Even though the ACX website clearly states they offer non-exclusive terms and are actively seeking authors who narrate their own books, Nicole painted a different picture of the “intent” of ACX. She stated that they never really wanted indie authors, and instead only wanted the top few hundred titles from big publishing houses that weren’t already available as audio books. So much for this nugget also found on their website:

“The result: More audiobooks will be made.
Too many authors have been left out of the quickly growing and culturally repositioned digital audio market. Until now.”

But not, it turns out, if you’re an indie author who’s taken the route of offering up a free podcast version of your work. You, my friend, can take a flying leap as far as ACX is concerned. You are not welcome in ACX’s playground.

Someone look up the definition of “exclusive”. I am not sure that word means what ACX thinks it means.

According to Nicole, Audible members get their panties in a wad when they find a free version of the audio book they were overcharged for. On the surface, I can understand that. Audible’s terribly outdated “book of the month club” model doesn’t make it easy to enjoy more than one title each month, and their prices beyond that are notoriously high. So if I found a more-friendly alternative, I’d be a little pissed, too.

But that’s where Nicole’s argument breaks down. You see, the parent company of ACX and Audible is Amazon.com. And Amazon.com happily shows multiple formats of books at different price points side-by-side. Here’s a shot of Scott Sigler’s Infected:

Multiple formats & multiple prices on Amazon.com

Ebooks, hard cover, paper back, audio books… and even from other retailers and individuals. I count 12 different price points, ranging from eighty-one cents to about thirty-five bucks. That’s a healthy delta. In fact, it’s such a delta that I asked Nicole a point blank question: If we sold the podcast version for a penny, would ACX have a problem with that?

You can imagine how stunned I was when she said something along the lines of “No, that would be OK.”

So there you have it, overcharged Audible member; Audible thinks that you are so stupid as to not be able to tell the difference between a penny and thirty-five dollars. Do you also think that as long as you still have checks in your checkbook, that you have money in your account?

I tried to explain to Nicole (who, in fairness, seemed to understand what I was saying), that a free podcast version is very different than a fee-based downloadable audio book version. The former takes many many clicks to listen to. It takes listening to repetitive intros and outros. It requires patience to listen to some chatter from an author about a convention they attended three years ago or a now-defunct contest you can’t enter. And it requires exposures to commercials and special offers.

Contrast that with a one-click download for a complete and self-contained audiobook, where the only thing heard is the contents of the audio book itself! Sounds like a convenience some (though obviously not all) people will pay for, yes?

But not on ACX, it seems. Because even armed with that information — I like to call it logic — Nicole stuck to policy. She even admitted to hearing from a handful of authors from Podiobooks.com who tried to explain the difference.

Some of what I said got through, and Nicole tossed the ball higher up the food chain to Jennifer, whom I just got off the call with. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t any substantive change in the official ACX position. Jennifer doesn’t see how multiple price points for ebooks are relevant for audio books (“An ebook is just a photocopy of a book in a different format,” she said. No, not kidding.) and doesn’t understand how free and for-fee play together (“I don’t get what authors get from giving away free content“.)

It’s hard to argue someone away from that position. So I stopped trying.

The only slightly positive takeaway from the call with Jennifer was her comment that ACX does have plans to let authors who have already created audio version in their sand box in the near(?) future. But not if that author gives a different audio version away for free. Even for authors who don’t want to play in the free-space, they run the risk of having their content taken down if the alternate audio version is priced too low. So if you were thinking of selling your podcasted version for $0.99, think again.

Jennifer would like to keep the conversation going. I’m OK with that. As much as I’d like to ignore ACX and Audible — I can’t. They remain the near-monopoly in the space. I stand behind Cory Doctorow’s concept of giving people every possible chance to buy an author’s work, and that means getting books on every possible marketplace. (Side note: When I brought up Cory, Jennifer said something along the lines of “Yeah, we’ve talked to him. We won’t put his books up on Audible.“)

Many authors are wondering what they can do to turn the tide in their favor. Here’s one option: Call Nicole. Her office line is 973-820-0400. Tell her you are a rights holder who’d like to take advantage of ACX, but you’re not willing to burn the bridges you’ve established with your audience. Try (perhaps in vain) to tell her that a free podcast version isn’t all that competitive with a downloadable fee-based audio book. Tell her that authors like Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi provide .pdf versions of their books for free and still manage to sell tens (or hundreds) of thousands of their books in print and ebook form for their publishers. Tell her how hard you’ve worked to build your platform, and would like to give that platform one more chance to purchase a fee-based product. And that you’re willing to do the work to make the best possible product for sale.

