JManga broke some hearts this week when they announced that they were ceasing operations.

This digital manga distributor announced earlier this week that they would no longer sell manga as of 26 March and planned to shut down completely in May.

Any customers with store credit would get a refund in Amazon.com gift cards, and any purchased content will be lost when JManga turns off the lights in May (no downloads allowed).

Once again, the legitimate customer is harmed while the pirate gets away scot-free.

JManga launched with much fanfare in 2011. This company was backed by the 36 publishers of the Japanese Digital Comics Association, and it was created as a laudable response to the then rampant fan-based scanlation (piracy and English-language translation) of Japanese comics.  By offering a legitimate option these publishers hoped to provide the content that was obviously desired by fans.

Sadly, JManga wasn’t up to the task. The site suffered from troubles with getting and keeping content, pricing issues (fans balked at the early high prices), and technical problems including only releasing an Android app in late 2012 (over a year after JManga launched) and never actually releasing an iOS app.

And now JManga is shutting down and taking all existing purchased content with it.

What we have here is a yet another example of the fact that DRM does nothing but punish the paying customer. It doesn’t actually stop piracy; in this case piracy was already rampant thanks to readily available scanners and a large and enthusiastic fan base.

All that was accomplished with JManga was that the legitimate customer was punished for being honest and paying for the content they received. The pirates, on the other hand, weren’t bothered at all.

I wish more publishers could learn from this mistake, because the hostility that has been shown toward JManga customers is appalling.

Yes, hostile is the correct word. In fact I would go so far as to say that any publisher who chooses to use DRM (leaving out the ones that have it forced on them from above) is expressing contempt for their customers.

DRM is the digital equivalent of a shop owner who glares at every customer that enters the store, secure in the knowledge that everyone is a thief. Never mind that the customer has money in their pocket; every customer is a thief.

That is exactly how JManga (as well as every publisher who distributed manga on that site) behaved toward their customers. Ditto for all other publishers and distributors who insist on DRM.

With that in mind, the real shocker is that anyone buys digital content at all.

(And yet I still buy DRMed ebooks. Go figure.)

source, source

Following Google’s announcement that they were going to kill off Google Reader on 1 July, Digg announced today that they are working on a replacement.

No, you didn’t read that wrong, and yes, I was as surprised as you.

Details are still scarce on the features, release date, but this is something they had planned to do this year. After yesterday’s shocking revelation from Google Digg made their feed reader their first priority.

Digg hasn’t been in the news much lately. This social news site fell from prominence as a result of the poorly conceived Digg 4.0 redesign. It was quickly abandoned by many users who flocked to Twitter, Facebook,and Reddit to share news, and the last time Digg crossed my radar was last July when the site was bought by BetaWorks for an undisclosed sums.

I have high hopes for Digg’s new reader. These folks are already fans of Google Reader (what blogger isn’t) and they’ve been running a news site for some years.  And even though Digg did muck up their last major redesign (and the current Digg website is far to prettified and information-poor), my fingers are crossed that they will get this one right.

There is a huge opportunity here for someone to step into Google Reader’s shoes. That service is an essential tool for anyone who follows a lot of RSS feeds. In fact, the vast majority of of the followers of this blog (76%) depend on Google Reader or a service that plugs into Google Reader. Extrapolate tat statistic to all news junkies that use RSS and suddenly there are tens of millions of users up for grabs.

Digg is also planning to release an API so all the 3rd part apps that now work with Google Readercan switch over. That’s going to make the next 6 months to a year rather interesting, because Feedly is also working on their own Google Reader replacement.

I can’t wait to see who picks up the market share abandoned by Google Reader.

Digg

  Update: This post how features 9 possible Google Reader alternatives.

When Google announced yesterday that they were cutting me off from Google Reader, I (and many others) suddenly had to scramble to find a new dealer for my news addiction.

I’m still in the middle of picking a replacement, but so far I have been a little disappointed at some of the suggestions put forward by other blogs. Some of these fools threw together a list of apps like Pulse, Flipboard, Google Currents, and the like, none of which meets the needs of the average Google Reader user.

Those apps are all intended for entertainment reading, not for use by hard-core news junkies like myself. The hard-core user needs a way to pack as much info on screen at once. We are not out to be entertained; we want to get as much info as possible.

