There is a budding controversy in SF that is on the verge of become a minor scandal. It seems a Facebook group called 20Booksto50k may or may not be the source of a slate of nominees for the 2018 Nebula Award. I was going to write a post covering this issue, but then I found Cara Buhlert’s work and Camestros Felapton’s posts on this topic and was no longer sure I could do better.

Writing about fandom really isn’t my thing, so perhaps this is just as well.

So instead of a post, here’s a recommended reading list to help you catch up on the story. (Since the FB group in question is closed, and thus can’t be read by non-members, all of the links lead to blog posts.)

You should start with the thoughts and musings section at the end of Cora Buhlert’s post from 21 February. Then go read Camestros Felapton’s post from 21 February on the not-a-slate. Then read Buhlert’s reaction post from a week later, and head over to File 770 to read the official statement from the SFWA and a statement from the originator of the "slate".

I have been distantly following this story since the finalists were announced a couple weeks ago, and I am a member of that group (since April 2018, to be exact). I don’t beleive that either an official or unofficial attempt to nominate a slate. The group in question is dedicated to helping authors _legitimately_ achieve commercial success through writing stories that people want to buy.

I do not believe this was an attempt to game the system, but that is, however, what ended up happening.

image by JSJ1946 via Flickr

In the late ereader era, the major ereader makers (such as Amazon, Pocketbook, Kobo/Netronix, and B&N/Netronix) are sticking to designs so boring that the 7″ Kindle Oasis seems novel and refreshing even though it is really just copying features found on earlier models from competitors.

Seriously, I would be giving up in despair if not for small companies like oGadget. This is the latest in a line of small companies which  are using crowdfunding to bring niche ereaders to market. (Without companies like this, we’d be stuck with watching Onyx come up with great designs that we cannot buy.)

This is why I was thrilled when I read over on Liliputing that oGagdget is teasing the launch of a new 10.3″ E-ink notepad called the Eewrite E-Pad.

Edit: oGadget is the promoter, not the developer. I’m told this is being developed by a company called Wiskey.

This device only exists as very pretty renders on oGadget’s website, but according to the company it will sport a deca-core CPU with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage, and it will run Android.

Here’s a run-down of the E-Pad’s key specs:

• Screen: 10.3″, 1872 x 1404 E-ink display (227 ppi)
• OS: Android (with Google Play Store)
• CUP: unknown seed, Deca-core CPU
• RAM: 2GB
• Storage: 32GB, microSD card slot
• Touchscreen: Capacitive touch + Wacom pen input
• Mike, speaker
• Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and 4G LTE
• Weight: 392 grams (14 ounces)

The E-Pad is expected to have a retail price of $699, but the first 200 folks to back the crowd-funding campaign will be able to reserve one for $399. That campaign won’t be starting for another 4 weeks, but you can sign up on oGagdget’s website to be notified when it does.

The retail price makes the E-Pad one of the more expensive 10.3: devices around, but it is also the only one with 4G connectivity.

Do you think that is worth the extra $100 over the price of the Remarkable or Sony Digital Paper?

Eewrite via Liliputing

Amazon offers a free conversion service where you can send documents to your Kindle, but there is a problem: it doesn’t work with Epub files.

Even though there are services you can use to automatically send DRM-free files to your Kindle account from Dropbox and other cloud services, Amazon still won’t let you send an Epub file to your Kindle.

Fortunately, there are several work-arounds.

Your first option is to use a website like Send Epub to Kindle.

Send Epub to Kindle

This site will let you upload an Epub file and provide your email address, after which it will convert the ebook into a Kindle format and send the ebook to your Kindle account.

• Pro: It’s the easiest option.
• Con: Do you really want to trust your ebook to a site you don’t know?

If your answer to that question is no then there are other options.

Send a ZIP File

For example, eReader Palace brings our attention to the fact that you can send a ZIP file to your Kindle account. In other words, you can rename the Epub file by giving it a ZIP suffix and then email the ZIP file to your Kindle account.

Yes, that does work – to a limited degree. I’ve tried it, and I found that Amazon will accept the ZIP file only if you have fewer than 25 files in the ZIP file. This means that Amazon will reject more complex Epub files if they are made of too many parts.

If that happens then your next best option will be to use calibre to convert the ebook so you can send it to your Kindle account.