In the mean time, there are other distribution outlets. If ACX won’t play, there are other market places who will. And who will pay a better royalty. Authors on Podiobooks.com have been extremely good about building their own audience without a powerhouse behind them. I think we can do it again. I recommend BackMyBook.com as an alternative. If you’re interested, reach out to Tay (tay@backmybook.com). He’s got a great model that gives you more than 80% of sales — and you set the sale price. We’ll work to fully integrate with them to make a seamless experience for those who want to pay you for your work.

And maybe, just maybe, ACX will change their minds and open up to the indie author who knows the power of using free to bolster for-fee. Here’s to hoping.

Parsec Awards 2011 Finalists!

Not surprisingly, many titles found here on Podiobooks.com are once again finalists for the 2011 Parsec Awards in a couple of categories. As we do each year, we’ll highlight each by the category in which it was nominated. Shall we begin?

Best Speculative Fiction Story (Novella Form)

• Act of Will by M. Darusha Wehm

• The Hidden Institute by Brand Gamblin
• Kissyman & the Gentleman by Scott Sigler
• Marco and the Red Granny by Mur Lafferty

Best Speculative Fiction Story (Long Form)

• Ancestor (2010 edit) by Scott Sigler

• Owner’s Share by Nathan Lowell
• The Prince of Hazel and Oak by John Lenahan
• Secret World Chronicle by Veronica Giguere
• Valhai by Gillian Andrews

Congratulations to all the nominees, and best of luck in September!

Gosh darn it…there needs to be an IMDB for Speculative Fiction.

Now I can hear the screams already….THERE IS! Ah, yes but does that one have marketing? No. Does that one have the authors themselves participating in it? No. Is it pretty and have places for your to advertise your site and promote your books? No. Does it list any one who has written e-pub or podcasting speculative fiction? No. Is it hip and up with the times? No. Does it have devoted fans keeping it updated and making sure all the pages look awesome as well as answering any questions when there is a problem? Well…that one I don’t know but I do know they are missing some info on a few people they list.

So MY Speculative Fiction DataBase can be found at www.specficdb.com.

I’m Kimi Alexandre and I have been running TaleChasing.com, a podcast for urban fantasy readers and writers for 4 years. It’s been nominated and been a finalist for the Parsec Awards. I’m also a professional voice actress and I’ve been on a ton of panels all over the USA (ok only in MD, GA, NY, and KS) talking about the things I love, writing, social media, and podcasting/voice acting.

Just like when I noticed there wasn’t many people talking on the net about urban fantasy yet (4 years ago) and created TaleChasing…I noticed there really isn’t anyone promoting writers and authors of “Speculative Fiction”. That’s when, after finding a really cool directory theme that works with WordPress I decided something needed to be done to get readers access to all the authors/writers in the genres that make up Specfic. I also went to go looking to see if anyone else had done it, and as I mentioned above saw that someone tried but that it was a bit outdated.

I wanted to jazz it up, use my ties to the urban fantasy and paranormal romance communities as well as the Podcast Novelist community and help promote them. I made a place for people who LOVE speculative fiction to find their favorite authors and works they might not know about as well as new authors called The Speculative Fiction Database or Specficdb.com for short!

It has a featured section on the front that shows pretty pictures and the people who created the fiction. It’s catch to get people to come back is two spots for free bits of fiction from the authors listed on the site monthly. There is plenty of advertising space not just on the front page but on the Genre listing pages themselves. It shows a thumbnail of your website and gives you a chance to include a bio, info about you, a list of your books and stories, and a place to show images of your book covers or your signings. I’m working on other cool add-ons like video as well.

So if you are craving fiction go take a look. We’re adding new people everyday. You don’t even have to be IN PRINT….podcasts and epub count! It’s only $1 to list yourself if you are an author (with a spot in the listing for your stories and books and other goodies to you) – so just go do it already! Right now…it’s not making me a dime. I’m in the red actually but it’s a labor of love and I LOVE and want to promote all the people that make Spec Fic so awesome.
There will be a mailing list just for those who list with us as well as fans of the site. Tons of marketing ideas are in the works to keep eyes coming to the site and if the old Speculative Fiction site could raise 32k in traffic a day I know I can. I passed out flyers all over Albacon and plan to as well as Philcon, Balticon and Dragoncon. At Albacon 9 authors wore my button advertising the site!