I follow 1900 feeds, and while that is a little extreme I bet that anyone who follows more than 100 RSS feeds has the same needs I do. Rather than suggest useless apps, I am going to list the ones that I plan to test:

Feedly

NewsBlur

Tiny Tiny RSS

The Old Reader

BlogLines

Opera (this web browser has a feed reader built in)

FeedsAnywhere

Update: And here are a couple late additions:

Bazqux

CommaFeed

—

Feedly looked like an early contender,and the developers behind this app had even been working on a setup called Normandy that operated completely independently of Google Reader. But I’ve tried it and I don’t like the UI. First and foremost the UI designer thinks gray text on a gray background is a good idea, but I also don’t like Feedly because it defaults to the same prettified and information-poor layouts found in apps like Flipboard, Google Currents, etc.

Feedly is rapidly growing to be the leading replacement for Google Reader. This service has responded quickly to the influx of GR users and added features, viewing modes, and defaults that might fill the needs of a hard-core news junky.

I have given up on using the rss feed reader option in Opera. It is frankly an ugly and minimally functional cobbled together afterthought that doesn’t offer nearly the features viewing modes, or functions I need. Plus I think it gave me a migraine – twice.

CommaFeed is a relatively newcomer to the market. As of late May 2013, this service is still ramping up from its first few thousand users while adding features as fast as it can.

Bazqux is an established but relatively unknown news reader. It is nearly as feature rich as Google Reader was and can support a thousand or more feeds. This is a paid service and it does not currently have any mobile apps.

FeedsAnywhere is a very mobile friendly, free, durable news reader that works well on small screens. It too can support a high number of RSS feeds.

I have not tried all of the rest.  Have you? What do you think?

Google is in the middle of their annual Spring-cleaning and unfortunately for me Google Reader is going out on the curb:

So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. The last time Google updated Google Reader they stripped away its native social networking features and integrated the RSS feed reader into Google+, and before that Google uglified the layout to make it look more like Google+.  I thought that was a sign that Google Reader would be around for the long haul, but I guess that was overly optimistic.

Google is claiming that the shut down comes after  several years of declining use. That could well be true but Google is still going to leave a lot of users in the lurch.

I am a hard-core user of Google Reader, and I currently follow over 1,900 RSS feeds. While that is a little on the high side, the one time I ran a poll I learned that most gReader users use the app to follow an average of more than 100 RSS feeds.

Frankly I don’t know whether I will be able to find a feed reader that is as good, and for me this could be a serious problem. Google Reader was a vital tool for finding news stories for this blog, and I don’t know where I will find a good replacement.

I have head good things about NetNewsWire, but that is strictly an OSX and iOS product. And I have found this page, this page, and this page of feed readers which I plan to try.

But at this point I am freaking out.  Can someone recommend a newsreader app that works across Windows, Android, and the web browser?

Any 2 of those 3 would be good.

The Australian bookstore chain Dymocks has just announced that they are shutting down their vanity press subsidiary. There is a notice on the D Publishing website that informs visitors that operations will cease on 25 March 2013, and authors currently participating in the program have received an email notifying them of the change.

Dymocks was rather opaque on their decision, though it looks to me like it just wasn’t profitable. “We learned a lot about that market and those customers but unfortunately the constraints of the platform and business model meant we couldn’t fulfil the vision,” Dymocks managing director Steve Cox told BRW. “It was a difficult decision but we’ve decided to focus on areas that are core to what we do. The investment required to left the site to the next level at this moment in time is not an investment that we think it’s right to make.”

Dymocks launched D Publishing in December 2011 in the hopes of cashing in on the growing number self-published authors, but unfortunately that group did not turn out to be sufficiently naive. Far too few were willing to make the mistake of overpaying for the privilege of being published in the Australian market.

And that is not a error on my part; D Publishing launched with a distribution network that included only Google Play Books as well as Dymocks' own ebookstore and bookstore (for paper books). There is no current mention of D Publishing distributing beyond beyond those 2 stores, so I think they never did expand their distribution network.

