A victory for common sense

I have been considering of late whether to publish this blog (omitting the personal and work related stuff) but since it is not likely to be that commercially viable, and on the recommendation of various writing friends, will probably do this via Lulu rather than Authors OnLine, who although very good, are not cheap. At this stage in my life I do not have the funds to publish another book, yet reading through some of the older posts on here, from when I first started this blog (at the beginning of 2006), they are rather good, and have the potential I think, to help a lot of others who may be considering this route. I also considered (and will get around to at some point) writing a more detailed book about print on demand in the UK, and publishing through Lulu may be a useful experience to write about. It will be useful to have tried this route, and have more than one angle to write about (doing it yourself as opposed to through a POD provider who oversee all the formatting and so on for you).

To this end, last weekend I bought one of the those new netbook computers. I have been considering one of these for a while, since my old laptop is rather heavy and bulky for travelling with, especially on the winter helicopter service, where there is a strict weight limit and not much room for hand luggage in the cabin. The one I chose, the Acer Aspire One, has a nine inch screen and 8 GB flash drive, with a Linux operating system. It will be more than adequate for my needs, and a useful and versatile travelling companion.

Not much has been happening in the book world these past few weeks, now that I have got to the bottom of what is going with Amazon and the introduction of their own print on demand service in the UK. The court case with Booklocker must be due quite soon, but there has been no more news. I expect it will appear on the Bookseller in due course, and I will no doubt hear about it from the various writing sites that I post on, as well as from Angela Hoy (the plaintiff) and the Long Riders Guild, whom I am in touch with from time to time.

Now that Oprah Winfrey has endorsed the Kindle, I expect that Amazon shall be selling a few more of these devices. It is not expected to be launched in the UK until the spring, so for the moment we will have to content ourselves with other means, such as the Sony E-Reader, which I expect Waterstones will also sell a few of over the coming festive season.

It will be a tough one this year for all retailers, not just book sellers, with Amazon predicting a sharp downturn in sales. Shares in the company are reported to have plunged by 14 percent in after-hours trading, as Amazon lowered its revenue target for the final three months of the year to between $6 billion (£3.67 billion) and $7 billion, against the $7.2 billion previously forecast. Jeff Bezos is still a lot richer than I am, so I don't think he has anything to worry about quite yet.

I see that Google have also agreed to provisionally (what this means is anyone's guess) pay $125m (£80m) to settle a long-running legal dispute between it and US publishers over its controversial book scanning programme, Google Books.

According to a statement released today, the settlement, which is subject to court approval, will expand online access to millions of in-copyright books, and other documents, in the United States from the collections of participating libraries.

Google Book Search allows users to browse millions of books online and, in the case of out-of-copyright titles (or titles that the author chooses to upload to the site, as I have done), read an extract or sometimes (depending on the permission granted) the entire text. The settlement resolves two lawsuits filed in the United States just over three years ago, one of which involved the Authors’ Guild and the other of which involved McGraw-Hill, Pearson, John Wiley and Simon and Schuster. The lawsuits objected to Google’s plans to digitise, search and display extracts of in-copyright books and share them online without the explicit permission of the copyright holder - I should think so too.

Under the terms of the provisional settlement, users will be able to search and preview millions of additional titles, including out-of-print books, online. Users will also be able to buy titles online via the Book Search site (thank goodness for small mercies). US academic institutions will be able to subscribe to the online collections of libraries from around the world, and students will be able to access millions of out-of-print titles from designated computers in public and university libraries.

In addition to resolving these claims, a portion of the $125 million potential settlement will go towards helping to establish the Books Rights Registry. This will be an independent, non profit organisation will pay the rights holders earnings from institutional subscriptions, book sales, advertising revenue and other potential revenue streams (similar to Public Lending Rights by the sound of it, but online). The registry will also be the method for authors to request inclusion or exclusion from the Google Book Search programme. I must remember to look at this myself then, once it is all set up, since it affects not only US based authors, but anyone whose work is distributed within that territory.