I’d love for you to come take a look. It’s going to be great. I feel it in mah bones!

SXSW

Here’s an incentive: this years crop of potential topics contains some that seem right up our alley. But not all of them will be chosen. SXSW (or “South By”, as it’s often called) relies on the wisdom of the crowd to select the topics. Kassia over at Booksquare has compiled a list of the book-focused talks.

Your mission? Go there and vote ‘em up. Yes, even if you’re not coming. You don’t have to vote for all of them. Read the summaries and then take the few seconds to vote on the ones you like. You’ll spend the most time making a SXSW user account, which won’t cause you to be spammed or exploited. So do it. For the future of publishing. Well… the future of publishing as we imagine it.

w00t! My good friend Mark Jeffrey has edited and posted his interview with me on his video show, Bibliotech. We get deep into the history, present and future of the serialized audiobook. A podiobook, if you will. And we spend some time talking about the future of publishing, writing, reading, listening… and a whole lot more.

Thanks to Mark for having me on. Mark is already well aware of podiobooks, as his book The Pocket and the Pendant was one of the first five books we listed on Podiobooks.com. And be sure and check his show archives. He’s only 8 shows in and has already had quite the cadre of high-profile guests discussing the technology and future of publishing.

The story he tells today is of a friend of his who gets excited about a new movie release. But the studio won’t let him watch the movie right now. No, they want him to wait. See if you can guess the ending. Yep. He doesn’t have to wait, as the movie is available, just not in a way that’s controlled by the studio. Which begs this question of the studio: Why they hell not?

But Hugh tells the story admirably, so there’s no need for me to sully it. I will leave you with this manifesto of sorts he wrote at the end of the piece:

1. If there is demand, there will be supply.
2. In the digital world, media is infinitely copiable & distributable at roughly zero cost
3. Media companies have long built their business around a restricted supply
4. If demand exceeds restricted supply in the digital world, someone — not necessarily the owner of the good — will meet that demand by making & distributing infinite copies at zero cost
5. Trying to stop # 4 is like trying to stop water going down hill
6. If restricting supply is no longer a viable business, then something else must be
7. When supply is unlimited, other factors drive the choices people make
8. Those drivers include: ease, quality, curation, attention, service, connection
9. Media companies – including book publishers – should stop thinking about business based on phony restricted supply
10. Media companies – including book publishers – should start thinking about how to build business around the actual drivers that will bring their customers to them (see #9 above), instead of sending them to the pirates

From this moment forward, publishers no longer have control over their distribution of digital assets. Once it’s made available in digital form, it’s out. The best a publisher can do is understand and embrace this. For the djinn will not go back in the bottle. Adapt, or die.

“DRM is dead, isn’t it?

Well yes, Jonathan, it is. Even though your organization clung to it like mad and shoved it down the music-buying public’s throats, spouting bullshit statements that claimed DRM was somehow better for customers and that files with DRM would see “significant boosts in online downloads.”

Bullshit.

But music-buyers don’t have to worry much any more. iTunes has said that 2009 will mark the end of DRM-crippled music in their Music Store. Amazon.com’s MP3 store has been DRM free since inception. Good news for music buyers.

But not so for audiobook buyers. The leading downloadable audiobook marketplace — hi, Audible — is still DRM riddled. Amazon.com — owner of Audible — sells downloadable audiobooks. A quick search reveals 39,609 titles available for download, but only 3,156 are in MP3 format. My assumption that the other 36,453 are crippled by DRM.

So rather than bitch, we’re doing something about it. We’re committed to DRM-free files. In the coming weeks, you’ll start seeing us offer — for sale — complete downloadable audiobooks in MP3 format. You’ve been turning to us for free serialized versions of audiobooks for five years now. We’ll keep that going on, as we see the value in helping our authors reach a wider audience by giving those versions away.

But for those who want to skip the serialized experience — which I love, by the way — and just buy an audiobook; it’s coming. Soon. And maybe that’ll help put more nails in the DRM coffin. For good.

