Astro the Robot

Amazon has invented a household robot called Astro, described as about the size of a small dog. It's "Alexa on wheels" but a bit more:

Amazon Robot

Astro can roll around the house with its camera, on a 42-inch arm, enabling you to keep an eye on children from another room. Or you can view your home remotely when you're away. You might use this feature to check on a vulnerable family member who lives alone. Like a tablet, it can play videos and access the internet. Like Alexa, it can answer questions. Its screen can be used for video chatting.

It can't navigate stairs, although (like the Roomba) it knows not to fall down them. Unfortunately, it can't pick up things. I suspect that ability will come along sooner or later. It can carry small objects from room to room, though, if a human user loads the objects, and facial recognition allows Astro to deliver its cargo to another person on command. It could be remotely commanded to take medication or a blood pressure cuff to that elderly relative who lives by herself.

Amazon's goal is for Astro to become a common household convenience within ten years. Even if you have $999 to spare, you can't order one right now. The device is being sold only to selected customers by invitation. Amazon's vice president of product says the robot wasn't named after the Jetsons' dog. The first possible origin for the name that occurred to me, however, was the robot Astro Boy, from a classic early anime series.

Considering the way people talk to their pets as if the animals can understand, I can easily imagine an owner carrying on conversations with Astro almost like an intelligently responsive housemate.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Problems with Monopolies

Cory Doctorow's LOCUS article for this month delves into a lot of background about markets and monopolies that's new to me:

Free Markets

He begins by explaining that the classic threat to the free market wasn't considered to be government control, but corporate monopoly. Adam Smith in THE WEALTH OF NATIONS warns of the power of rentiers, which Doctorow defines as follows: "A rentier is someone who derives their income from 'economic rents': revenues derived from merely owning something" -- for example, a landlord. Doctorow extends this concept to companies such as Amazon and Google, "Big Tech" in general, with the power to control "access to the marketplace." A monopolist, in this view, isn't simply a corporate monolith with limited competition; it's an entity "who can set prices without regard to the market"

The primary example Doctorow focuses on is, not surprisingly, DRM. In addition to the alleged purpose of preventing copyright infringement (at which he maintains DRM utterly fails), the relevant law "felonizes removing or tampering with or bypassing DRM, even when no copyright infringement takes place." Therefore, a buyer of an e-book (such as a Kindle novel) can't read it on any device not authorized by the seller. As a result, Big Tech, not the author who owns the copyright, gets "permanent veto over how my books can be used: which devices can display them, and on what terms." However, since all e-book platforms (so far) make DRM optional, Doctorow and his publisher have the power to sell his work DRM-free.

He discusses at length the very different status of audiobooks. Amazon requires all audiobooks released through its Audible program, whether produced by Amazon itself or some other publisher, to be "wrapped in its proprietary lockware." That's something I didn't know, since I don't have any audiobooks on the market and never buy books in that medium. In response to that policy, Doctorow turned to Kickstarter to release his books in audio format, and he analyzes in detail how that project worked out. He also explains how much more complicated it is to download and play an audiobook with an independent app than to buy it through Audible. I previously had little or no awareness of the hard line the Big Tech companies take toward "noncompliant apps."

I have an ambivalent reaction toward Doctorow's stance on Amazon. In principle, I acknowledge that dominance of a market by one company isn't desirable. In practice, as a reader I love knowing I can find almost any book I've ever heard of on a single website. It's a vanishingly rare occurence when I can't find a book listed there, no matter how long out of print. I also turn to Amazon first for many items other than books, music, and visual media. I like buying from it because of its reliable, usually fast delivery and because it already has our credit card on file, so I don't have to enter the information on unfamiliar sites. As a writer, for my "orphaned" works I like the ease of self-publishing through Kindle and the fact that the vast majority of e-book buyers are likely to read the Kindle format. At least one of my publishers feels the same way, having pulled their products from all other outlets because those sales were negligible compared to Amazon sales. Yet I do understand having qualms about being at the mercy of one powerful commercial entity's whims.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Why Do You Read a Book?

This question isn't meant in a philosophical or literary-critical sense. Rather, why do readers choose to spend time and often money on a particular book, especially if its author is new to them? Online discussions among writers frequently explore what factors most influence prospective readers to try a novel: Cover, blurb, plot synopsis, reviews, endorsements by favorite and/or famous authors, recommendations by personal or virtual friends? One factor not often mentioned, which I think can also have an influence, is reading author interviews.

My most common motive for picking up a book is admiration for the author's previous work. What about unfamiliar writers, though?

I've been surprised by the number of people who say they're heavily influenced by cover illustrations. The only effect a cover has on me, except sometimes to make me pause and think, "cool cover," is to draw my attention to a book I might not otherwise have noticed. After that, the synopsis and, if available, reviews and customer comments guide my decision. I would never buy a book just because of an attractive cover or decide against it because I didn't like the artwork. (If I did the latter, I would have had to pass up several of Stephen King's later novels, some of which have drab, unappealing covers that convey no information about the content.) So a cover might deter me from even picking up a book by an author I've never read before, but otherwise its effect on a purchase decision, positive or negative, would be minimal. The title has more impact on me in this respect than the artwork; an intriguing title will often inspire me to look more closely. I also like to sample the author's style, by either flipping through physical pages or taking advantage of Amazon's "Look Inside" feature.

Many people doubt the effect of reviews on sales. For me, reviews play a major role in deciding whether to take a chance on an unfamiliar writer. A review doesn't have to be favorable to inspire me to seek out a book. The important thing is that the review be substantive and informative. If the reviewer explains clear, detailed reasons for disliking a book, I may realize that the same elements she dislikes are things I would enjoy. In marketing my own fiction, I've often been disappointed by the apparent total lack of impact from favorable reviews. So maybe it's true that most readers are less influenced by reviews than I am.

In addition to reviews and other materials, LOCUS, which I buy mainly to learn about new and forthcoming books, publishes lengthy interviews. Interviews with authors new to me have sometimes inspired me to read their novels. For example, a recent mention of an author's retelling of BEOWULF sounded intriguing, but when I looked it up on Amazon, the description of a contemporary suburban setting didn't attract me. Yet after reading the author's discussion of that novel and its background in her LOCUS interview, I changed my mind and ordered the book. Online interviews from various sources have also occasionally incited me to search for and possibly buy books I wouldn't otherwise have known about.

Of course, recommendations from other fans who share my tastes play a major role in my reading decisions. That's a marketing factor authors can't control, aside from writing memorable stories.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

On Intellectual Property

Cory Doctorow has an unusually long, information-dense post this bimonth, about the background of the concept of intellectual property:

IP

He reviews the history of open source software and the shift toward increasingly stringent restrictions, leading up to the present situation in which taking the wrapper off a box legally commits users to agreements they haven't yet had a chance to read. He discusses in great detail the principle of "interoperability," which lets all railroads run on the same tracks, all brands of lightbulbs work in lamps from different manufacturers, in general all the benefits of standardization. "Interoperability lowers 'switching costs' –- the cost of leaving behind whatever you’re using now in favor of something you think will suit you better." This advantage to consumers, naturally, is something a lot of commercial interests would like to eliminate or minimize. Doctorow analyzes how companies such as Google and Facebook make it easy for customers to start using their services but hard to get out, sometimes impossible to do so without abandoning a wide network of services and contacts. He explores the differences among copyright, patent, and trademark and how those different "creators' monopolies" became bundled together under the single term "intellectual property" -- a development he disapproves of, by the way.

