Bowker Plans To Bleed Writers, Kill Agents

I learned about Bowker Manuscript Submissions today from an URL tweeted by @selfpubreview. I didn’t pay much attention because I was busy with other things and the site didn’t look complete.

Hours later, my curiosity kicked in.

A Rare Book That Costs More Than An iPad: For FREE!

Callaghan Would Be The Rare One for This Year

The source for Miss Callaghan, rare as all heck, did run me over $600 from Amazon UK. Only edition. No cover. Would’ve been a lot cheaper if I’d waited for the pound to crash, but, you know, I must have the precious.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

And now it’s set free, in e: Miss Callaghan Comes To Grief by James Hadley Chase

Grab the ePub version, drop into iTunes, sync your iPad, and read!

Additional:

James Hadley Chase tribute page
James Hadley Chase tribute blog

Doctor Who: Best Episode Yet!

How is it possible for the writer of the worst ever episode of Doctor Who to wind up writing one of the best?

Print Publishers: Die Starving In A Cardboard Box!

Today brings two absolutely new pieces of stupidity regarding the suicidal bent of print publishing.

Item One: Pulse iPad App Gets Steve Jobs’ Praise in Morning…Then Booted From App Store Hours Later After NYT Complains

Yesterday morning, the pair of Stanford University graduate students who made the hot news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, were ecstatic to be mentioned first–as one of the most promising developers for the new tablet device–in his keynote speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

But, by the afternoon, that flush of entrepreneurial success had turned sour, after Apple (AAPL) informed the two that Pulse was being pulled from the App Store, after it received a written notice from the New York Times Company (NYT) that “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.”

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Dig it. An app that calls attention to dying newspapers and makes them easy to read — and therefore opens up the possibility of revitalizing them! — has a pillow placed over its head while it’s still in the crib!

What is wrong with this picture?

Everything!

Strange Days For Writers

On Twitter, @avidbookreader was telling me about one writer and then happened upon this strange cover:

Now that’s unconventional enough in title and design and description …

A picaresque movement in a nameless city. An America engaged in a propaganda-war, determined to clog drug-flow from the Netherlands and the rubble of a broken city on the opposite shore of the Atlantic. The youth who dream in the face of nightmares, who explore themselves with chemicals with sad paint with jail cells with institutions with a belief in something bigger than the flesh that holds them and strong to the constant symphony of junky poetics, melancholy.

… to make me look closer.

And that’s where it got all strange.

The Trillion-Dollar Web Question

So, Sports Illustrated takes a second shot at doing an e version, one that will pass Apple’s Section 3.3.1.

It’s superior to the first.

But if this is HTML5 — basically a tarted-up website — and not something that’s downloaded to a device to keep … how do you turn that into money?

Barnes & Noble Turns ePublisher

Raise your hand if you didn’t see this coming.

Steve Jobs: Abandoning A Principle?

Steve Jobs Offers World ‘Freedom From Porn’

I have no problem with Apple refusing porn access. Maybe Gawker’s Tate needs some education on the unequivocal sickness that’s out there.

Doctor Who Hits A High Point

Doing my bit to balance the accounts between America and the Mother Country, I get to see Doctor Who sooner than the official broadcast on BBC America here.

I’m up to episode seven, which has a script by Simon Nye with direction by Catherine Morshead.

It’s absolutely magnificent. It’s the first episode I’ll have to watch a second time because of the subtlety of the script. Nye — no doubt guided by Moffatt — pulled together several threads begun during the Davies era. But not in any way that’s apparent until the end.

Even the music was better this time. I could hear a Laurie Johnson Avengers influence (homage?).

Set the DVR for this one. You won’t want to miss it. And you will want to watch it a second time too.

The Warren Ellis Method Of Book Publicity

If anyone here is thinking about killing someone, please leave one of my books at the crime scene. I could use the press.Sat May 15 20:32:06 via webWarren Ellis
warrenellis

I’m also okay with you blaming me in your suicide note, so long as you specify that it’s me and not the Aussie musician.Sat May 15 20:48:41 via webWarren Ellis
warrenellis

If anyone here is thinking about a one night stand, please leave one of my books on the bed. Yes, it’s a cry for help.Sat May 15 20:59:52 via webWarren Ellis
warrenellis

Previously here:

The Suicidal Casino Mentality Of Print Publishing
Print Publishing’s Other Suicidal Practice