Check out this video of Tim O’Reilly provided by the fine folks at The Open Publishing Lab at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In it, Tim tells how he has monitized publishing things for free, plus some clues on how others might approach the opportunity. It’s only 4:00. Allocate the time. And mad props to Teel McClanahan III for bringing it to my attention.

Tim O’Reilly makes the argument for Open Publishing @ TOC 2009 from Open Publishing Lab @ RIT on Vimeo.

He’s currently releasing Lost Gods as a free serialized audiobook. It will come out in print soon, and here’s where the contest — and the word unique — comes into play. As Drew says:

… for [this contest], I will make up three alternative covers [for the print book]. These [books] will be limited to ONE COPY EACH! So, if you win, you will be the owner of a unique, ONE OF A KIND copy of Lost Gods, signed personally to you from yours truly. So, you can have the only copy with Puck, Coyote or Kanene gracing the cover. I think that is pretty cool.

I will also name a character in the print copy of the book after you. Come on, that’s pretty cool (not one of the main characters, though. That would just be nutty.)

How Do You Enter?

Just email drewbeatty(@)gmail.com (remove brackets) with the link, image, or whatever proof you have that you have helped spread the word! For every link or effort, you get another entry in the contest. 10 links = 10 chances to win!

And then I read about how the internet has impacted publishing in China. And now I’m forced to re-think my definition of the word changed.

Half a world away, underpublished novelists and readers alike flocked to the web, breaking down many assumptions we have here in the West. A few things I culled from a CNN.com article on the phenomenon:

• Some of China’s most popular authors are published on the Internet

• Serializing works over there, really really well
• As the State tries to clamps down, authors and readers work right around them and increase mindshare
• Bookstores have entire sections dedicated to print-version of internet novels
• Publishers are trolling the interwebs looking for new talent

That’s nothing short of amazing. Yes, I know that some of those things are happening here in the West. Heck, we’re trying to affect some of those changes. But it seems — at least according to the article — that it’s much more accepted there (today) than here. I’d love some personal accounts of how the internet is redefining publishing in other countries.

I experience the conference in another way: via the power of Twitter. I have to tell you, it was an interesting experience trying to drink from that fire hose. It seemed like hundreds of people in attendance were tweeting just about everything that happened. Nothing like texting to a few thousand of your closest friends when someone said something interesting. Which happened ever, oh… 3.78 seconds.

Here’s what I learned from watching the tweets:

• DRM is dagnasty evil, and no one but DRM-makers want it.
  It’s OK if you disagree with me on this point. Absolutes are difficult to come by in today’s world. But the overwhelming majority of what I saw on Twitter sides with me. With all this animosity building — and with the music industry running away from the, ahem… technology — I fully expect DRM to be dropped by most audiobook producers by the end of 2010. If it takes that long. It’s a simple cost equation.

• The word book means something different than it used to.
  I think Cory Doctorow summed it up best in a tweet, but I’ll take a stab at it, too. The audience wants to consume your content in a format they find desirable. You have to be more than an author or a publisher these days, you have to be a content provider. And if you do not provide your content in a way your audience wants to experience it, then they may convert it themselves. More likely — they’ll ignore you and move on to someone who will. Yes, you’ll have to learn new things. But think of the fun you’ll have doing so!

• Innovation isn’t waiting on anybody.
  Readers and listeners are changing the rules to better fit their needs. Upstart publishing companies have a totally different view of “the marketplace” than we’ve seen before. Software giants have their own perspective. Wishing these things weren’t true is invalid thinking. Longing for a return to the good old days is delusionary. Changes won’t happen overnight, but given enough overnights, you may wake up outdated in a few short tomorrow.

I’d love to know if any of our listeners or authors (hi Teel!) attended. If so, please share your thoughts in the comments below. And I’ll see you there next year.

Podcasting and New Media for Writers: One-Day Seminar
791.888 | Film & Television | $125

Podcasting and various other forms of new media have given writers direct access to a worldwide audience and freed them from absolute dependency on television networks, radio stations, and publishers to buy and market their work. To the audience, podcasting and new media provide “what you want, where you want it, when you want it,” while to the content creator and producer, they offer ultimate creative freedom. This one-day introductory course covers basic questions like: What is new media? And why do writers need to be involved in it now? The course introduces the students to the basics of writing for new media; covers strategies for publicizing work in new media; and expanding their readers, viewers, listeners, and followers. Basics of audio/video recording and editing are discussed as well as associated technology (RSS feeds, websites, blogs) and alternatives to podcasting, including YouTube, Utterli, Twitter, and Seismic. New media allows writers to speak directly to their audience, wherever they might be, at costs approaching zero. If you could have your own audio book label or television or radio station, why wouldn’t you? Advance enrollment required; no enrollment at the door.

