HogeTown

Apple iPad - the e-book shakeup begins

Author: Hoger

Well you can’t buy a device, there are no e-books on sale through the app store and it was only announced three days ago but as predicted Apple’s iPad has already shaken up digital publishing.

On Friday Amazon removed all books by publisher Macmillan - physical and digital - in a move industry insiders say is the culmination of an ongoing dispute over the price the retailing giant was charging customers for e-books on the Kindle. Macmillan wanted to set its own price (around $15) for e-books but Amazon had them locked in at a maximum of $9.99. That disagreement means you can’t currently buy any books from one of the world’s biggest publishers directly from Amazon.

Funnily enough Macmillan is one of the big publishers signing up to the Apple e-book store right from the start. And what’s the price Apple is letting Macmillan charge for an e-book? The magical $15.

While the New York Times rightly says there may be some anti-trust issues if Macmillan’s books went on sale through one of the stores and not the other, there’s still a bit over a month before Apple’s e-book store opens for business. My guess is that it’s Macmillan flexing its muscle now there’s another giant player in the market. Plenty of time for further negotiations.

I’m even more convinced now that the iPad as an e-book reader is a fifth order issue when it comes to digital publishing. All the uber-geeks are complaining because it doesn’t do this or it doesn’t do that. But this device is not designed to replace your laptop. It’s a device to let you consume digital media easily. And it does that well. I’m sure it will make a very good e-book reader but we’ve got plenty of them already.

While it could be months (or years) before Australians will be able to buy e-books from Apple, the impact across the digital publishing industry is likely to be felt much sooner.

Tags: Apple, e-books, iPad
January 30th, 2010  |  Posted in Publishing, e-books  |  6 Comments »

The Homegrown Hugo Nomination Campaign

Author: Hoger

American speculative fiction authors and their works get more recognition out of the Hugo Awards than anyone else because most of the time the annual Worldcon is held in the US. And good on them for it.

But with the 2010 Worldcon being held here our community has a great chance to internationally recognise the best work from Australia’s best authors.

Here’s how we can do it together.

Nominations for the Hugo Awards are open until March 13. You can help by nominating your favourite Australian work, writers or artists from 2009.

The works I’m highlighting and recommend nominating are:

Best Novella: Horn by Peter M. Ball

Best Novelette (two recommendations):
“Sister, Sister” by Angela Slatter in Strange Tales III
“Inevitable” by Sean Williams in The New Space Opera 2

Best Fan Writer:  Bill Wright

The John W Campbell Award for best new writer (two recommendations):
Peter M. Ball
Lezli Robyn

I think Jonathan Strahan will receive another nod for Best Editor (short form) and I encourage people to nominate him. I will be.

If you haven’t already read works by these people track them down and see if you think they deserve a nomination.

There are lots of other categories too. Check them out and see if you’ve got other favourite works worth nominating as well. It’s nominations I’m interested in and I won’t be campaigning like this to get particular people particular awards once the nominations are in. But let’s get some of our best authors out there on the international awards stage.

While nominations don’t close until March 13, you need to be a member (supporting or attending) of Aussiecon 4 by January 31 to be eligible to nominate works.

Spread the word.

About Aussiecon 4 and nominating: www.aussiecon4.org.au/
About the Hugo Awards: www.thehugoawards.org/

Tags: Aussiecon 4, authors, awards
January 28th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  5 Comments »

What the Apple iPad means for e-books - a first take

Author: Hoger

The good news is that the newly announced Apple iPad is a much more exciting device in terms of what it brings to the e-book game than it is an an overall computing device. In general terms it’s just an over-sized iPhone that has a few new peripherals (like a keyboard - hooray). But it still doesn’t support Flash and Apple has decided wanting a device that is capable of multi-tasking is just too 1980s.

But the interesting news is what it means for the e-book market.

The iPad introduces a new app called iBooks which links with a dedicated e-bookstore called iBookstore (enough with the “i”s already). It supports ePub as its native format! Apple adopting an industry standard is almost unheard of and it will be interesting to see if Apple allows access to ePub books bought for Stanza (or someone adds this functionality through a hack). They already have in place agreements with major publishers such as Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette.

But the device is not the issue - Apple entering the e-book trade is. These developments - support for e-Pub and Apple having a dedicated e-bookstore will mean a lot for the business. If only we could convince them to open the store up to non-Apple devices. 

What it will mean for the Kindle, who knows at this stage. But it’s 2.5 times heavier, thicker and larger, has a shorter battery life and there’s still that backlit LCD screen. I don’t think it’s a Kindle-killer. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a big leap for e-publishing.

Tags: Apple, e-books, iPad
January 28th, 2010  |  Posted in Publishing, e-books  |  4 Comments »

From the ‘You can please some of the people some of the time’ file

Author: Hoger

The announcement by Realms of Fantasy it will do a ‘Women in Fantasy” issue has opened up another round of discussion about how the under-representation of female writers in some short fiction markets can be addressed. The announcement that their August 2011 issue will feature fiction, non-fiction and art by female writers has set off a fairly wide-ranging discussion.

