| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.154.251.221 |
My real-time reviews of ebooks so far: The Far Side of the Lake – Steve Rasnic Tem http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-far-side-of-the-lake-steve-ra snic-tem/ Nowhere to Go – Iain Rowan http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/nowhere-to-go-iain-rowan/ The Haunted Grove – Tim Jeffreys http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/the-haunted-grove-tim-jeffreys/ WILD JUSTICE – Edited by Ellen Datlow http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/wild-justice-edited-by-ellen-datl ow/ | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.154.251.239 |
Erotic fiction taking off because of Ebooks: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9705000/9705312.stm | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
How are you finding the ebook experience, Des? I know you had been saying the paper book itself was an important part of the reading experience (same way I feel about it myself). Are you finding ebooks diminish the reading experience, as I guess you'd expected, or is that not happening? Just wondering, like. I don't want to spark off any more arguments about ebooks as I know there are a lot of people here who feel very strongly on both sides of the argument. But I just wondered how you felt about ebooks now ... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.154.251.239 |
I am far more positive about ebooks since reading them. Des | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Interesting! I wonder if I would if I tried it too? Possibly, but I have no intention of trying it as I have far too many real books on my TBR pile - an e-reader would just be a distraction for me, preventing me from reading those! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.154.251.239 |
Horror writer and scholar, Matt Cardin, on the demise of the print version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/on-the-demise-of-the-encyclopedi a-britannicas-print-edition/ | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 94.197.127.59 |
I've noticed a few anthologies that would have been small press print books are now going straight to e-book. I suspect that's going to be the future way of these things. I've also browsed a few of the books that first appeared as e-books and sold so many - probably due to the low price - that mainstream publishers have come in and produced print versions. Most of the books, you can see why they were turned down by publishers before selling well as e-books. But that said, an awful (ahem) humber of print books published by mainstream publishers are not as good as they should be. I recently read a bestselling crime writer's book and forgot about character and plot and started having more fun enjoying the grammatical clangers. No one's perfect, but sheesh, let me get through a page or two without laughing...! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.154.251.231 |
http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/liberating-efficient-utilitarian -bloodless-the-evolving-kindle-experience/ An interesting article by Matt Cardin. Not one-sided. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.154.251.231 |
Since my real-time reviews of the four ebooks in this thread's first post above, I've now added: The Two Sams by Glen Hirshberg: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-two-sams-glen-hirshberg/ The Book of Bunk by Glen Hirshberg: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/the-book-of-bunk-by-glen-hirshber g/ | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.148.168.131 |
http://www.britishfantasysociety.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2424.msg24831 Publicly written by a writer at above link: "The ebook side of things is showing signs of grinding to a halt. Whether this is due to the glut of free ebooks on the market, or just the natural end of a good period of strong sales, I don’t know, but as it stands, I’ll be losing a big chunk of my income in months to come." Is this a sincere personal perception or intrinsic reality regarding ebooks at the moment? I genuinely don't know. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.2.114.230 |
Certainly not our experience at Abaddon/Solaris. Sales still strongly growing. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I gotta say, as far as reading screenplays goes?... This Kindle Fire has been a total godsend! The experience of reading scripts on it is wonderful: the device is not overly-large and hence less clumsy to read like than the iPad; nor is it awkwardly formatted as the traditional e-Readers were for me; the scripts are in pdf, so it's like reading one on a computer, but not as lousy as the computer-reading experience. I actually enjoy sitting down with a script again, and I'll just bet these kinds of things are going to be standard-issue in time, in Hollywood, if they aren't already.... But alas, that's screenplays, which no one but Hollywood ever wants to read.  | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 82.35.230.27 |
Ebook sales of my novels have certainly seen a sharp decline. From two sales on the day of release to zero every day after. The only possible conclusion is that the ebook bubble has burst! | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.4.146.163 |
Based on that? Obviously! Seriously though, the general trend is upwards across pretty much all the publishers I know. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.148.168.131 |
