But for now, life seems pretty good on the j-views publishing front. Beneath Gray Skies has at last started to sell through Amazon Japan (the new edition, that is – quite a few copies of the first (Lulu) edition made [...]]]> …in anticipation of a sharp kick aimed somewhat lower down at some time in the future.

But for now, life seems pretty good on the j-views publishing front. Beneath Gray Skies has at last started to sell through Amazon Japan (the new edition, that is – quite a few copies of the first (Lulu) edition made it out to Japanese readers). This is great – I like Gray Skies a lot, and really think a lot more people will enjoy it than the alternative history “genre” label would seem to indicate.

And last night, whether as a result of continued nagging on Facebook and Twitter, or Mark Schreiber’s Japan Times review (see previous post), At the Sharpe End suddenly found itself for a short while as the fifth-best selling Thriller on Amazon Japan (don’t believe me? See the screenshots). That number has now dropped down – and it is probably the result of a relatively small sales volume, but I can, with perfect truth (perfect? you ask. All things are relative, says I.) claim to have written a “bestseller”.

Whatever, both volumes now are in the top 5,000 sellers (overall, not just Thrillers) of foreign books on Amazon Japan. Granted it’s a relatively small market, and it’s a biggish fish swimming in a smallish pond, but for a one-man publishing operation, it’s not bad at all (with all due modesty).

Whatever, thanks are due to the readers, whoever and wherever you may be, who have brought this about. I’m still high on the buzz of the number 5 ranking.

This is an example (and a hint to any Hollywood producers reading this). Click to enlarge.

But… Yesterday, I wanted to get something from Amazon using my iPad. Try to sign in, and it rejected my password. I was sure I had it right, [...]]]> Yes, I like Kindle as an application. Don’t see myself ever buying the dedicated device, even with all its advantages, like great battery life and a super screen.

But… Yesterday, I wanted to get something from Amazon using my iPad. Try to sign in, and it rejected my password. I was sure I had it right, but it wouldn’t let me reset, and then it asked me to open a new account. So I did (used the same e-mail address, which was probably a mistake), but then it told me I had no devices registered to the account, so there was no point in my downloading. I didn’t want to deregister my iPad (some purchased material that I’d probably lose if I did), so left it at that. Today, I logged in from my computer, got the book, and put it on my iPad. Presumably the “old” account still works, but I can’t purchase from my iPad. Now it appears I have no history from my computer, having logged in again just now.

This isn’t just Amazon, it’s the whole issue of DRM and how it should be implemented, if at all. While Apple’s iTunes was restrictive in the way you could enjoy music (much less so now than it was, of course), there was always a way you could enjoy the music outside the Apple universe by burning a CD of a playlist. Furthermore, anyone who wanted to use my computer could also listen to the music. With Kindle, it appears that I am now screwed, to coin a phrase. I’ve purchased content, and that content is now probably lost to me if I want to buy anything else. This is not exactly friendly, to put it mildly, and it’s got me thinking about DRM.

As an author and an independent publisher, I should be really behind DRM, shouldn’t I? Well, I’m not. I would hate to think that anyone has lost access to something I’ve produced through no fault of theirs or mine, but simply because the distributor has fouled up on the implementation of the delivery mechanism. And if that means I lose a couple of sales because someone copies and “lends” the book to someone, so be it. If it meant losing a million sales (apparently the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series has reached 1,000,000), I might feel a little differently – but only a little.

In the meantime, Amazon are definitely not on my list of Best-Loved Organizations.

This is all to do with Flipboard, a very pretty aggregator service for the iPad that allows you [...]]]> Lem Fugitt, who is largely responsible for pushing me into buying an iPad (well, Steve Jobs has to take some of the blame, and I must share the remainder) has made an interesting comment on my Facebook page.

This is all to do with Flipboard, a very pretty aggregator service for the iPad that allows you to scrape content from online sources into pages arranged like a magazine. Tap on an article and you get the first paragraph, tap a bit further and you get to the Web site itself, to read the full article. You can post links to the article through Twitter, and indeed, you can add your Twitter and Facebook accounts as feeds to your “personalized” magazine (I remember speaking about this as a concept at a conference in Yokohama some 15 years ago).

