An LCD Challenger to ePaper?

Slashgear reports a different approach to ePaper, this one produced by Sharp. It's an eight-color liquid crystal display that can freezes static images after the juice is switched off. Sharp foresees a variety of markets for it such as grocery displays: by hooking the screen up to a Wi-Fi, store managers can readily adjust prices displayed to customers. It could also be competitive with emerging e-book applications once the cost comes down and some other issues, such as temperature distortion and power consumption, are resolved. The technology doesn't sound competitive yet with eInk but given Sharp minds, that could change fast. Read about it.

RC

A Screen So Thin It Flaps

And speaking of screen technology, check out Samsung's flat panel display; at 0.05 mm, it's so thin it actually flaps!

As reported by Gearlog, "The OLED display was made by using polysilicon TFTs and low-molecular organic EL materials. The panel is then sealed using a technology that employs sputtering method and doesn't use glass substrate. Samsung's flapping OLED display has a 480 × 272 pixels resolution, 200cd/m2 luminance and 100,000:1 contrast ratio. Just imagine watching movies on paper-thin displays in the future!"

Translation: A screen so thin it flaps!

RC

E-Reads Halloween Horror Festival Week: Day 5 - Death Cults

Dean R. Koontz described Dan Simmons's Song of Kali as, “The best novel in the genre I can remember. Dan Simmons is brilliant!”

In Calcutta, arguably the world's most crime-ridden city, nightmares become real and evil is defined by frightening occurrences. When an American family finds themselves encircled by the terrors of this land, lurid events befall them and life takes on a new meaning - death.

Winner of the World Fantasy Award, Song of Kali will chill the blood and frighten even the most jaded of horror fans.

- RC

E-Reads Halloween Horror Festival Week: Day 4 - Zombies

David Wellington has produced a trio of dystopian horror thrillers, Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet.

It all starts with Monster Island:

Welcome to New York City, Population Zero? The power grid has collapsed. There is no running water, no light, no heat. The massive neon signs of Times Square are dark now, and the subway trains crouch silent in their tunnels, waiting for commuters who will never return. An epidemic of staggering lethality has passed over the city and left nothing living in its wake. And yet the city is not deserted. The dead have returned to life, and they're hungry. The millions of people who once worked and lived in New York have been turned into cannibalistic monsters whose only function is to consume. No living person would dare enter the city - it would be suicide.

Dekalb doesn't have a choice. He must protect his daughter's future, and that means retrieving vital medical supplies from the UN building in Midtown. A cadre of teenage girl soldiers have been recruited to help him find what he needs, and get back alive. They're well armed. They're devoted to their mission and willing to sacrifice anything to pull it off. But the odds against them are staggering. Especially when it turns out that not all zombies are created equal. Deep inside the city a medical student named Gary comes back from the dead different - his mind is intact. He can still think and feel. He's hungry, just like the rest, but unlike them he can plan, plot, and scheme. He can even lead the others, bending them to his will. Soon he has a small army at his command, a growing mob of rotting corpses all devoted to one cause: to find meat for their master. When Dekalb and Gary cross paths sparks will fly, destinies will clash--and the future of humanity will be decided, one head shot at a time.

If Monster Island makes you sick with fear, you're ready for the sequels.
- RC

Military Developing Ultralight E-Ink Flex Displays

It's been said that the first applications of every scientific innovation are invariably sex and warfare. This one is about warfare.

The US Army is investing tens of millions of dollars developing light, electrically charged plastic display screens that can be carried in a soldier's pocket, replacing bulky, heavy and unreliable systems that compromise mobility, communications and rapid response.

"These flexible displays have been the dream of science fiction authors, wearable-computing enthusiasts and the display industry for nearly a decade," blogs Priya Ginapati in Wired. "LG Philips, Fujitsu and Sony have shown off prototypes of flexible-display systems, while startups such as Plastic Logic and E-Ink have talked about the possibility of putting their digital ink displays onto bendable backings. But so far the idea has remained more in the realm of Minority Report than the real world."

"For instance," continues Ginapati, "a soldier in the field could get information about the surroundings, the position of enemies or the blueprint of a building he or she may be planning to enter. Other applications could include the use of the flexible displays as maps."

E-Ink was developed by MIT scientists for use in e-books, and we're hopeful that it will prevail as much in peace as in war.