As I look over the D Publishing website I have to say that I am amazed that the service existed this long. Dymocks charged ridiculous prices (and required authors to hand over all rights) but offered very little in return.

Dymocks couldn’t even promise to get an ebook into the major ebookstores, and yet they demanded exclusive rights and charged authors $400 for the privilege. No wonder they failed.
source

The South by Southwest Con is going on right now, and Marvel is there to show exactly how big their bag of gimmicks really is. They’re showing off Project Gamma, their amazingly wonderful plan to add soundtracks to digital comics:

Project Gamma is, in the words of Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso, an "adaptive, non-repetitive score" that changes as a person swipes from panel to panel through a digital comic. Marvel is working with the production companies Momentum Worldwide and CORD, whose composers and producers have worked on "Harry Potter," "Drive," "The King’s Speech," and "Looper."

I am underwhelmed. This strikes me as just another gimmick that will turn out as interesting and useful as augmented reality. That was one of the gimmicks that Marvel unveiled at last year’s SxSW, and that’s a sign we could be seeing a trend.

I think Project Gamma is going to disturb the existing reading experience more than add to it. Does any dedicated reader really need an audio cue that in a certain scene we should pity a character, or that in a later scene is tense because there is a confrontation?

I think readers are smart enough to figure that out on their own. And if nothing else this is not a movie, for Pete’s sake.

Fortunately it looks like this won’t be coming soon, and when it does it will only see limited release:

Marvel has not announced a release date for Project Gamma, although Alonso said that he expects it to be available to the public before the end of 2013. Gamma’s price point, debut comic, and final name have yet to be determined, said Alonso.

I’m going to bet that nothing much will come of this.

Or perhaps it would be better to say that it will continue to amount to not much. After all, ebooks with soundtracks have been hailed as cutting edge since at least 2008, and in 2011 Booktrack launched their first ebook set to synchronized music. Aside from the initial splash none seem to have amounted to much, with Booktrack only showing a few dozen titles on their website.

But that’s just my general dislike for the idea. Tell me, how many ebooks do you have that have a soundtrack out of how many in your library? would you buy more if they were available?

Random House made a splash this week when the SFWA revealed that RH’s new digital-only imprints (Hydra, Alibi, Flirt) exploited authors with terrible contract terms.

The contract enabled Random House to grab all rights (including subsidiary rights), pay authors nothing in advance, and even bill authors for what would be considered usual business costs (design, editing, and the like).

If there’s one thing we learned from the Random House Hydra contract it’s that you need to read a contract before you sign it. And that goes for contracts with self-pub services. Random House is not alone in offering terrible terms to authors. It seems that even self-pub services can write an horrible contract a contract as exploitative as one from Random House.

Update: After I published this post, a reader pointed out even more horrible details from the contract. The redactions reflect contributions from that reader. Thanks, William!

The Passive Voice blog has tipped me to a new self-pub site out of the UK. Autharium is not a name I have heard before, and now that I have read the terms of service for authors I’m not sure it’s going to be around for long. This site demands an incredibly broad license to do whatever they want with a work.

Autharium will sell and distribute an author’s ebook, but before they do that the author must first grant them an exclusive worldwide license:

1.1 By submitting your Work to Autharium and accepting these Terms & Conditions, you grant to Autharium the exclusive right and licence to produce, publish, promote, market and sell your Work in any Digital Form (as defined in paragraph 1.4 below) in all languages throughout the world for the entire legal term of copyright (and any and all extensions, renewals and revivals of the term of copyright).

But wait, there’s more. Not only does Autharium demand an exclusive, their definition of digital form is so broad that it arguably includes subsidiary rights like audiobook, movies, and really any digital content:

1.4 “Digital Form” means any and all electronic and/or digital forms and media whether now known or later invented or developed including (by way of examples only): (i) any e-book (i.e. using any means of manufacture, distribution or transmission whether now known or later developed including but not limited to electronic and machine-readable media and online and satellite based transmission intended to make your Work available for reading) (“eBook”); and (ii) any electronic version (other than an eBook) for performance and display (whether sequentially or not) in any manner (together with accompanying sounds, images, interactive and/or search features if any) by any electronic means, method or device (“Electronic Version”).

