I can sympathize with the Big Six publishers trying to remain relevant and profitable in the age of Amazon (despite being unsympathetic when it comes to the lousy terms legacy publishers offer authors).

But I can’t sympathize with utter cluelessness like this, reported in Techdirt:

…while ebooks from the popular publisher Penguin are available to borrow from Kindle libraries, Penguin requires that they only be transferrable by USB, not wireless. This, in turn, means that they cannot be read with the free Kindle apps on platforms like iOS and Android, since USB transfer is only supported on the Kindle device itself.

Reader reviewers rave:

“Enthralling book, pulls you back in time!”

“A book for anyone who loved the circus history of  Water for Elephants.”

“The book is unpredictable and the plot is unlike anything I’ve read before”

“This book was shockingly good.”

“Heartbreaking at times and thrilling at others.”

“Wonderful read!”

“Great difficulty putting it down.”

“Love, love, love!”

Somewhere in the asteroid belt, at an outpost called Onstation, The Corporation controls all. Its female employees are required to drape themselves in the modest Muslim garment, the chador. And two brothers—Jay, a musician, and Von, The Corporation’s OnStation Director—are rivals for the love of one woman.

This is Kathryn Lance’s premise for The Ptorrigan Lode, a worthy successor to her 1980s cult classic Pandora’s Genes.  Fans of the latter might wonder, as I did, why both stories center on relationships between brothers, one who holds great power, and another who takes a more Bohemian path. I’d love for Lance to explain at some point.

Jay, the musician, is addicted to chappa, a drug, associated with a now-extinct civilization, that increases creativity—among other things. Like most addictive substances, chappa eventually destroys those with a dependence on it.

Jay will die without his chappa fix but The Corporation has made chappa illegal. Von offers him a way to get all the chappa he might ever need, and get his life back in the process, but there’s a catch. More than one.

The Ptorrigan Lode keeps you at the edge of your seat and keeps you guessing all the while. It’s a quick read, but a satisfying one, that will nevertheless leave you hungry for more. In that case, I can recommend Lance’s earlier works, which are eerily relevant to much going on in our culture today.

Genre: Science fiction, Novella

Price: $2.99

Amazon Prime Lending Library: Yes

Average Amazon Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars

I’m going to start expanding the scope of this blog to include book reviews of noteworthy fiction in ebook form. This will be an occasional feature, as I will only publish reviews of ebooks that are exceptional (in a good way). That means that, perhaps, one of every five to ten books I finish reading will get a write-up on these pages. (Given that there are now about 20 books on my Kindle that failed to hold my interest long enough for me to finish them, you can imagine how rare the book is that both gets finished and gets a review).

I won’t use a star or other ranking system, as I find that that doesn’t tell a full enough story. Instead, I’ll tell you what I particularly appreciated about an ebook, as well as noting any significant weaknesses.

Stay tuned. The first review, of an edge-of-your-seat sci-fi novella called The Ptorrigan Lode should be up within the week.

After that, I expect to review the fine historical courtroom novel, Just Deceits.

Please note that, for the moment, my policy is to purchase the ebooks I review, rather than accept review copies from authors.

- Anita Bartholomew

There’s an article on The Guardian’s bookblog this morning by bestselling author Anthony Horowitz.

He asks: “Do we still need publishers?” and appears to come to the conclusion that we do.

I believe that’s the wrong answer. We might want publishers for any number of reasons. But need?

Here’s what traditional publishers give the non-famous author that the non-famous author can in no way buy for himself: shelf space in bookstores.

You can hire a cover designer, and ask your friends in publishing to help you choose the best design.

You can hire a line editor, a structural editor, a copy editor, and a proofreader.

You can hire a typesetter and an ebook formatter.

You can even get reviews on your own, although it’s much more difficult for you than for your publisher. But it can be—and has been—done.

With rare exceptions, however, you can’t hire a place for your book on bookstore shelves nationwide.

So, the question becomes, how valuable is the space on that shelf?

Bookstores are going out of business at a rapid rate. How valuable is shelf space when readers are buying books, paper as well as digital, online?

Shelf space, for midlist authors with a hardcover or paperback, was once a precious commodity. But shelf space alone was never enough to get a book noticed. Unless the bookstore had gotten co-op money from your publisher for space on a display table or, better yet, in the window, your book would be shelved spine-out—meaning, no one who wasn’t specifically looking for it was likely to find it.