RC

E-Reads Halloween Horror Festival Week: Day 3 - Vampirism

Melanie Tem is a leading teller of beautifully dark, Jamesian tales, and Desmodus is one of my favorites.

In the shadows of the moon a bloodthirsty caravan is heading south. After a plentiful season of savoring the sweet taste of warm blood, the matriarchs sleep while the men carry them to their winter sanctuary. One boy begins the journey, a willing servant of the tribe. But, before the trip ends, he watches his faith in his vampire family begin to disappear. As a member of the weaker sex, Joel has always accepted his role as caretaker, but as the days grow colder his disillusionment builds. When Joel's loyalty is tested by his desire to save an innocent from his gruesome family's truth, he threatens to destroy the very thing he has always protected. Haunted by a relentless dream, Joel must decide where his real loyalties lie. Now as the tribe travels to their haven, their very survival depends on their weakest member.

"Melanie Tem may well be the literary successor to Shirley Jackson and be destined to become the new queen of high-quality, psychologically disturbing horror fiction." —Dan Simmons

E-Reads carries three other Tem horror novels and a wonderful horror story collection, The Ice Downstream.

- RC

Random House Changes E-Book Royalty Policy

In a letter circulated among literary agents, signed by David J. Sanford, Director Publishing Contracts, and Katherine J. Trager, Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel, Random House announced a shift in e-book royalties from one based on the list price to one based on the actual net moneys received by the publisher. "With the widespread use by consumers of electronic devices such as the iPod, the Amazon Kindle, and the Sony Reader, a significant market for ebooks and digitally delivered audio content is finally ready to emerge," the letter stated. "In response, Random House is making major investments in our digital infrastructure and is creating digital files of active titles so that they are available for sales as ebooks, as downloadable audio, and for Internet search and discovery."

Commencing December 1, 2008, the new royalty rate for sales of ebooks will be 25% of the amount received for all sales, Random's letter goes on to state. What does Random House actually receive? Most e-book retailers take a discount of approximately 50% of an e-book's list price. Therefore, the amount received by Random House -- the amount on which the new royalty will be based -- is about half of the list.

How does that play out in real dollars?

A recent Random House contract states that on all copies of a work sold as an electronic book, the royalty will be 25% of the US suggested retail price until the book's advance has earned out, and 15% of the list price thereafter. Under the current (pre-change) royalty structure, on a book retailing for, say, $10.00, the e-book royalty would be $2.50 per download at 25%, then $1.50 per download when the royalty rate shifts to 15%.

By contrast, the new royalty of 25% of the net receipts comes to something like $1.25 per sale on a $10.00 book (25% of 50%). So, Random House's change is definitely a reduction of e-book income for authors.

Random's justification for the change is "1) The new rates are very much in line with the e-book and digital audio rates being offered today by our major competitors... 2) The way the market is developing, the publisher's list price will soon no longer be a relevant basis for calculating royalties in the digital environment... 3) The electronic formats are not as inexpensive to produce and publish as many believe [...] We have made substantial investments, and we will continue to invest, in related digital infrastructure, such as the creation and maintenance of a digital archive, and in the development of the market for electronic formats... 4) The new ebook rate continues to compare favorably to the rates we pay for other formats in which books are made available."

By way of comparison, and as a matter of full disclosure, E-Reads pays a royalty of 50% of net receipts for e-book sales, and has done so since its founding in 2000. On a $10.00 book, that means a royalty of $2.50. At no point is the royalty rate ever reduced.

- Richard Curtis

Google and Publishers Association/Authors Guild in Major Settlement

In what could be a huge boost to the e-book industry, Google has agreed to an out-of-court settlement with the American Association of Publishers and Authors Guild, each of which brought its own lawsuit over Google's program of scanning copyrighted books. According to Publishers Weekly, which broke the story today on the heels of an AAP press release, Google will pay $125 million settlement and set up a new licensing system.

The press release is reprinted below.

RC

The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google today announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, would resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers as representatives of the AAP’s membership. The class action is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web. The agreement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.