Calibre

The ebook library tool calibre is fully capable of converting your ebook to and from Kindle, Epub, and other ebook formats. This tool can even email your documents directly to your Kindle account.

I have never used that feature, though, so I can’t tell you how well it works.

Addendum

The reason I have never used calibre’s email feature is that I keep a copy of my ebook files in both Kindle and Epub, and I send the Kindle file to my Kindle account whenever I want to upload an ebook to my Kindle account.

It’s just less hassle that, way, in my opinion.

Do you have a preferred method for sending Epub ebooks to your Kindle account? Let us know in the comments!

image by Jamais Cascio

The internet is overflowing with nearly as many free audiobooks as ebooks. There are dozens if not hundreds of sites with free audiobooks, and I have pulled together a short list of seven sites where you can find a broad selection.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is best known for being the first website to offer free public domain ebooks, but they also have audiobooks for you to download. The selection is drawn from a variety of sites, including Librivox, AudiobooksForFree, and LiteralSystems.org.

LibriVox

LibriVox is a non-commercial, community-supported, ad-free site which audiobook recordings from public domain titles released by Project Gutenberg which have been read, recorded, and released for the public’s listening pleasure.

The audiobooks are created by the public, and you too can volunteer to read a story. Or you can just download from LibriVox’s acoustical library of good books.

StoryNory

This site stands out from the other free audiobook sites because it is the one site that focuses on audiobooks for kids, offering popular titles such as Little Red Riding Hood. It also produces original content, which comes with transcribed versions of the story.

Open Culture

This site is one of the better gateway websites for educational and cultural media (video, text, audio, and more. Open Culture aggregates content from all over the internet, and it has a decent collection of audiobooks that you can stream or download in a variety of audio formats for later consumption. The audiobooks are listed alphabetically by the author’s last name, and are organized by genre (fiction and literature, nonfiction, poetry, etc).

The Internet Archive

The IA is out to backup everything, and that includes audiobooks. The site has a library of audiobooks and poetry readings from a variety of sources, including the Naropa Poetics Audio Archive, LibriVox, Project Gutenberg, Maria Lectrix, Internet Archive users, and more.

If you look elsewhere on the site you might also find audiobooks uploaded by users, but I would be careful about downloading those; at least some of the user uploads are pirated copies.

Learn Out Loud

As you can tell from the name, LOL is focused on educational audiobooks. This site has a collection of more than 10,000 educational and inspirational audiobooks, only some of which is free. A lot of the free content is sourced elsewhere, including other sites on this list like LibriVox, but this site’s clean look and good organization might make it worth checking first.

 Lit2Go

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can easily search for audio book titles here by genre, author or collection, and they even grade a book’s readability for your children by Flesch-Kincaid grade levels. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified.

Over the nine years that I have run this blog I have seen many scams. There are the sites that pretend to have pirated ebook but really just want your credit card numbers, sites that pretend to offer digital textbooks for a low fee and really just sent you to free ebook sites, and the various fake, pirated, and counterfeit textbooks found on Createspace.

I have even seen a half-dozen different scams where companies send me emails and try to sell me worthless domain and SEO services.

But it wasn’t until today that what I had always thought was an online scam actually arrived in the form of a paper letter.

On 19 February 2019, I got a paper letter from a Florida-based web design firm called “Main Street Web Pros”. I have never done business with this firm before nor have I heard their name, but after looking online I found that MSWP does have a rather sparsely filled out website.

Their online presence provides a veneer of legitimacy, but it is really just a cover for the scam letters they send in the mail.

This firm sends out letters that closely resemble a bill and is designed to make the recipient think MSWP hosts their website, and that the recipient owed them $180 for this service.

You can find the letter at the end of this post.

The scammers find their targets by looking up website domains, and checking to see which ones have contact details listed publicly. (These details have to be provided when a domain is registered or renewed, unless you opt to pay extra to keep them private.)

This company has tried to convince at least two other people I know of that we owe MSWP money for their services.

I got one of these today to my now closed design firm. It's a total disgrace that any company thinks it's okay to do this. I've seen similar scams from domain registrars, but this is the first hosting one I've seen.

