robotech.master

robotech.master

  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    As I was telling someone last night, you can still find a number of good titles that coupon will apply to. For example, Hugh Howey's Wool and Shift omnibuses are e-published through a small press, as Howey split the e-book...
  • Commented on A footnote about the publishing industry
    It's worth noting that shared-universe settings are very common in Internet fiction, going all the way back as far as the mid-to-late 1980s. I wrote for some of them back in the day, and wrote about some of them in...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Inventory management systems don't necessarily talk to accounting systems, much less to the systems accessible to editors, when they date back to the pre-computer age and have been iteratively upgraded ever since. Worse: publishers don't sell to the public, they...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Well, if that "anything other than what Amazon wants" involves illegally colluding. They damned well knew they were doing something shady (you don't use phrases like "double delete this e-mail" if you think everything's going to be hunky-dory if you're...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Publishers can't tell whether any given pre-order comes from Amazon or Barnes & Noble? Then how do they know where to send the pre-ordered books? Seriously, they can't just exclude Amazon from their calculations and assume the percentage of pre-orders...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Hey, you know who else doesn't get pre-order buttons? Almost every self-publishing author. Yet (if the statistics Author Earnings has been cranking out can be believed) their earnings seem to be eclipsing the Big Five's. Huh, so maybe pre-order buttons...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    I fail to see how that's relevant. Amazon doesn't own B&N, Kobo, Google, Samsung, Baker & Taylor, etc. Individual competitors come and go, competition remains....
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    It's also worth pointing out that monopolies are not necessarily bad because they're monopolies. It's because they tend to be anti-competitive, but not always. Sometimes a business just gets big because it's the best at what it does. Even if...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Okay, that's one of the more well-reasoned arguments for why what Amazon is doing might qualify as predatory pricing. I still don't think I'd agree with it, but at least it's better than what you get out of most publishing...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Tactics? How can that be tactics? They're just setting the price at what the publisher wants it to be. Given that the publishers were willing to break the law to force Amazon to raise prices to what they wanted (and...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Look for Android. Seriously: decide what form factor and price range you want and go from there. Get something as close to stock Android as possible, because that will run the most e-book reader apps. I'd recommend a Google Nexus...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Amazon does NOT engage in "predatory pricing." Things may be different in the UK, but at least in the US, the legal definition of predatory pricing requires that the majority of products across a line be sold below retail. Amazon...
  • Commented on Some news about the Hugo voters packet
    For what it's worth, all three nominees are available via OverDrive at libraries that support it and have a decent selection. I read Saturn's Children last night, then grabbed "Bit Rot" from this web site and am reading Neptune's Brood...
  • Commented on Interstitial note
    Harry Harrison did the whole-planet-as-organism thing in Deathworld. And James Hogan did something similar with his planet of evolved robots in the sequel to Code of the Lifemaker, The Immortality Option....
  • Commented on Interstitial note
    Antonia: Unlike most Kickstarters, you get to start using this one as soon as you pledge...even if you later cancel the pledge. Anyway, it's a really fun game. And I'd really like to see one of Charlie Stross's worlds come...
  • Commented on Interstitial note
    I'm sorry, I think I didn't get across what I meant. I just thought that you letting people know you would eventually be doing that, if the Kickstarter reaches its goal, would give them a chance to support the Kickstarter...
  • Commented on Interstitial note
    (Whoops, meant to link to the Kickstarter main page instead of the comments page.)...
  • Commented on Interstitial note
    Speaking of blowing up planets, how about a blog post on how you're going to be adapting Merchant Princes for use in the Storium on-line storytelling game if and when the Kickstarter hits $185,000? The Kickstarter's only got just over...
  • Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
    I've written a post trying to wrap up the affair with viewpoints both pro and con. Includes quotes from Neil Gaiman, who is the one who proposed Ross as a host, via a New Statesman article… Also worth noting that...
  • Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
    It's not just "deeply traumatized" people. It's often women in general. Sexual harassment at conventions these days is a common and constant thing. One of my Facebook friends just today posted that on the first day of her local con...
  • Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
    It's worth noting that Ross's responses to criticism on Twitter were...not exactly temperate. If he'd said something like, "I understand your concerns based on my acts in other venues, but don't worry, I can adjust my material to fit my...
  • Commented on Baboon Fart Odyssey
    There's just the little thing that Hugh Howey's numbers suggest it is happening for a lot of people. Consistently, across both of his surveys so far. Granted that the surveys are from narrow periods of time, and they're basically estimates...
  • Commented on Baboon Fart Odyssey
    Not really sure what this whole thing proves. Sure, you can hit the button and self-publish anything, but the fact that the book was taken down in something like 24 hours suggests that the system will, sooner or later, act...
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