The question is, does this constitute “fair use”, or are the users of this service getting something for free (i.e. the ad-free content without the distractions)? I use an ad-blocker on my browser, and I also use the Safari 5 Reader feature a lot. Is this any different?

Over a few (public) messages, Lem made these points:

One concern I have with Flipboard is that they are scrapping content from websites rather than using RSS feeds. For example, I limit the amount of post content that goes out on my RSS feeds because unless the reader visits my sites I have no opportunity to generate any ad revenue.

…

From my experience, people that are interested enough to really read content in detail and engage with the author are less likely to click on ads. People that have more of a casual interest, that ‘browse’, tend to be the ad-clickers.

I’ve taken the decision not to put up ads on this site, other than the ones for my own books. Facebook irritates the hell out of me with the endless FX Ponzi scams, though I dismiss them and write comments about them, so the ad question doesn’t really concern me, but he asked how I would feel about a few chapters of my novel being scrapped and put up on-line (a very fair and valid question). My answer:

As far as my novels are concerned, I wouldn’t mind, because your example assumes they’re providing parts of a whole, which would be incomplete. People would have to buy the whole book to find out what happens next But if it was non-fiction, and the chapters were standalone, I’d feel differently.

Reply to this:

Have you ever seen figures on the book publishing supply/consumer chain? My impression, though it could be way off, is that a significant % of the books that are printed never get purchased, and that more than half the people that purchase a book never finish reading it.

The reason that I’m bringing this up is that ever since I started using the Kindle software on my iPhone/iPad/PC my book purchases – even e-book purchases – have dropped by at least 30%, perhaps more. The reason is that with the Kindle I can read a sample chapter before making the purchase decision. Actually being able to sample the writing quality has turned me off on many purchases I would have previously made.

Again, good point. But you know, I think I would sooner have my books bought by people who actually read them than who allow them to sit on the shelves and rot. Or, more to the point, who buy it, don’t like it, and take out their frustration on what they see as a waste of money by writing a 1-star review on Amazon. Isn’t it better to have a few contented readers than a mass of malcontents?

I am pretty certain I am not going to get rich out of this independent publishing game (I may, but it’s not something I’m counting on to see me through my old age). Nor do I realistically expect to lose money – I am confident of this, at least. On the other hand, I feel I have written (so far) a couple of well-crafted novels that will give some people quite a lot of pleasure (one of the first purchasers of At the Sharpe End wrote a really nice comment on Twitter the other day about the story he’d read so far), and I’d far sooner that the readers were ones who really enjoyed the book, rather than people who felt they’d been conned in some way into buying it.

So yes, I stand by my words, at least for fiction. A couple of chapters, even if reproduced without my consent (of course, I would prefer it if people did ask first) could lead to more sales. After all, I post most of a chapter on the book on the sites, and I distribute a 50% teaser of the books through Smashwords (I wouldn’t do this for non-fiction). Certainly, it will lead to more interest. But if anyone rips off the whole book, I shall be upset. I do want people to buy the whole thing to be able to read the ending.

Yes, it’s just an overgrown iPod touch. But the iPod touch has been with us for so long now (how many years is so long?) [...]]]> I’ve only had the beast for a few days, so maybe the question is a little premature, but I think the answer is “probably it will end up being a life-changer”.

Yes, it’s just an overgrown iPod touch. But the iPod touch has been with us for so long now (how many years is so long?) that it’s easy to forget just how revolutionary it really is. Instead of a mass of fiddly little mechanical buttons and modifier (shift, control, alt, etc.) keys to change function, the interface changes shape as required, and you point directly at it. Before I had an iPhone, I had a Nokia – one of the few smartphones (and it wasn’t really that smart) available in Japan at the time. It did a lot, but the integration with the computer was weak. The iPhone actually got me to use my phone as a pocket computer – even a book reader.

So who needs an iPad? I was surprised by the quality of the display for photos. Who needs a digital photo frame? And I “have an app for that”™ for almost all the things I do on a regular basis outside the home (word-processing, spreadsheet, whatever).

But the big thing has been e-books. I have three book readers (all free) on the beast, and I’m impressed by all of them in their different ways.