— George T. Probst ? (@GeorgeProbst) February 18, 2019

From what I can tell, this same scam has been going on since at least July 2017.  I found a post talking about this exact same scam, from this exact same company. They even had an identical letter  (but with a mailing address in Delaware, not Florida).

If you get one of these letters, do not respond.

Do not send them money.

Instead, take the letter to your local post office and tell the clerks that you have received mail fraud. This is a crime, and the USPS takes it seriously.

Mike Cane brought my attention to a story over on The Register:

Some 617 million online account details stolen from 16 hacked websites are on sale from today on the dark web, according to the data trove’s seller.

For less than $20,000 in Bitcoin, it is claimed, the following pilfered account databases can be purchased from the Dream Market cyber-souk, located in the Tor network:

Dubsmash (162 million), MyFitnessPal (151 million), MyHeritage (92 million), ShareThis (41 million), HauteLook (28 million), Animoto (25 million), EyeEm (22 million), 8fit (20 million), Whitepages (18 million), Fotolog (16 million), 500px (15 million), Armor Games (11 million), BookMate (8 million), CoffeeMeetsBagel (6 million), Artsy (1 million), and DataCamp (700,000).

…

Bookmate 8,026,992 accounts for 0.159 BTC ($572) total

1.7GB of data taken July 2018. Each account record typically contains a username, an email address, SHA512 or bcrypt-hashed password with salt, gender, date of birth, and other profile details. This alleged security breach has not been previously publicly disclosed. British Bookmate makes book-reading apps. A spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Bookmate is one of the smaller ebook startups, and its main focus is a subscription reading platform.

While this report is entirely plausible, I have seen no announcement of a breach, so we have no way to know for sure that this actually happened. And since I know of at least one "breach" that turned out to be a nothing-burger, I decline to draw a conclusion.

If you have an active account with Bookmate, ask them about this.

This was originally published in mid-January, but it just crossed my desk this morning,

Over at InvestorPlace Bret Kerwell lays out the figures that show B&N is just one bad quarter away from having to file for bankruptcy.

As of the most recent quarter, the company has $11.2 million in cash and $63.7 million in accounts receivable. While it doesn’t have any short-term debt, it does have over $621 million in accounts payable. Further, long-term debt sits at $278 million.

Despite this seemingly lopsided situation, the company still pays out a dividend. Its yield is near 9.9%, a red flag to be sure. And even though the company turned in one of its best holiday comps in recent memory, management warned on profit, saying it may fall up to 10% year-over-year.

It’s been years since since BKS turned in an annual income statement without red ink on its net income line. This one’s bankruptcy seems inevitable at some point down the road.

It’s not just doom and gloom; Barnes & Noble really is in dire financial straits, just like its quarterly reports suggested.

The company is one bad quarter away from needing to file for bankruptcy protection and pray that it can work something out with its suppliers.

And we all know how well that worked out for Borders, don’t we?

image by MikeKalasnik via Flickr

The Association of American Publishers has published its annual revenue report for the 1,375 publishers who submit their revenue data to the AAP. This info is not to be confused with sales data or the sum total of the US book market, although it will likely be misconstrued that way.

Publisher revenue rose $342 million last year, to $7.49 billion. While on the one hand 5% growth rate looks awesome, a closer look shows that most of that growth was due to increased sales of audiobooks and hardback books.

In 2018, publisher hardback book revenues grew 6.9%, adding $196.8 million in revenue, while audiobook revenues grew by 37.1%, adding $127.1 million in revenue compared to 2017.

press release:

Revenue for trade (consumer) book publishers was $7.49 billion in 2018, an increase of $341.5 million (+4.6%) compared to 2017, according to the StatShot Monthly report from the Association of American Publishers. Each of the trade book categories – Adult Books, Children’s/Young Adult and Religious Presses – saw revenue growth. Revenue for trade books includes sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, etc.

Since 2013, downloaded audio has been the trade book format with the greatest percent growth. In 2018 it grew by +37.1%, adding $127.1 million in revenue compared to 2017. Hardback books had the most revenue gain from actual dollars, with +6.9% revenue growth adding $196.8 million in revenue in 2018.

Overall publisher revenue for all tracked categories (Trade, PreK-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses) in 2018 was relatively flat at $14.55 billion (-0.4%) with a decrease of $57.0 million compared to 2017.