Market monopolists, according to Doctorow, often strip power from the alleged "creator's monopoly." Corporate monopolists also tilt the balance of power as far as possible from the consumer to the seller. The abuse of DRM, one of Doctorow's recurrent topics, is a conspicuous example. Laws against bypassing software, as more and more devices in common use become computerized, will inevitably lead (according to him) to this result: "Software isn’t just a way to put IP into otherwise inert objects. It’s also a way to automate them, to make them into unblinking, ever-vigilant enforcers for the manufacturer/monopolist’s interests. They can detect and interdict any attempt at unauthorized interoperability, and call the appropriate authorities to punish the offenders." Furthermore, "Even where tech is challenging these monopolies, it is doing so in order to create more monopolies." He mentions the Kindle program and Amazon's dominance of the audiobook market as examples.

This article contains much to reread, digest, and debate. Is Doctorow's concluding manifesto valid? "There are no digital rights, only human rights. There is no software freedom, only human freedom."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

What You Don't See (May Bind You)

First there was the "fine print"; then there was the probably intentionally mind-numbing scroll of all caps print, page after page of it; then, there were sites such as EBay that forced you to join their club and agree to all their Terms (which of course meant that you held them harmless) before you could defend your copyrights; now --perhaps-- you have to agree to THE TERMS before you can read them.

Perhaps I misread this from Peloton to musicians:
"Click HERE to log into your MusicReports.com account and review the proposed license agreement. If it is acceptable to you, simply check the box to confirm you have read the agreement, then click the “I Agree” button to accept the terms. You can then download a full copy of the agreement from the “My Licenses” page in your account."

Credits to
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/04/16/is-musicreports-license-pitch-for-onepeloton-the-equivalent-of-a-poor-persons-class-action-settlement-without-court-supervision/

The tentacles of Mark Zuckerberg reach into your portfolio, and lift your copyrights, and there is nothing you can do about the filching of your photographic rights if you post a picture on Instagram.

"A New York federal district court has dismissed a photographer’s copyright infringement claims after finding that the photographer gave Instagram the right to sublicense her photograph to the accused infringer, Mashable, Inc. Mashable used the photograph at issue on its site by embedding a link to an Instagram post published on the photographer’s public Instagram profile. In Sinclair v. Ziff Davis, the court decided that, by including the photograph in a post on her public Instagram profile, the photographer had..." 

... unintentionally given Instagram a legal license to "share" her intellectual property.

Legal bloggers David W. Holt and Ryan J. Letson, writing for the law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, discuss the unsuccessful copyright infringement complaint by the photographer, Stephanie Sinclair, against Mashable Inc.
https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2020/04/looking-for-likes-social-media-post-results-in-unintended-license-to-share-photograph

They offer great constructive advice, but the bottom line is "User Beware".

Legal bloggers Radhika K. Raman and  Jeff Van Hoosear examines the perils of snagging someone else's photograph, even if the photo is of oneself.
https://www.knobbe.com/blog/its-photo-me-celebrities-face-legal-action-unauthorized-use-images-social-media

"Social media managers, celebrities, and individuals alike should exercise caution before posting photos online for which they do not own the copyright rights. Often, a simple source attribution, or a small licensing fee, can save months of legal trouble later. While many disagree with the public policy or reasoning prohibiting celebrities from re-sharing photos of themselves..."

OR, find the photo on Instagram, and embed the link.

Mark Sableman says as much about the same Sinclair/Mashable disagreement, in his legal blog for Thomson Coburn LLP, "It's not infringing if it's an authorized embedding."

https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/insights/blogs/in-focus/post/2020-04-17/it-s-not-infringing-if-it-s-an-authorized-embedding#page=1

Or
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=139cc166-c3d8-49c8-add3-1a39725d7d2d

Facebook also, somehow, can snag Zoom users' information, even if the Zoom users don't have a Facebook account, or so it is alleged, and reported by legal bloggers for Troutman Sanders LLP Anne-Marie Dao, Wynter L. Deagle, and  Yarazel Mejorado.

Allegations include:

"Zoom sending data from users of its iOS app to Facebook for advertising persons [sic], even if the user does not have a Facebook account; The Windows version of Zoom being vulnerable to attackers who could send malicious links to users’ chat interfaces and gain access to their network credentials; Zoom not requiring a user’s consent before allowing the host of the meeting to record the session; The presence of a security flaw that would enable hackers to take over a user’s Mac..."

There are some precautions that Zoom users can take.  Read more on Linked In:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=013b92f2-4b1e-4dc9-89f4-8d78c3785a27&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2020-04-27&utm_term=

Or on the Troutman blog:
https://www.troutman.com/insights/to-zoom-or-not-to-zoomprivacy-and-cybersecurity-challenges.html


Legal bloggers Warwick Andersen, Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham, Allison Wallace and Max Evans collectively point out not only that some have alleged that Zoom's Privacy Policy does not disclose its leaks of users' data to Facebook but also that Windows users' passwords may be snagged.

Original link:
https://www.cyberwatchaustralia.com/2020/04/zooming-in-zooms-significant-privacy-and-data-security-risks-brought-to-light-again-and-again/

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3b6d57ff-bfb4-402d-9e66-9dd03f2d8513&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2020-04-17&utm_term=

So, even if you do everything right, and read all the "agreements" and "terms" and "policies" before joining someone else's Zoom meeting as an invited guest, your privacy and more is still likely to be violated.


It's more a case of seller beware (rather than caveat emptor) when it comes to Amazon. The Authors Guild provides a  perspective on Bezos behaving badly towards publishers and authors.
https://www.authorsguild.org/where-we-stand/amazons-anticompetitive-history/

And CopyrightAlliance continues to fulminate against immense copyright infringers and the senator who shields them.
https://copyrightalliance.org/news-events/copyright-news-newsletters/internet-archive-emergency-library-harms-authors/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=5fF52


All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Nuts

If you wish to read about testicles, this is not the venue. At least, not this day. Nor do I intend to discuss a staple of the vegan diet.

This is about copyright-related news that does not make sense.

Yesterday, on a very prestigious forum for authors, in a thread about ebook piracy, one correspondent opined, "It's just downloading..."

In fact, it is the downloading that creates multiple, perfect, illegal copies.

Meanwhile, on one of the most-watched financial channels, a panel was discussing Artificial Intelligence, and the scraping of social media sites for privately-taken and also commercially-taken photographs for commercial exploitation and facial recognition technology.

The one aspect that the anchor and panelists never mentioned at all was the massive copyright infringement.
Anyone who takes a photograph owns the copyright to that photograph. If you post a selfie, you do not automatically grant Clearview AI or anyone else a license to sell your face to the fuzz.

Sputnik news has the scoop:
https://sputniknews.com/science/202002061078248616-facebook-demands-facial-recognition-startup-stop-scraping-images-from-platform-/

Even that very informative article glosses over a very important term: "publicly available".
https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/publicly-available

There is a difference between something being available to view, and available to copy and re-publish and distribute.

