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Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing: The religious debate

Chris Meadows — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:09:48 +0000

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 [...]

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Self-publishing saves a home

Chris Meadows — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:54:22 +0000

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 [...]

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Sharing physical books: Thinking inside the box

Chris Meadows — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:47:32 +0000

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 [...]

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Interview: Small press author Phil Geusz on cross-platform e-book sales figures

Chris Meadows — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:03:49 +0000

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 [...]

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Ten years after publication, The Time Traveler’s Wife to come to e-books

Chris Meadows — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 21:09:13 +0000

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 [...]

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Apple anti-trust case hinges on ‘Most Favored Nation’ clause

Chris Meadows — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 03:46:32 +0000

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 [...]

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BEA Panel Suggests Publishers Still Clueless about Library E-Books and Piracy

Chris Meadows — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 03:52:38 +0000

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 [...]

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Ibis Reader Announces it is Closing Down Soon

Chris Meadows — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 03:04:50 +0000

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’ [...]

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Congress to Consider DMCA Anti-Circumvention Reform…But Probably Not Very Hard

Chris Meadows — Fri, 10 May 2013 02:40:22 +0000

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 [...]

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Digital manga site JManga to shut down, take all customers’ purchases with it

Chris Meadows — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:15:00 +0000

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 [...]

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Supreme Court rules importation of textbooks legal under First Sale doctrine

Chris Meadows — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:35:24 +0000

Remember the Supreme Court case about the Thai exchange student who bulk imported cheap overseas copies of textbooks and resold them in the U.S. (making over $1 million in sales) to finance his doctorate? The judges handed down a decision today. By a six to three majority, they found that the student’s importation and resale [...]

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Google to close down Google Reader as of July 1

Chris Meadows — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:19:51 +0000

There is a risk to relying on cloud services, as I’ve found to my chagrin time and again: they may not always be there when you need them. Etherpad servers have crashed, taking the only copy of my writing with them. Web-based IM service Meebo shut down, leaving me scrambling to find a replacement. And [...]

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Amazon patents scheduled recurring deliveries

Chris Meadows — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:02:00 +0000

A few days ago I brought up a patent Amazon got on reselling “used” digital content. It turns out that’s not the only odd patent Amazon’s gotten lately. Dan brought to my attention U.S. patent number 8,370,271, which Amazon just received on “recurring delivery of products.” Essentially, Amazon just received a patent on the ability [...]

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Games Workshop, self-publishing author battle over ‘space marines’

Chris Meadows — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:19:43 +0000

Self-publishing has a lot of advantages and just as many countervailing drawbacks. The biggest advantage is, of course, you get to be your own boss and can publish whatever you want to, without some publisher taking a cut of the money. But the dark side of this freedom is that it can leave you vulnerable [...]

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