This is a conundrum, at best. With both sides staying pretty much mum it's hard to tell exactly what's going on, except that there's a war on e-book pricing. Macmillan feels that a 9.99 price point is to low and degrades the value of their books. The point they're not understanding, however, is that people that buy a 9.99 book for their Kindle don't get to actually 'own' that book. The Kindle's licensing agreement, you know that list of regulatory rules and gibber gabber that you have to click "yes" to, the form that everyone scrolls through in their rush to get onto the next page, it specifically notes that you are only leasing the novel. Theoretically as long as you have a Kindle, as long as Amazon supposes to support the Kindle, you keep that lease.
This is 'very' remanicant of the early days of the iPod and iTunes, when you bought the song, or album, and then they determined what you listened to the music on and how many times you could burn yourself a copy. The difference here, of course, is that with the Kindle you don't get to burn yourself a copy. There's no backing up the product.
I think, for such a tenuous hold on an item, 9.99 might, actually, be too much, when thought about in such terms. If the game plan changed and you were buying digital books that you could put on your hard drive and take with you, to whatever ereader came along, years from now, then 9.99 might seem too little. But, as things stand now, 9.99 is somewhere in the happy middle ground.
How this is all going down, however, is a different story. There are two stubborn giants in the room unwilling to see the other point of view. The consumer is in the middle, when, really, they should be the decider. If Macmillan wants their books to be 15.99 then Amazon should let them see what happens when a Kindle reader is forced to decide between 15.99 and 9.99, esp. when the actual hard backs on Amazon usually run under 20 bucks, as it is.
With huge corporations pulling stunts like this it's a perfect time for the indie author to publish their books to the Kindle and sell them for 5.99. In the end publishers might regret forcing readers to consider other authors.
Who knows.
*Update*
News release from Amazon
Dear Customers:
Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.
We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.
Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!
Thank you for being a customer.
*
That was fast and obviously, they see the point. If the publisher wants to take that gamble...then they should be allowed to. And, as I pointed out and Amazon followed, it's a holiday for indie authors. Any of us with unfinished books, out there, should be all over this.
About Me
- Patrick Holt
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Independent author and amateur beefcake
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Exorcise One
I don't know why I remember...(I'm to start off a small piece with that particular sentence and the subject shouldn't be anything big, birth and deaths and such, only small things that, on reflection, I have no reason for remembering.)
Here's a few I worked on last night (I was quite surprised at how trivial they were, truly, why do I remember these things?)
-
I don’t know why I remember my Mom doing her hair in my Grandmother’s mirror. In the grand scheme of things it’s wholly unimportant and using up, quite frankly, valuable space in a brain that could use more pertinent information. It was one of the few times she was home, as a child, and she was getting ready for work, which, if I remember correctly, at that time, was the Back Door Lounge, a dingy bar a few blocks down the street. I had been in there once and the most remarkable, or memorable, aspect, for me, as a pre-teen, was the painting of a nude woman, hung over the pool table, blond and sporting a tuft of hair between her legs, a real blonde at that. It reminded me of the painting of the nude woman that sat above the black mans bed in ‘The Shining’. She’s sitting there, curling her hair, a cigarette burning in an ashtray and the smell of hairspray permeating the room. And not just hairspray but the Aquanet from before the hole in the ozone forced them to change the formula. Her hair is in a pseudo perm thing, curly around the sides and pulled taught on the top, hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t lived part of their lives in the seventies. It’s a short snippet of a memory, nothing anchoring it to anything. My Grandmothers mirror is an old antique, though I suspect it wasn’t, looking thing, a vanity adjacent to her bed. It’s ironic, really. My Grandmother, who is bed ridden, has the only vanity in the house, and, as such, gets to witness everyone else getting ready for their dates or pretty themselves up before work. A random thought, brushing around like the scent of cigarettes and hairspray.
•
I don’t know why I remember the sound of frogs outside my last apartment, before I moved in with my first partner. I’m lying in bed, it’s hot, and the window’s opened. Outside, in the dark, I can hear both the river running and the sound of frogs. I had never lived in a place where you could hear frogs. I remember it being a hard time for me. I had just begun dating and had put some faith in a man that turned out to be playing games. I was alone and, for that reason, the sound of frogs, many of them, the sound of a team, working toward some goal, comforted me.
Here's a few I worked on last night (I was quite surprised at how trivial they were, truly, why do I remember these things?)
-
I don’t know why I remember my Mom doing her hair in my Grandmother’s mirror. In the grand scheme of things it’s wholly unimportant and using up, quite frankly, valuable space in a brain that could use more pertinent information. It was one of the few times she was home, as a child, and she was getting ready for work, which, if I remember correctly, at that time, was the Back Door Lounge, a dingy bar a few blocks down the street. I had been in there once and the most remarkable, or memorable, aspect, for me, as a pre-teen, was the painting of a nude woman, hung over the pool table, blond and sporting a tuft of hair between her legs, a real blonde at that. It reminded me of the painting of the nude woman that sat above the black mans bed in ‘The Shining’. She’s sitting there, curling her hair, a cigarette burning in an ashtray and the smell of hairspray permeating the room. And not just hairspray but the Aquanet from before the hole in the ozone forced them to change the formula. Her hair is in a pseudo perm thing, curly around the sides and pulled taught on the top, hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t lived part of their lives in the seventies. It’s a short snippet of a memory, nothing anchoring it to anything. My Grandmothers mirror is an old antique, though I suspect it wasn’t, looking thing, a vanity adjacent to her bed. It’s ironic, really. My Grandmother, who is bed ridden, has the only vanity in the house, and, as such, gets to witness everyone else getting ready for their dates or pretty themselves up before work. A random thought, brushing around like the scent of cigarettes and hairspray.
