Amazon launched a new customer service option on Wednesday. Alexa users can now reach Audible customer service via their smart speaker or any other Alexa-enabled device.

All they have to say is, "Alexa, call Audible."

 Audible Inc., the world’s largest producer and distributor of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment, today introduced a new hands-free customer service experience on Alexa. By saying “Alexa, call Audible”, U.S. customers will be connected directly to a highly-skilled, dedicated expert who can answer questions, resolve technical issues, make Audible book recommendations, and more. The new experience is now available to customers in the United States 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is entirely hands-free.

You can find additional information about the new feature here.

It’s a cool feature, and it’s actually pretty close to the "walkie-talkie" option (using Alexa to call anyone who also uses Alexa) which I think would be a killer feature if Amazon would implement it.

But you might want to rethink using Alexa at all, however.  Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Amazon contractors have access to a user’s account info and recordings of what that user says to Alexa, and as we just learned today, those contractors can even access an Alexa user’s street address.

Not only are those contractors inside your personal life, they know the way to your front door.

Millions of people have smart speakers like the Echo. They are great tools that let you schedule tasks, play audiobooks, look up basic info, and what have you.

Alas, all that convenience comes at a price: your privacy. Bloomberg reported a few weeks ago that Amazon not only records what you say to Alexa but also shares those recordings with contractors.  This includes not just the instructions you gave Alexa but also whatever Alexa may have picked up by accident.

Sometimes an Alexa-enabled  devices mishears what you say; it thinks it heard the "Alexa" wake-up command when you didn’t intend to summon it. For example, the French avec sa, “with his” or “with her", hs been known to confuse Alexa into thinking someone was using the Alexa wake word.

Amazon shares all that info with contractors, and also gives them a user’s first name and Amazon account number, as well as the device’s serial number.

If this lack of privacy bothers you, there’s a way to  stop it. Visit the Manage my Content & Devices page on Amazon, and select the option of Alexa privacy. Scroll down to the section labeled "Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa". Click the arrow.

On the next page you will see a blue toggle next to a label that reads "Help Develop New Features". Click the blue toggle to disable this feature and enhance your privacy. You may also see one or more blue toggles in a section labeled Use Messages to Improve Transcriptions. Uncheck those blue toggles as well.

It’s not clear that this will stop Amazon from sharing your recordings, however. According to Bloomberg, Amazon said "people who opt out of that program might still have their recordings analyzed by hand over the regular course of the review process".

If you really want to stop them from exploiting your recordings, you will need to delete the recordings.  I explained how to do that over in another post.

Business Insider

Researchers have been saying for years and years that reading an on LCD screen late at night will disrupt your sleep, and techies have been working nearly as long to come up with fixes for that problem.

There are two general solutions to the problem (three, if you count not using your device within two hours of going to bed). One is called a night reading mode, and the other is using the software settings to apply a blue light filter to the screen.

One common solution offered by many reading apps is to invert the colors so that the text is white on a black background. It’s called a night reading mode, and you can find it in most reading apps such as Kindle, iBooks, Aldiko, Kobo, etc, and looks something like this:

The night reading mode is not unpopular with ebookophiles, but I’m not sure that it really counts as a solution to the sleep problem.

Anecdotal reports suggest that it might help (some users swear by it) but the only true solution would be to use a blue light filter.

Study after study has shown that the blue light emitted from a screen can impact your sleeping patterns. Why blue and not any other color? I don’t know the answer to that, but I can say that it’s what everyone is saying and it is where all the app developers are turning their attention.

Windows

If you like to read or work on your PC late at night then you should look at an app called f.lux. It adjusts the color settings on your monitor based on the local time for your location.

And most importantly, it changes the color settings on a system level. So if you install F.lux, it will affect all the apps you use and make them look different.

The F.lux app for Windows comes so highly recommended that I’ve not heard of an alternative. But I can’t make the same remark about Android.

Kindle Fire Tablets

In December 2015 Amazon released an update to Fire OS Bellini which added a blue light filter called Blue Shade.

Update April 2019: That feature is still included on all current models, and you can see screenshots here.