Your book would be gone from that shelf within six weeks if nobody bought it, and sent back to the publisher. It would probably be shelf-worn. The publisher would pulp it. The royalty for the copy would have been withheld for a few months, anyway, because so many books are returned that the publisher knows better than to pay out right away.

So, that’s the tangible thing traditional publishers could give you, the midlist author, that you couldn’t buy for yourself.

The intangibles are something else. Most authors don’t calculate the value in terms of the tangible. They believe they still need publishers. And if what matters most to you is the imprimatur of a publishing house, if that’s the only way you believe you can prove that you’ve made it, maybe need is the correct word. If you think about what you’re actually being offered though, you might agree that want is more accurate. Think a bit longer, and you might not even want a publisher, especially if you’ve been in the publishing business for a while, and have nothing to prove.

You might want to go it alone and see how it works out.

- Anita Bartholomew

Read some of the latest reviews from readers posting their thoughts about The Midget’s House on Goodreads and Amazon:

*****
Five Stars:

“Ms. Bartholomew did complete and thorough research into times, lives, and yes, into the actual house described within this wonderful historical fiction novel.

“I hope to read more novels by Ms.Bartholomew in the future” 

*****

Five Stars:

” The story just pulls you in. I could see it on bookshelves at big chain bookstores; I could see it as a book club pick; in other words, some big publisher should take note of this book and make a lot of money off of it! Thanks for a wonderful read!”

*****

Four Stars:

“I *loved* this book. Had great difficulty putting it down.”

*****

Five Stars:

“I really enjoyed this look at the mystery, history, and background to the famous circus sideshows.”

*****

Five Stars:

“Love! love! love!”

You might have read (or if you haven’t, you should) the Authors Guild’s (AG) latest blog post, in which it condemns Amazon and blames it for the sorry state of the traditional publishing industry.

Amazon (and digital bookselling, in general) is a threat to publishers, for the reasons mentioned. Amazon is also a threat to authors, but mostly for different reasons than mentioned in the post. The attempt by AG to link authors’ and publishers’ interests really just reflects the AG’s interests. If traditional publishing disappears, so does the reason for the AG’s existence. That doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong, however, just wrong to conflate the interests of authors and publishers.

For example, other than the comment about plummeting advances, this statement makes little  sense:

It’s new authors who lose out if browsing in bookstores becomes a thing of the past. Advances for unproven and non-bestselling authors have already plummeted, by all accounts. Literary diversity is at risk.

New authors are going it alone, and creating opportunities for themselves that traditional publishers never would have given them. Diversity isn’t at risk. There’s more of it. There are ebooks about everything. Most of these would never have been published, if not for the ease of Amazon, Smashwords, and other digital publishing platforms.

The reality is that there’s no way to stop the shift to online buying, nor should we want to stop it. Whether in print or in ebook form, buyers know they’ll get better deals online, and they’re taking them.

This would be true whether we were talking about Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble or some other entity.

Newer authors’ self-pubbed books aren’t in danger of being remaindered six weeks after hitting the shelves. And, given that traditional publishers expect authors to do most of their own publicity, and have cut advances to the bone, when they publish new authors at all, Amazon comes off looking more hero than villain to most indie authors.

Indeed, some of us chose the indie route over traditional publishing because we saw it as the inevitable future, and figured we’d better get in early and learn the ropes.

That’s not to say that Amazon really is the hero to authors it currently appears to be. The danger to authors from Amazon is that, once the company has thoroughly marginalized the competition–and the AG is right; it’s doing just that–it will start changing contract terms, such as the formula for compensation to authors.

So, the story about Amazon both is and isn’t what the AG suggests. It’s more complex.

But we do need to be aware that if Amazon can steamroll major companies, it can definitely steamroll publishing companies consisting of one person and his computer.

- Anita Bartholomew

I’m delighted to report that after giving a brief reading at the last meeting of the Indian Beach-Sapphire Shores book club in Sarasota, FL, the group selected my novel, The Midget’s House, for its February read.

Most of the book club members opted for the paperback, but it’s also available as a Kindle edition at a great, low price. 

I’m so excited that I’ll repeat the gist of the headline: The Midget’s House just made it to #94 on the Kindle Paid Bestseller list in Literary Fiction.

It’s the imagined history of my home in Sarasota, known as one of the two “midget houses” because local legend says John Ringling built it for little people in his circus (just a legend — probably untrue).

On Monday, the ebook was free for a day, and made several lists, but this is its first paid bestseller day. Kindle ranks change by the hous, so it might be there later or it might not. But it’s a great feeling to see it there now.

The paperback, which has been delayed due to printing errors, should be available next week.