Another nutty misunderstanding that is prevalent among pirates is of "public domain".
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public-domain

Just because someone uploaded an illegal copy of a novel to a website does not mean that that novel is lawfully in the public domain.  Not if the author is still alive, or deceased within the last 70 years.

Likewise, those who are curious about their ancestors and long lost relatives do not necessarily intend to donate to a government DNA database. If Heritage/Ancestry/ 23&Me keeps pestering you to give permission for your DNA to be used for "research", do not agree. They've probably already sold your DNA is a job lot and are trying to clean up their bases.

If you gave a spit, you'd better keep a diary, and have an alibi for every hour of every day and night!

Allegedly, Amazon is getting in on the use of  faked or fake people to avoid having to pay royalties to real people.  If one is famous --or merely attractive and popular-- and they have multiple views of your face and tracks of your voice, there's no limit to the liberties "they" can take.

Chris Castle writes:
https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/02/07/the-singularity-is-nigh-amazon-fake-brand-personality-follows-chinas-fake-news-presenter-with-us-right-of-publicity-infringement/

Also Amazon-related, there was one rare victory this last week against the inexorable incursions of Amazon and AI on authors' rights was that of the Association of American Publishers against Audible Captions.
https://publishingperspectives.com/2020/02/copyright-coup-as-association-american-publishers-succeeds-in-audible-captions-case/

Copyrighting anything including one's photographs is not as expensive as one might imagine. Wiki How explains the steps:
https://www.wikihow.com/Copyright-Photographs

Copyright.gov has the fee schedule in effect from 2014, (and one can copyright a batch of photographs for one fee.)
https://www.copyright.gov/about/fees.html

Act quickly. Copyright registration costs are likely to rise by more than 20% this coming Spring 2020. Except for batches of photographs. No increase is proposed for that.
https://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/feestudy2018/proposed-fee-schedule.pdf

Finally, the Copyright Alliance.org is asking (again) for action to encourage Oregon Senator #JustOne Ron Wyden to stop his opposition to anything that might improve copyright protections for authors, musicians and other creators.

https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/why-is-senator-wyden-the-only-obstacle-standing-between-americas-creators-and-justice/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=bOTw1

One of his felon-friendly* rationales for blocking the #CASEAct is that mere downloaders ought not to face any disincentive for "stealing" or "sharing" copyrighted content that the creators rely on to pay their bills #MySkillsPayBills.

Apparently, @RonWyden would also like to change Fair Use from a defense for defendants to a negative proposition --i.e. that the infringement was not fair use-- to be proven by the plaintiffs.

That's just nuts!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

*PS....copyright infringement is not a felony. 

What's In A ... Face?

Much ado about...  faces is my takeaway from this week's legal (and copyleft activist) blogs. Not that "faces" equate to nothing. Far from it. And there's a lot of  facial violation going on.

Facebook is doing it. Amazon is doing it. Bad actors in the advertising world are doing it. EFF would like you to worry, and they may be correct (but never right!).

Electronic Freedom Foundation policy analyst Matthew Guariglia highlights how bad Amazon's Ring is, especially for passers-by whose faces are caught up by a Ring-using household's surveillance device and shared for all time with the police without their knowledge or consent and without a warrant or probable --or improbable-- cause.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/five-senators-join-fight-learn-just-how-bad-ring-really

Nathan Sheard, also writing for the EFF,  has a follow up, calling for an About Face protest.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/about-face-ending-government-use-face-surveillance

Legal blogger Sean C. Griffin, writing for Dykema-Gossett PLLC, discusses a class action lawsuit against Facebook's facial recognition technology, which matches up faces in their database with unidentified faces in uploaded photographs, and suggests "tags" to link the photograph to the person allegedly identified by Facebook as being in the photograph.
https://www.thefirewall-blog.com/2019/11/facebook-seeks-post-spokeo-review-of-biometric-privacy-class-action/

The question is, does a person need a concrete injury in order to sue Facebook?

Perhaps eventually, Facebook will misidentify someone in the background of an uploaded photo of what turns out to be a crime scene, and then the proverbial cat will be among the pigeons.

Meanwhile, the British grocery chain Tesco got itself into hot water when it relied on a Getty image license for a photograph of a celebrity.

Hallam Whitehead, writing for Virtuoso Legal, discusses the issues at stake when commercial use (as in advertising) is made of a celebrity's face without her knowledge or permission.
https://www.virtuosolegal.com/ip-insight-things-get-scary-for-tesco/

Authors who want a celebrity on their cover art need to obtain a model release from the model in addition to a copyright license from the photographer.

There have been advertising campaigns that have tried to "get around" the problem of a perfect but reluctant celebrity by using lookalikes.

Legal blogger Barry M. Benjamin, for Kilpatrick Townsend and Stockton LLP lays out  the issue of "false endorsements" and what can be done about it.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/documents.lexology.com/5294934f-5f6c-4a50-a40b-91407fd14f72.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAVYILUYJ754JTDY6T&Expires=1574613881&Signature=%2Bd891%2FmV5%2BEPeiBPRmHBDB86P0I%3D

or
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c29600ca-8ef8-4ff6-a678-5a5ccb95b6f0

Also, author Po Yi, blogging for Manatt Phelps and Phillips LLP describes what Sandra Bullock and Ellen DeGeneres are doing to fight the pernicious problem of  "Celebrity Endorsement Theft".

https://www.manatt.com/Insights/Newsletters/Advertising-Law/Bullock-DeGeneres-Fight-Celebrity-Endorsement

This may not seem like it would affect us, but if we were to come across a photograph of a major influencer reading a paper copy of one of our books, a temptation would arise, wouldn't it?  Get permission!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

PS. For our European readers, please check your caches. The authors of this blog do not intentionally track you, but Amazon, Facebook, Google and many others do so.

Targeting a Readership Part 17 - Original Production Wars

Targeting a Readership

Part 17

Original Production Wars

Previous parts in the Targeting a Readership series:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

Readerships are a moving target, and the motion is getting faster with technology.

But then, so is the motion of the writers getting faster.

As noted previously, we live in a world where the social fabric is disintegrating and reforming rapidly.  One way to understand the change in social integration (and strength of the culture) is to note the changes in the decades between having only 3 coast-to-coast networks in the USA, (ABC, NBC, CBS) through the advent of Cable where new networks (Weather Channel, National Geographic, History Channel, etc) proliferated, bleeding viewers off of the three networks.

Meanwhile, the total population of the USA grew and grew, while access to television sets and broadcast channels peaked and waned. Yes, with Cable, and now Satellite, broadcast signal is getting harder to find, and what contents there just is not what is being discussed over business lunches.

This trend toward fragmenting the total viewership is accelerating with online streaming.  Gaming competes with Series Fiction productions, live sports from around the world, and so on.  There is too much for one person to watch everything.  Where you could watch 1/3 of everything (before VCRs when you couldn't record the other 2 channels), you could hold an intelligent conversation with anyone.

Today, we do not have that common thread.

It might re-develop, at least to bind segments of our total population into groups, but meanwhile the opportunities for new writers are proliferating at a dizzying pace.