Kobo

In the four years since I first published this post Kobo has  made blue-light filters a standard feature on all their ereader models, including the Kobo Forma. Turn the feature on, and the white frontlight on a Kobo will slowly shift to orange and then a reddish tint as your evening progresses.

You can also set the Kobo’s blue-light filter manually, but I do think it’s worth mentioning that no testing has been done on the frontlight of an ereader to see whether said frontlight has the same negative impact as an LCD screen.

Kindle

Nope, the Kindle does not have this feature, and Amazon has shown no interest in adding it.

I am expecting a new premium Kindle model in 2019, however, and that would be a good time to add it.

Android

A quick search of Google Play reveals that there are countless free apps which claim to offer a blue light filter, but I’m not so sure how true that is. I’ve checked a half-dozen, and many simply turn down the backlight and apply a grey, and not blue, filter. There are a few apps which do apply a color filter, and some even offer alternate color options for the filter (here’s one).

One app in particular, Twilight, has been recommended several times in the comment section of this post. I’d try that first. Also, Google added a blue light filter to Google Play Books in late December 2015.

iOS

When I first wrote this post in 2015, we had far fewer options for late night reading on your iPad or iPhone.  Google updated the Google Play Books iOS app, and Opera, for example, updated their browser with a night reading mode and a blue light filter, but there’s no general solution. There’s also night reading mode in ebook apps, I only found a few options for iOS.

But then Apple added this as a core feature for iOS, which means you have the option with all iOS apps. See the "Night Shift" menu under "Display and Brightness" on your iDevice’s Settings menu for more info.

Other Platforms

Not having other devices to check, I can’t tell you whether you can find blue light filters on other platforms.

If you use one, let us know in the comments. I’m sure I won’t be the only one who is interested.

AAP just issued the February StatShot Monthly report which includes data for the first two months of 2019.

Among the highlights:

• Overall participating publisher revenue was $754.0 million in February 2019, an increase of $50.8 million (+7.2%) compared to 2018.
• February 2019 saw strong gains for hardback books, with revenue increasing 18.0% from the prior year to $172.9 million, due to across-the-board increases in each of the trade categories.
• eBook revenues fell 3.5%, to $$166.5 million.
• Audiobook revenues rose 36.5%, to$90.5 million.
• In the first two months of 2019, publisher net revenue for trade (consumer) books was $1.06 billion, an increase of 3.2% from January-February in 2018.

press release:

Overall participating publisher revenue was $754.0 million in February 2019, an increase of $50.8 million (+7.2%) compared to 2018, according to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) StatShot Monthly report. For the first two months of 2019, publisher revenue was $1.82 billion for all tracked categories (Trade, PreK-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing and University Presses.)

Trade Publishing

In the first two months of 2019, publisher net revenue for trade (consumer) books, including sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, etc., was $1.06 billion, an increase of 3.2% from January-February in 2018. Increased revenue for Religious Presses (20.8%) and Children’s/Young Adult (7.5%) offset a decline (-1.0%) in Adult Books as compared to the same period in 2018.

January – February Trade Book Revenue (in millions)

February 2019 saw strong gains for hardback books, with revenue increasing 18.0% from the prior year to $172.9 million, due to across-the-board increases in each of the trade categories. Hardback Adult Books increased 13.4%, hardback Children’s Young/Adult increased 16.4% and hardback books from Religious Presses increased 29.3% compared to February 2018.

January – February Trade Revenue by Format (in millions)

Education and Scholarly Publishing

In February 2019, revenues for participating education and scholarly publishers were $232.8 million, relatively flat (+1.0%) compared to February 2018. Both Higher Education course materials (+10.7%) and University Presses (+6.5%) saw increases year-over-year compared to February 2018.

February Education and Scholarly Publishing (in millions)

Publisher net revenue, including sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, etc., is tracked monthly by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and includes revenue from about 1,373 publishers, with participation subject to change over time. The StatShot Annual, Higher Education Annual, and PreK-12 Annual reports for 2017 are available for purchase; additional information about them can be found here.

image by cybrgrl via Flickr

The Chinese e-ink monitor maker Dasung is getting ready to launch its latest Paperlike model. This time they will be going all out and will be putting both a frontlight and a touchscreen on their monitor.

