Writer, Security Guy, Tinkerer

In a move that should have shocked no one, Apple updated their iBooks Author EULA. The new EULA clearly confirms what calm and patient folks said from the beginning: Apple isn’t interested in restricting your ability to distribute your content. They only want a piece of what is built specifically with iBA:

this restriction will not apply to the content of the work when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author. You retain all your rights in the content of your works, and you may distribute such content by any means when it does not include files in the .ibooks format generated by iBooks Author.

Don’t worry, though. I’m sure there’s still something scary hiding under your bed.

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In an interview with Digital Book World, Hyperion CEO Ellen Archer spoke candidly (for a CEO, at least) about the changes to publishing caused by the growth of digital media. It’s a good interview, and well worth a read.

Some of her points showed that she understood the concerns propelling indie publishers better than traditional publishers are expected to understand them. What interested me the most was around funding, sales, and advances. The quote which has been singled out is

We’ve been able to provide advances to authors and unfortunately most of those [advances] don’t drive revenue.

Most of the comments I’ve seen express severely burned bacon. Wading through the commentors’ sarcasm, the complaint with Archer seems to be based on reading this as distaste for having to pay authors. I don’t think that’s what she meant, and I don’t thing it’s fair analysis.

Most traditionally published books don’t earn out past their advances. There are lots of reasons for this which encapsulate many indies’ frustration with traditional publishers, but regardless of the reasons, it’s still true. An advance is exactly what its name implies: an advance against future payments.

Advances are important in publishing risk management for a simple reason. They transfer risk from the author to the publisher. If publishers are losing their taste for taking on that risk, the only one left to bear it is the author. I suppose you could devise some sort of “crop insurance” program for your novel, but good luck getting someone to underwrite it.

If the future of traditional publishing is to expect the author to take on more risk (which is certainly the case in indie publishing), authors ought to reasonably expect more return. That’s the balance. Risk vs. reward.

Ultimately, that’s the publishing calculus, for traditional or indie. Traditional seems primed to shift more of the risk burden toward authors. That means authors should be prepared to pull some of the reward with it.

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Google’s launched its online bookstore. It’s a storefront inside Google Books, so much of it should be familiar to the three people who use Google Books.

The bookstore is clearly commercial, with new titles and prices which look roughly comparable to Amazon’s for electronic editions. What struck me was what Google included in the ebook descriptions (this taken from their listing for Steve Jobs). I’m glad to no what devices can handle their ebook file, but the explicit disclaiming of scanned pages is something new to me.

It’s a really nice piece of information. Too many ebooks are scanned from print and read terribly because of it. Print books are fallible on their own, and scanning/OCR inevitably introduces errors.

This is a nice mark of quality for the product from Google, presented in a way that someone who knows how ebooks work will understand. I have no idea if mainline ebook consumers will get the significance of non-scanned pages. My hunch is that it’s a key details which most people will miss. Had Google described it as “Clean copy” or “Print Quality” or something, it likely would have been more helpful and successful for them.

It’s a microcosm of what makes Google wonderful and sad at the same time.

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I own many pairs of gloves. With so many weeks of winter, most Minnesotans do. Only one of them allows me to use my iPhone. It’s a really nice pair with a conductive thread pad at the fingertip lets me do basic things when it’s cold: answer a call, start a playlist, launch an app. It’s not fine enough to type, but it beats freezing.

It hit me today, though. Siri was built for me.

Gloves don’t prevent me from hitting the home button. Without the touch gloves, it never mattered. I couldn’t work the unlock slider. (OK, I could work it with my nose, but it looks goofy.)

With Siri, though, I hit the button, I raise the phone, and I’m on fire.

“When’s my next meeting?”

“Where’s the nearest Panera?”

“How much does a ferret weigh?”

All winter long. It’s better than a car with heated seats.

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I tackle another Chuck Wendig challenge: The Numbers Game. My entry is Final Round. Enjoy.

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