• Course Open Reg# U8489U

• No Textbook Required
• UCLA: 175 Dodd Hall
• Saturday , 9:30am-5pm
• June 6 , 1 mtg.

Rosanne Welch, writer/producer; WGA member whose credits include five seasons as staff writer, executive story editor, and producer on the CBS series Touched by an Angel. Ms. Welch also has written for Fox Broadcasting’s Beverly Hills, 90210; Picket Fences for CBS and David E. Kelly Productions.

Douglas E. Welch, writer and computer analyst, whose work has been published in Wired, MacWorld, and Los Angeles Times. Mr. Welch is a member of LA Podcasters and Friends in Tech and produced his first show, Career Opportunities, in 2004. He has written and produced over 300 individual episodes and conducts podcasting seminars for schools and businesses.

It’s been widely reported and/or speculated that the print industry is dead or dying. Is it?

…publishing isn’t dying. But it is evolving, and so radically that we may hardly recognize it when it’s done. Literature interprets the world, but it’s also shaped by that world, and we’re living through one of the greatest economic and technological transformations since–well, since the early 18th century. The novel won’t stay the same: it has always been exquisitely sensitive to newness, hence the name. It’s about to renew itself again, into something cheaper, wilder, trashier, more democratic and more deliriously fertile than ever.

Are we reaching a singularity point for the term “book”? With so many different forms, what does it mean today? And what about those of us busy crafting the world of tomorrow?

Novels are getting restless, shrugging off their expensive papery husks and transmigrating digitally into other forms. Devices like the Sony Reader and Amazon’s Kindle have gained devoted followings. Google has scanned more than 7 million books into its online database; the plan is to scan them all, every single one, within 10 years. Writers podcast their books and post them, chapter by chapter, on blogs. Four of the five best-selling novels in Japan in 2007 belonged to an entirely new literary form called keitai shosetsu: novels written, and read, on cell phones. Compared with the time and cost of replicating a digital file and shipping it around the world–i.e., zero and nothing–printing books on paper feels a little Paleolithic.

Still in that mindset of “once you self-publish, no one will want to buy your stuff”? We haven’t lived there in a long time. Here’s proof:

Giga-selling fantasist Christopher Paolini started as a self-published author. After Brunonia Barry self-published her novel The Lace Reader in 2007, William Morrow picked it up and gave her a two-book deal worth $2 million. The fact that William P. Young’s The Shack was initially self-published hasn’t stopped it from spending 34 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

Finally, some prediction that a new approach to serialization (you know, how we do it) is the perfect fit for today’s lifestyles:

Novels will get longer–electronic books aren’t bound by physical constraints–and they’ll be patchable and updatable, like software. We’ll see more novels doled out episodically, on the model of TV series or, for that matter, the serial novels of the 19th century.

Seriously, you need to read the article. And share it with your friends!

Independent author have a different struggle. Where publishing companies pay someone to design the cover of a book, indie authors are footing the bill on everything they do. Often times, professionally designed cover art is sacrificed at the alter of cost-savings. And that’s understandable.

It’s also the source of problems. Without a budget, authors either take it upon themselves to create the cover art or turn to a friend. I mean, how hard can it be, right? It’s hard. Really, really hard. I’ve worked with enough designers over time to fully appreciate quality design work. I can’t do it, but I certainly can recognize it. (He says, in his best Supreme Court Judge fashion…) Personally, I don’t think most authors can do it either.

So they turn to a friend. And the friend creates something. And… it’s really terrible and they don’t want to hurt the friends feelings. Or they ask other friends who all know the friend and they all agree it’s the best thing ever. But it isn’t. Anyone can plainly see it is not. They just collectively don’t want to hurt said friends feelings. Back to square one.

There are many factors which will make or break a book. The cover is exists for a reason, and it’s the first barrier to entry. Put a crappy cover on a great book, and it may get missed. Of course, you can also put a great cover on a crappy book, and it’ll get dropped pretty quickly. It’s not a panacea.

