Dead Tree Books, eBook, Writing

Stephen King Not Releasing New Work As eBook

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Stephen King’s new novel won’t be released as an ebook.

“Maybe at some point [there’ll be an ebook]” King told the WSJ, “but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”

While this is interesting … I’m not buying the reasoning.  Supposedly, he’s doing this to help out bookstores.  Yet he’s releasing the book through the Most Hated Enemy Of Bookstores: Amazon and other e-retailers.

So the take-away for me is that Stephen King came up with a new way to market: make an announcement that people will chew through without thinking about it.  Welcome to the wonderful world of press releases.

National Forests, News

Protecting the Cleveland National Forest – San Diego’s Planned Encroachment

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

According to the Sand Diego Union Tribune, San Diego County has just released a Draft Environmental Impact Report regarding the Cleveland National Forest.

In 1993 the voters of San Diego County by a two-thirds vote endorsed and passed the Forest Conservation Initiative, which protected the forest from what the U-T called a “Death Sentence” of development.

The new Draft Environmental Impact Report seeks to replace the riparian and rangeland habitat with urban sprawl. According to the DEI, the plan’s SIGNIFICANT impact in the forest is “unavoidable” because the county must put housing in San Diego’s last remaining wilderness area. Continue reading →

eBook, Self Publishing, Writing

Screwpulp – a self-publishing platform that engages authors and readers

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

I’ve read a press release for a new Memphis, TN based self-publishing service with a unique ‘crowd-driven’ pricing model, and read through all of the information on their website.  I have not, as yet, used this service.  It sounds interesting, and it is a sales model that could be beneficial to both authors AND readers.

For authors, this may be something to look into. You initially put your book up on Screwpulp as a free book. As your books gains traction (‘as you promote your book’ and you get ‘good reviews’ is what the site says) the value of your book increases. The more popular the book becomes, the more money you’ll make.

For readers, you’ll have to give a review before you can download free books, and you can only download one free book at a time (you’re free, of course, to purchase as many books as you want at any time).

Continue reading →

eBook, Self Publishing, Writing

Ebooks Responsible for Nearly $1 Billion Growth in Trade

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

According to Digital Book World, eBooks pushed the total net book sales over $27.1 billion for 2012. eBooks were 20% of trade publishing net sales for 2012, beating the 2011 eBooks sales figure (15%) handsomely.

From the DBW article:

The BookStat report shows prices are fairly stable for trade, ebook growth has slowed but contributes significantly to book sales overall, and that both romance and YA are growth genres, according to Ned May, VP and practice leader at Outsell Inc., who presented the stats at today’s MIP event.

The complete BookStat report will be released in June, and it will show a net new dollars figure for eBooks of $995 million.

You can read the original article HERE.

Conservation, National Parks

National Park Service removes trash cans from parks in an effort to shut down public lands

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

It’s already started back in D.C.

The National Park Service is REMOVING trash cans from national parks under a new “Trash Free Park” program that’s being instituted in some parks outside of California. According to the Question/Answer sheet found HERE, this is the idea behind the program:

“…Visitors are responsible for removing all refuse they generate in the park when they leave the park. Trash must be picked up and the area left in a clean condition before departure. Visitors are encouraged to come prepared when visiting the park. If they plan to picnic, barbecue, or in any way generate waste, they should plan ahead to provide the means to organize materials needed, and correctly package items and refuse, in order to efficiently remove it with them by the means in which they came -by walking, metro, bicycle, car, etc.. The park encourages visitors to consider how they package items. Using materials that can be recycled or composted when they return home is a positive way to help the environment…”

I don’t know about you, but my questions in no reflect the rainbows and unicorns questions dreamed up but the NPS flunky who wrote that sheet up.  My only question is this:

What fucking moron came up with this idiotic plan?

Continue reading →