•
I don’t know why I remember the sound of frogs outside my last apartment, before I moved in with my first partner. I’m lying in bed, it’s hot, and the window’s opened. Outside, in the dark, I can hear both the river running and the sound of frogs. I had never lived in a place where you could hear frogs. I remember it being a hard time for me. I had just begun dating and had put some faith in a man that turned out to be playing games. I was alone and, for that reason, the sound of frogs, many of them, the sound of a team, working toward some goal, comforted me.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Making of a Story
Bought a little book this morning, not really, it's more like 600+ pages, called "The Making of a Story". I'm liking it because it has, not only, exorcises and tips, but it's inspirational too. I'm a fan of any book that teaches you the key to good writing is good reading. I'm of the opinion that schoolin' does not create a good writer, unless, of course, you're writing research papers. Creative writing comes from experience and free form thinking.
But, then, what do I know, I'm an unpublished author. :P
Seriously though, if there's any readers out there that are wanna-be-authors, pick the book up.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Golem
The first chapter from my soon to be self published book....
Prelude
The drive out to the lake had taken a bit longer than he had remembered it, probably because the group would always car-pool and so, he assumed, the company reduced the appearance of time. It had been the first he had ever been at the lake house by himself. It sat dark and eerily quiet, just the sound of wind, whipping through the tree tops, and the sound of the lake, washing up on the beach.
As though there was someone to see him and, as though, he was about to do something devious, he crept past the house, looking over his shoulder and jumping at the smallest of noises. An image of someone standing in one of the windows, watching him, kept running through his head. Pulling a mini mag-lite from his pocket he walked past the house and down the beach. Soon the trees blocked what little of the moonlight there was. He began to feel his feet sinking, slightly, into the ground and he knew he was close. The sounds of a trickling stream guided him toward his intended spot.
Water lapped at the beach, catching his pant cuffs, in their wake. Kneeling, his hands were ice cold, wrist deep in the mud patch, where the small stream trickled into the cold waters of the mountain lake. His lips were moving, as he recited the same set of words repeatedly, under his breath. It was important, he had read, to do this. Attempting his best at getting the incantation right, he found himself over pronouncing each word. It was a mystery to him, why he was so concerned about getting it wrong. The words were not his language and he was pretty sure that he was butchering each syllable. In hopes of finding some recordings of the words, he had gone online, so he could hear them spoken but, after a hard search, found nothing.
The shape below him was forming into a man, a large oversized muddy one. His freezing hands were infecting the rest of his body; the shivers crept up his arms and down his spine. It was summer but only for another few weeks and then fall would take the reins. In a week, when he and the guys would be up here, it would be a bit colder, still. There was a large coffee in the car, a travel mug with a plug in heater, to keep it warm. The idea of wrapping his hands around that mug, feeling the warmth filter back into his fingers, comforted him. Mosquitoes that had somehow lived past the days of warm summer sun swarmed around his head. There were light trails of mud markings all over his face and neck as he, gingerly, attempted to swat at them while trying to remain clean. By now, he thought, the mud had to be so thick the mosquitoes wouldn’t be able to get to his skin. The image he must be making, a man covered in mud moulding another man out of mud, struck him as funny. The flash light, illuminating the quiet night, bobbed with his silent laughter and began to dim, as the batteries died. His time was almost up. It was almost done anyway, just one more thing, a piece of the person it was modeled on.
Arms out, keeping his hands away from his clothing, he stood up and walked into the water. Then leaning over began to rinse his hands free of the mud and clay. Once clean, he pulled the object from his pocket and, moved back towards the mud figure, he forced it into the chest, where the heart should be, and then he smoothed mud over the hole. It was almost complete. Last but not least, using his thumb nail, he carved some letters into the things forehead. These had been easy for him to remember, without having to write them down. Having gone through a Kabbalah stage, at one point, they were familiar to him.
He wasn’t sure if his therapist would have approved of this work of art, she had suggested him to make. “Take your anger and frustration out in a creative way, write, paint or draw. Get it out, quit harbouring it.” He knew she had meant for him to do exactly those things, create a Rembrandt, make his own Picasso, or become the next Stephen King. Instead, with his inquisitive mind, he had gone home and typed ‘therapeutic art’. One link had lead to another and then another and soon he was looking at Golems. It wouldn’t ever walk, it couldn’t talk, and nothing would ever come of it, he knew, but it was the action, the creation, that he was capitalizing on. Through his efforts the anger that resided in his heart would be transferred into the mud man, lying before him, and then, with the next rain it would wash away. Symbolism, that’s all it was. The same way divorced women used to throw their wedding rings into the Truckee river, running through Reno, Nevada, back when Reno was the divorce capital of the world, he would throw this memento, of his betrayed love, into the mud effigy and let nature cleanse him of the hurt.
