Author Archives: Shawn E. Bell

Stephen Curry – Kindle surprise and disappointment

In Occam’s Corner, hosted by The Guardian, Stephen Curry discovers that he really likes the Kindle.  From the article:

I thought I loved the physical feel of books too much to become enamoured of ebooks. I loved the heft, the smell, the touch of the paper, the firm but yielding resistance of the spine of a new paperback, the perfect cut of the pages that transforms a gathering of sheets — leaves that flutter easily between the fingers — into a near solid block. Comparisons are hard to find because there is nothing quite like a book. The intimacy of the tactile sensations, along with the joy of ideas and entertainment that are to be found between the covers of those that are well written, have combined to make the book an object not just of veneration — how many are scandalised to find second hand tomes annotated with a reader’s scratchings? — but of love.

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Wait, WHAT? A self-published author turns down a publisher?

Author Aubrey Rose recently wrote a blog post explaining why she decided to turn down an offer from Amazon Publishing’s Montlake Romance imprint.

Why would a self-published author turn down an overture from a publisher?  An offer that included royalties, even?

From her post:

“…Naturally, I was thrilled. A real publisher wanted my work! I chatted with her briefly on the phone and asked her a ton of questions: What kind of cover would they create for me? What promotions would they do? What control would I have over everything? Although I was excited to work with Amazon, I wanted to know that they would treat my book right. She told me my novel was a great read and very clean writing, and that she would love to “partner” with me in relaunching my book through Amazon’s imprint.

However, she couldn’t guarantee anything – from cover image to pricing to marketing…”

Ah, ha!  Well, that’s par for the publisher course.  But wait, there’s more:

“…The advance they offered was less than I had made in my first month of sales. As I looked through the Montlake catalogue, I saw a mix of breakout hits and complete flops, with some recent books that just had the worst covers imaginable for romance. And I would have to pull my book from every publisher except Amazon…”

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American Hiking Society’s petition to protect hiking on National Scenic Trails from mountain biking

I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a fan of mountain bikes shooting down hiking trails.  While there are certainly some mountain bikers who are cognizant of others, the vast majority of mountain bikers I’ve encountered have been rude, unsafe cyclists who don’t seem to be in control of their equipment; I’ve seen far more accidents involving bikers running into hikers than the other way around.

That’s not to say that I think mountain biking should be legislated out.  I just don’t believe that having a bunch of speeding cyclists who can’t control their machinery sharing the road with hikers is a good thing.  Mountain biking is a great outdoor sport, it is great exercise, and it results in some spectacular YouTube footage.

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Complimentary Kindle Edition for Authors Self-publishing With Outskirts Press in August

From PRWEB: Outskirts Press, the leading self-publishing and book marketing services provider, announces a promotion that will help self-publishing authors get the most value for their publishing dollars. Throughout the month of August, authors who publish with Outskirts Press receive a free Kindle Edition, a valuable way to jump-start the marketing efforts into todays electronic world.

Authors who order a Diamond or Pearl book publishing package any time from August 1 through August 31 automatically qualify for the free Kindle Edition with the valid promotion code. Authors not only save hundreds on self-publishing services by bundling them with one of these two popular publishing packages, but receive a $199 Kindle Edition free.

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New and Remarkable Details of the Sun Now Available from Big Bear Observatory

According to Science Daily,  researchers at the Solar Observatory in Big Bear, CA have been taking some pretty detailed photos of the sun with their new solar telescope.

From the article:

The photographs reveal never-before-seen details of solar magnetism revealed in photospheric and chromospheric features.

“With our new generation visible imaging spectrometer (VIS),” said Wenda Cao, NJIT Associate Professor of Physics and BBSO Associate Director, “the solar atmosphere from the photosphere to the chromosphere, can be monitored in a near real time. One image was taken with VIS on May 22, 2013 in H-alpha line center. The lawn-shaped pattern illustrates ultrafine magnetic loops rooted in the photosphere below.”

The other photospheric photograph is the most precise sunspot image ever taken: A textbook sunspot that looks like a daisy with many petals. The dark core of the spot is the umbra and the petals are the penumbra. “With the unprecedented resolution of BBSO’s NST, many previously unknown small-scale sunspot features can now be perceived,” said Cao. In particular, there are the twisting flows along the penumbra’s less dark filaments, the complicated dynamic motion in the light bridge vertically spanning the umbra’s darkest part and the dark cores of the small bright points or umbra dots.

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