Autharium can legally sell the audiobook rights out from under the author, and the same goes for the movie rights. Hell, that site could sell the movie rights to their entire catalog for 10 pounds and a job offer, and it would be completely legal.

Fortunately the contract doesn’t get much worse than that (so far as I can tell). Section 14 says that you can terminate the agreement in writing. And that is an important point, because simply telling Autharium to remove the title from sale doesn’t actually cancel the contract.

But there are a couple other issues. For example, there’s a mention that Autharium might expect the author to pay Autharium for the privilege of being distributed:

In the event that Autharium has confirmed to you that it wishes to publish your Work as an eBook or an Electronic Version, Autharium shall, unless otherwise mutually agreed or unless prevented by circumstances beyond its control, produce and publish your Work as an eBook or an Electronic Version within 60 days of you having paid to Autharium any fees or other charges specified by Autharium for publication of your work.

And then there’s the fact that (as commenter William Ockham points out) Autharium gets to decide whether they want to accept a title (2.3), and until they decide to reject it they can sit on it for as long as they want (16.7):

2.3 Autharium is entitled to decide what it accepts and what it rejects in its absolute discretion. Please be aware that, notwithstanding paragraph 2.2 above and paragraph 4.4 below, Autharium may decide at any time not to publish your Work.

and

16.7  A failure to exercise or delay in exercising any right, remedy or power provided under these Terms & Conditions or by law does not constitute a waiver of the right, remedy or power or a waiver of any other right, remedy or power. No single or partial exercise of any right, remedy or power prevents any further exercise of it or the exercise of any other right, remedy or power.

All in all, this contract is not the absolutely worst I have read but it is as well as an excellent example of why authors (and everyone else for that matter) need to read contracts before signing the contract. You have to read the whole thing, too, otherwise you might make the mistake as Passive Voice (edit: or I!).

That blog covered this story before me, but they missed something (I missed a number of details as well). They looked at Section 13, which says that removing a title from sale doesn’t cancel the contract, but they missed Section 14, which covers the author’s termination rights.

The section on termination rights changes the entire tone of the contract. As terrible as the contract is, an author can escape. The same cannot be said for Random House contracts, or  ones written by other big publishing houses.

Update: A reader has pointed out the the termination clause isn’t as broad as I thought. An author can terminate if and only if Authorium is in material breach of the contract for a period of at least a month. That means this contract is nearly as bad as The Passive Voice blog indicated.

See, I told you that it needs to be read carefully. Even I wasn’t careful enough.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The POD and self-pub service Lulu announced earlier this week that they were launching a new suite of marketing and publishing services. Authors can now choose one of several overpriced bundles of services (starting at $999) or authors can overpay for individual service. For more information, visit the Lulu website.

Here’s what Lulu VP Kathy Hensgen had to say about the deal: “We listened to our community, and they wanted enhanced options in services. As author needs evolve, Lulu continues to innovate with a deeper range of multi-media solutions for its customers as well as an even keener focus on personal attention”.

But there’s one important detail that Lulu isn’t sharing, and that is who is actually providing these services. I’m still waiting for Lulu to get back to me, but sources say that Lulu has signed a deal with Author Solutions. All the new services are actually provided by ASI, not Lulu, though Lulu is getting a commission on the revenue generated via their website.

Update: The news has been confirmed by Lulu.

Folks, the packages offered by Lulu are virtually identical to the ones offered by Simon & Schuster’s vanity press, S&S Archway. They are just as much of a bad deal, though I am unfortunately the only one to come out and say that about Lulu.

To put it simply, any service that you find via Author Solutions or one of their partners (like Lulu, S&S, Harlequin, or Penguin India) is overpriced of for no other reason than Author Solutions' profit margin has to come from somewhere, and that goes double when there is a partner involved.

And even if the services weren’t overpriced, there is a cloud hanging over the head of Author Solutions. They are being investigated by at least one law firm that could be looking to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of authors. ASI is infamous for deceptive practices, failing to pay royalties, and other misdeeds. Do you really want to join their pool of victims?

P.S. I have contacted Lulu and asked for confirmation. If they respond (there is a first time for everything) I will post an update.

When txtr announced the beagle last October they promised that this smartphone accessory/ ereader would be available at the super-low price of 10 euros.