Trade Publishing

Jan. to Dec: Trade Book Revenue (in millions)

While all three categories of trade books saw increased revenue, the industry’s largest category – Adult Books – grew the most ($247.4 million) compared to 2017. Revenue for downloaded audio and hardback increased by double digits within the Adult Books category, but not every format benefitted from the category’s growth – mass market books and physical audiobooks saw declining revenue compared to 2017.

Both Childrens/Young Adult Books and Religious Presses bounced back from slight revenue declines in 2017, with $68.4 million (+3.3%) for the former and $25.7 million (+4.5%) for the latter in 2018 compared to 2017. Within Religious Presses, revenue for hardback books and eBooks increased while revenue for paperback books declined.

Jan. to Dec.: Total Trade Revenue by Format (in millions)

Print books and downloaded audiobooks experienced revenue growth in 2018, while eBooks declined slightly. This is the third consecutive year that audiobooks saw double-digit growth (+37.1%) and eBook revenue declined (-3.6%).

Education and Scholarly Publishing

Revenue for education and scholarly publishers declined in 2018 in all categories (Professional Books, PreK-12, University Presses, Higher Education.) This is a departure from 2017, when PreK-12 was the only category to decline.

Jan. to Dec: Education and Scholarly Publishing (in millions)

Publisher net revenue is tracked monthly by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and includes revenue from about 1,375 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 jrladia via Flckr

Here’s a bit of news that will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with academic libraries.

Forbes reports that Amazon is still a distinctly second-tier retailer in the academic library market. The dominant player is Ebsco:

Is Amazon taking over the academic library industry? That’s what a new study from a higher-education-focused non-profit takes a look at, and their findings might surprise you as long as you haven’t read the title of this article too closely.

For the study, Ithaka S+R gathered acquisitions data from 124 U.S. higher education institutions in fiscal year 2017 along with data from 51 institutions covering between 2014 and 2017. The report has more than one interesting takeaway about the under-examined world of academic literature, but here’s the big one: Amazon isn’t anywhere close to controlling the academic library market.

The study found that the academic book vendor GOBI Library Solutions provides 68.7 percent of print book sales and 86.4 percent of ebook sales to academic libraries. Granted, Amazon took second place in the print book category, but it was by a massive margin, with just an 11-percent piece of the pie compared to GOBI’s 68 percent. And Amazon didn’t even sell enough academic ebooks to qualify as having any sort of meaningful presence.

The report also indicated that ebook purchases were negligible in that market, and that the market may be shrinking as libraries cut back on expenditures.  "The results show that while Amazon has become the second largest print book vendor to academic libraries, they actually are buying fewer books individually and below a certain price point, as measured by lower overall book expenditures within our sample," the study concludes. "The slight increase in spending to acquire ebooks is not high enough to offset the decline in spending to acquire print books. Nor does the increase in ebook expenditures necessarily mean that libraries are acquiring more books in digital format. Rather, ebooks appear to be becoming more expensive (including ebooks costing more than $350), making it costlier for libraries to acquire the same number of digital materials."

I had never heard of Gobi before, so I was initially surprised by this story. Then I Googled the name, and discovered that Gobi is just another name for Ebsco.

Yeah, that’s no surprise; ask any five academic librarians to guess which company sold the most books to libraries, and at least four will tell you Ebsco (the fifth will explain how you can find the info yourself).

Study via Forbes

image  by pnoeric via Flickr

Remember that tax deal that New York promised Amazon to bring the retailer to Long Island? Apparently it involved money that the state didn’t have.

Newsday reports that New York governor Cuomo has proposed expanding sales tax to all internet purchases (it’s not clear whether this will include ebooks and other digital content sales, which are currently exempt).

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is proposing to take advantage of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would allow New York to charge sales tax on all internet sales, potentially adding to the cost of internet purchasing while providing an even playing field for traditional stores.

Cuomo proposes requiring all companies that sell products over the internet to collect state and local sales tax — about 7 percent in much of the state — which he said would result in $250 million in tax revenue to the state per year.

The measure has been sought for years by traditional stores with a physical presence in the state as internet sales grew. A new coalition of chambers of commerce on Long Island, along with Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, plans to lobby for the measure in Albany. The state budget is due April 1.