If approved by the court, the agreement would provide:

· More Access to Out-of-Print Books -- Generating greater exposure for millions of in-copyright works, including hard-to-find out-of-print books, by enabling readers in the U.S. to search these works and preview them online;

· Additional Ways to Purchase Copyrighted Books -- Building off publishers’ and authors’ current efforts and further expanding the electronic market for copyrighted books in the U.S., by offering users the ability to purchase online access to many in-copyright books;

· Institutional Subscriptions to Millions of Books Online -- Offering a means for U.S. colleges, universities and other organizations to obtain subscriptions for online access to collections from some of the world’s most renowned libraries;

· Free Access From U.S. Libraries -- Providing free, full-text, online viewing of millions of out-of-print books at designated computers in U.S. public and university libraries; and

· Compensation to Authors and Publishers and Control Over Access to Their Works -- Distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google and, prospectively, from similar programs that may be established by other providers, through a newly created independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry that will also locate rightsholders, collect and maintain accurate rightsholder information, and provide a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project.

Under the agreement, Google will make payments totaling $125 million. The money will be used to establish the Book Rights Registry, to resolve existing claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees. The settlement agreement resolves Authors Guild v. Google, a class-action suit filed on September 20, 2005 by the Authors Guild and certain authors, and a suit filed on October 19, 2005 by five major publisher-members of the Association of American Publishers: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and Simon & Schuster, Inc.). These lawsuits challenged Google’s plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright owner.

Holders worldwide of U.S. copyrights can register their works with the Book Rights Registry and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions, book sales, ad revenues and other possible revenue models, as well as a cash payment if their works have already been digitized.

Libraries at the Universities of California, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Stanford have provided input into the settlement and expect to participate in the project, including by making their collections available. Along with a number of other U.S. libraries that currently work with Google, their significant efforts to preserve, maintain and provide access to books have played a critical role in achieving this agreement and, through their anticipated participation, they are furthering such efforts while making books even more accessible to students, researchers and readers in the U.S. It is expected that additional libraries in the U.S. will participate in this project in the future.

Google Book Search users in the United States will be able to enjoy and purchase the products and services offered under the project. Outside the United States, the users’ experience with Google Book Search will be unchanged, unless the offering of such products and services is authorized by the rightsholder of a book.

“It’s hard work writing a book, and even harder work getting paid for it,” said Roy Blount Jr., President of the Authors Guild. “As a reader and researcher, I’ll be delighted to stop by my local library to browse the stacks of some of the world’s great libraries. As an author, well, we appreciate payment when people use our work. This deal makes good sense.”

“This historic settlement is a win for everyone,” said Richard Sarnoff, Chairman of the Association of American Publishers. “From our perspective, the agreement creates an innovative framework for the use of copyrighted material in a rapidly digitizing world, serves readers by enabling broader access to a huge trove of hard-to-find books, and benefits the publishing community by establishing an attractive commercial model that offers both control and choice to the rightsholder.”

“Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, together with the authors, publishers, and libraries, we have been able to make a great leap in this endeavor,” said Sergey Brin, co-founder & president of technology at Google. “While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips.”

E-Reads Halloween Horror Festival Week: Day 2 - Mutilation

Karen Lockhart has been blind all her life. Now she can see with eyes given to her from a dead man's but with her new blessing come an even greater curse: terror.
Karen's world had been dark until a vicious punk named Eden Crowell was killed one night in a barroom brawl and doctors salvaged what they can from his ruined body. His heart went to an old drunk, his kidney to a young girl, and his silver-blue eyes to twenty-eight year old Karen.

For Karen, the darkness dissipates, but then the dreams begin. At first they are just slivers of terror, then they became visions of mutilation and murder, all seeming terrifyingly real. Now Karen realizes the frightening truth...Eden's soul is somehow alive and it is coming back for what belongs to him.

That's the profoundly disturbing plot of Eden's Eyes by Sean Costello. E-Reads carries three of Costello's novels, each just a little more disturbing than the last. Get them all!

- RC

E-Book Reader App for Your iPhone, At Last

Mac Life reports a promising new e-book reader designed to interface with your iPhone. Check out Ryu's Classics Collection Application. For now the demo books are all public domain classics, but if the app flies it could lead to an iPhone store for copyrighted e-books as well.

This latest development brings us closer to the day when Apple CEO Steve Jobs eats his words knocking the future of reading.

RC

Oprah's Kindle: "Absolutely my new favorite thing in the world."

Telling viewers that a gift of a Kindle changed her life this past summer, Oprah Winfrey gave a huge endorsement to Amazon's e-reading device in front of God and everybody. Well, maybe not God, but Jeff Bezos, who appeared with her on the program.