New markets with new requirements are popping up all over.  Soon a number will fail, or be bought, and the number of scripts sold, the number of novels optioned for streaming-movies, will suddenly shrink.

The elephant in the room is Netflix.  You can get Netflix on all the "devices" (and many TVs have it built in) - Netflix pioneered and still dominates the marketing in the streaming industries.

Apple TV Example

This year, Netflix is building on its award winning history (which astonished everyone a few years ago), and now has not only picked up cancelled TV Series and continued them (such as Longmire), but is spending big on creating original content.








Netflix claimed:

======quote======

Netflix US
✔
@netflix
 .@Stranger_Things 3 is breaking Netflix records!

40.7 million household accounts have been watching the show since its July 4 global launch — more than any other film or series in its first four days. And 18.2 million have already finished the entire season.

217K
3:33 PM - Jul 8, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
38.4K people are talking about this

=========end quote=======

And immediately, doubt was cast upon that claim -- which to other streaming original producers is very scary, though to those worried about our fraying social structure and culture, 40 million is good news.

Here is an item discussing Netflix's reporting habits:

https://observer.com/2019/07/netflix-stranger-things-3-ratings-nielsen-data/

Remember Netflix is a publicly traded company.

Such public companies have been buying each other up at a mind-boggling pace the last 10 years or so.  The new combined companies own warehouses full of backlist material, potentially a gold mine as content-hungry streaming proliferates.

But the real money is in originals - which is where you and Science Fiction Romance come into the picture.  We have an opportunity here.

Here is an article about 2019's "in-development" list at Warner Media.

https://observer.com/2019/07/warnermedia-streaming-service-content-price-cost-hbo-shows/

Recently, the old radio turned broadcast TV turned Cable channel, CBS (after much not-so-polite buying of companies) ended up with the rights to make new Star Trek.  They used Star Trek to lure their target audience into subscribing to CBS-All Access and are withdrawing many of their backlist properties from Netflix (and elsewhere), making it so that you can only view their content via a subscription to their service.

Other elderly media giants are following suit.

But the new ones have made their subscriber base from streaming rented content from those elderly giants.  Now Wall Street is expecting the profitability of these new media giants (Amazon, Sling, Crackle, Hulu which just got bought, and many you've never heard of) to plummet.

However, the new original content created by the new streaming media companies is winning legitimate awards, and huge viewerships.

This fall, Apple is jumping into the fray, having spent a couple of years trying to duplicate Amazon Prime, Roku, Google, and other streaming delivery services while spending big time on new, original content for their Apple service.

To get the Apple service, you generally have to buy a little box to plug into your TV set -- and all of these services will be trying to leap to more pixels per screen and 5G internet speeds.  Then you have to enter your subscription credentials (username and password) into the App on the TV Screen.  You pay for the little box, and then pay monthly subscriptions to all the services you want.  Both Apple and Roku offer "free" services, but likely not the ones you want.

Tivo is in the same "little box" business, so once you have their DVR/box, you connect to the internet and use Tivo's collection of Apps to enter your subscription data.  Due to a lawsuit, Tivo has a Hulu App but you can't get "live TV" service via that Hulu App.  You can get Hulu Live TV via Roku's Hulu App.

What you can get, and what it costs you, depends on contracts and court orders, not the socially healing effect of the content.

They will all be producing hits, some of which will carry the Romance Themes which may be the most "healing" themes in fiction.  Amazon Prime has some hits, Netflix is rising in huge audiences for its hits, Hulu has had some original hits -- they all have.

The streaming services "original" production money is leaning heavily on novels, and series of novels, for material -- just as some of the very biggest, longest running TV Series from the Black&White days did.  Perry Mason was one series made from books.  Sherlock Holmes has been done in a lot of versions.  Many writers, popular and not, have had books made into TV movies, and
series.

Popular books are most likely to be chosen, so Romance is being courted.  Look at what Starz did with OUTLANDER,
https://smile.amazon.com/The-Battle-Joined/dp/B073XWVKSL/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Outlander&qid=1562864168&s=gateway&sr=8-3
then right in the middle of marketing OUTLANDER onto Netflix, Seasons 3 and 4 were withdrawn in favor of the new individual-channel-subscription offer.

Maybe in 2020 you will see the beginnings of the Cable business model (one subscription to a bundle of networks) take hold in the streaming space.

Meanwhile, independent authors with material that appeals to a narrow, but easily defined audience, will be able to market text-fiction to video-production.

The "exclusive content" wars will further shred our social fabric, but it might be possible that Facebook will provide the model for bringing us back together.

Google pointed the way by using crowd-sourcing to conquer spam.  We need a new way to sort the torrential stream of entertainment and information media.  Crowd-sourcing filtering might work to bring audiences together.

I doubt we'll ever get down to just 3 "everybody I know watches this" topics, but it seems to me Romance and its sub-genres has what it takes to bind up our wounds so we might heal.

Meanwhile, the war for Original Production Streaming Products continues - and the giants we thought were dead have come alive, eaten each other, and produced some new, voracious, media giants.  They are stealing content from each other, actors, production staff -- there is a tremendous and growing market for video-skills.

Think about the dynamic forces behind this article, and where you might fit into this war.

https://observer.com/2019/07/netflix-dwayne-johnson-the-rock-salary-red-notice-gal-gadot-ryan-reynolds/

---------quote---------
Early last year, Universal Pictures won a heated Hollywood bidding war when it agreed to slap down up to $160 million to fund Dwayne Johnson’s upcoming action adventure blockbuster, Red Notice, based on a pitch meeting and Johnson’s star power alone. No script.

That included a $20 million payday for Johnson, an eight-figure check for director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Skyscraper) and what we assume to be significant salaries for Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, who would later join the cast. Yet on Monday, in the midst of a progress-to-production timeline lapse built into the contract, Universal pulled Red Notice from its 2020 release schedule and shopped the script to Netflix, which had previously been an aggressive bidder.

-----------end quote-----

Who's going to win this war?  Probably not the consumer.  But you are a writer, talent-on-the-hoof, (very cheap talent; writers aren't the expensive part of movie making).  You produce the content these big guys are fighting over.  As little as writing costs in a production budget, you could fund the rest of your life by landing just one of these contracts.

What do you have that targets a specific, defined, precise viewership - that is of keen interest to just a few million people out of Earth's billions of people?

Remember, with Netflix in the game, "the market" is not the USA consumer but the entire world.

As we've discussed previously, video fiction is "a story in pictures" -- fewer words and more images.

Like a graphic novel, panel after panel of pictures unfolds into a story.

Many movies and now TV Series are being made from video games which are based on old comics.

Be the "old comic" of the 2020's so that in 2050 your source material will be the blockbuster, award winning, title of the year.

Be the original source of the defining Romance to build on the OUTLANDER series.

Say something new, that hasn't been said in Romance before.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Once upon a time, an online book seller began to sell a convenient device that made it possible for purchasers of that device (or others like it) to read myriad tomes of copyrighted intellectual property (books) conveniently, and quite cheaply.

As time passed, people who had bought that device or others like it, came to feel entitled to cheap and free entertainment, and they called the entertainment "content".  Then, they came to feel that public libraries ought to lend them "content" without any charge or restriction.