You can sign up to be notified of the launch on Indiegogo.

Dasung launched its first E-ink monitor in 2015. Over the past 4 years they’ve released a new model an average of once a year, improving performance every time.

The new model will have a 13.3″ Carta E-ink screen (2200*1650 resolution) and connect to your computer, tablet, or phone over HDMI.

The new model will have a 13.3″ Carta E-ink screen (2200*1650 resolution) and connect to your computer, tablet, or phone over HDMI. This is honestly one of those products that leaves you wondering why almost no one has heard of it. Yes, it’s expensive, but it works so well and helps so much.

Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its digital store. While other software and apps will still be available via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers’ consoles and devices, the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers’ ebook libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.

Digital products such as eBooks and digital music are often seen to liberate consumers from the burdens of ownership. Some academics have heralded the “age of access”, where ownership is no longer important to consumers and will soon become irrelevant.

Recent years have seen the emergence of an array of access-based models in the digital realm. For Spotify and Netflix users, owning films and music has become unimportant as these subscription based services provide greater convenience and increased choice. But while these platforms present themselves clearly as services, with the consumer under no illusion of ownership, for many digital goods this is not the case. So to what extent do we own the digital possessions that we “buy”?

Fragmented ownership rights

The popularity of access-based consumption has obscured the rise of a range of fragmented ownership configurations in the digital realm. These provide the customer with an illusion of ownership while restricting their ownership rights. Companies such as Microsoft and Apple present consumers with the option to “buy” digital products such as eBooks. Consumers often make the understandable assumption that they will have full ownership rights over the products that they pay for, just as they have full ownership rights over the physical books that they buy from their local bookstore.

However, many of these products are subject to end user licence agreements which set out a more complex distribution of ownership rights. These long legal agreements are rarely read by consumers when it comes to products and services online. And even if they do read them, they are unlikely to fully understand the terms.

When purchasing eBooks, the consumer often actually purchases a non-transferable licence to consume the eBook in restricted ways. For instance, they may not be permitted to pass the eBook on to a friend once they have finished reading, as they might do with a physical book. In addition, as we have seen in the case of Microsoft, the company retains the right to revoke access at a later date. These restrictions on consumer ownership are often encoded into digital goods themselves as automated forms of enforcement, meaning that access can be easily withdrawn or modified by the company.

This is not a one-off occurrence. There have been many similar instances that raise questions of ownership. Just last month, social media site MySpace admitted to losing all content uploaded before 2016. Blaming a faulty server migration, the loss includes many years’ worth of music, photos and videos created by consumers.

Last year, after customers complained of films disappearing from Apple iTunes, the company revealed that the only way to guarantee continued access was to download a local copy – which, some opined, goes against the convenience of streaming. Amazon hit the headlines way back in 2009 for remotely erasing “illegally uploaded” copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from consumers’ Kindle e-reading devices, much to consumers’ dismay and anger.

Illusions of ownership

My research has found that many consumers do not consider these possibilities, because they make sense of their digital possessions based on their previous experiences of possessing tangible, physical objects. If our local bookstore closed down, the owner wouldn’t knock on our door demanding to remove previously purchased books from our shelves. So we do not anticipate this scenario in the context of our eBooks. Yet the digital realm presents new threats to ownership that our physical possessions haven’t prepared us for.

Consumers need to become more sensitised to the restrictions on digital ownership. They must be made aware that the “full ownership” they have experienced over most of their physical possessions cannot be taken for granted when purchasing digital products. However, companies also have a responsibility to make these fragmented ownership forms more transparent.

Often there is a logical business reason for such restrictions. For instance, since digital objects are infinitely reproducible – they can be duplicated quickly and easily at negligible costs – restrictions on sharing are a means to protect the profits of both distribution companies (Microsoft or Apple, for example) and media producers (including the authors and publishers of an eBook). However, these restrictions must be stated clearly and in simple terms at the point of purchase, rather than hidden away in the complex legal jargon of end user licence agreements, obscured by the familiar terminology of “buying”.

republished from The Conversation under a CC license

image by basykes via Flickr

I am about to give a few thousand authors a really terrible morning.