For viewers intimidated by the Kindle's list price, her website is offering a promotion knocking $50.00 off the purchase price through Friday, October 31st. That happens to be Halloween, but this is all treat and no trick.

Check it out.

RC

E-Reads Halloween Horror Festival Week: Day 1 - Butchery

In Butcher, Rex Miller brings back the heart-eating villain of Slob, Daniel "Chaingang" Bunkowski, the anti-hero you hate to love. After a seemingly endless term in prison, he is hungrier then ever to get his teeth into some bloody violence. The opportunities for mayhem were pretty limited in the maximum-security prison where he was being held for so long. Now that he's out, his keeper, Dr. Norman, is anxious to put him to work. He has given Chaingang an important task: hunt down and destroy the one man who is more savage than himself. Doc Royal has been living quietly in rural Missouri, successfully hiding his secret youth as a death-loving Nazi. However, his past is about to come and haunt his present, just when Chaingang arrives to distract him from his troubles...

If Butcher keeps you up tonight, you might want to read other Chaingang horror thrillers by Rex Miller.

RC

Can Your Book Publisher Become Your E-Book Publisher?

Yesterday I commented on a news item about a publisher, St. Martin's Press, that had released a book as an original e-book. I said,

It raises a provocative question for authors and agents (and publishing lawyers): is there anything in a conventional book contract that prevents your publisher from releasing your book originally as an e-book? Or, for that matter, exclusively as an e-book as opposed to print on paper? I would guess that the author of the St. Martin's Press book explicitly waived his right to have his book published first in a hardcover or paperback volume. But what about us garden variety authors? Could a publisher elect to go straight into e-book without our express permission?

After I wrote this I realized these questions only give rise to more questions.

Suppose that the St. Martin's book were not merely a one-time exception to the traditional practice of publishing books originally in print format. Suppose instead that it was the first step in a major shift among conventional book publishers - the Random Houses, Simon & Schusters, the HarperCollins, as well as the St. Martinses -- from launching books in hard copy to launching them in e-book format - indeed, to launching them only in e-book format.

This is not a fanciful question. Given the inefficient economies of print publication, and the efficiencies of digital publication, it is entirely possible that we could experience the same kind of shift that we are seeing in the newspaper and magazine business as the paper-reading generation gives way to a digitally-oriented one. (I am writing this on the day that the New York Times reported a 51% drop in earnings.)

If original e-book publication becomes not merely an occasional or optional event but a primary format - well, what does that say for the identities of the Random Houses, Simon & Schusters, HarperCollins, and St. Martinses? What does it say for the publishing industry? For editors? For authors? For -- omigod -- agents?

Just asking!

- Richard Curtis

Original E-Book Publication - A Loophole in Your Publishing Contract?

Publishers Weekly recent carried the news item that St. Martin's Press was launching its first exclusive e-book title, The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet by William Becker. Obviously it's a book about the environment and, as the news item pointed out, "releasing the title as an e-book would be the most environmentally-friendly approach." It sounds like a book everyone should read, and we applaud St. Martin's initiative for going straight to e-book.

It does however raise a provocative question for authors and agents (and publishing lawyers): is there anything in a conventional book contract that prevents your publisher from releasing your book originally as an e-book? Or, for that matter, exclusively as an e-book as opposed to print on paper? I would guess that the author of the St. Martin's Press book explicitly waived his right to have his book published first in a hardcover or paperback volume. But what about us garden variety authors? Could a publisher elect to go straight into e-book without our express permission?

Just asking!

I raised the question in a column years ago and raise it again now. It might be worthwhile for author and agent organizations to examine publisher boilerplate and, if I'm right, push to sew up this loophole.

- Richard Curtis

E-Books Coming on Buckypaper?

Scientists are exploring a multitude of applications for "buckypaper," a tissue-thin and steel-strong fabric made up of carbon nanotubes. Because of its strength and vast surface area - a gram of it could theoretically blanket about 3000 square yards - it may one day provide the vehicle for the e-ink that is the basis for electronic newspapers, magazines, and books.

For a fascinating article and video on buckypaper, click here.