If they thought at all about the rights of authors to be paid, the thinking was very similar to the "let them go on tours, give concerts, and sell T shirts for a living" mindset that plagues elderly musicians who once thought that royalties on the timeless songs they wrote and performed in their prime would sustain them in their old age.

Library patrons claim that if they can read everything an author writes in e-book form, borrowed free and as soon as it is published, the author will benefit from the exposure and publicity.  Readers will read free, they won't even have to visit a library or interface with a librarian.

Apparently, libraries are worried about delays and wait times for e-book-reading patrons if new releases are "embargoed", and librarians fear that limited availability of new releases will make it difficult to expand and sustain their e-book programs.

Heather Schwedel writes sympathetically for Slate on these librarians' concerns.
https://slate.com/business/2019/09/e-book-library-publisher-buying-controversy-petition.html

But wait....  why is it a priority for librarians to expand their e-book programs?  Who benefits?  Patrons who have an urgent desire to read a particular book can visit a library, and borrow a physical copy. There is no embargo on physical copies. The librarians can buy as many physical books as they need, and the authors are paid.

Surely  physical patrons inside libraries are a good thing.  If patrons don't physically visit libraries, librarians could be replaced by chat bots.

Librarians' other complaint (in this case about MacMillan Publishing) is that a two-year license for one e-book costs $60. Is that really an outrageous sum?  Two years is 24 months. If a library allows each loan to last for 14 days, the one e-book could be read by 48 different readers.... more if some readers return the e-book more quickly.

If the book is new, or a very popular read, the library could limit the loan per patron to 5 days, or even to 2 days as they do with movie rentals. Over two years, that $60 could cover 360 readers, which works out at 60 cents per read.  It could even pay for itself if slow readers had to pay fines.

Apparently, chat bots are "a thing".

Writers can use them.
https://publishdrive.com/messenger-bot-writers-build-use/

Writers can develop a "chat bot" so their fans can have chats with fictional characters from books, with minimal interaction with the author. There was a time when authors were honored to communicate one-on-one with their readers, and readers wanted to interact with their favorite authors.

Is a bot really a satisfactory substitute?  What do you think?

One of the vanity publishers (at least, I assume that is what they are), is suggesting to their paying subscribers that they can use Facebook Messenger Chatbots to get "positive, verified" book reviews "on autopilot", and allegedly, this canny method will thwart Amazon's unceasing attempts to ensure that book reviews are legitimate.

The Authors Guild and Romance Writers of America author chat forums reflect authors' concerns that valid and legitimate good reviews are removed because Amazon bots cannot tell the difference between a friend and a fan, and bad reviews are given the respect of a bot, even when the "review" is by someone who has not read the book in question.

Piling on Amazon, there are complaints that the site is using its advertising power to give preferential search treatment to its own products.

Dana Mattioli writing for WSJ covers the topic thoroughly:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm-in-ways-that-boost-its-own-products-11568645345

Finally, and only for those who subscribe to the New York Times, there is an op ed by Richard Conniff  about book piracy, especially in academia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/opinion/book-piracy.html

It gives new meaning to old sayings about "being" or "getting" "on the same page"!

 

All the best,

 

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Erotica Dungeons, Infringing Flagpoles, Child Sexbots, Rampant Piracy, and Bubbles....Allegations

Authors have long been aware that their romance titles can be summarily sentenced and dispatched to Amazon's erotica dungeon without notice, trial, or due process. And, their ranks can be stripped. Or so it is alleged. The crime? Perhaps a bare manly chest on a cover.

Perhaps an alarming keyword, that might even have been added without the author or publisher's knowledge. As we see with "bedding", damning words do get added mysteriously.

Please see Samantha Cole's blog:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpjn4/amazon-erotica-best-seller-rankings-removed

Some take the problem so seriously, there is an app for that, or at least, a free service:
Adult Flag.

Yet, allegedly, Amazon is one of several venues that allow third party sellers to purvey lifelike child sexbots.
John F. Banzhaf explains on valuewalk.com.

https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/child-sex-dolls-amazon-youtube-instagram/

One wonders why those things are not in the infamous Amazon dungeon!

Also of possible concern to authors are the allegations that Amazon's CreateSpace provides a "safe haven" for textbook scams, money laundering, and rampant piracy. Nate Hoffelder writes:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/04/13/amazons-createspace-provides-a-safe-haven-for-textbook-scams-money-laundering-and-rampant-piracy/

And then, there are the paid,  misleadingly glowing reviews that Amazon's paid-review-purges miss, (versus the unsolicited, genuine glowing book reviews that are censored... not that this particular Washington Post article is about books), as discussed by Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-merchants-secretly-use-facebook-to-flood-amazon-with-fake-reviews/2018/04/23/5dad1e30-4392-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.764fb77d9b98

On the perils of selling on Amazon, legal bloggers Charlotte Duly and Angharad Rolfe Johnson of  the UK intellectual property rights specialist law firm Boult Wade Tennant analyze the legal consequences of Amazon product codes, and perhaps of Amazon "Buy Boxes"..

Apparently, a listing on Amazon that is created by one seller, may be used by subsequent sellers, and sometimes (in this writer's experience) new sellers are forced or confused by Amazon into using the same listing.

This happened to a seller of genuine Chinese flagpoles, and another seller of replica Chinese flagpoles. The problem was compounded by Amazon's "Buy Box" policies, which often give the "Buy Box" advantage to whoever sells a similar product for the lowest price. The replica flagpole seller was found liable for trademark infringement and "passing off".

Legal blogger Nina Goodyear for the international law firm Taylor Wessing  commented on an infringing act of selling beds on Amazon. Trademark infringement, that is. The unsuccessful defendants' defense was that someone else had added the claimant's trademarked brand name "Birlea" to the listing without their (the defendants') knowledge.

It is better to be a buyer on the Zon, than it is to be a seller!

Amazon is not liable for copyright infringing products sold on its website, as Cheryl Beise J.D. explains.
http://www.dailyreportingsuite.com/ip/news/amazon_is_not_liable_for_infringing_products_sold_by_third_party_vendors

Mark Schonfeld's  legal blog from 2016 for Burns & Levinson LLP asks, "What are we going to do about Amazon?" in the light of what happened to Milo & Gabby in a Seattle court.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e6cb18cf-8348-456f-9918-7bd9326011e6

Apparently, this applies even when Amazon advertises a product as "shipped from and sold by Amazon.com".... or perhaps not. Wade Shepard for Forbes discusses how the Milo & Gabby ruling might have given Amazon too much rope. Now Daimler may turn the tables with what Wade Shepard eloquently describes as "the most unglamorous smoking gun in legal history. Wheel caps."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/05/amazon-got-busted-selling-counterfeit-mercedes-benz-parts-now-everything-may-change/#86118b222005 link

If Daimler prevails, the dam may burst, and also an alleged bubble may burst. Michael Harris (a financial blogger) calls it The Mother Of All Bubbles, owing to its profits allegedly coming largely from its web services to enterprises such as the CIA and Netflix.

According the Philip Davis, the rest of Amazon lost a lot of money.  But, that's another story.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4166834-amazons-great-earnings-save-markets-doom

What fun!

