Fiction Scribe

Help support the cause by spreading the word and commenting on other’s posts. Here’s a link list, courtesy of Writer’s Weekly, of people who are talking about Amazon.com’s move to make a monopoly.

Amazon Explains POD Move; Ingram Raises Questions by Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly

Amazon squeezes on-demand publishers, ITWire

Backlash Over Amazon Monopoly Tactics by Deborah Woehr

An Important Lesson from Amazon on How NOT to Treat Your Customers, Virtual Impax

The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla by Sgt. Mom

Amazon squeezes POD by Nick Farrell

POD Publishers Outraged by Amazon’s New Restrictions, Law Librarian Blog

Et tu, Amazon? by Todd Keisling

Amazon smacks little people with BookSurge By Cade Metz, The Register

A New Amazon Mandate? Say it ain’t so, Jeff by Morris Rosenthal

Amazon Forcing POD Publishers to Make a Hard Decision, Virtualbookworm

Amazon Tightens Grip on Printing by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal

Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service by Rafat Ali, The Washington Post

Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge by Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly

Amazon changes rules for print-on-demand publishers by Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld

Amazon pulls a Microsoft by Robert L. Mitchell, Computerworld Blogs

Amazon Puts the Squeeze on Publishers by Betsy Schiffman, Wired Blog Network

Amazon Gets Demanding with Print-on-Demand Publishers, O’Reilly Radar

Amazon.com puts the screws to small publishers, Valleywag

Amazon Insists Publishers Use Their On-Demand Printer, Slashdot

Amazon Declares War on Lightning Source by Aaron Shepard

Amazon’s POD monopoly, booktwo.org

Is Amazon Getting Greedy? , open…

Oh, REAL nice, Amazon.com, Beatlegirl’s Blog

Market Report — In Play,MSN Money

Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch

Amazon & BookSurge, words count

Urgent News for Authors, The Holistic Writer

Monopoly - It’s Not A Game by Jean-Marie Hershey, Print CEO Blog

Of oil lamps, Print on Demand, and e-book machines: Amazon’s Bezos as a would-be Rockefeller by David Rothman

Deal Breaker? Amazon - BookSurge - POD - No Choice?, Workboxers

Amazon.com’s POD land grab, BookFinder.com Journal

Amazon Changes POD Tactics, Removes Velvet Gloves by Kassia Krozser, Booksquare

Amazon The Monopoly, PersonaNonData

Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services, web2bite.com

Use BookSurge or Die? by Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware

Amazon/Golliath takes on the little guys by Helen Gallagher, Release Your Writing

Amazon Bullies POD to Use Booksurge — or Else., Shadowhelm’s Journal

Amazon Says It Will Only Sell Print-On-Demand Books That It Gets To Print, Techdirt

Amazon deletes competition, LibraryThing

What’s Amazon Up To Now? by Tawny Taylor

Amazon Shaking the POD World Big Time, Juno Books

A hearty “F$%k you!” to Amazon by Elf M. Sternberg

A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Inhabitatio Dei

Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge, Media Mensch

Self Publishers and Amazon, Writerly Stuff

Amazon Tightens Grip On Printing, booktrade.info

Amazon to Block Other POD Services from Using Amazon Marketplace, Dear Author

Amazon trying to screw small presses?, lupabitch

Dear Amazon, What are You Thinking? by Monica Valentinelli, Words on the Water

Will Amazon Hurt Small Pagan Publishers?, The Wild Hund

Amazon and us by Gill Polack

Will Amazon Become the Google of the POD Industry? by Deborah Woehr

Down with The Zon! by Celia Kyle

Beyond the POD grab: The IDPF should fight Amazon’s new eBabel, look for anti-trust violations, and reach out to Google by David Rothman, TeleRead