This is a victory not just for common sense, but also for both readers and authors, who will now get paid for the use of their work. I mustn't write too soon though, as how much we will get paid remains to be seen. If it is similar to the public lending rights system, where only a sample of libraries are used each year from which to calculate earnings, then this will not be much good at all, since the libraries that my own books is stocked in have so far not been included in this sample, meaning that even though I know they are being borrowed, I am still not paid. The real winner is then the reader, who will have access to a wealth of knowledge that these books contain.

Further information for authors affected by this decision can be obtained here and here.

Musings on the book industry in general

I have some more news to report - my book is in the local library. Having spent a good deal of time last week Emailing various library authorities across the country, quite a few of them came back to say that they have either ordered, or will be considering my book at their next acquisitions meeting. When I contacted Surrey they came back to say that they already stocked the book. I was unaware of this, as although I contacted them a few months ago, before I published the new edition, they didn't get back to me with a response, so I naturally assumed they weren't interested, hence my second approach with the new edition. Imagine my surprise to find that my book is stocked in 2 Surrey libraries - Oxted and Weybridge. I asked them if it would be possible to get the books transferred nearer home, where people know me, and I was promised a call back from the librarian who is in charge of my genre (they have filed the book on the religious shelf). The call did not materialise, so yesterday I went into town to visit the gym, and popped into the library on the way.

It was then that I discovered that the Weybridge copy is out on loan. They tried then to get through to Oxted but it was engaged. I then asked if I could donate a copy to the local library, and they said they would be delighted to have it. I was unaware that I could I do this, since last time I asked, I am sure they said no. It seems that the reason for this may have been to do with cataloguing, since books that are not already listed with them (i.e. bought direct through the library service) have to be approved as suitable (e.g. no porn, terrorism threats, racism etc) and catalogued accordingly, which is time consuming. Because my book is already stocked by Surrey libraries, all this has already been done, so I can in theory, donate as many of those unsold first editions as they can take - to all the libraries in my area. And best of all, although I am giving the books away, they are not really free, since I will get the money back through public lending rights.

On another note though, I hear that Waterstone's are changing the way that they conduct their central buying process to allow them to confirm buying decisions three months ahead of publication date. This is very helpful to self publishers when the POD process takes around three months to begin with, and you do not have a publication date until the book is in your hand! As a result Waterstones are creating a buying timetable, including a buying week for each month's new titles, and moving from six monthly highlights presentations to tri-annual presentations where publishers present the key titles for each major season: Spring, Summer and Autumn/Christmas. Waterstones are cancelling all existing appointments and six monthly highlight presentations from late August onwards and re-scheduling according to their new timetable.

Since Waterstones are running behind they are asking publishers to present both January and February titles plus January to April highlights at the same time in the first window, which will be 28th August to 7th September. Publishers are also being asked to send in the AI sheets and spreadsheet grid for the month they are presenting to the relevant buying administrators one week prior to the start of each buying week. They will be unable to buy books without a correctly formatted grid. What a way to do business!

So by reducing the amount of face time that publishers have to present their new and upcoming titles, the greater the chance becomes of them being passed over. This decision then will do serious harm to the small and independent publishers, in particularly the self published author, who already has to jump through hoops in order to get a fair chance and get through the door. Thank goodness for sites like the Nothing Binding project. Is it any wonder that more and more people are turning away from the traditional book stores and buying online.

The local library

This morning Coran and I went into town to pay our poll tax, and on the way decided to go and join the local library. I thought that while I was there I would speak to them about getting my book into the library. They gave me the telephone number of their stockist to ring, which I have just done. I spoke to a very nice lady who sounded interested and asked me to email her some information on the book. She said they do prefer to buy them direct from wholesalers rather than from the author, and they have accounts with the 2 distributors that I am registered with, so that should certainly help ! It is not ultimately up to her though, but the librarians themselves. The first step though is to send her the information, so I about to do that. How exciting it will be then to see my book in the local library in a few weeks or months time. I have registred for PLR (public lending rights) so it will be another small, but nevertheless significant source of income.