Much media hay was made about that fact, but now that the beagle is about to hit the market it turns out that txtr’s price for the beagle was a little optimistic.

I have just received an email from txtr that confirms the beagle will indeed be sold in the US in the near future:

We are making a limited number of beagles available in North America. We are making progress with operators as planned.  However, due to pressure from readers, the decision was taken to offer it to a small group of readers who want to buy it now. The price in the US will be $69, including a $10 voucher.

No, you didn’t read it wrong. This device really will cost as much as the $69 Kindle. What’s more, with a little work you can find a B&N Nook Touch for less than the retail price of the txtr beagle.

Uncontrollable laughter aside, the super-low price was never the real price of the beagle; it was the subsidized price. Users were going to be able to get it for 10 euros because txtr’s customers (not the end user but the telecoms) were supposed to subsidize the price. I suppose that the beagle would have been used to entice smartphone users into renewing their contracts.

But now it seems that the telecoms aren’t as interested in the beagle as txtr expected (I don’t believe the middle 2 sentences), so instead this smartphone accessory is going to see at least a limited amount of retail distribution.

I have to say that I am not surprised at the lack of interest; when this device launched I lamented the fact that it was deliberately hobbled by design. It is far less capable than your average ereader, and in fact it would be better thought of as a digital picture frame.

The beagle has a 5″ E-ink screen, but instead of storing and displaying ebooks the beagle can only hold 5 folders full of page images, with one folder set aside for each title. The beagle can’t process ebooks on its own, so it needs the txtr Android app to convert an ebook to page images and transfer the page images to the beagle over Bluetooth.

Guess what? That app requires Android 4.0, so anyone who doesn’t have a relatively up to date smartphone or tablet will be out of luck.

With that restriction in mind, I’m not sure why very many people would want the beagle, and apparently many of the commenters on the beagle’s first review (in The Guardian) agree with me. They especially didn’t like the fact it was tied to a smartphone contract.

It’s not clear yet when the beagle will ship, but I can tell you that this ereader did pass through the FCC about a month ago; that cleared the way for the beagle to be legally sold in the US.

Of course, now that it’s not subsidized and we can see that the true price is far higher than txtr initially claimed, I have to say that I’m not sure that txtr will sell all that many beagles. Clearly the Kindle is a better value.

You can find the beagle listed for pre-order here.

When 5 German ebooksellers got together last Friday and announced that they were joining forces against Amazon, I was far more pessimistic than most. I thought that this coalition wouldn’t be a real competitor to Amazon until the members were better at selling ebooks than Amazon.

I still haven’t seen any sign of salesmanship but today I did learn that Tolino does not appear to have the technical chops to go head-to-head with Amazon. Lesen.net reported this morning that the newly updated Tolino reading apps were flawed, buggy, and generally annoying existing users.

First, a little background. Tolino is a coalition made up of 5 German companies (Thalia, WeltBild, Hugendubel, Deutsche Telekom, and Bertelsmann), each of which had an existing ebookstore. According to their estimates at last week’s press conference, the 5 ebookstores had a combined 35% share of the German ebook market, with (my estimate) more than a million users between them.

And it is with those existing users that things went terribly, terribly, wrong. Reports are coming in from the customers of a  couple different ebookstores (Weltbilt, Hugendubel). Both of the Android apps for these ebookstores as well as the iOS app for Weltbilt suddenly stopped working last week after they were updated to work with the new Tolino platform.

Many users have reported in the past week that they can no longer access their previously purchased ebooks. Some are complaining that they can’t even stay logged in after they exit the app.

It’s so bad that the 1-star reviews have knocked one of the apps down below 2 stars:

Now, problems like this are not unique to Tolino. Even Amazon has released updated apps which cause problems, and in fact Amazon did just that a few weeks ago when a registration bug in the new Kindle IOS app cost users all the samples and ebooks currently on the device.

But Amazon also managed to address the problem within a few hours and fix it in less than a day. The current problem with Tolino is much more serious and has been going on for a week now, with no fix in sight.

That is simply not acceptable, not by any standard.  And until Tolino gets their act together they simply are not a serious competitor to Amazon – I don’t care what anyone says.