Re-reading Stephen's post, I think he was being ironic. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.4.146.163 |
Yus, I did realise that. I don't think my tone came across right in my post. Which is, alas, the way with message boards often. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 82.35.230.27 |
Your tone was perfectly clear, Jonathan! Though to be honest, given some of the daft stuff presented as "evidence" in these ebook threads, I wouldn't have blamed you for thinking I was serious..! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.55.65 |
The ebook side of things is showing signs of grinding to a halt. Belgium has completely missed the boat as far as the Kindle is concerned. Apparently people prefer other devices, primarily the iPad. But I can't say I see a great many readers using those either. So far I've seen ONE student with an iPad. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.148.168.131 |
I, for one, am becoming more impressed with ebooks. I've just started my seventh real-time review of an ebook today. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.35.236.200 |
Des - in the Hunchback of Notre Dame Frollo, the bad guy, looks from the printed novel in his hands to the cathedral. 'This will kill that', he says. Change is jarring, and big. Hubert - loads of people read them here. I've seen more old ladies with them than anything. Funny how they can embrace the future while some younger can't (I still find it a difficult change myself). BTW my pc is so slow I can't start new threads. It's very frustrating. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.148.168.131 |
I've seen more old ladies with them than anything. ---------------------------- My wife always has her Kindle with her. And she's not old.  | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 82.35.230.27 |
Ranjna's Kindle is registered to my account (so we can share books) and so by changing the name of her Kindle via Manage Your Devices on the Amazon website I can leave her sweet little love notes...  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.145.228.10 |
Heard about this on the BBC World Service this morning: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/bookseller-calls-hay-e-reader-ban.html | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.100 |
I've decided to have a pop at putting some stuff up on Kindle. My theory was always that if my stuff was rejected it must be too shite to be in print and so should not be put into print. But seeing as I've a short book coming out at the end of July from Robert Hale, I decided I can reasonably follow the path an awful number of proper writers have taken and start putting stuff out as an ebook or two with the 'credentials' of being a 'properly published person'. Also, to be honest, if I carry on doing the same thing I've come to the conclusion I'll just keep getting the same results. I had thought of trying to go the Small Press route with some of the stuff, but it seems the whole arena is forever on the brink of warfare and life's too short for that. I had a couple of agents half-interested in representing me for a project I had on the go but they were honest enough to say it'll probably not fly with publishers for commercial reasons and I'd just have a big photocopying bill at the end of things. So, to DIY ebook I shall turn, more for my own satisfaction than anything else. I still have the feeling that self-publishing ebooks is a bit like masturbating in public, but I've read enough stuff recently to think an awful lot of 'proper publishing' is just a bunch of folk getting the publisher to toss them off in public. T'ain't Shakespeare - but that's just the way it is, as Horny Bruce & The Range put it. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.148.175.188 |
Congratulations on the Robert Hale book, Mark. des | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.85 |
Ta, Des. You could do yourself a favour and not real-time review it! Besides, I can't afford the £300... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.127 |
That said, Mick's already seen an opportunity in the marketplace to start a price war and is offering to review books for £150... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.34 |
What the ebook is offering me is the chance to write what I want to write while knowing there is an outlet for it. The result of this has given me a confidence boost and I've first drafted 19 new stories so far this year, a record and a half for me. As well as revise a 90,000-word book I'd been writing piecemeal. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.214.176 |
That said, Mick's already seen an opportunity in the marketplace to start a price war and is offering to review books for £150... I'm prepared to negotiate a discount for bulk reviewing too. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.98 |
He'll be on Dragons' Den next... Capitalist genius. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.214.176 |
...or The Apprentice:- You're fired, no... YOU'RE fired, no... You're FIRED! Yep, that's the one! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.130.103.73 |
I no longer own music. I Listen to it. I still own my books, though. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
How do you mean, Des? You got rid of your albums/cds? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.130.103.73 |
yes, 80% ofl my music is on iTunes or hard disc. Soon to be 100%. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