Without it, local businesses say they are at a disadvantage as internet-based sellers can avoid charging sales tax.

“It is counterproductive to principles of fairness, harmful to local economies, bad for Main Street and retail jobs,” said Morris Peters, Cuomo’s budget spokesman.

Don’t you just love what they said about fairness?

I mean, it was only a few months ago that they promised the world’s largest internet retailer a huge tax incentive package if it would open new offices in the state, and now they are saying that they need to be _fair_ to local retailers?

We are truly living in 1984, folks, if a politician can promise a huge tax break to a huge retailer and then talk about making things fair for smaller retailers.

Speaking of which, the Amazon tax break may never come to pass. It needs to be approved by regulators before it goes into effect in 2020, and it’s facing fierce opposition.

The Washington Post said Amazon is reconsidering the plan to expand in NYC:

Amazon.com is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of opposition from local politicians, according to two people familiar with the company’s thinking.

…

Amazon executives have had internal discussions recently to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the company’s perspective.

“The question is whether it’s worth it if the politicians in New York don’t want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming,” said one person familiar with the company’s plans.

Hailed as an economic triumph when it was announced by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), the project in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens now faces withering criticism from some politicians and advocacy groups appalled at the prospect of giving giant subsidies to the world’s most valuable company, led by its richest man. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos also owns The Washington Post.)

In the past two weeks, the state Senate nominated an outspoken Amazon critic to a board where he could potentially veto the deal. City Council members for the second time aggressively challenged company executives at a hearing where activists booed and unfurled anti-Amazon banners.

Key officials, including freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district borders the proposed Amazon site, have rallied against the project. And opponents went door-to-door to warn people in Queens of looming rent hikes and displacement, much as Seattle experienced during the company’s explosive growth there.

If Amazon loses the tax incentive, many of the promised 25,000 jobs will still end up in NYC simply because it is NYC. Amazon would have opened new offices there anyway because it is a tech, finance, and business hub (this is why many of us hated the tax incentive deals).

The final home of the rest of the jobs will likely depend on which jurisdiction is willing to pay the biggest bribe to the world’s richest online retailer.

And that will be hard to predict.

image by jjbers via Flickr

For over three years now, Amazon has offered Kindle users free cloud storage for their ebooks.

This Kindle Cloud supports many of the same reading features that you get with ebooks bought from Amazon, including highlights, notes, bookmarks, dictionary lookup, and syncing your reading position across all of Amazon’s Kindle apps and ereaders.

It’s pretty useful, and here’s how you can set it up.

First things first: Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?

The hard way is much more useful and works from any email account, but the easy way works just as well and is less hassle.

I’ll show you the easy way, and then the hard way. You tell me which is better.

The Easy Way

The easy way to send ebooks and documents to your Kindle Cloud is to install an app called Send2Kindle. There’s a version for Windows, OSX, and Android, and once it is installed and configured it is dead simply to use.

For the PC app, simply select the file you wish to send (in Windows explorer, for example), right click on it, and choose the Send2Kindle option. This should also show up as a print option when viewing a file in MSWord, Adobe Reader, etc.

And do you know the best part about Send2Kindle? When you run the app, it will create a window. Any compatible file which you drag to that window and release will be sent to your Kindle Cloud.

For more details on this app, visit the Send2Kindle on Amazon.com. Or you can launch the app and click on the help button.

That’s the easy way; here’s the hard way.

The Hard Way

Setup

To start, open the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com:

Amazon.com/myk/

Log in to your account, and switch to the settings tab:

Scroll down the page until you see the section labeled "Approved Personal Document E-mail List". This is the section where you will need to list all of the email addresses which you will be using to send content to the Kindle Cloud.

It looks like this:

Amazon wants you to tell them all the email addresses which are authorized to send content to your account. I bet they want to limit spam, so think of the email addresses which you plan to use to send content to the Kindle Cloud and add them one at a time.

One you’ve done that, scroll up that manage your Kindle page and find the section titled "Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings". It looks like this:

This is where you’ll find the specific email addresses for each of the Kindle apps and hardware. Did you know that you can send a document or ebook to a specific app or Kindle? That’s why they each have their own email address.