- RC

A Megalomaniacal Computer Way Ahead of Its TIme

John Markoff writing in the New York Times (A Robot Network Seeks to Enlist Your Computer) describes the terrifying phenomenon of robot-herding cyberbriminals turning computers loose on other computers to take them over for the purpose of sending out email spam, mine for financial information, or spread viruses. For all you know, your computer might be one of these very "zombies".

Markoff writes,

Botnets remain an Internet scourge. Active zombie networks created by a growing criminal underground peaked last month at more than half a million computers, according to shadowserver.org, an organization that tracks botnets. Even though security experts have diminished the botnets to about 300,000 computers, that is still twice the number detected a year ago.

The actual numbers may be far larger; Microsoft investigators, who say they are tracking about 1,000 botnets at any given time, say the largest network still controls several million PCs.

As I read the Times article bells went off and I remembered a marvelous novel, Lingo by Jim Menick, which I agented a while back and have since reissued in E-Reads. "Lingo" was Brewster Billings pet name for the home computer he programmed with the ability to talk to its owner. In time Lingo's intellectual achievements began to grow exponentially, rapidly exhausting its existing memory. Given the fact that the novel was published in 1991, you can imagine just how limited Lingo's memory was -- four or five megabytes of RAM, maybe?

Then Lingo figures out how to penetrate the memory banks of the military's ultra-secret computer network and ballistic missile launch system, and suddenly this light science fiction romp turns scary dark, especially when US government officials threaten to pull Lingo's plug. The Soviet Union's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile command is on full alert in case Lingo doesn't take kindly to threats.

Read Lingo, then reread Markoff's article and contemplate the power of today's computer's and the possibility that they could do a Lingo of their own and shake hands with their brothers and sisters in the Defense Department. If you don't have enough worries to keep you up all night long, that's definitely a candidate.

The reviews for Lingo were glowing:

“In the end, Lingo turns out to be among the more lighthearted catastrophe thrillers to be conceived since The Mouse That Roared. It makes you think a little, and it makes you smile a lot.”
–-Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in The New York Times

“A witty, ingenious, and thought-provoking gambol with a Frankenstein monster in computer clothing.”
-–Kirkus Reviews

“A delightful romp into a funny but frightening world of high-tech probabilities.”
-–Chicago Tribune

“Wildly comedic...realizes your worst fear of a computer taking over the world.”
-–Los Angeles Times

“Hilarious...entertaining and thought provoking.”
-–The Washington Post

- Richard Curtis

Brand Names

Our society is heavily dependent on brand names for the selection of consumer goods, and the consumer of books is no different from the consumer of soap powder. Publishers are confronted by a serious problem in this respect, however, because when it comes to selecting books, the "brand name" of the publisher means nothing to the consumer. Oh sure, the average book buyer is probably more familiar with the names of Random House, Doubleday, and Simon & Schuster than with firms like Beacon Press or Chelsea House, but he or she does not prefer Random House books over Beacon Press ones. The book buyer has no brand name loyalty, and little brand name recognition: I warrant 90 percent of all readers cannot tell you the name of the publisher of the book they are currently reading. Readers who loved a recent Putnam book could not care less about Putnam books in general, and if the author moved to Viking his readers would buy his Viking books as avidly as they bought his Putnam ones.

For a discussion of the relationship of branding and publishers, click here.

A Peek Behind the Curtain at John Norman's Prize of Gor

"What man, in his deepest heart," asks John Norman, "does not want to own a female, to have her for his own, utterly, as a devoted, passionate, vulnerable, mastered slave, and what woman, in her deepest heart, does not want to be so intensely desired, so unqualifiedly and fiercely desired, that nothing less than her absolute ownership will satisfy a male, her master?"

In a letter about Prize of Gor, the soon to be released 27th novel in his phenomenally popular Gorean Chronicles, Norman reasserts the philosophy that has intoxicated fans and appalled conventional readers. As for the latter, Norman asserts, "Perhaps some people cannot even understand such things, such desire, such passion. Let them then cling to their tepidities. Gor is for those who do understand such things."

If you are among those who have cast off your tepidities, Prize of Gor will be a rewarding if not rapturous read for you. Its protagonist is an older woman taken to Gor and given a drug that restores her youth. What exactly is the prize of the novel's title? "Prize of Gor is a Kajira novel," writes Norman. "The notion of 'prize' is quite Gorean, given the typical Gorean celebration of the intelligence and beauty of the human female, a form of life so remarkable, fascinating, exciting, and desirable to the Gorean male that he is typically content with nothing less than its possession."

