A PROMISE TO OUR EBOOK BUYERS

We keep very close tabs on discussions among ebook reading folks in various  international forums and websites, large and small, to stay abreast of  ever-developing reading trends, hardware and software technology, etc, and to be aware of problems encountered ... especially problems we can help fix for readers.  (I highly recommend www.mobileread.com, by the way.)

Two of the most common complaints are geographical restrictions placed on titles by  the huge new  online ebook stores (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Apple, Kobo et al) that put some books out of reach to readers in some countries, and Digital Rights Management (DRM) padlocks that tremendously and, we believe unfairly,  restrict a buyer's rights of personal use.

Although BeWrite Books holds international rights to all its titles, whereas some publishers' deals with authors and agents are country-specific, the major stores lump BB in with the rest for their own  admin convenience and sometimes there arises the ridiculous situation where someone in the very same town as a BB author can't buy his neighbour's book from a big online ebookshop. This is especially critical in Europe and Down Under.

We have no control over this and can only encourage browsers to buy from our own store where there are ZERO geographical restrictions.

And, although we utterly deplore and fight tooth and nail against DRM, the big stores slap on their own software locks regardless and, we believe, for nefarious reasons. Again we are powerless, although we guarantee that ebooks from our own store are DRM-free.

But where there's a will there's a way, and Tony and I have dreamed up a solution, with a little  help from an anti-DRM-campaigning indie author. You will now see the following prominent notice at the top of our bookstore's front page ...

A PROMISE TO OUR EBOOK BUYERS

Should you buy a BeWrite Books ebook from a third party-retailer rather than from our own site, you might find (through no fault or desire on our part) that it is locked by store-imposed Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. We feel this restricts your legitimate owner's rights. So if you ever encounter this problem, simply let us know and we will freely send you the DRM-free version of that title in the format of your choice. (Evidence of original purchase would help us identify the errant store, but isn't strictly necessary for this offer to be fulfilled.) BeWrite Books and its authors want you to be able to share their ebooks with friends and family as you might share  their paperbacks. We want you to be able to easily convert ebooks to any format you like, to read them on whichever device you like, wherever you like, whenever you like. We trust you not to make a business of it, but to fairly use a BB ebook as you would a BB treebook. BB reckons you own the ebook you bought – you've not merely licensed it with strings attached. DRM is not only an inconvenience to you but a downright insult. We'll put it right. That's a promise. And those who know us will attest to the fact that BB never breaks its promises.

And if our third-party retailers don't like that, they can take Kurt Vonnegut's famous flying you-know-what at the mooooon!

Cheers folks. Neil

IF YOU CAN KEEP YOUR HEAD WHILE ALL OTHERS ...

I've heard it said by men wiser than I'll ever be that if you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs ... then you simply don't understand the problem.

Well, I guess Tony Szmuk and I don't understand the problem, or the current panic in the publishing industry; especially at the small independent houses.

Let's see: What don't we understand? Why are we keeping our heads? Why are we making all the wrong moves as a result?

*Wise men say: The end of traditional publishing is nigh because of the threat posed by the mushrooming ebook culture. Publishers simply aren't geared up for such drastic change. It's taken them by complete surprise. No fair ... no fair!

BeWrite Books says: We've been covering all titles with ebooks from the very start. We invested  early this year in new hardware and software and are well into converting every title in our cataloge into various formats that can be read on ALL digital reading platforms from PCs to dedicated-ebook-reading devices to smart phones.

*Wise men say: Smaller publishers without an official US presence must use a third-party US 'publisher' to place their ebooks in the massive new US online ebook stores for Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Sony's PRS series, Apple's iPad, etc, etc, and pay IRS tax at source, or wrap up the digital side of their houses.

BeWrite Books says: We've been onto this for six months, and with the expert  advice and assistance of specialised US lawyers, our additional official registration as a US publishing house came through last week. We can now deal direct with ALL online ebook stores.

*Wise men say: Latin America and China are out of reach to smaller independent publishing houses.

BeWrite Books says: So far this year, our agent in China has placed six BeWrite Books titles with major publishers for translation and mass-run paperback on the Chinese mainland and BB had over seventy titles exclusively represented at last week's massive Beijing International Book Fair. Our own BeWrite Books English/Spanish agency for Latin America opens later this year.

*Wise men say: Publishing Down Under is dying. Publishers are pulling out or simply expiring in droves. It's On  the Beach. It's the end of days. Run away ... run away!

BeWrite Books says: Our fully-staffed Australian bureau opens in Adelaide in October/November to cover Oz, New Zealand and Pacific Rim countries. We closed a deal for print and distribution there in August.

*Wise men say: Especially for 'unknown authors' self-publishing is the only option now. Publishing houses can no longer afford to take the risk.

BeWrite Books says: The number of submissions by 'unknown authors' to our house has more than doubled. this year. Our editorial and release schedules for the rest of 2010 and most of 2011 are full of books by debut novelists.

