'flipback' book

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/20/could-this-kill-kindle

Barry Eisler Walks Away From $500,000 Deal to Self-Pub

If you look at the current Top 100 bestsellers on Kindle, twenty-seven of them are self-published. Many of those authors were rejected by NY. Yet consumers are showing us what they want to read, and voting with their wallets.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html

Poetry Reference Tables

http://www2.rccsd.org/RKeim/KEIM_POETRY_REFERENCE_TABLES.pdf

The History Of Science Fiction

http://scimaps.org/submissions/7-digital_libraries/maps/thumbs/024_LG.jpg

5 Hollywood Secrets That Explain Why So Many Movies Suck

Hollywood studios generally buy 10 times as many scripts as they make into movies, which means they currently own exclusive rights to a shitload of films that will never see production. And in most cases, they won't let anyone else have them. E.T., The Matrix, Pulp Fiction and Star Wars are all films that you never would have seen because the studios that owned them were content to sit on each forever. They were saved only because someone convinced another studio to re-buy them, usually at a higher price.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19012_5-hollywood-secrets-that-explain-why-so-many-movies-suck.html

Hollywood's conservatism: why no one wants to make a "risky" movie

In the last several years, a new rule of operation has taken over: The movie itself has to be the brand. And because a brand is, by definition, familiar, a brand is also, by definition, not original.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/02/hollywoods-conservat.html

The eBook User’s Bill of Rights

Every eBook user should have the following rights:

• the right to use eBooks under guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations
• the right to access eBooks on any technological platform, including the hardware and software the user chooses
• the right to annotate, quote passages, print, and share eBook content within the spirit of fair use and copyright
• the right of the first-sale doctrine extended to digital content, allowing the eBook owner the right to retain, archive, share, and re-sell purchased eBooks

I believe in the free market of information and ideas.

I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can flourish when their works are readily available on the widest range of media. I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can thrive when readers are given the maximum amount of freedom to access, annotate, and share with other readers, helping this content find new audiences and markets. I believe that eBook purchasers should enjoy the rights of the first-sale doctrine because eBooks are part of the greater cultural cornerstone of literacy, education, and information access.

Digital Rights Management (DRM), like a tariff, acts as a mechanism to inhibit this free exchange of ideas, literature, and information. Likewise, the current licensing arrangements mean that readers never possess ultimate control over their own personal reading material. These are not acceptable conditions for eBooks.

I am a reader. As a customer, I am entitled to be treated with respect and not as a potential criminal. As a consumer, I am entitled to make my own decisions about the eBooks that I buy or borrow.

I am concerned about the future of access to literature and information in eBooks. I ask readers, authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, software developers, and device manufacturers to support these eBook users’ rights.

These rights are yours. Now it is your turn to take a stand. To help spread the word, copy this entire post, add your own comments, remix it, and distribute it to others. Blog it, Tweet it (#ebookrights), Facebook it, email it, and post it on a telephone pole.

http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/02/ebookrights.html

The Very Rich Indie Writer

there is no traditional publisher in the world right now that can offer Amanda Hocking terms that are better than what she’s currently getting, right now on the Kindle store, all on her own.
http://www.novelr.com/2011/02/27/rich-indie-writer

Indie eBook Hall of Fame

All the books listed on this page have been personally reviewed and vetted by book reviewers who feature indie books on their blogs. In order to be listed on this page, a book must meet the following criteria:

* It is available in ebook form
* It is sold in multiple formats, at least one of them from a DRM-free vendor
* It has received a positive recommendation from at least three independent bloggers
http://sites.google.com/site/indiehof/

The Last Ring-bearer by Kirill Yeskov

Well, there's two sides to every story, or to quote a less banal maxim, history is written by the winners. That's the philosophy behind "The Last Ringbearer," a novel set during and after the end of the War of the Ring (the climactic battle at the end of "The Lord of the Rings") and told from the point of view of the losers. The novel was written by Kirill Yeskov, a Russian paleontologist, and published to acclaim in his homeland in 1999. Translations of the book have also appeared in other European nations, but fear of the vigilant and litigious Tolkien estate has heretofore prevented its publication in English.
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2011/02/15/last_ringbearer/index.html
At 139,000 words, this 1 Mb PDF is about 80% of the length of The Fellowship of the Ring.
http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html

Gaiman on Copyright Piracy and the Web

Muistelo vanhoista peli-ideoista

Joskus 90-luvun puolivälissä järjestettiin peli-ideakilpailu, johon sai lähettää synopsiksia uusille tietokonepeleille. Osallistuin muutamalla idealla.

Yksi ideoistani oli rakentelupeli, jossa täytyy keräillä puupalikoita voidakseen rakentaa talon ja kantaa vesipalikoita voidakseen sammuttaa tulipalon ilman sen kummempaa päämäärää. Tuomariston kommentit ideasta olivat jotain "ei kukaan pelaisi näin päämäärätöntä sandboxia".



Jep.

Toinen ideani oli tasohyppely, jossa pelaaja on palvelurobotti tähtienvälisellä huviristeilijällä ja joutuu juoksemaan ympäri alusta toteuttaen erilaisten otusten outoja tilauksia, aluksi turistiluokassa ja ylennysten jälkeen luksusluokassa. Tuomariston kommentit tästä pelistä olivat jotain "ei kukaan jaksaisi pelata palvelurobottina".

Varsinainen hauskuus pelissä olisi tietysti ollut ryhtyä kapinalliseksi, juosta poliiseja karkuun ja kerätä pluspisteiden sijaan mahdollisimman paljon miinuspisteitä aiheuttaen kaaosta aluksella.



Kilpailun voitti muistaakseni joku poliittinen Civilization-klooni, josta ei kuultu sen jälkeen.

Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration

You try to go to a producer today and say you want to make a film that hasn’t been made before; they will throw you out because they want the same film that works, that makes money. That tells me that although the cinema in the next 100 years is going to change a lot, it will slow down because they don’t want you to risk anymore. They don’t want you to take chances. So I feel like [I’m] part of the cinema as it was 100 years ago, when you didn't know how to make it. You have to discover how to make it.
http://the99percent.com/articles/6973/Francis-Ford-Coppola-On-Risk-Money-Craft-Collaboration

The NOT .99 Method

http://www.massivesqwertz.com/the-not-99-method-the-diy-ibookstore-alternative-for-indie-books-comics

What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

If the pre-1978 law were still in effect, we could have seen 85% of the works created in 1982 enter the public domain on January 1, 2011. Imagine what that would mean to our archives, our libraries, our schools and our culture. Instead, these works will remain under copyright for decades to come, perhaps even into the next century. And for most of them – orphan works – that means they will be both commercially unavailable and culturally off limits, without any benefit going to a copyright holder. Think of the cultural harm that does. http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/pre1976