Numerous authors are reporting. both on Facebook and in private discussions, that their ebooks have disappeared from Amazon.com. I have read first hand over a half-dozen reports to this effect, and heard many more reports second hand.

The issue seems to only be affecting Amazon.com, and according to two reports primarily new releases are impacted. The affected listings have vanished from the site entirely, and have been replaced with one of Amazon’s cute 404 pages (the ones with dogs), but the books are still listed on other Amazon sites.

Update: Several people are saying that this looks like the first stage in the next purge of authors. I disagree. I don’t know what went wrong on Amazon.com, but I have seen similar issues on a WP site often enough that I know how to fix them. The cause on WP would be that the code running the site can’t find the content in its database (but the content is still there), and the solution (it works almost all the time) is to go into the "permalinks" settings menu and save it. This helps the site find the content again.

Author John Van Stry has lost two books to this issue. "The two books I put out (one last week, one 5 weeks prior) are now gone. The one from last week was a #1 bestseller," he told me by email. "This is going to kill me financially, because I was in the new release cycle on two books, and now I’ve been thrown out of that and when my book comes back it won’t be #134 overall on amazon and #1 in like 6 different categories."

John also told me that Amazon’s help center in India told him that it will be 24 to 48 hours before this is fixed. As someone who does tech support, this sounds like they do not yet know what broke, much less how to fix it.

That impression was confirmed by a second report to the effect that Amazon’s tech team is doing its due diligence, and that they have no idea when it will be back up.

Update: They may have fixed it. I’ve read several reports on Facebook that affected ebooks have been restored.

Have your ebooks been affected?

Thanks, John!

image by Lachlan Hardy via Flickr

In the nine years I have published this blog, I have tested dozens Kindles and mobile devices.  While that was a lot of fun, it also caused a huge headache. Amazon lists all of those devices separately on my Manage Your Content and Devices page on Amazon.com, making it hard to find the few devices and apps that were actually in use.

It actually got so bad that back in 2016 I removed all the Kindle apps from my account, as well as most of the Kindles and Kindle Fires. (I later re-registered the few Kindle apps I was still using.)

This made it so much easier to manage my account that I wish I had thought to share this sooner. The Kindle turned twelve years old last November, and I can’t be the only one who has a long list of apps and devices on that page (A family of four would probably have a list longer than mine).

Here’s how you can remove devices and apps from your account.

Note: This procedure will also de-register any affected apps or devices. The next time they go online and try to sync, the apps and devices will discover they have been de-registered and log you out. I think the Kindles will still continue to work, but the apps will not.

O O O

First, go to the manage your content and devices page on Amazon, and select the "Devices" tab.

After the new tab loads, look at the number of devices and apps listed.  If the number is huge (mine was over 50 at one point) then you might want to select the dropdown menu shown in the screensnap below. You can use it to limit the list to just Kindle apps or hardware.

Once you have perused the list, you can remove an app or device by clicking on the 3-dot menu to the left of an entry. Select the de-register option from the pop-up menu.

Then, when you see the confirmation menu, click the orange button to confirm that you want to deregister the device.

Boom. You’ve removed one more device from your account.

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to do this one device or app at a time, so it can get tedious by the time you’ve removed the 20th entry.  But I still think it’s worth the effort because once I removed all the dead entries, I was able to finally use that page to send content to my various devices. Removing the dross also made it easier to send a newly purchased ebook to my current device when I am buying it. (I used to have to download the ebook from the device itself, which actually was a nuisance because I share my account with my mother, who is a voracious reader.)

So tell me, how many Kindles, Kindle Fires, and apps do you have listed on your account?

For the third time in eight years, Microsoft is throwing in the towel on ebooks. I just got an email from MS informing me that they are shutting down the bookstore part of the Microsoft Store.

The books category is closing. Thanks for buying or downloading an ebook from Microsoft Store. Starting April 2, 2019, the books category will be closing. Unfortunately, this means you’ll no longer have access to your current ebooks as of July 2019, but you’ll get a full refund if you paid for your ebook download. See refund details below. Learn more.