*Wise men say: Things will never be the same in publishing.

BeWrite Books says: You only just noticed?

*Wise men say: Only fools rush in.

BeWrite Books says: Right on. But the late Sir Robert Baden-Powel told his scouts ... be prepared!

So that's it in a nut shell. See why we're keeping our heads? It's not because we don't understand the problem. It's because there is no problem. We foresaw the change ten years ago and got ready to embrace it, not to be taken by surprise and be reduced to panic.

Cheers, chums. Neil

TEEN LITERACY NOSE-DIVING? DON'T BET YOUR SOCKS

There's been the drone of contstant chatter and natter in the press, on TV and radio, on readers' and writers' forums, no doubt in pubs and parlours around the world and certainly in the blogasphere of late lamenting the passing of teenage literacy and sustained reading interest.

Some links to follow, but I came across this today at a massive 50,000-member forum for ebook reading folks:

More and more young people will lose literacy as encounters with any sort of long-form text disappear in an onslaught of video and aural bombardment and interaction. Critical thinking is a skill developed through learning to take a longer view and time to consider multiple aspects. Slicing everything into bite sized pieces doesn't lay the ground work for that training.

Yesterday morning, I'd have readily agreed with that. Last night changed my mind completely.

My sixteen-year-old schoolgirl granddaughter, Robyn, is over in France with Skovia and me for a wee holiday with her mum and dad and other grandma and granddad. Uncle Alex (who some of you know from BeWrite Books) arrives tomorrow.

I reckoned Robyn was pretty much representative of her age group, judging by her fun FaceBook posts and text messages in some kind of odd teen-jargon that I can hardly understand: All phonetic spelling, obscure abbreviations, no capitals, no punctuation.

After my epiphany, I certainly hope she is representative.

Last night, she suddenly became still and hushed on a lounger on the terrace. She was reading a YA paperback. After two or three hours, she toddled off to bed and I took a look at the book. It runs to around 400 pages, is intelligently written ... and a bookmark showed she was well into it.

She'd been utterly absorbed in her novel and its world, while three handy computers lay idle.

Maybe I misunderstood all along and was too qiuck to judge.

Here, on the other hand, is what some prophets of doom have been saying over the weekend:

The Independent, UK

The popular An American Editor blog

MobileRead forum thread, International

There's no shortage of gloomy articles on the net forecasting the death of teenage reading. None impress me as much as wee Robyn's simple and quiet evidence to the contrary.

Happy reading and writing, people. Thanks for your company. Neil

THE POCKET MONEY READER

Well, as they say, folks ... you read it here first!

It's eighteen months since we predicted an ebook reader at less than £100 in the UK and under $100 in the US well before the end of 2011.

In past weeks and months, several manufacturers and retailers have already beaten the hundred-buck-barrier over the Shining Big Sea Water and just this week Waterstones in Britain has announced the Sony Reader Pocket Edition on sale at £99.99. 

This neat and powerful wee e-ink gizmo can hold up to 350 titles at once (bye-bye excess baggage charges for holiday reading), but by using free software like Calibre there is no limit to the size of the virtual library you can build on a PC or laptop to store your books for instant download and to qiuckly and easily convert digital files from one format to another, according to what's best for your electronic reading device.

On a single charge, you'll have about 7,000 page turns -- that would account for some twenty-five or more standard novels before you need an hour or two's re-charge. Text size can be increased, of course, which is a big deal when your eyes are as old as mine (122 years between them, they have -- and they've seen some heavy use). And your favourite classics and other public domain books are out there for free download as well as tens of thousands of contemporary works and best-sellers at major and minor new ebook stores. Our own, for instance.

I use a Sony PRS 505 for recreational reading and I can't recommend the Sony hardware highly enough. (We're in no way associated with the company. This is merely informal and personal opinion.)

So I wonder if the prediction I made at the very start of the millenium will also come true ... and that we'll see reading devices, bubble-wrapped and on display at supermarket checkouts for fifty bucks, before 2012 is out.

Fingers crossed. Neil

TARGET MARKET -- SERIAL SLAUGHTER ON LINE

Released today by BeWrite Books is Mark Moehlman's Target Market.

Ever wondered what data is being collected and carefully distributed when you casually swipe your card at the supermarket or down at the gym ... and how it's used?

The hunt for an online serial killer in the market for targets reveals the chilling answer. Could you be on someone's computer-generated death list?

Click on the BeWrite Books open book icon to the right of this blog post and visit the front page of the bookstore section to read more about the book and its author and for an extract from the brand new BB novel.

For those interested: the edit was by Hugh McCracken and the cover art, external and internal design was by Tony Szmuk and -- as usual -- everyone on the team was involved in the proof reading. Print is by Lightning Source International in the US and UK and distribution by Ingrams.

The ebook version is avaliable for immediate download in PDF, ePub and Mobi fomats. Ebooks prepared in house by Tony Szmuk.

Best wishes and happy reading. Neil Marr