Amazon blocking books of competitive publishers?, electronista

We are not amused–veinglory, PODPeople

Bully on the block?, The Pearlsong Letter

The monopolists: You need to worry about Amazon too by Eion Purcell

Amazon owns the marketplace: return of the distributor, Thudfactor

Is Amazon trying to monopolize the empowering Publish-On-Demand market?, Chris Boese’s Weblog

500 pound gorilla, Idle musings of a bookseller

Bye-Bye “Buy Buttons” for POD Authors?, The Backroom at Dehanna.com

Amazon Making a Big Mistake by Cheryl Pickett

Amazon to force POD publishers to use Booksurge, Murder by 4

Amazon.com’s dirty little deed, pds_lit

Amazon’s Stupid Anti-Competitive Move, Principled Profit

Amazon Bullying POD Writers and Publishers Unfairly, A-ha

A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Resurrection Life

Amazon.com Is On Drugs, Thought Patterns

Amazon launches their weapon of mass destruction, steps on the long tail of independent authors by Mark Riffey

POD Publishers Told to Sell Directly Through Amazon, They Have to Use Booksurge, PublishersLunch

Maybe Amazon’s problem is obvious?, The Snoozeletter

No longer an Amazon customer, The Books of My Numberless Dreams

Are They Nuts? by Heather S. Ingemar

Amazon not playing fair, Synthstuff

Amazon attempting to squeeze POD industry, Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog

Amazon.com Takes On Digital Book Printers, Graphic Arts Online

Boycott Amazon!, PlainTalk

Amazon.com Hates Small Press? by JM, Fiction Scribe

Telling the 900-pound Gorilla Where not to Sit, Quaker Pagan Reflections

Amazon puts the Squeeze on POD Publishers by Easy Author Web Sites

Amazonian bullying, Satima’s Blogspot

Amazon May be on Receiving End of Internet Justice, Small Business Trends

Amazon Situation Continues and Lesson #1, The Publishing Answers Blog

Amazon Chaos by Marshall S. Thomas

That Amazon decision, PETRONA

Author Gillian Polack is the first person to say her writing isn’t suitable for the mass market. Her writing career thus far has mostly depended on small press.

So when the news came out that Amazon.com is pairing up with BookSurge and the duo appear to be on the track to monopolizing small press, possibly putting small presses and the careers of authors published with them in danger, she was not happy.

According to Writers Weekly, “Reports have been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the “buy” button on their Amazon.com book pages will be “turned off”.”

What would this mean? Book information would stay on Amazon.com, but if you wanted to buy the book you would have to hunt down somewhere else to buy it from.

Amazon.com wants to play the game its way or it’s taking its ball and going home.

I think Victoria Strauss has the right way of it in deciding to reserve judgment. It’s hard to believe something like this is actually happening. We know Amazon has the balls, but does it really have the power (and lack of sense) to do this?

Reserving judgment may be the sensible thing to do, but I’m adding a bit to it by boycotting Amazon.com until this is resolved. (Funnily enough, I was planning on making a fairly large order in the next week.) I loathe monopolies and large companies that feel they can do as they wish.

Join me in the boycott if you like, but please post about this where you can. It’s not only a hot topic, it’s something that could change the lives of small presses and their authors.

*Writer’s Weekly has an excellent post about all this here along with a lot of responses to the news in the right sidebar.

**Help spread the news by digging/stumbling this post.

***Sign the petition for Amazon.com to stop by going here. You do not have to donate to sign.

The news is traveling fast that well known author Arthur C. Clarke died this week in Sri Lanka. Clarke, who had been battling illness for most of his life, is said to have had breathing problems before passing away early in the morning.

Clarke was born in Minehead, England, December 16th 1917 and found his love of science fiction at a young age. It wasn’t long before he began writing his own short stories and articles.

The author and inventor is probably best known for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey and for the movie by the same name. However, Clarke did and wrote much more beyond that. While his life certainly held its own fair share of controversy, I still tip my hat to a man who could write so much in one life.

Here is a list of just some of the many things he has written.

