Remember the entry a few weeks ago where the Authors Guild was up in arms about the text-to-speech feature of Amazon’s Kindle II? Well, it’s now old news. Amazon decided to allow the feature only when authors grant permission. That’s how it should have been handled from the get-go. The real problem now for the [...]
Fortune Magazine reported that the publishing giant, Hearst Corporation, plans to release its own eReader to do for periodicals what the Kindle is doing for books. It apparently will utilize the same E Ink technology as the Sony & Amazon readers - but do it with a bigger screen.
Facebook retracted its new Terms of Use in the face of thousands upon thousands of protesting users. The anger was about a stealthy update to the Terms where Facebook claimed ownership of ALL content posted by its customers for eternity.
With many of us writers using the social networking site as a venue for our [...]
CNN did a great story (02/15/09) on China’s Online “Literary Renaissance.” The most interesting part is how hopeful authors post their chapters to a web-hosted service that lets readers read for free or for a small cost. With an online audience of nearly 300 million users, the potential is enormous. Royalties come from advertisers or a percentage of [...]
Okay, call this Kindle Week.
The Authors’ Guild launched a protest at Amazon, and the Kindle specifically, for the eReader’s ability to do Text-to-Speech. What that means is that your Kindle will read out loud to you if you don’t want to eyeball the pages. The Guild feels that this steps over the line into Audiobooks. With Audiobooks making [...]
In a footnote to yesterday’s post about the Kindle, ABC News reported that John Grisham of legal thriller fame is going electronic. The author stated that all of his titles would be available electronically, and he mentioned the Amazon Kindle specifically.
The same report also forecast a $99 Iphone sometime this summer. This means that [...]
Amazon announced the release of their 2nd generation eReader - the Kindle, yesterday. It boasts a sleeker shell and better functioning controls, but that, fellow writers, is not the truly big news of the day.
The really big news was that Bezos and company were planning on getting ebooks from Amazon to smartphones and other devices. [...]
During the previous century, I watched a videotape of the movie, Bambi vs. Godzilla by Marv Newland. The movie lasted about 2 seconds and featured Bambi the Deer chewing away at some grass. That was, (spoiler alert) until Godzilla’s foot stomped down hard on the unsuspecting fawn. End of movie – cue the credits.
The reason [...]