Hear John Norman talk about his heroine:

... a college professor specializing in Feminist Studies, and such, whom life, largely due to the constraints of her ideology, self-image, and such, has largely passed by. She has never known love, for instance. Her life is closing, darkening about the edges, a life, as she now suspects, largely misguided, worthless, and wasted. In her youth, however, she was incredibly beautiful, and was so even in her first teaching years. Have we not all seen photos of elderly women as they were in their youth, and marveled at their beauty?...Let us see how her theories hold up, once she is at a man's feet, young, beautiful, and collared. She will learn the ways of Gor, and, in doing so, will learn her lost womanhood and its hitherto neglected possibilities, glories, and riches. She will then find herself, to her astonishment, on this incredible and vibrant world, a prize, one to become no more than a domestic animal which, at the merest word of a male, must kneel, press her lips to a whip, and hope to be found pleasing.

Watch this page for more news about Prize of Gor.

- Richard Curtis

Another Victim of the Blue Screen of Death

As Jack Malcolm, owner of the Seattle computing firm Megasoft, is answering questions about his candidacy for President of the U.S., he is assassinated by a terrorist on national television. Just weeks later, Jonathan Goodman, an employee at Megasoft, witnesses a murder of another employee and watches the killer escape inside Building 9. But did anyone know he was there watching? Determined to uncover the mystery, Goodman and his new partner, business reporter Karen Grey, discover a major conspiracy.

That's the story line of Ulterior Motive, and if you're wondering if "Megasoft" sounds an awful lot like another company in Seattle, consider the author, Daniel Oran. He's famous at Microsoft for being the creator of the start button and taskbar. Or maybe all resemblances between the fictional venue and the one in Seattle are strictly coincidental. You tell me.

- Richard Curtis

William C. Dietz's Bodyguard Back in Paperback

E-Reads' rerelease of Bodyguard, William C. Dietz's science fiction thriller, is now available in paperback as well as e-book download. Just to refresh your memory...

Max Maxon is an ex-marine who makes his living with a gun. Sasha Casad is a rich teenager trying to catch the next spaceship home. Max's job is to get her there alive. Somebody's trying to stop them - somebody with plenty of money and firepower. That doesn't bother Max. A contract is a contract. Against all odds, he's going to fulfill this one.

And then he's going to make somebody pay.

Check it out along with nine other great reissues by this master storyteller.

- RC

A Fall Harvest of Jennifer Blakes

On the heels of five rereleased romance classics by beloved storyteller Jennifer Blake, E-Reads has released six more! You can download them or, if you prefer, order them in paperback format.

Perfume of Paradise
Prisoner of Desire
Shameless
Tigress
Tender Betrayal
Royal Passion

These bring the total number of Jennifer Blakes published by E-Reads to 28. Make sure your collection is complete!

- RC

Great Expectations: Book Advertising

If the discontent of authors could be likened to a pie, the largest slice by far would represent resentment about the failure of publishers to advertise, publicize, and promote their books. Although I'm fairly articulate when it comes to explaining to my clients why publishers do or don't do certain things, I'm all too often at a loss for an answer when they ask me such questions as, "Why would my publisher spend $25,000 to acquire my book and $1.25 to advertise it?" Or, "How could they spend $100,000 to advertise that dreadful piece of pornography and not a dime on my book about nuclear disarmament?" Or, "Why is my book the best kept secret since the Manhattan Project?"

We live in a world in which it is universally acknowledged that the most effective way to move merchandise is to hype it to consumers. In the publishing industry, however, most of the product goes un- or under-advertised, and even books that publishing people consider to be heavily pushed are ridiculously underboosted by the standards of most other business enterprises.

Not unexpectedly, publishers take a different view about book advertising. Click here to learn what it is.

When Microchips Collide: M. M. Buckner's Watermind

In November Tor will be releasing M. M. Buckner's great environmental thriller Watermind and if there's a drop of green in your bloodstream you owe it to yourself to order this breakthrough novel. It's about a brilliant scientist who discovers that castoff electronic chips and computers have not only begun to communicate with one another in pulses, but to combine with algae and other biota to form an intelligent entity with which the heroine is able to communicate. The problem is that not everyone considers the being to be benign. Norman Spinrad, reviewing it for Asimov's, describes it as "...a post-genre novel, a novel that works the interfaces between any number of genres, where the best modern fiction is now evolving."