Feeling strange, he stood up, the hairs on his body were raised and his goose pimples followed suit. It was as though electricity were coursing through his body. Looking up he scanned the skies, thinking a storm must be brewing. This high up in the mountains, he knew, storms could approach without warning and lightning was a dangerous thing. But all was clear, not a cloud to be seen, only the stars were looking back at him. It must be working, he thought, all that negative energy leaving his body, dispersed back into the world from whence it came. Already, he felt better. This might work; he could sense the success in the air. For once, therapy was paying off.
Cool, he thought.
Prelude
The drive out to the lake had taken a bit longer than he had remembered it, probably because the group would always car-pool and so, he assumed, the company reduced the appearance of time. It had been the first he had ever been at the lake house by himself. It sat dark and eerily quiet, just the sound of wind, whipping through the tree tops, and the sound of the lake, washing up on the beach.
As though there was someone to see him and, as though, he was about to do something devious, he crept past the house, looking over his shoulder and jumping at the smallest of noises. An image of someone standing in one of the windows, watching him, kept running through his head. Pulling a mini mag-lite from his pocket he walked past the house and down the beach. Soon the trees blocked what little of the moonlight there was. He began to feel his feet sinking, slightly, into the ground and he knew he was close. The sounds of a trickling stream guided him toward his intended spot.
Water lapped at the beach, catching his pant cuffs, in their wake. Kneeling, his hands were ice cold, wrist deep in the mud patch, where the small stream trickled into the cold waters of the mountain lake. His lips were moving, as he recited the same set of words repeatedly, under his breath. It was important, he had read, to do this. Attempting his best at getting the incantation right, he found himself over pronouncing each word. It was a mystery to him, why he was so concerned about getting it wrong. The words were not his language and he was pretty sure that he was butchering each syllable. In hopes of finding some recordings of the words, he had gone online, so he could hear them spoken but, after a hard search, found nothing.
The shape below him was forming into a man, a large oversized muddy one. His freezing hands were infecting the rest of his body; the shivers crept up his arms and down his spine. It was summer but only for another few weeks and then fall would take the reins. In a week, when he and the guys would be up here, it would be a bit colder, still. There was a large coffee in the car, a travel mug with a plug in heater, to keep it warm. The idea of wrapping his hands around that mug, feeling the warmth filter back into his fingers, comforted him. Mosquitoes that had somehow lived past the days of warm summer sun swarmed around his head. There were light trails of mud markings all over his face and neck as he, gingerly, attempted to swat at them while trying to remain clean. By now, he thought, the mud had to be so thick the mosquitoes wouldn’t be able to get to his skin. The image he must be making, a man covered in mud moulding another man out of mud, struck him as funny. The flash light, illuminating the quiet night, bobbed with his silent laughter and began to dim, as the batteries died. His time was almost up. It was almost done anyway, just one more thing, a piece of the person it was modeled on.
Arms out, keeping his hands away from his clothing, he stood up and walked into the water. Then leaning over began to rinse his hands free of the mud and clay. Once clean, he pulled the object from his pocket and, moved back towards the mud figure, he forced it into the chest, where the heart should be, and then he smoothed mud over the hole. It was almost complete. Last but not least, using his thumb nail, he carved some letters into the things forehead. These had been easy for him to remember, without having to write them down. Having gone through a Kabbalah stage, at one point, they were familiar to him.
He wasn’t sure if his therapist would have approved of this work of art, she had suggested him to make. “Take your anger and frustration out in a creative way, write, paint or draw. Get it out, quit harbouring it.” He knew she had meant for him to do exactly those things, create a Rembrandt, make his own Picasso, or become the next Stephen King. Instead, with his inquisitive mind, he had gone home and typed ‘therapeutic art’. One link had lead to another and then another and soon he was looking at Golems. It wouldn’t ever walk, it couldn’t talk, and nothing would ever come of it, he knew, but it was the action, the creation, that he was capitalizing on. Through his efforts the anger that resided in his heart would be transferred into the mud man, lying before him, and then, with the next rain it would wash away. Symbolism, that’s all it was. The same way divorced women used to throw their wedding rings into the Truckee river, running through Reno, Nevada, back when Reno was the divorce capital of the world, he would throw this memento, of his betrayed love, into the mud effigy and let nature cleanse him of the hurt.
Feeling strange, he stood up, the hairs on his body were raised and his goose pimples followed suit. It was as though electricity were coursing through his body. Looking up he scanned the skies, thinking a storm must be brewing. This high up in the mountains, he knew, storms could approach without warning and lightning was a dangerous thing. But all was clear, not a cloud to be seen, only the stars were looking back at him. It must be working, he thought, all that negative energy leaving his body, dispersed back into the world from whence it came. Already, he felt better. This might work; he could sense the success in the air. For once, therapy was paying off.
Cool, he thought.
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