random friday updatesgoings on

Where was I yesterday? Oh, um, I was doing word stuff, you know. I transferred some barely organized chicken scratched book outline material onto the computer screen and now it's neat and clean and ready to go. This is the rewrite of the classic novel, which I shall henceforth refer to as 'the remix project' in the blog posts.

I read up on the author a bit yesterday and determined he was likely ill of health when he wrote it. The book was published just a year before his death. There were some parts of his book that felt a bit disconnected and after I read about his death, I wondered if that was partially due to his declining health. Did he have the chance to get the book the way he wanted before he died? If not, that would be a terrible way to go into the great beyond.

I really want this book to be the best of my work so far. I want to think he would be happy with my use of his monster.

Anyway.

I did want to touch on this Harper Collins vs. the libraries business. I love the library. I go to mine all the time and I have fond memories of going to the library as a child. They perform a vital public service.

The library ebook system works in a way similar to the regular library system. They have a set number of copies of an ebook. You log into a system, if the book you want is available, you dowload it and get to keep it on your kindle or whatever for a set period - two weeks or whatever. Then at the end of the checkout period, the file expires. I think you can renew it as long as no one has requested a hold on it.

Now, in case you're unfamilair with Harper Collins, they're a publishing company - a big one. What they want to do is limit the number of times an ebook can be lent out, which would basically require the library to purchase the ebook again after a certain number of people check it out.

I think it's wrong. Libraries are suffering enough with budget cuts and branch closings. This isn't going to help them at all.

The publishing industry as a whole has been suffering financially for a while, but this move reeks of desperation. I can understand the concerns about piracy, etc. However, if someone is determined to steal intellectual property, you won't be able to stop them. Kicking libraries when they're already down is, at the very least, a bad public relations move. Libraries are some of Harper Collins' customers.

You would think in this economy, they wouldn't want to piss off too many of the people who give them money. There are many, many books in this world, especially with the freedom authors have right now.

An unrelated announcement. Smashwords is having a Read an Ebook Week event March 6-12. A bunch of books with special offers will be listed in a separate catalog during that week. My two freebies will be listed and also MacDowell Sisters & AnnaBeth is set to be a freebie for the event.

That's all I have for today but really, wasn’t it enough? I might pop in over the weekend if I decide to take a break from slapping word to page.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1