But what if getting a quality book cover was less expensive than you thought? There are plenty of new and talented designers out there. And some of them charge rates that will make the most frugal of indie authors smile. One of those is Krista Alexander of r⋅stiltskin design. She’s an experienced cover designer who has helped make a number of books on our site look amazing. Here are three examples:

If you need a designer for your next cover — or an existing one — I highly recommend you talk to Krista. And she can do more than just the cover art we need. She can lay out the entire wrap for your print version, too. And again, she’s affordable. As in really affordable.

Covers are important. Even for indies. Choose wisely.

Goodreads has a special place in my heart, as it allows non-ISBN books to be listed. I wish the other social book sites provided this ability. But if this chart is to be believed, then Goodreads isn’t suffering for enabling the indie set.

Go vote for your favorite free audiboook on Goodreads today!

Hat tip to Matthew Wayne Selznick for bringing this to my attention. His podiobook, Brave Men Run, is on the list!

With 8.0, iTunes now allows you to change the Media Kind for files to Audiobook, taking them out of the Music section (where they never belonged in the first place). So score one for iTunes for enabling those who just want to use the software, but exercise choice in where they get their audiobook content.

Unfortunately, there’s still a bias against files received on a podcast — even a podcast of an audiobook. Those files are still locked up as a “Podcast”, prohibiting you from re-assigning the Media Kind for received files as Music, Audiobooks… you name it. Which means that files you get via our RSS feeds — default or custom — still won’t go in the Audiobook section.

Unless you are a bit crafty and willing to go through a couple of hoops. The good news is that you don’t have to buy any software. You can do it with a little bit of time and patience with iTunes 8.0. Here are the steps.

1. Subscribe to any of our books on Podiobooks.com. I recommend this only for books that are completed. Repeating this process for episodes yet-to-be-released by the author would quickly lead to extreme frustrations. Your mileage may vary.
2. Release all the episodes. Hey, you want the whole book right now, and not as a podcast, right? If that’s not you (and it’s not me) stop right now. Cool as this is, it’s not even a little bit cool for listening to podcasts.
3. Add the subscription to iTunes. By default, iTunes will only pull down a single file in your feed. You can expand the feed in iTunes (see that little triangle next to the name?) and chose the “Get All” button. Now all of your files should be downloading. When they are done, proceed.
4. Convert all episodes of the title to AAC or MP3. Yeah, they probably are ALREADY and MP3, but this step is required to break that “Podcast” designation. Files are assigned the Media Kind of Music when you use the “Create MP3 (or AAC) Version” functionality. Select all the files. Right-click or Ctrl-click to get a new dialog box that contains the function you need. Do that, and wait for the conversion to happen. You can look under “Playlists” to watch the conversion process. See image below.

   

5. Change Media Kind to Audiobook. Go to the Music section and search on the name of the book. Select all the file and use iTunes’ “Get Info” feature out of the File menu. Click on the “Options” tab and change the media type to “Audiobooks”. Watch the files disappear from Music. I think you now know where to find them.

That’s it! If the author did a good job of consistency (and we sure try and make sure they do), you should now have a book from Podiobooks.com in your Audiobook section of iTunes. Feel free to delete the Podcast subscription and the files you previously download, as you now have the files in another location.

We’re talking about making a “one click” download for completed books. Now with iTunes allowing us to set the media type on our end, we’ve got even more incentive to get this done. Hooray for our side!

Author advances and bookseller returns have long troubled the publishing industry. Best-selling authors can command advances so high that publishers often come away with slim profits, even for books that are significant successes. Publishers also sometimes offer high advances to untested authors in the hopes of creating new hits, but often those gambles do not pan out.

Interesting. That means that every book by a new author would be written “on spec”. Personally? I’m not opposed to this. With very few exceptions, all of the titles you’ll find here on Podiobooks.com followed that model. In the interest of full disclosure I was paid a modest advance to write both Podcasting for Dummies and Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies. Would I have written those books without the advance? Nope. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.

The other interesting piece from that article was glazed over:

[A] new group [within HarperColins] will also release electronic books and digital audio editions of all its titles, said Jane Friedman, president and chief executive of HarperCollins, a unit of the News Corporation.