Oh, it frightens me that idea, leaving things in the hands of technology. It's funny - it feels at odds with your views on books. I can sort of understand it though. I'm just reading a lovely book by a Brad Watson - Last Days of the dog Men. A friend bought it for me nearly twenty years ago and I've only just started reading it. It's reminding me that 'formless' stories can work very well and be completely absorbing. And I know it sounds odd coming from someone who buys so many books and writes a bit but I've only really just started reading again full stop, a short a day while the wife is out doing keep fit and the kids are doing whatever it is they do. No telly, no radio. It's absolute bliss. This all reminds me of the golden seventies again. Not having so much stuff, seizing chances to listen and watch when we could. Do you remember Jack Howarth and his little shed? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
Not Jack Howarth. That country man with the beard and glasses. Had a hut by some tracks. Oh, dammit... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
This man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hargreaves | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.214.176 |
"Say what you will, the countryside is still..." | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
The last episode. http://vimeo.com/27971819 | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
It's incredible. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.97.32 |
I have a very early memory of him on HOW! with Willie Rushton and others. I liked that at the age of 6 or 7. I think some people are born old. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
What else have you been/are going to be reading, Tony?... Me, this year, I seem to have (mostly) fallen under the spell of detective/crime/noir fiction. I've polished off 20 books so far, not all of them good by any means. But I find myself really enjoying the act of reading lately.... Yeah. Books, books, books. Piles of them, tossed aside, more to read. And? ... People will say to me, "Does it really matter if the Knicks beat the Celtics?" And I think to myself, "Well, it's just as important as human existence." -- Woody Allen, in a recent interview ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303768104577462701821348564.html ) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
Proto, my youngest son has just started playing with the two kids next door, both quite younger than him, one by about two years the other almost half his age. I've never heard him sound happier. I think kids are at their healthiest when playing with a broad age range; I think it paves the way for parenting and responsibility, and makes the younger kids look up to their elders instead of fearing them. It's amazing what you realise when you have kids. Craig - I really have been struggling to read. Next on my list though is A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys. It sounds fascinating. I'm really enjoying the Brad Watson. (BTW I've just had two stories in a row accepted recently by upcoming anthos - I feel fantastic. This after having my own anthology proposition (to me, not from me) bite the dust. Still, it was a propostition for a while...) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Well done, Tony. I usually have at least two propositions turned down at every convention. One on Friday night and one on Saturday night. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.152.62.175 |
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| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
What's up, lad? Was it just the silence on this thread? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.151.109.99 |
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/web-hits-delete-on -magazines-12year-archive-7920565.html Sounds worrying for web archives? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.151.109.99 |
False alarm, I believe. So good news and all's well that ends well. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Fiction ebooks now outsell hardcovers: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/18/books-ebooks-idUSL4E8II5LB20120718 | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.178.159.240 |
There's some funny pricing about too. Yesterday on Amazon the trade paperback version of a book I looked at was £9.99, the ebook was £11.49. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
That's really disgusting, Mick. Charging more like that, for what constitutionally costs far less to produce. And is never going to be as palpably enjoyable as physical books, however much even I'm beginning to capitulate, reading things on my Kindle. I hate greedy fucks. Maybe for brand new books, I might relax it. But I often look up various authors' old books that have long since faded out of print, and they want these same exorbitant amounts? It's just going to make piracy fester.... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.254.98 |
Places at which I have seen people reading a Kindle rrecently: Dymchurch seafront. Costa Coffee in Ashford. Asda cafe in Huddersfield. A doctors' surgery waiting room in Huddersfield. King's Square in York. Back of a car (a Peugeot, though I'm not sure of the exact model) on Marine Parade, Scarborough. How many of the Kindles were displaying Fifty Shades of Grey, I don't know. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.196 |
"Back of a car (a Peugeot, though I'm not sure of the exact model) on Marine Parade, Scarborough." That made me chuckle! Time was, young folk wouldn't be reading a kindle in the back of a car on the seafront!  |