Rowena Cherry

Reviews 33 - Sime~Gen Seen From Outside

 Reviews 33 - Sime~Gen Seen From Outside

I found this review of the first book in the Clear Springs Trilogy by Mary Lou Mendum -- a Sime~Gen Series trilogy - on Facebook and Amazon on June 29, 2017.

The second in the trilogy will likely be available soon, so I thought this review from the outside -- by someone who has not been writing Sime~Gen fanfic -- could be useful context for writers who have been following my commentary on what goes on inside a writer's mind.

We have explored how to take a news item, mull it over, turn it into questions, look at it from outside the framework of your own culture -- maybe from all human cultures -- and cast the resulting idea into a Theme you can use to build the World for an Alien Romance.

This thinking process is common to science fiction, and turns up in all the genres.  But it does not always produce something that resonates with a readership.  When you do hit a readership, sometimes you don't know it for decades to come.

We have also discussed how you know if you're writing a "classic"

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html

When a work stands the test of time, it can become a Classic.  If you want to write a Classic, you need to study Classics, but also the writers and their processes that produced that "Idea."  You can't use another writer's process, but you can use your understanding of their process to invent a process of your own -- and test it in the marketplace of Ideas.

Here is a view of the end result of the Sime~Gen Process by someone who was not involved in it.

He has given permission to post this review here.

-----------Review By Joseph Baneth Allen----------

Just finished reading "A Change of Tactics: A Sime~Gen Novel -Clear Spring Chronicles #1" by Mary Lou Mendum, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and Jean Lorrah released by Wildside Press.

I was delighted when Wildeside Press began reprinting the classic [previously published] Sime-Gen novels by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and Jean Lorrah. along with the previously unpublished ones that Jacqueline and Jean had written. Due to the success in sales of the reprints and previously unpublished Sime-Gen novels, Wildside Press has rather smartly decided to publish more new Sime-Gen novels, of which "A Change of Tactics: A Sime~Gen Novel -Clear Spring Chronicles #1" is hopefully the first in a long line of original Sime-Gen novels.

Mary Lou Mendum first began writing her Clear Springs Chronicles, which highlight the adventures of Tecton Donor Den Milnan and his cousin First Level Channel Rital Madz, in the Sime-Gen Fanzine AMBROV ZEOR back in 1990.

So when Wildeside Press wanted a new Sime-Gen Novel, Jacqueline asked Mary Lou if she wanted to expand her first two stories about how Den and Rital arrived in Clear Spring to expedite/herald a technology exchange of Selyn Batteries.

Now I may be wrong in this, but I do believe that it was Jacqueline Lichtenberg who first broke ground in the publishing industry by not only allowing fan fiction of her universe to thrive - but also allowing another writer, Jean Lorrah to co-write joint and solo novels in the Sime-Gen series. There is a strong argument to be made that shared-world novels and anthologies flourished because of her willingness to take a step, at that time, I don't recall any other author and/or publisher doing. Without Jacqueline Lichtenberg paving the way, I strongly suspect that the co-written novels of Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and other science fiction writers would have gotten off the drawing board. Success does tend to encourage more success.

"A Change of Tactics" examines who to adapt to the dual new situations of outright hatred and violence, and the willingness to chuck established procedure out the window when it doesn't work. It also challenges Den's and Rital's long traditional beliefs about how to reach out to people who have to worry about offending their neighbors. It also looks unflinching at religious prejudice and how to effectively combat it - something the Jacksonville Community Alliance could definitely benefit from.

How Den confronts and fights against the religious prejudice of Reverend Sinth and his followers is something rarely portrayed in science fiction - thought more in fantasy novels.

I am eagerly looking forward to the next Clear Spring Chronicle.
Highly Recommended!
Five Stars!

-----------end Review---------------



And don't forget, Book 13 in this Series is an anthology of stories by various writers, including Mary Lou Mendum.

Taking Names (And Violating Authors' Human Rights For Profit?)

By "taking names", I mean "taking" in the sense of misappropriating famous authors' and artists' real names or pen names, and without permission or compensation, taking and selling those names as advertising keywords.

In 2013, according to Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts, Amazon took the moral highground when debut authors attempted to exploit the names of celebrity authors (without permission) in order to market books.

https://www.amarketingexpert.com/amazon-making-big-changes-authors-beware/

Now, I hear, Amazon is cashing in, and selling celebrity author names as advertising keywords. Perhaps Jeff Bezos has (allegedly) lost his morals because Mark Zuckerberg is (allegedly) doing it? And getting away with it.

I am fairly confident that Amazon indeed may be selling names as keywords, because the Kindle advice forum is replete with advice on, for instance, how to pay Amazon to suggest to readers that ones writing is comparable to that of  JK Rowling.

https://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=245100.0

I took Mark Zuckerberg's name in this context because Hypebot suggests that Facebook sells celebrity musicians' names as advertising keywords, and Hypebot quotes the "litigation risks" paragraphs from Facebook's own  2015 disclosures to investors as proof.

Facebook allegedly warns stockholders that American and international laws about the use of (presumably copyrighted) content, and the rights of publicity (that is persons' rights to their own names and likenesses) etc. etc. are still "evolving", and Facebook could be sued and lose--presumably massively-- in court(s).

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2017/01/selling-artist-names-as-keywords-facebooks-misappropriation-problem-.html

Hypebot quotes Article 27 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.” 

In my opinion, that suggests that Facebook may violate artists' and creators' human rights for profit.  If that's what Facebook is getting away with, it looks like Amazon is getting away with it, too.

Facebook and Amazon probably have a high-placed friend in Senator Sensenbrenner (R WI ) who, according to The Trichordist, is proposing to strip copyright owners (at least, the beleaguered musical authors) of the right to statutory damages and to legal fees, even if they prevail in court in a copyright infringement action.

https://thetrichordist.com/2017/07/29/you-think-its-bad-for-songwriters-now-wait-until-the-sensenbrenner-r-wi-shiv-bill-passes/

That will put an end to copyright infringement class action lawsuits against permissionless innovators!

In my opinion, authors and songwriters and musicians should be explicitly granted the right to opt in to having their names sold as advertising keywords (opt out is more onerous, and leads to problems of payment if the search engines "cannot find" someone) and they ought to be paid royalties every time their name is sold as a keyword.

Since that is rather unlikely, and might even require an Act of Congress, what's to be done about it?

The legal blog of FR Kelly discusses reasons to trademark your name, or the names of your children.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4f7b84bb-f84c-490e-bf92-9aad96a93f3a&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-07-21&utm_term=

As they say, there may be money to be made from a name, so it is wise and prudent to make sure that the rightful owners of the name own the trademark. Otherwise, someone else could trademark the name first, and not only exploit it for profit, but also, prevent the rightful owner of the name from using it.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Marketing Fiction in a Changing World Part 18 Amazon Makes Some Bad Marketing Decisions

Marketing Fiction in a Changing World
 Part 18
 Amazon Makes Some Bad Marketing Decisions
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Amazon has a rule against writers "reviewing" books by other writers.