Now that’s huge news. I’ve pounded this pulpit for years: It’s stupid for publishers not to do this. Making an ebook version of a book you are already printing costs virtually nothing. And audio production is getting so cheap (see: US) and the public acceptance is growing so much that you almost can’t afford not to do it. Bravo, HC. Shake ‘em up! Maybe think about releasing the ebook and audiobook version first as a test to see if it’s worth the costs to make the dead tree versions?

Beyond that, Amazon stunned the POD market when they announced that they’d only be selling POD titles that are printed through their own POD presses. That freaked a lot of people out, perhaps rightly so. One of them was one of the “original” Podiobooks.com authors, Mark Jeffrey. He wrote about it on the Huffington Post:

[L]ast week, Amazon announced that authors would have to switch their books over to BookSurge *exclusively* — or else lose their ‘Buy Now’ button…

There are rumblings that iUniverse and Lulu.com are either close to signing — or have already signed — an agreement with Amazon BookSurge to take over the printing of all their books. They have no choice: Amazon is their primary distribution arm, and they are threatening to cut off their oxygen. They will have to agree to whatever terms Amazon.com dictates. This means BookSurge can charge whatever they want for the printing service — a cost which will likely be passed on to the artist in the form of reduced royalties.

With this move Amazon.com has effectively removed all competition in the Print On Demand universe.

No argument there, Mark. That’s exactly what they’ve done. And I’m not keen on the idea of reducing author profits.

(The remaining content of this blog post is my opinion and not an official policy of anyone else involved in Podiobooks.com. In fact, I’m quickly finding that I’m expressing a minority opinion. But so far, we’ve all managed to stay friends. Read on, if you dare!)

But in all fairness, Amazon is well within their rights to change the way this game is played. Will they dominate? You bet. Will authors suffer? Well, that’s hard to say. There’s a lot of middle men in the middle when you deal with a physical copy of anything, and we’ll have to see how they all work and play nice with each other, or not.

Bottom line: the publishing industry of tomorrow (and I use that figuratively to mean… TOMORROW) will be different than the publishing industry of yesterday. In all honesty, I see that working in favor of the little guy who’s not afraid to take risks and try new things. Or maybe I’m just an optimist.

In Japan, half of the top ten selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed on mobile phones.

Read that again if necessary. Composed on a mobile phone. Not read. Composed. That lends further evidence to my hypothesis that we have no idea how the publishing industry will change in the next [insert unit of time]. Here’s to shattering expectations!

“7th Son” is the story of seven strangers who have been brought together after the recent assassination of the U.S. president. The men discover that they are human clones, with identical childhood memories. These “John Michael Smiths” have been assembled to catch the man who murdered the president. Their target? Their progenitor, the original John Michael Smith, code-named “John Alpha.”

Hutchins is widely-known as one of the vanguard authors in a growing genre of free online audiobooks — also called “podcast novels ” or “podiobooks.” These novels are often read and recorded by the author, and are promoted online in podcasts and web blogs. “Podnovelists” like Hutchins leverage these new technologies — and the ubiquity of iPods and other portable devices — to find audiences for their work.

Hutchins, a South Florida resident, launched the audio version of “7th Son” in early 2006. Since then, “7th Son” has become the most successful podcast novel series in history. The trilogy has more than 30,000 listeners worldwide, and features cameos from sci-fi/horror icons Nathan Fillion, George Romero, Kevin J. Anderson, and others. In February 2007, the trilogy was featured in The New York Times.

“I’m thrilled to work with St. Martin’s Press in bringing ’7th Son’ into the ‘real world,’ in real bookstores,” Hutchins said. “For the past two years, I’ve released the online audio version of ’7th Son’ to an ever-growing, very enthusiastic fan base. I don’t know who’s going to be more excited to see it on bookshelves — my amazing, supportive listeners, or me.”

The online success of “7th Son” has brought Hutchins more than a worldwide audience. Hutchins is currently co-writing the debut novel in a new thriller novel series, which is slated for a 2009 release, also by St. Martin’s Press. Opportunities for “7th Son” are emerging in other media, as well.

Hutchins, who is affectionately chastised by his listeners for his cliffhanger-style chapter endings, remains coy about the other projects.

“There’s lots to talk about,” Hutchins said, smiling. “But as in ’7th Son,’ timing and pacing is everything. I guess folks will have to keep listening to learn more.”