Edit: And as a reader reminded me, not all apps have a unique email address. The Kindle Cloud Reader, Kindle Windows 8 app, and the Kindle for PC app do not. The Cloud Reader and Windows 8 app also do not support reading your personal ebooks. Thanks, Timothy!

If you’re like me, you’ll have a number of devices and apps on your account. Make a note of which ones you use the most, and add the email addresses to the address book in your email account.

That’s It

You’ve now finished all of the steps to get ready to send ebooks to the Kindle Cloud.

In contrast to the setup process, sending the ebooks is very simple. All you have to do is choose one of the email addresses you just added to your address book and send an email to it with the ebook attached.

Addendum

Here are the documents you can send (the files have to be under 50MB in size):

• Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX)
• HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
• RTF (.RTF)
• JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
• Kindle Format (.MOBI, .AZW)
• GIF (.GIF)
• PNG (.PNG)
• BMP (.BMP)
• PDF (.PDF)

The PDF files will be sent without alteration, but all the rest will be converted to Kindle format. Also, the Kindle format ebooks will be mangled when you email them, so don’t be surprised if your pretty ebooks come out looking ugly.

It Could Cost You

Before you send any files, let me warn you that Amazon sometimes charges delivery fees. If you have a 3G-equipped Kindle, Amazon will charge $.15 per megabyte. Also, if you are sending content to your smartphone or tablet over a 3G or 4G data connection, your service provider might charge you for delivery.

Luckily Amazon offers the option of limiting to only delivering to Kindles over Wifi.  You can find it on the Manage Your Kindle page under the settings tab (Whispernet Delivery Options). You can also set a limit on how much you’re willing to pay for the delivery cost.

Don’t Forget to Enable the Archive Option

One of the features I like the most is that way that Amazon will add your ebooks to your Kindle account. It’s useful, but it also has to be enabled. You can do that on the settings tab of the Manage your Kindle page.

There comes a time in the life of many companies when the owners (or investors, or vulture stockholders) decide that they want to extract more profit than is healthy for the company to survive. This is one of the things killing American newspapers, and it’s even impacting B&N, and now it’s about to kill Patreon.

Patreon is fairly healthy, but apparently not profitable enough for its capital investors.

From CNBC:

The number of active patrons supporting artists on the platform in 2019 has seen significant growth, up 1 million over the last year, the company said. The company is also on track to pay out $500 million to content creators in 2019, pushing the company to surpass $1 billion in payouts since its inception in 2013.

Under the company’s current business model, 90 percent of funds are paid directly to content creators. Patreon takes 5 percent, and the remaining 5 percent covers transaction fees.

Patreon CEO Jack Conte said in an interview with CNBC that the platform will soon be facing the challenge of maintaining a profitable model as the company continues its growth.

"The reality is Patreon needs to build new businesses and new services and new revenue lines in order to build a sustainable business," Conte said.

The company does not currently provide contracts, which allows users to retain 100 percent ownership of their work and full control of their brand.

The company plans to provide creators with new "value services," like options for merchandising, to generate new revenue. Creators will be given the opportunity to participate in these services, and it could ultimately reduce Patreon’s generous 90 percent pay-out model.

What this means is that Patreon’s investors want the company to be more profitable, and if necessary they’re going to force the company to pay its users less.

Dan Olson summed it up Patreon’s near future nicely:

Like you'll sign in and there'll be six popups asking if you've tried Patreon Mega and extolling how it can help you mega-engage with your audience, while you're just like "can I have a commission button so people can make one-time payments?" and they're like "no."

— Dan Olson (@FoldableHuman) February 5, 2019

I do not currently use Patreon; I closed my account when they tried to jack up costs in late 2017. But I had been thinking about going back to Patreon in order to fund the blog through donations and pledges.

Now I think I’ll just still with Paypal (not exactly a nice company either, but beggars can’t be choosers).

The thing about Patreon not being profitable enough is that Paypal has a very similar model and they turn a profit on a smaller cut of the funds they transfer. Paypal only collects payment processing fees (the 5% transaction fees mentioned above) and yet Paypal is so profitable that they spun off Ebay as not being worth the hassle.

Of course, Paypal had a unique advantage when they were starting out; they were acquired by Ebay, which then forced buyers and sellers to use the service (when you’re growing your business, there’s nothing like having a captive audience who can’t say no).