It’s been some time since I last had the chance to talk about a new product with a Pixel Qi screen, so I was very pleased when an email from Chris Swanner of Sol Computer arrived this afternoon. Feast your eyes on this beauty:

Sol Computer is now carrying a 10″ USB-powered monitor that features a Pixel Qi screen. It’s in stock and shipping right now, and a 7″ model will be available shortly.

I will likely nver get my hands on one, but based on the product listing and the video I must say that the production value is a little low; there’s no case shown. In fact all the images I have seen show what looks like a simple mount that was sticky glued to the back of the screen panel. But who cares; it works outside:

The retail price is not listed, but I checked and one of these babies will set you back $800.

No, that’s not a mistake. It really is that expensive, especially when compared to USB LCD monitors. You can pick up one of those on Amazon for under $100.  Heck you can even get a ViewSonic 22″ Android tablet/SmartDisplay for half the price of the 10″ Pixel Qi monitor above.

So why would anyone get this? Simple: because it works in direct sunlight.

Sure, there are a lot of tablets that work out side but few work well and even fewer work well in direct sunlight or brightly lit conditions. Pixel Qi is about your only option for long-term outside computing.

Sol Computer currently offers a number of different options, including tablets, a rugged netbook,  and the 10″ USB monitor. The netbook runs Windows, and the tablets are offered in Windows and Android. Price range from "you don’t want to know" to "you really don’t want to know".

Remember last December when there was all the doom and gloom about the decline in ereader shipments? Many blogs reported it as a sign of the end of the ereader market, but given the latest survey data from Pew Research Center that’s probably not the case.

According to the PRC over a quarter of Americans adults owned an ereader in January 2013. It seems that reports of the death of the ereader were greatly exaggerated.

This data comes not from the survey on American libraries or the report on US reading habits. Instead a helpful soul with the Pew Research Center pointed me at the reports and survey data that Pew has been gathering in their study of America’s mobile shopping habits.

The January survey data shows that 31% of Americans now own a tablet of some kind, be it iPad, Android, or iPad. That’s up slightly from the 25% who reported the same in November 2012. That is an excellent growth rate, even though it is far less spectacular than what was reported this time last year (from 10% before Christmas to 19% after Christmas).

But  never mind tablets; the important news today is ereader adoption. According to the most recent survey conducted in January, a full 26% of American adults now own an ereader. That’s up from the 19% who owned them back in November.

Let’s look at those numbers. According to the survey data ereader ownership got a 9 point bump last Christmas and a 7 point bump this Christmas. That’s not exactly what I would call a sharp decline, and it is not anywhere close to resembling iSuppli’s prediction that ereader shipments would drop by a third in 2012.

In fact, if we factor in the estimated sales in markets other than the US, for example the 1 million ereaders sold in Germany in 2012, I would not be willing to argue that ereader shipments dropped at all in 2012.

Furthermore, I think I now see why E-ink predicted in early January that ereader shipments would increase in 2013. They had probably already gotten early data on ereader sales over Christmas, and that data probably showed exactly what I just told you.

It seems that reports of the death of the ereader were greatly exaggerated. The hard-core readers and book buyers are still adopting ebook readers.  The numbers might not be going up as fast as before but they’re still going up.

I told you so.

via Pew Research Center

 image by gadl

When Random House launched 3 new digital-only imprints (Hydra, Alibi, and Flirt) last fall there was little information which could shed light on how they would be run. But if there is any truth to a letter the SFWA sent out to their members today then I think RH has a vanity press on their hands.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is now warning their members that any title published by one of the imprint, Hydra, would no longer be counted by the SFWA as a legitimately published work (more on this after the letter):

Dear SFWA Member:

SFWA has determined that works published by Random House’s electronic imprint Hydra can not be use as credentials for SFWA membership, and that Hydra is not an approved market. Hydra fails to pay authors an advance against royalties, as SFWA requires, and has contract terms that are onerous and unconscionable.

Hydra contracts also require authors to pay – through deductions from royalties due the authors – for the normal costs of doing business that should be borne by the publisher.

Hydra contracts are also for the life-of-copyright and include both primary and subsidiary rights. Such provisions are unacceptable.