First, Stanza is very customizable. Pinch and zoom to change text size. Takes ePubs, and it has a wide range of free (and paid) downloads available from inside it.

iBooks – as you might expect from Apple, it has the glitziest interface and is less customizable than Stanza. A little lacking in some areas, but very usable indeed. Allows me to read books that I haven’t bought from Apple, including free ones. Pictures in ebooks work well with this.

And Kindle – which I like much more than I expected now I’m using it on a large screen. The Whispersync technology is very cool, the purchasing from Amazon is dangerously easy, and the display, while undistinguished and not terribly imaginative, is perfectly readable.

I expect to be using the iPad more and more for books – not the books I want to keep, but the ones I want to read once for reference, or just as throwaway light reading. As someone mentioned on the Web the other day, the next rational step is to have a “Buy a paper copy of this book” button that will send a print order to a POD house to have the book shipped to your door in a day or so (with a slight discount as the result of having purchased the ebook copy earlier). I shall be delighted when that comes to pass.

In the meantime, I’d welcome other people’s comments on the ebook readers available on the iPad.

On a more positive note, the first box (22 copies) of At the Sharpe End arrived today. Just over 3 weeks, [...]]]> This really isn’t worth mentioning, perhaps, but I can now post to my Wordpress blog from my iPad. This means that you will probably see a lot more rubbish from me in the future.

On a more positive note, the first box (22 copies) of At the Sharpe End arrived today. Just over 3 weeks, which isn’t too bad. But the other 28 have yet to arrive. Weird.

I looked at their AdSense program and started the sign-up process (I’m not actually that keen on [...]]]> I’m really starting to wonder how the US economy continues to hold up, with these supposedly high-tech market leaders who still seem stuck in the 19th century when it comes to payment mechanisms.

Google first – they’re a tempting target

I looked at their AdSense program and started the sign-up process (I’m not actually that keen on the idea of third-party ads on Web sites – sometimes they’re totally and comically inappropriate, but I thought – well, let’s see, shall we?). I tell Google that I live in Japan, and the address field actually provides a pop-up list of prefectures (in kanji, in the middle of an English form, but we’ll let that ride for now). So Google actually realises that not everyone lives in a “state” and they don’t all have “zip codes”. Good – they do know there are other countries out there (so many US companies seem to think the US way of doing things like addresses and phone numbers is the world standard – it’s not!).

So… payment details. Where do I want my checks sent? Checks?? We’re in the 21st century. I haven’t written a cheque (check) for about 20 years. They don’t exist in Japan for personal accounts. When I go back to the UK, I pay by debit card or credit card. Can’t Google credit my credit card? I thought they had a Google payment system (never used it – always use PayPal for things). Can’t they force me to sign up for that? Or pay me in camels and I’ll send back the change in goats? Or something. If someone in Google is savvy enough to know that Japan has prefectures, isn’t someone else in there savvy enough to know that checks in Japan are as much use as a chocolate teapot?

Next, Amazon

First, if I publish through Amazon’s Kindle process, all my payments are made by check. OK, same thing applies. Give me Amazon credit, credit the credit card you have on file, send cash in an envelope, but for heaven’s sake, DON’T SEND ME CHECKS!

Next, the speed of Amazon’s reaction. I realize that Amazon is a large company. They deal in millions of books. They are overworked and they had to attend their parrot’s mother’s funeral. I don’t want to know. Why does it take so long to get a customer-uploaded image file onto a book page (Amazon UK)? And why does it take at least 2 weeks for a book to change status from “Not available yet” to “In stock” and get the description up there on the subsidiary sites? Wouldn’t you think that a book that suddenly hit the top 50 in a particular genre would be fast-tracked into some kind of promotion?

And the Look Inside? Why does it take so long to take a formatted PDF from the publisher and turn it into the Look Inside format?

OK, it’s hot, I’m sweaty and annoyed and waiting for the mailman to deliver my first edition. But I look at Smashwords, which is a small operation (I get the feeling it’s half a dozen people at most) – very busy, and extremely efficient – and pays by Paypal. Why can’t Google and Amazon look at these people as a model of how to deal with suppliers?