There’s not a lot of great data on this out there but I suspect some of the under-representation problem - though far from all - is a flow-through issue. Part of the reason female writers are under-represented in various anthologies and magazines may be that they are under-represented in the number of submissions.

And this is where I’m mostly interested in - and supportive of - the move from Realms. Announcing the issue so far in advance should encourage more female writers to submit. Hopefully that might go beyond just one issue but only time will tell.

Plenty of people are dissing the move and it’s also being conflated with a poor choice of language (which has been apologised for) when the announcement was made. But I think there’s value in it. Unlike a one-off antho, a magazine can address issues like this over time. And if this move helps redress an imbalance and encourage more submissions from a broader range of writers, all the better.

It would be an interesting data-set if Realms tracked their submissions on a gender basis this year and next year and see if the announcement has an impact on submissions. Either way, Shawna McCarthy is a great fiction editor and I’m keen to see what she’ll produce.

Tags: Publishing
January 8th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  3 Comments »

We choose to fake a trip to the moon

Author: Hoger

There’s one thing I don’t quite get about the people who believe the Apollo missions to the moon were faked. There are plenty of other - smarter - people who have discredited the claims that Hollywood had more to do with Neil Armstrrong, Buzz Aldrin et al going to the moon than Houston. And I’m not going to work through those claims one by one.

But here’s the thing I don’t get. If the moon landing was faked, why hasn’t anyone faked a Mars landing yet?

Surely the Soviets had plenty of motivation. They needed to restore pride in their technological superiority. And what about Nixon, during the dark days of Watergate? Or Ronald Reagan as part of a death blow to Communism? No one tried. The technology to fake a trip is better. People have more skills. But no one even thought about faking a Mars landing?

So while thousands of people in the 60s apparently lied about the US space program and pretty much got away with it, no one has ever bothered faking a trip to Mars. Makes you wonder.

Photo: h.koppdelaney

Tags: mars, moon
September 14th, 2009  |  Posted in Misc  |  2 Comments »

Rupert Murdoch wants to hold you hostage in a room with 1000 open doors

Author: Hoger

Rupert Murdoch thinks you’re a hostage to news.com.au.

He thinks that because you’re a hostage you’ll happily fork over funds to read content on his website (this is despite the fact you’re already contributing through the advertising he puts there) that you used to get for free.

His announcement today that News Ltd’s announcement will start charging people to access content on all its website is an interesting one. As others have already pointed out, it’s not paying readers leaving News Ltd papers in droves that are causing so much of the problem, it’s paying advertisers - especially classified advertisers.

Fine, Rupert, it’s your content. Charge for it if you want. But I’m not sure if your model will work. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. RSS - I already get my news feeds dumped onto one page for easy access. Now I’ll have one feed less.
2. abc.net.au, brisbanetimes.com.au, cnn.com, ninemsn.com.au, Crikey (okay I do subscribe but it has a lot of free content as well), the Huffington Post, Twitter…
3. Finding a model that works for mobile devices, not just desktops.

I might pay for some News Ltd content - a new feature from Trent Dalton or a column from Kathleen Noonan. But their general news reporting is often so atrocious that it’s almost worthless in the marketplace. And that’s why I found this quote from Murdoch so amusing:

“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting.”

Except, you’re generally not giving us quality reporting. Some of it’s outstanding. But most of it’s not. And people won’t pay for it.

If they understood the web better they might aready have signed up to AdSense and been done with it. You can read the whole story over at the news website (while it’s still free) if you’re keen. But for some reason, they’ve switched off comments on this particular story. Sure these people get the web enough to make this work. Sure they do.

Tags: digital publishing, meida, newsltd
August 7th, 2009  |  Posted in Journalism, Media  |  1 Comment »

August is No-TV month

Author: Hoger

My wife and two of our friends have managed to convince me to join them in a TV-free August.

There’s no anti-TV vent behind it - at least not for me. I love TV. Some of it’s great entertainment and some has superb writing. But turning it off for a month will be a good chance for me to regroup after leaving an extraordinarily busy job. I want to settle into a routine that lets me prioritise the things that matter most - writing and reading, and good conversation over dinner. Still deciding what I’ll focus my writing on but I spent some time tonight deciding my reading menu for the month. Here it is: 

Fiction

• Wastelands - John Joseph Adams (ed)
• The City and The City - China Mieville
• The Writing Class - Jincy Willett
• Lavinia - Ursula Le Guin
• World Shaker - Richard Harland

Non fiction

• The Content Makers - Margaret Simons
• The Dumbest Generation - Mark Bauerlein
• Ghosts of Manilla: The Fateful Blood Feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier - Mark Kram
• Critical Mass - Philip Ball
• The Craftsman - Richard Sennett
• Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness - Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
• The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
• Why I Write - George Orwell
• The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear - Ralph Keyes

Not sure what I’m looking forward to reading most but I’ll report back during August about how I’m progressing and how much dust the TV has gathered.

Tags: TV-Free August
July 27th, 2009  |  Posted in Reading  |  1 Comment »

Why does the Productivity Commission hate Sean Williams?

Author: Hoger

There’s a lot more in the Australian Productivity Commission’s report into parallel book imports than just their economic argument about cheaper books.