At this time, Random House’s other imprints continue to be qualified markets.

Note: There’s no information on the website for these 4 imprints that confirms the terms that Random House offers to authors, but there is a post  on the Writer Beware Blog that lists basically the same terms and provides more details that reveal the contract is even worse than it first appears:

• It’s a life-of-copyright contract that includes both primary and subsidiary rights.
• There’s no advance. Net proceeds (defined as net income plus subrights income less the deductions detailed below) are split 50/50 between author and publisher.
• Deductions for ebook edition: "one-time out of pocket title set up costs" (editing, cover art, design, etc.), plus a "sales, marketing, and publicity fee" of 10% of net sales revenue.
• Deductions for print edition, if there is one: "actual direct out-of-pocket paper, printing and binding costs," plus 6% of gross sales revenue to cover freight and warehousing costs.

Update: John Scalzi got his hands on a contract from RH Alibi, and it is just as bad as the RH Hydra contract mentioned above.

So why is this a big deal? Well, you could look at the contract terms and be appalled, but the letter itself is an act of censure.

It has no real legal effect, but the market effect could be profound. The SFWA has stated, as a professional trade group, that the Random House Hydra imprint does not meet their standards of conduct for business ethics and that authors should not do business with RH Hydra.

Any title published by RH Hydra won’t count towards the the 3 short stories, 1 novel, or 1 screenplay that a writer must sell before becoming a member of the SFWA.

To put it simply, RH Hydra is now on the SFWA’s shit list. And that is a big deal.

This doesn’t happen very often, and the last time I know that a major publisher was censured was back in 2009. The RWA (Romance Writers of America) put Harlequin on their negotia non grata list after the publisher launched Harlequin Horizons.

Harlequin has always been a trendsetter, and in launching Harlequin Horizons (since renamed DellArte Press) this publisher was one of the first major publishers to directly take advantage of self-published authors by launching a vanity press. Like S&S-Archway or Penguin India-Partridge, Harlequin Horizons was owned by a respectable publisher but was (and still is) actually run by Author Solutions.

Harlequin was censured back in 2009 simply because Harlequin signed a deal with Author Solutions. The censure appears to have been lifted when Harlequin Horizons was renamed and any mention of Harlequin was removed from the site.

Don’t you wish the SFWA had done the same for all of Random House? I do.

In any case, Random House Hydra is officially on the naughty list.

source

Ask anyone running the marketing dept of an ed-tech company and they’ll tell you that technology is going to fix every problem we currently face in public education. Never mind that past technology solutions caused more problems than they fixed, the new panacea will fix that too!

This same song-and-dance has been spouted by technologists ever since Edison claimed that films would make textbooks obsolete (I kid you not), and Today’s performance is being staged by Newscorp.

Joel Klein, the head of Newscorp’s educational division, unveiled the Amplify tablet today. This 10″ Android tablet is the focal point of a new educational platform whose goal is to move more money from the $500 billion K-12 education sector and put it in Newscorp’s pockets.

And I’m sure that Amplify will accomplish that goal.  In addition to the tablet, Amplify also sells a suite of educational tools that they believe teachers can use to improve student performance, monitor their successes, and turn everyone into an above-average student.

The software includes all the basic learning material that teachers need to dole out information on any given subject: Google Apps for Education, audio, video, games, online textbooks, multimedia lessons, reference books, a graphing calculator, and more.

The content is all reportedly aligned with the new Common Core educational standards that school districts across the US are currently working to adopt, and it even includes the highly popular Youtube-based lectures by Khan Academy , which coincidentally are now available in an iPad app.

Amplify has been testing the tablet in schools since October 2012, and they have refined both the hardware as well as the sales pitch.

The Amplify tablet is going to cost $299 and require a $99 a year subscription to access the content. There’s also going to be a 4G version, the Amplify Tablet Plus, which will cost $349 and require an additional $189 a year for the data plan.

In a way, this really comes as no surprise. Apple has led the way in getting tablets adopted in schools, with over 8 million iPads sold to schools since Apple launched the tablet in 2010. Apple’s other educational initiatives, including iBooks Author, have seen similar success with Apple reporting that iTunes U having hit 1 billion downloads earlier this week.

image by flickingerbrad