Microsoft was actually one of the early ebook pioneers, but was never really able to exploit the advantages. Their MSReader format launched in the early aughts tech bubble, and was still worth buying when Microsoft killed it in 2011 (stripping the DRM and converting to Epub or Kindle was easy).

Then in 2012 Microsoft invested $300 million in B&N’s Nook spin off, Newco, essentially funding the Nook’s international expansion, only to see it go nowhere. (Microsoft pulled out of that partnership in late 2014.)

And now Microsoft is killing the ebookstore it launched to replace the Nook Store.

In fact, it has already been shut down, and the lights are going to be turned off in July. MS has already turned off the purchase option, and is in the process of cancelling all existing pre-orders.

There is some good news, though; we’re going to get refunds or credits for our purchases. Refunds will start rolling out automatically in early July 2019 to your original payment method. If your original payment method is no longer valid, MS will give you a credit for use at Microsoft Store online. Also, MS is going to compensate you for any lost annotations. If you have made any mark-ups or annotations in any of your ebooks prior to 2 April 2019 you will receive an additional $25 credit to your Microsoft account.

You can find more info in the FAQ.

On a scale of one to B&N closing down Fictionwise, this shutdown is actually rather customer-friendly.  (Do you suppose Microsoft has been invaded by lizard people again?)

As you may know, for the past seven years or so I have shared my Kindle account with my mother. She is a voracious reader who is on the mailing list of quite a few authors, and as a result she gets a lot of ARC ebooks. All of those ebooks end up in our Kindle account, and that has really started to be a problem as the number of ebooks approached five digits.

Those ebooks aren’t just taking up space on her device; they also get in the way whenever I try to browse my Kindle library on my Kindle Fire tablet. Her thousands of ebooks are keeping me from finding the ones I want to read.

It’s past time that I weeded my Kindle account. Here’s how I did that.

But before you do anything, please note that this will permanently delete ebooks from your Kindle account. There’s no way back.

First, log in to Amazon and visit the Manage Your Content and Devices page.

This is the page where manage your Kindle library as well as the Kindle apps and devices that are connected to your account. (In another post I’ll explain how to remove devices and apps from this menu, and disconnect them from your account.)

That page defaults to showing only some of your ebooks – the ones you bought from Amazon. It is 2019, but Amazon still continues to treat ebooks acquired elsewhere as second-class content (go figure).

What you will probably want to do next is sort the ebooks by purchase date, title, or author. I hav found that we were most comfortable with deleting the older books.

Next, scroll down the list of books, and once you’ve found one you want to delete, click on the title of the book. You can select multiple ebooks to be deleted at the same time, so do be careful.

Selecting one or more ebooks will activate 3 orange buttons.

Click the delete button. Then, in the confirmation menu, note the warning about permanent deletion, and then click the yes button.

Boom, the ebooks are gone from your account.

I went from close to 10k  ebooks to only 2,800 or so, and things are beginning to be a little less cluttered. I’m going to make another pass and delete more ebooks, and after that I’ll probably sort the ebooks into collections.  This will make it easier to sort the ebooks by genre, topic, and whether I want to discard or keep them. (I really should have done this years ago.)

So tell me, how many ebooks do you have in your Kindle account right now?

I think we just found out why B&N Press has been periodically adding new features while at te same time B&N has been stripping any sign of the Nook from its stores (one, two).

A friend has slipped me an early copy of the press release where B&N announces it is selling its Nook division to Najafi Companies, the parent company of Author Solutions. The announcement isn’t scheduled to go out until Thursday, but I got a copy because my source knew I would be able to get the attention of authors and others who would oppose this deal.

As you may recall, Najafi Companies bought Author Solutions from Penguin Random House in 2016. The price was not disclosed at that time, and  we don’t know the sale price of the Nook division, either. It was valued at a couple billion dollars at one point, but that was before the bubble burst.

B&N launched the Nook back in 2009 only a few months after buying Fictionwise. Over the next several years the Nook quickly grew into the second largest ebook retailer, and then for reasons no one understands, B&N’s ebook bubble burst in the 2012 holiday season.