I'm an Amazon Vine reviewer, and a writer, and of course I know a lot of writers on Facebook, Twitter, etc. It's almost impossible for me to read a book by anyone who isn't a friend, friend of a friend, member of one or another writer's group -- somehow connected online.

Amazon's snoops can find those connections.

So they assume I'm just shilling for my friends' books.

Well, a lot of beginning, self-publishing writers do get their friends to post 5-star reviews, so they can amass 500 5-star reviews to brag about.

But guess what? If you know a person and are friends with them, if you LIKE a person, chances are very good you will indeed like the books or stories they write -- even if they aren't very well written, but just great stories that thrill your bones.

That is the nature of fiction. Fiction transmits from the subconscious of the writer to the subconscious of the reader -- when there is some sort of harmony of the notes between you, you LIKE each other's fiction.

I've spent a lot of time on this Alien Romance blog talking about writing craft, and how the writers' perspective on "headlines" and especially politics, and social movements, is vastly different from the perspective someone just living in our civilization experiences.

Writers see the universe as differently as Graphic artists do.

Writers experience reading fiction differently than non-writers do.'

You know you're a writer when you have lost all enjoyment from reading books, and then all of a sudden find yourself enjoying books again, but seeing something totally different.

Writers enjoy well crafted stories that shine with artistic brilliance.

Non-writers never get to experience that brilliance full on.

CAUTION: there are people, readers, who have never written or never published a story, who are nevertheless writers in this sense. They see, and revel in, the technical craftsmanship of novels.  Many such people end up working as editors. Even more are professional reviewers, librarians, teachers, and personal friends with lots of published writers.

So production of stories in text format is not the criterion I use, but it is the criterion that Amazon seems to use to purge the comments on a novel of any really useful information you might want before you buy a book.

If you're a professional writer, editor, publisher, etc. Amazon doesn't want you to inform the public about the brilliance or the flaws in a work someone might want to buy.'

But as it happens, the ONLY people capable of both enjoying a friend's works and judging that work objectively enough to inform a general reader are the very people Amazon prohibits from performing that service.'

In other words, Amazon has made a very bad marketing decision.

On the other hand, Amazon does own Goodreads.com, where writers and readers can interact.

So there is method to their madness, but it does not serve the general fiction reader browsing for something to read.

One of the most informative bits of information a prospective book buyer can have is a list of which other writers this new writer is friends with.  Who hangs out with whom.  Which new writers have been inspired by the writers you grew up loving most?

The generational hand-off of traditions in writing is one thing Librarians taught me to look for, when I was learning to browse a public library.

So today, I'm giving you a book series by a writing student I started on a long and varied career who is now garnering top awards attention.

Here is what I wrote on Facebook (back in February 2016) about the third book in his award winning series:

---------quote-------
Here is Book 3 in a Series that is garnering vast amounts of Award attention, and with good reason. It's about a human polymath from Earth who because of a labyrinth of political machinations ends up leading a First Contact and First Deep Contact mission into a well populated (and war-torn) Galaxy.

The worldbuilding is detailed, the space-war-armament development superlative, the aliens suitably strange and amazing (and mysterious), and I'm smitten with the portrayal of a polymath at work. Anything more I might say could be "spoilers" for some, so take a good look at this novel and dive right in. It's easily readable even if you haven't read the previous ones.

This series is getting Nebula attention. In some ways it reminds me of Cj Cherryh 's galaxy-building visions, or Janeen O'Kerry - in fact the galactic history building in Janeen's series on THE SALIK WARS and THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY is similar, though Janeen is known for her Romance novels.

I can only wonder if Robert J. Sawyer has read this whole series. In a way, the concept reminds me of Jack McDevitt with overtones of Jack Campbell Taylor Anderson - Author of The Destroyermen carrying on in the tradition of Keith Laumer and Poul Anderson.

So far the series is not a Romance, and does not feature a Love Story -- BUT Caine as a character is one grand hunk, and like Spock will become a focus for many Romance style stories.

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Caine-Riordan-Charles-Gannon/dp/1476780935/

---------end quote----
You will note that is Book 3 -- there is a 4th coming soon -- and if you have been following my series on Worldbuilding, you will find the Caine Riordan series extremely interesting.

Now, to an example of what kind of information Amazon wants to deprive shoppers of.

Here below is a comment made on Facebook by Charles Gannon after reading the anthology of stories written by writers other than Jean Lorrah and I -- contributing new characters and new angles to the Sime~Gen Universe.

Here is the book I gave him a copy of in exchange for a copy of his Raising Caine --- a common practice among writers, severely frowned upon by Amazon.



---------from Charles E. Gannon --------
If you are a fan of series and universes that unfold themselves over the course of multiple books and stories, creating a world in which you get immersed, then you need to be aware of this if you are not already:

The Sime-Gen series launched by Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Intrigue, exploration, adventure, house politics, and under it all, much larger, lurking questions of where different societies are able to find synergy--and where they are likely to tumble into devastating conflict.

Does this sound like a paid-for advertisement? Well, in one sense it is...because, you see, I have a debt to (gladly, joyously) repay that I will never be done repaying: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, for reasons I will never fully understand, took me under her writing wing when I was 12 years old. The attention and enthusiasm she lavished on those early efforts of mine was nothing short of Herculean. In a file cabinet not more than 25 yards from where I sit writing this, I have her first 7 pg (single space, Corolla type-written) critique of a story that was, maybe, about 80 % as long as her critique.

I knew at that moment what good fortune had descended upon me in the form of her mentorship. Or so I thought: until you actually are working in this field, you cannot fully appreciate the way a good mentor's initial lessons keep paying dividends, kept showing up to guide you like a footman's lantern down the better path.

It was also only later on that I fully realized what an extraordinary craftsperson she is, and how far-sighted her vision was of attempting to tell a story across a variety of media, over time: an exercise in world-building that preceded the gaming industry's discovery of just how many ways you can sell world-expansion and development products that create a total narrative in which the once-focal adventure products become small specific events that subtly push the warp and woof of the much bigger world-tapestry that has been created.

So, as advertisements go, this one sucks. It's too long, too personal, too gushing...yeah. I know all that. I worked in advertising. But you won't forget it--and that's the point. Because until you go and see what I'm talking about in the form of Jacqueline's extraordinary Sime-Gen saga, you won't know the extraordinary voice and vision that gave rise to this long paean of praise.

So: go here--and find out what I'm talking about.

http://amazon.com/author/jacquelinelichtenberg

And here's the Amazon page that is your gateway into this incredible world:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=sime%2Fgen&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=75077217077&hvpos=1t1&hvexid&hvnetw=g&hvrand=446465704877823808&hvpone&hvptwo&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_5unxioq485_b

The newest entry in the Sime-Gen series Fear and Courage is at the bottom of the page, and features some of the other many persons who Jacqueline has mentored, who have brought the voices she helped them find and refine back to this wonderful world in order to expand it even more.

Don't miss out.

------end quote-------

So you see, tracing the connections among writers can give you an amazing amount of information about whether you will enjoy a book or not -- all having little or nothing to do with the blurb on the book, the content, story description, spoilers, or other readers saying "I liked it" or "It was a page-turner."