There’s been some good analysis of what implementing the recommendations could mean for Australian authors, booksellers and publishers. And there’ll be plenty more to come, which I might do a wrap up of next week. I don’t want to revisit those arguments now because, frankly, others have done it in more depth.

My interest today is Appendix F.

Appendix F is titled: “Design of financial support for book producers”. It analyses grants and literary prizes for authors and publishers. They don’t offer much of an explicit opinion on the Public and Education Lending Right schemes, which compensate authors for books borrowed from public and educational libraries. Except they make the point that most authors receiving payments under PLR and ELR get small amounts; only a few get the big bucks, which seems code for saying it’s not much use when it comes to author incomes. Many authors will tell you different.

Stick with me, I’m getting to the Sean Williams hatred real soon.

The Productivity Commission suggests, that instead of inefficient grants to individual authors and various organisations:

Subsidies to book producers ideally should be delivered only for books that yield material cultural and educational externalities that would not otherwise be generated. The externality value of books, and the likelihood that it would be generated without a dedicated subsidy, is likely to vary between classes or genres of books, as well as within them, and so ideally subsidies should vary to reflect these differences.

And which class of books do they say are likely to offer more value?

Among the diversity of the adult trade sector, Australian stories, histories and biographies are examples of books which are more likely to generate cultural externalities than generic fiction or some non-fictional material such as Australian-authored computer manuals.

There’s the hatred. Sean Williams - a great Australian storyteller - writes some of that dreaded generic fiction. No PLR or ELR for him. The Productivity Commission says instead subsidies could be dished out by a panel of assessors who - as they suggest - should probably give the science fiction section a big miss.

But it’s not just Williams. The productivity hates any number of great Aussie speculative fiction authors like Karen Miller and Marianne de Pierres. They probably don’t hate Margo Lanagan quite so much but only because she writes lots of those great youth-oriented page-turning cultural externalities yarns.

Though having a panel to assess subsidy eligibility is probably a bit inefficient. Here’s what they suggest could streamline the process:

An alternative approach to aligning subsidies with potential differences in cultural externalities of books, that may be more suitable for a broad book subsidy scheme, would be to distinguish book content according to generally accepted bibliographic classification systems.

Why bother with a pesky assessment panel - they may let a few genre books through - when you can just wall off the entire science fiction and fantasy section and forget about it? It’s kinda like saying you can go for a jog along any street you want but you’ll only get fit if your route goes through the rich suburbs.

So what type of books are likely to be Productivity Commission pre-approved:

Most obviously, the core ideas that were embodied in books such as The New Testament, The Wealth of Nations, Mein Kampf and The Female Eunuch have had major impacts on how societies operate. Truly ‘iconic’ works are rare, but some books have similar, though smaller, external effects through their influence on people’s views and attitudes.

But watch out for those negative externality generators

For example, some people would see Professor Ian Plimer’s recent book Heaven and Earth — which purports to debunk the scientific consensus on climate change — as generating external costs, to the extent that it weakens community support for measures to reduce greenhouse emissions. Most clearly, books that have the effect of promoting intolerance between groups can diminish certain forms of social capital and generate external costs.

Mein Kampf’s okay but don’t challenge climate change, okay? (And before anyone throws Godwin’s law back at me, just remember - the Productivity Commission started it). 

And here’s the biggest problem for me. The Productivity Commission started off making an economic argument. And there’s probably an important discussion to have around some of these things. It would be good to pay less for books. But why isn’t the Productivity Commission saying we should drop the GST on books, or force Amazon and other online retailer to pay the 10% tax and reduce their government-regulated competitive advantage. Lets discuss them.

Instead we get this nonsense - essentially an argument over what has literary merit. Stories matter to me, not externalities.

But clearly it’s important to them. So just in case they didn’t check - a note for the Productivity Commission: Cheapest I could find Mein Kampf on Amazon was US$1.46 (without shipping). But if that’s a bit much you can probably get it cheaper if everyone puts in and you buy the order in bulk.

Tags: Productivity Commission, Publishing
July 16th, 2009  |  Posted in Publishing, Uncategorized, politics  |  2 Comments »

To market to market with a hit like Twilight

Author: Hoger

I took this photo a week or so ago at the Brisbane Borders store. It got me thinking about the future of bookstores (as distinct from the book business) becoming more and more analogous to cinemas.

There are around 220 copies of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books here - and that’s on top of the display on the ground floor, the display in the science fiction and fantasy section, the display in the YA section and the posters promoting the upcoming release of the DVD. It’s no surprise there are reports that the Meyer books accounted for 16% of all tracked book sales in the US in the first quarter.

Many chain bookstores are already stocking fewer titles but the oncoming ebook swarm is about to make that even more profound. I suspect we’re going to see chain bookstores either devote more space to making it easier to buy ebooks instore (in the interim) and then move to stocking substantially fewer “hit” titles. The cinema analogy comes into play when you look at choosing a movie online or from the rental store, or going to see one of eight or 10 movies on the big screen.

Question is how fast it will happen and what it will mean for the book biz in the meantime.

April 20th, 2009  |  Posted in Publishing, e-books  |  3 Comments »