The Nook division has been in decline ever since, totaling only $24 million for its third fiscal quarter.

I had been hoping someone would come along and turn around the Nook, but to be honest I would rather B&N pass on this deal. Selling Nook to a company that wants to combine it with Author Solutions is a deal that is frankly worse than death. Anyone would have been better than Najafi, including Amazon.

I wonder if Rakuten made an offer?

press release:

Najafi Companies. today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Barnes & Noble’s NOOK digital business, a leader in the e-book marketplace. Najafi Companies said it plans to use NOOK as part of its overall digital strategy, including by integrating NOOK and B&N Press into Author Solutions, Najafi Companies’s self-publishing services company.

“The Barnes & Noble Board of Directors carefully reviewed strategic alternatives, and believes this transaction is in the best interest of shareholders, authors, and readers. It will strongly support our transformation efforts,” said Leonard Riggio, Chairman. “This sale will allow Barnes & Noble the flexibility and runway it needs to complete the transformation required to adapt to a changing retail market."

“The purchase of the Nook digital business is an important part of our strategy to capitalize on the growing ebook services market, and to solidify our position as a leader in the exploding market for digital services in the consumer and education segments,” said Jahm Najafi, CEO of Najafi Companies.

William E. Wood, EVP and President of Digital at Barnes & Noble, will oversee the transition, and will assume a new position of VP, NOOK, at Najafi Companies.

“The shift to digital is putting the world’s libraries, newsstands, and bookstores in the palm of every person’s hand, and is the beginning of a journey that will impact how people read, interact with, and enjoy new forms of content,” said Wood. “This deal will accelerate e-reading innovation across a broad range of devices, enabling people to not just read stories, but to be part of them. We’re at the cusp of a revolution in reading.”

About Najafi Companies

Najafi Companies is an international private investment firm based in Phoenix, Arizona, targeting education, media, consumer products, internet services, and direct marketing sectors. The firm makes highly selective investments in companies with strong management teams across a variety of industries, often in areas undergoing rapid transformation. Najafi Companies funds its investments with internally generated capital, not through a fund. The firm is able to move quickly and decisively when investing and make investments that create maximum value for the long term.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is the nation’s largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 627 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK^® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store^®. The NOOK Store (www.nook.com) features digital books, periodicals and comics, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS^® and Windows^®.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company’s corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

P.S. April Fools.

image by MikeKalasnik via Flickr

Here’s an important piece of ebook news from last week that literally no one has noticed yet.

The parent company of Bookbaby, AVL Digital Group, announced last Wednesday that it has been acquired for roughly $200 million. The buyer, Downtown Music Holdings, is buying the music distributor and many of its various subsidiaries, including CD Baby.

CD Baby CEO Tracy Maddux will oversee the new Downtown-owned AVL unit, which will continue to be based in Portland Oregon. The sale price has not been disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in April.

That is the story that was reported in the music news sites last Wednesday (I found it on DMN).

Here’s the story that no one else has yet.

This acquisition does not include Bookbaby, Disc Makers, or Merchly. AVL CEO Tony van Veen tells me that the management team has acquired these three divisions under a new corporate parent called DIY Media Group.

Bookbaby President Steven Spatz confirmed the news to me during a phone call Sunday evening, adding that "We bought the New Jersey-based brands – DM, BB, Merchly – because we believe that authors, artists and filmmakers will always need physical products to get their content into the marketplace. In fact we’ve invested heavily in the most ancient of physical mediums – book printing and binding – over the last 18 months. We’re a 74 year old company that’s been evolving over the decades, at the forefront of music and publishing technologies on behalf of indie content creators. DIY Media Group will be continue to focus on 'helping the little guy look big' in the competitive music and publishing marketplace."

B&N Press continues to add features, lending credence to rumors about an impending sale of the Nook division.

I just got an email from B&N, informing me that B&N Press now offered users ebook coupon codes and better formatting control over book descriptions.

Currently in beta, B&N’s ebook coupon codes give publishers the option to create a coupon code to market and sell their books at a specially discounted price to Nook readers. There’s no meed to worry about price matching on other retail sites., and users control all aspects of the campaign so that they can find and reward Nook readers. This feature is found in the Manage Promotions section from the Projects page.