As a beginning writer, cultivate connections with writers whose work you admire.  I learned from the generation previous to me. It is a long-long tradition going back to cave dwelling days and stories around camp fires.  We are bards.

Here is a permalink to Chuck's post on Facebook.  Glance through the comments for mentions of other writers his fans read.

https://www.facebook.com/chuck.gannon.01/posts/10205509232271667/

And here is a permalink to my Facebook post about RAISING CAINE so you can see the comments there.

https://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg/posts/10153341607837548/

It turns out I made a mistake picking names from the FB dropdown, and Janeen O'Kerry corrected me, adding Jean Johnson to the list of writers you should check out.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Fight Over The Right To Establish E-Book Prices

Few writers are unaware that there is a debate raging about the price of e-books. Some would say that a retailer may sell any item (that it has negotiated the right to sell) for any price it pleases...

... as long as it pays the copyright holder (or copyright owner) the price it agreed to pay the copyright holder (or copyright owner) for the privilege of acting as middleman.

The crux of Amazon's rant about fighting for lower, "more affordale" e-book prices cannot be about the price it charges to readers. It must be about the price it PAYS to copyright owners and copyright holders.

Also (and I will get to this later), Hachette ought to be giving Amazon the same price per ebook that it gives to a lending library, because when a copyright owner "sells" one ebook to Amazon, Amazon then assumes the right to lend additional copies.

Under copyright law, Hachette and any other copyright holder has an absolute right to set whatever price makes sense to Hachette for any given work it holds.

It is for Hachette to calculate the cost of acquiring, editing, proofing, publishing, distributing, and marketing any title in a bundle of formats. Hachette has no duty to sell at a loss or to subsidize another publisher (Amazon) or manufacturer of devices (Amazon) or retailer (Amazon) or for-profit subscription service (Amazon) or marketplace for used products (Amazon).

Nor does Hachette or any other copyright holder or copyright owner  have to give away any rights granted under the law.

BITLAW on the Distribution part of copyright protections for copyright holders. (Mostly with regard to physical products, rather than ebooks. As noted, First Sale Doctrine does not apply to digital content.... which is what ebooks are.)

The wording about "rental", "lease" and "lending" is of interest, given KU and Lending Enabled. Copyright owner have the exclusive rights to agree or not to agree to renting, leasing and lending and subscription models.

http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html

Distribution:

The distribution right grants to the copyright holder the exclusive right to make a work available to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending. This right allows the copyright holder to prevent the distribution of unauthorized copies of a work. In addition, the right allows the copyright holder to control the first distribution of a particular authorized copy. However, the distribution right is limited by the "first sale doctrine", which states that after the first sale or distribution of a copy, the copyright holder can no longer control what happens to that copy. Thus, after a book has been purchased at a book store (the first sale of a copy), the copyright holder has no say over how that copy is further distributed. Thus, the book could be rented or resold without the permission of the copyright holder.

Congress has enacted several limitations to the first sale doctrine, including a prohibition on the rental of software and phonorecords.

When Amazon talks about the price of ebooks, commentators should not overlook the fact that for many ebooks, when Amazon facilitates a "sale" (really a license to read), it often also acquires the right to make multiple additional copies available for LENDING by the reader who paid Amazon, also for backup, also for account sharing as noted in the Engelin revelations

 http://epubor.com/share-kindle-fire-books-with-friends.html#M2

http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/sharing-a-kindle-account-with-a-friend/

And http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/how-to-share-an-ebook-without-stripping-the-drm/

"it was revealed that up to six Kindles could share one account. The Kindles did not need to be in the same household or owned by the same person. Thus, according to Amazon’s interpretation of the Kindle terms of service, up to six Kindles can share one account and the digital copies attached to that one account."
Also http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx3CY8UVEMY3HUU "The problem comes with the number of devices a book can be on at one time. Most books you can put on 6 devices at a time, if you have more than 6 people in the club with Kindles then you will have a problem."

Also this http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/sharing-kindle-books-on-one-account.html.

My point is, when Hachette negotiates a deal with Amazon, it's more like licensing an ebook to a lending library than selling one product at a discount or wholesale price for the retailer to sell on once.

Nowhere in Amazon's rant is this acknowledged. Amazon ought in my opinion to be paying Hachette at least $14.99 for the right to distribute six or more copies for every one "sold" to a Kindle reader.
Possibly the existence of lending and account sharing may also throw off the rationale for pricing in Amazon's "Dear KDP author" letter.


CORNELL is also worth quoting.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Here's an interesting side note regarding copyright infringement;

(e) Involuntary Transfer. — When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11.²

Here we get to the matter of content (ebooks)

§ 202 . Ownership of copyright as distinct from ownership of material object

Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.

Here's the skinny from the Government, I think from Wikipedia.

The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.

The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.

Exclusive rights for copyright holders

• to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
• to import or export the work
• to create derivative works (works that adapt the original work)
• to perform or display the work publicly
• to sell or cede these rights to others
• to transmit or display by radio or video.^[28]

The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise those rights, and others are prohibited from using the work without the holder's permission. Copyright is sometimes called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit certain people (e.g., readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something they would otherwise be able to do, rather than permitting people (e.g., authors) to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit him/her to not use or exploit their copyright, for some or all of the term. There is, however, a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law that is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right.^[29]

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

My apologies that the above was somewhat repetitive, but one has to quote multiple sources.
:-)

Now, an interesting comment revealed the sense of entitlement that readers who own Kindles feel, and perhaps this is because Amazon sold them Kindles based on a promise of cheap reading?

What  George Orwell really said
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/orwell-is-amazons-latest-target-in-battle-against-hachette/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

"Customers have a lot invested in devices and internet connections..."   quoth one correspondent to explain why publishers and authors should accept less for ebooks.

Is it Hachette's fault (or the responsibility of any other copyright holder or copyrigh owner) that Amazon might have made a promise like that in order to market its own proprietary devices? Is it Hachette's duty to make good on a promise Amazon may have made?

Sincerely,
Rowena Cherry   (aliendjinnromances)
PS. Most of the Amazon letter (there was no copyright notice on it.)

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the 
foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when 
movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 
25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of 
copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy 
and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have 
celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and 
circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary 
culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many 
bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use 
unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. 
The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new 
paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them 
and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion. 

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary 
establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 
billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about 
e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being 
released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. 
With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no 
returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no 
transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be 
resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been 
caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far 
those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding 
with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly 
disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position 
that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” 
They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten 
times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up 
rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with 
e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They 
think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against 
mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If 
we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books 
actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that 
is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes 
down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books 
from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would 
sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, 
if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then 
customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue 
at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The 
important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties 
involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty 
check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is 
simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change 
can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are 
hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback 
books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this 
issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: 
“Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to 
this post are worth a read).  A petition started by another group of authors and 
aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered 
over 7,600 signatures.  And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and 
readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a 
healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another 
piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between 
large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. 
Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even 
acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in 
our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take 
authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) 
jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we 
suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this 
dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business 
operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy 
charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and 
repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their 
revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage 
from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making 
books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please 
email Hachette and copy us.
.....................
Please consider including these points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to 
overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like 
paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take 
them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not 
united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.
 
The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com