A minor oversight in his review is that he calls Watermind Buckner's first novel. In fact it's her fourth. Indeed, of her three previous novels one was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick award and another won it in 2006. Visit Buckner's website for details.

E-Reads is proud to announce that it has acquired Buckner's backlist and will be releasing it in the coming year, so watch these pages for news of our releases.

- Richard Curtis

A Holiday Prize for John Norman Fans

John Norman's Gorean Saga is far and away E-Reads' most successful series. Originally comprising 25 titles, Norman added a 26th volume, Witness of Gor (pictured right),  in 2001 to satisfy decades of speculation by loyal fans that there might be another work germinating in the author's brain.

Since then, those fans have been back in the rumor mill wondering if there's going to be 27th volume. The answer? There certainly is, and I'm looking at the text as we speak. It's my pleasure to announce the forthcoming publication of Prize of Gor. I can't reveal the story yet, but take my word for it - it's well worth the wait.

We're rushing it into print in time for the holidays. Watch this space for more news!

- Richard Curtis

Good News for Jennifer Blake Fans

E-Reads has just reissued five novels by Jennifer Blake, one of America's most beloved romance writers. This brings the total of her books in our program to 24.

The new additions are available as downloads and will soon be released as paperbacks as well:

Love and Smoke
Joy and Anger
Wildest Dreams
Midnight Waltz
Louisiana Dawn

Go to Jennifer's E-Reads page on for a complete listing of her backlist titles. And for a romantic trip, click on her website.

RC

Watching Books

The blessings of submitting books by email are so obvious that it’s hard to imagine a downside. But indeed there are drawbacks and unintended side effects of this technological shift, and we need to acknowledge them. There is a vast difference between reading text printed on paper and text displayed on a screen. Thanks to television, the Internet, video games and computers, we have come to expect color, interactivity, instant gratification and a complete immersion of the senses from our screens.

Reading text on a screen without sound, color, or movement, one develops the uneasy feeling that something is missing. We wonder, Is that all there is? I’m not a psychologist but it seems more than likely that we are bringing to text viewed on screens the same expectations we bring to television, movie and computer screens. Indeed, something is missing! How can we not be disappointed - even, God help us, bored - when these blocks of words fail to stimulate the same intense response as a YouTube video? Are we trying to extract a linear experience out of a nonlinear medium?

For a discussion of reading books on screen, click here.

Kindle 2 Rumors Persist, Now With Pictures

A few weeks ago, Amazon was telling the rumor mills to stop buzzing about the next generation of Kindle and that if a Kindle 2.0 was coming at all it wouldn't be until next year. But now that Sony has announced their new PRS-700 Reader and it's getting all sorts of press, Lo! What should appear the very same weekend? Leaked spy shots of the next Kindle. Coincidence? Nah.

Granted, these are the sneaky tactics you expect in an election year, when it seems everyone is doing their best to play a game of one-up-manship. Presidents, banks, and reality TV contestants are all queuing up to see who can fail the most spectacularly in their efforts to win the hearts of all the Joe Sixpacks and hockey moms. However, we at E-Reads don't want to see either the Kindle or Sony Reader products fail. We love them both. They both deserve the limelight.

But the possibly fake/likely real Kindle 2.0 spy shots by "Boy Genius Report" make me think the device isn't yet up to par with the latest Sony Reader, and I'm sure Amazon isn't entirely pleased with seeing these pictures getting blogged at heavily trafficked Gizmodo.com. The revised Kindle in the spy shots has cleaner lines, but it looks more like a Star Trek medical tablet than ever before, and I assume all those buttons mean that it won't be a touch screen, like the new Sony. But it is reported to be sturdier and recharge via USB cable. Maybe Amazon is still playing catch-up, maybe they're simply refining a low cost alternative to the Sony Reader. Who knows what's really going on. All I know is that when your product has rumors and buzz, it's going to take on a life of its own in the public's mind. And anything that puts ebooks in the public's mind is good by us.