Paypal didn’t have to squeeze their customers because their parent company had other ways to grow the business as well as a vision for handling payment processing for all types of businesses.

Folks, Patreon’s attempts to increase its profitability are doomed not because this is going to drive away users but because their niche is too damn small. Patreon only handles one small segment of payment processing (what are essentially charitable fundraising campaigns); in comparison, Paypal covers dozens of segments.

Patreon either needs to find a new niche, or find someone to buy them.

Squarespace might be a good bet, or possibly Automattic, or Wix. No, I am not throwing names out there; Patreon would need to be bought by a company whose goals complement Patreon’s abilities (think Square and Weebly, for example).

I hope someone does buy Patreon, because otherwise the company is going to be flogged to death by its investors.

When Google announced last October that they were sunsetting Google+, they didn’t tell us when they were going to turn off the lights. According to the emails Google started sending out last week, that is going to be on 2 April:

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts.

Google has posted directions explaining how users can download archives of their Google+ content to preserve it after Google has begun the deletion process. Any files stored in Google Drive or stored or backed up in Google Photos will not be affected. And of course Google’s other services such as Gmail or its search engine will remain in operation.

KS Brooks writes over at Indies Unlimited that they are relieved that Google+ is going away because it means there will be one fewer place where they have to maintain a presence. I have to say that I am indifferent. I had long since stopped paying attention to Google Plus, and in fact I had stopped sharing links there some time in the middle of 2018.

How about you? Will you miss Google+ when it goes away?

Remember back in 2014 when Sony exited the ebook market and handed their customers to Kobo? Me neither, but apparently a number of Kobo customers are about to get a reminder.

Kobo sent out a spate of emails yesterday informing certain Kobo device owners of updates (more on this in another post). According to one Kobo user at Mobileread, Kobo told Sony Reader owners that it would no longer support their five-year-old ereaders.

We have important news for you regarding your Sony Reader.

Part of our commitment to providing the best possible reading experience means keeping up with the latest advances in eReader technology and internet security protocols. With this in mind, we will need to discontinue support for some of our earliest products.

As of February 28, the Sony Reader will no longer be supported by Rakuten Kobo*. This means it will no longer receive software updates, and will not be able to connect to the Kobo eBookstore. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Rest assured that no items in your Kobo library will be affected; you will continue to have access to all reading material you have purchased or downloaded from Rakuten Kobo.

Read with Kobo with the free Kobo App

You can download the free Kobo App available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, and read with Kobo on a device you already own.

Kobo is a company built by booklovers for booklovers, and we will continue to expand on our reading experience, offering you cutting-edge eReaders, easy-to-use reading apps, and reading recommendations chosen just for you.

After Kobo took over support for the Sony Readers, they released a firmware made the Sony Readers compatible with Kobo’s system (I beleive Kobo also enabled a wireless connection to the Kobo Store, but I can’t find my post and could be wrong).

That compatibility is ending, but it’s not the end of the world. You can still read Kobo ebooks with your Sony Reader if you strip Kobo’s DRM or if you use Adobe Digital Editions to transfer the DRMed ebook to your Sony Reader.

My preference is to remove the DRM, but YMMV.

Kobo informed me this evening that they have retired the Kobo Aura One ereader, and have replaced it with the Kobo Forma.

Thanks for your note. Kobo Forma is taking the place of Kobo Aura One as our premium device.

The Aura one  is out of stock on Kobo.com, and Kobo’s retail partners in Canada, EU, and United States are no longer carrying it (TBH, I am not sure anyone actually carried it in the USA).

Launched in August 2016, the Aura One was an largely unremarkable ereader with a 7.8″  Carta E-ink screen. It retailed for $230, making it a decent value compared to the first Kindle Oasis, which launched in spring 2016.

The Aura One’s biggest claim to fame was the size of its screen (the largest Kobo ever shipped) and Overdrive integration. It was the first ereader to ship with this feature since Sony retired its ereader line, but the Aura One is not the only OD-equipped ereader any more. Kobo released a general update several months ago that added Overdrive integration to all current Kobo models.

P.S. The reason I am down on the Aura One is that I prefer another model. I think the Aura H2O was the better ereader because it had a much nicer shell. Alas, Kobo decided to go for bland shells after that.