The past 10 years have seen a lot of changes in the publishing world. The biggest change of them all is ebooks. 10 years ago ebooks were a still a novelty enjoyed by mostly techies/geeks and were a popular product for online multi-level marketing schemes where ebook topics dealt mostly with get-quick-rich marketing methods and the like. The ebooks were of poor quality and filled with grammar/spelling errors. This probably did more to damage the reputation of ebooks than anything else.

Fast forward to 2009 and ebooks are becoming much more mainstream (still a small segment of the publishing industry, but growing) and publishers are now scrambling to figure out how to deal with this new form of consuming our favorite literary works. Add to that the family of ebook readers from Sony, Amazon and now Barnes & Noble, I think it’s safe to say that ebooks aren’t going anywhere.

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I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone on the intertubes a happy holiday! The snow has been falling in the Chicago area, meaning we might have a white Christmas this year – but playing havoc with the roads.  I’m planning to lay low, visit some family and try to relax as much as I can.

I also plan on getting a lot of writing done. I have two fiction projects I desperately want to finish so I can make them available on Smashwords (aff link) as soon as possible. These two works will be available for free so everyone can sample my fiction without forking over your hard earned cash

Have a great holiday over the next few days and please stay safe. I’ll back to my usual posting schedule either this weekend or early next week.

- Brad

P.S. There will be no Friday Link Love this week.

One week from today is Christmas and then we can start putting this holiday season behind us. Why does that make me so happy? I’m not a big fan of the constant holiday music, cheesy commercials and unruly/impatient crowds at every store I go in.

However, I am looking forward to 2010. I always see the new year as a new beginning and a way to put all my mistakes from the previous year behind me.

That’s all I have this week. I woke up this morning to find it snowing – winter is officially here. Hopefully some of you live in areas with warmer weather. If you do I truly envy you. As always, have a happy and safe weekend.

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Today I was watching the news and they were giving money-saving tips for the holiday shopping season. One of the tips was saying ‘No!” to extended warranty plans that many stores try to talk consumers into when buying electronics. This got me thinking about ebook reading devices and whether or not it’s worth the extra money for an extended warranty.

Personally, I’ve had a good experience in the past with an extended warranty. When I bought my first laptop in 1999 (a Compaq Presario) I purchased the extended warranty, not really knowing any better. Little did I know this would pay off big time. A few years later the screen on my laptop suddenly stopped working.

I took it into the store where I purchased it and they replaced the screen for free. My laptop also had other problems that required lengthy and expensive repairs – at no cost to me thanks to the extended warranty I purchased.

I calculated the cost of the repairs to be about as much as the laptop was worth when I bought it.  I really lucked out. Since then I’ve had a pretty good feeling about these warranties because, let’s face it, electronics can be fragile and tend to break down at the worst possible times.

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Random House is claiming the ebook rights to a majority of its backlist titles, according to RH chairman Markus Dohle. This move shows, yet again, that authors are better off without a large publishing company. Once you sign over your book to them, they can pretty much do whatever they want.

RH made their intentions known in a letter Dohle sent out to literary agents, which you can find a link to in this Publishers Weekly article (note: link opens up a PDF file). After reading the letter, I found it interesting that the entire first page is filled with corporate marketing propaganda, and then promptly lays down the law that RH has exclusive rights to publish an author’s work in ebook format:

In his letter, Dohle makes clear that RH believes the “vast majority” of its backlist contracts “grant us the right to publish books in electronic formats,” while older agreements “often give us the exclusive right to publish ‘in book form’ or ‘in any and all editions.’

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In Chicago it’s snowy, cold and downright miserable. Staying inside my warm house and writing/reading is cozy, but I hate driving when the weather is like this. I’m comfortable driving in snowy weather because I learned to drive in Idaho, where they plowed the roads and threw a little sand down – that’s it. None of this salt stuff they use here in Illinois.

Other than that I’ve been busy with multiple writing projects and trying to make progress on a stack of books I want to read. I could really use a few more hours in each day. Despite being busy, I’m loving every minute of it.

Here is this week’s installment of Friday Link Love. I got quite a few links this week, so if you’re snowed in and can’t leave the house, then you have plenty of good reading. As always have a happy, safe and warm weekend.

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I continue to be amazed at these large publishing houses who still resist ebooks. Have they learned nothing from the music industry? HarperCollins made a recent announcement that they planned on delaying the release of ebooks for new titles. I really don’t understand their reasoning for wanting to delay the release of ebooks.

In an interview, Brian Murray, chief executive of News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers, said that beginning in January or February, HarperCollins will delay the e-book publication of five to 10 new hardcover titles each month. The delays are expected to range from four weeks to six months, depending on the book.

Four weeks to six months? All HarperCollins is doing by making this move is encouraging piracy. I have always maintained that piracy by itself is not the problem, rather it is the symptom of the problem. The problem is publishers not embracing new technology and publishing models and not giving people books in the format they want. If people want to read a new release in ebook format, there is a segment of those readers who will resort to finding a pirated edition.

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This is Part 2 of Why indie authors will break traditional publishers. In Part 2 I talk about what indie authors can learn from the music industry, the one advantage traditional publishers have and how indie authors are countering that advantage. You can read Part 1 here.

Independent ebook websites like Smashwords and Feedbooks are giving indie authors an unprecedented advantage by letting these authors distribute their work without the gatekeeper of traditional publishers. While the digital domain has not been perfected, indie authors are coming out of hiding and setting their writing free into the world. Continue Reading

I think large publishing houses are scared, and for good reason. They’re faced with an enemy that they see as a threat to their business. I’m talking about the growing number of indie authors – those who totally bypass the large publishing houses and self-publish their books in print and digital format. Indie authors aren’t afraid to trek out on their own and play by their own rules.

Indie authors have several advantages over authors who go with a traditional publishing house. And it’s these advantages that could be the downfall of  the traditional publishing business.

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As Brad’s Reader gets more and more comments, the number of spam comments has also increased. I don’t see a lot of them because of the filter I have in place, but a few do sneak through. I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt, although it can be a tough call sometimes.

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