- Michael Gaudet

A 21st Century Man Accidentally Launched in the 20th

His name was Fereidoun M. Esfandiary but he changed it to FM 2030. Born in Persia, a man of dark and intense good looks, he lived and studied in London, New York, Berkeley, Lebanon, Miami, Jerusalem, Damascus, Los Angeles and a dozen other venues. But no city could contain him for long, and it is arguable that Planet Earth couldn't, either: his mind was simply too large. His philosophical explorations took him to places that even science fiction writers hesitated to venture, espousing Nostradamus-like predictions that have come to pass with haunting prescience.

His views and forecasts were both provocative and visionary and uncannily right on the mark. At the time he made his forecasts both in his books and in the media they were controversial and viewed as impossible. Now, we take many of them for granted. Just an example of some of his forecasts: in the 1970's and 1980's as everyone was concerned with the weapons race and security, FM's projections showed the reasons for the de-acceleration of the arms race; as early as the 1970's he anticipated the breakdown of Communism; while the Club de Rome and others made dire predictions, worrying about and raising alarms regarding scarcity of energy, resources, food and water, FM in an article published in The New York Times wrote about the Age of Abundance; in the early 1970's he carried out and anticipated our current dress down mode; his book Telespheres anticipated telemedicine, teleducation, telebanking, etc.; as early as 1974 he was lecturing and writing articles about physical longevity and the possibility of physical immortality.

He was worldly, unworldly and otherworldly all at the same time. Born in 1930, at age 18 he was a member of the Iranian Olympic team. In time he served on a United Nations council formed to address the Palestinian question. In the 1960's he began producing a unique body of literary work ranging from speculative novels to futurist manifestos to treatises about self-realization. His name-change was motivated by scorn for outmoded tribal naming conventions. He also believed he would live to celebrate his 100th birthday in 2030, a dream that was not to be realized owing to a fatal cancer.

E-Reads has begun to reissue FM's work in e-book and trade paperback format. His comic masterpiece Identity Card is a tragedy clothed in wit. In an attempt to flee his underdeveloped, bureaucratic country, a Middle Easterner searches for every possible way to obtain an identity card that will allow him to leave Iran, but his quest for freedom is soon mired in ceremonious formalities that reveal the fatuousness of modern civilization.

Another novel, Day of Sacrifice, was selected by the New York Herald Tribune as one of the best novels of 1959. It has been translated into eleven languages and is on the required reading list of the U.S. State Department. London's Punch described it as, "A splendid piece of work....What is so impressive about the book is the remarkable assurance with which it is written, the remarkable professional and philosophical assurance of say, Albert Camus, in "The Stranger," a book which it somewhat resembles....I find it a most distinguished novel on a most important theme..."

For more about FM 2030 read Wikipedia's profile.

- Richard Curtis

Sony Set to Launch Generation-3 Reader

An unforeseen application of Sony's E-Reader is as an editorial tool. To save printing costs and spare editors spine-strain as they shlepped five or ten pounds of manuscipts in their backpacks, book publishers recently began issuing Sonys to editors. They now simply upload book submissions and read them that way. The problem is, they haven't been able to highlight text, write notes, and otherwise do the thing that editors do best.

The next version of the Reader, to be released for the holidays, addresses those issues and more, though we're still far from full editorial markup capabilities.

For civilians who just like to annotate books, the new version of the Reader offers a touch screen, popup virtual keyboard, and (attention sleeping spouses!) built-in LED reading light. You can also turn pages by brushing the screen with your finger. Expanded memory provides capacity of about 350 books, far more with an optional memory stick.

Want wireless access? Go buy a Kindle; the Sony has forsaken it, at least for this latest round of improvements. And has the price come down? No, it's gone up. To $400, in the hope that consumers will like the tradeoff for the new features.

Mac lovers will have to go on holding their breath. Sony Gen-3 is still PC.

For a full description, click here.

- Richard Curtis

Music Hath Charms to Destroy Humanity

A virus created for biological warfare is overtaking humanity, threatening the very fabric of society as its victims are transported, by the emotional power of music, to a seductive dream world. Francis Lanier is immune to the virus and able to travel through its dream world in order to rescue others. Tintagle, Paul Cook's auspicous debut novel, follows Lanier through a series of ever more treacherous adventures as he becomes embroiled in the politics surrounding the virus and its cure.

Tintagle was hailed by Publishers Weekly as "an imaginative thriller," and the New York Daily News declared, “It ends with a marvelous surprise.” E-Reads also carries Cook's The Alejandra Variations.

- Richard Curtis