Publishers can now format their book’s description using B&N’s HTML editor and previewer. No experience with HTML is necessary, to achieve better text styling on BN.com and Nook.

In related news, B&N will also soon add new trim sizes for POD books, and new print cover templates.

Writing over at TNPS, Mark Williams reported earlier this week that Paul Abbassi’s (AKA Data Guy’s) 5-year-old Author Earnings Report website had been down for a couple weeks. Williams notes that it’s been 14 months since the last installment of the Author Earnings Report, and asks whether it’s dead.

Today Bookstat, the body that Author Earnings morphed into, appears to be still active, but as the data is locked away behind a $10 million paywall and the last update was six months ago it’s hard to be sure.

But the Author Earnings Report site has progressed from neglected and gathering cyberdust, comments ignored, promised updates not delivered, to, this past week or two, HTTP Error 500 status.

Whether this is just a tech ‘problem being ignored or a convenient way to remove the controversial reports and the mess of contradictory numbers from the public eye – or perhaps the corporate eye of Bookstat subscribers – is anyone’s guess right now.

While I disagree with how Williams covered this story,  I do still think he is at least half right.

I had a sneaking suspicion when the last Author Earnings Report was released in January 2018 that the start of BookStat meant the end of the Author Earnings Report. The thing about that report was that it was very light on detail. It mainly consisted of what looked like screensnaps from BookStat’s back-end, and included very little analysis compared to what we had seen previously.

That thin Report gave the appearance that now that Abbassi was selling the cow, he would no longer be giving the milk away for free, and the past 14 months with no new Report would tend to support that conclusion.

BTW, the last thing published on that site were the slides from Abbassi’s presentation at the Nebula awards last May. While it did contain useful info, it still fell far short of the highly detailed Reports we had seen previously.

Launched in early 2014, the Author Earnings Report spent four years going through the classic cycle of "first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then then attack you, and then you win".

Only in this case, after Abbassi won, his earliest supporters – indie authors – were thrown overboard. The authors who gave Abbassi the sales data required to build and refine his models, who spread the word and brought him to the attention of the wider publishing industry, have little to show for it.

Abbassi, on the other hand, has a business called BookStat.

Caveat Emptor.

I have disliked Travis McCrea ever since he claimed his earlier ebook site, The Ultimate eBook Library, was protected by the DMCA, but now he is getting on my last nerve.

McCrea has recently been getting a lot of media attention for his current pirate site, eBook Bike (not to be confused with his defunct audiobook pirate site). He’s become quite notorious, so much so that he is now afraid of being sued.

McCrea has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise a defense fund. He lies multiple times in the brief description.

"Let me be clear: At no point have I uploaded content I didn’t own to Ebook Bike," he writes "and I have always ensured that copyrighted material wouldn’t be uploaded (using the same methods and techniques used by YouTube, Facebook, and others)."

That is an utter falsehood; I just (in the past couple minutes) downloaded A Memory Called Empire and Mike Resnick’s Soothsayer. Both books were complete (and both are in copyright, obviously).

McCrea goes on to say "The DMCA is very clear about safe harbour protections and we have jumped through all those hoops. Yet I am still getting sued. What are the point of laws if they can be ignored? "

Yeah, the thing about the DMCA is that it is a US law that provides a safe harbor for US sites. McCrea is Canadian, and thus the DMCA does not apply to him.

McCrea had previously made a similar claim about the DMCA (this is in fact why I dislike him) but he is simply lying to us here. The DMCA only affords US sites a modicum of protection, and no one else. While virtually all sites and hosting companies around the world will respond to DMCA notices, they only do so as a convenience and not because the DMCA applies to them.

Canada has its own version of the DMCA, which went into effect in 2015. It only offers a safe harbor for ISPs so long as they forward takedown notices to accused infringers, and the law offers no protection to McCrea as the operator of a pirate site.

In legal terms, McCrea’s ass has been hanging in the breeze for as long as he has operated his pirate sites, and it is a wonder that it has taken this long for someone to sue him.