Prelude to Space (1951)
Islands in the Sky (1952)
Childhood’s End (1953)
Earthlight (1955)
The City and the Stars (1956)
The Deep Range (1957)
A Fall of Moondust (1961)
Dolphin Island (1963)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
Imperial Earth (1975)
The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
The Songs of Distant Earth (1986)
2061: Odyssey Three (1988)
A Meeting with Medusa (1988)
Rama II (1989) (with Gentry Lee)
Beyond the Fall of Night (1990) (with Gregory Benford)
The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990)
Rama Revealed (1993) (with Gentry Lee)
The Hammer of God (1993)
3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)
Time’s Eye (2003) (with Stephen Baxter)
Sunstorm (2005) (with Stephen Baxter)
Firstborn (2007) (with Stephen Baxter)

If you are the praying type, you might want to consider doing so for the people who have been through this hurricane and for those who are as of yet preparing for the storm.

Hurricane Dean stepped up from a category two hurricane to a category four hurricane as it passed through the Caribbean. The news so far is that it has now turned into a category five hurricane - the top of the scale.

Having been through two (twin) tornadoes, I know something of weather-related terror. The people who have been touched by this hurricane and who will be touched are in my thoughts.

For more information:
Google News

*The Burnt House ~ By Faye Kellerman
*The Intruders ~ By Michael Marshall
* Buried ~ By Mark Billingham
*Clublife ~ By Rob the Bouncer
*Sweet Revenge ~ By Diane Mott Davidson
*The Dark Side of Midnight ~ By Sidney Sheldon
*Death and the Devil ~ By Frank Schatzing
*Soul Catcher ~ By Michael C. White
*Life on the Refrigerator Door ~ By Alice Kuipers
*I Dream in Blue ~ By Roger Director
*Restless Virgins ~ By Abigail Jones, Marissa Miley
*A Killer’s Kiss ~ By William Lashner

HarperCollins Publishing

I thought you might like a taste of what you’re missing at the MiniCon taking place right now. If you’d like to participate, go here and register.

Quote from: markdeniz
Hi Karen,

I heard a rumour that you moved from fanfic to novel success. How would you answer those that say real writing isn’t about fan fiction but creating your own worlds/stories/characters?

Karen Miller: It’s true Mark. I wrote a lot of fanfic before I moved on to original fiction. As for it not being ‘real writing’ because you’re often not dealing with your own characters/world building, tell that to professional staff writers on tv shows, like House and Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica and so forth. Tell that to Harlan Ellison, who’s written a number of tv scripts.

Writing is writing. Fanfic has the capacity to teach a great deal of craft — when it comes to narrative prose yes, it can fall short when it comes to teaching the skills of character and world building but there are many other skills you can learn or polish in the process of writing it. I did.

Quote from: JaimeMcD on Today at 08:33:06 PM
Hi Karen!

Congratulations on all your accomplishments thus far.

A lot of new/young writers I talk to struggle a lot with time management and making time to write. Have you found your writing-related time management has improved since you began? Also, do you hold to the statement writing every day is essential for writers?

Karen Miller: Thank you, Jaime!

The trick is, there is always time to write. But there isn’t always time to do everything you want. So at some point you need to sit down and say well, either I can read a book/surf the net/watch a dvd/talk on the phone/go to the gym/bathe the dog/scrub the loo OR I can write. Some of these choices are easier than others. *g* But unless, like me, you’ve got the luxury of writing full time, if you’re juggling a job and family for eg, something has to go to make room for the writing. And that’s an individual choice. But you gotta make it, and stick with it, sometimes in the face of relentless pressure from people who don’t get it. That’s where the grit comes in.

As for writing daily, well, yes and no. Yes insofar as it keeps you in touch with the work and the world. Yes because otherwise, like committing to an exercise program, it’s so easy to let things slide. *g* I think on the whole it’s best to take a realistic look at your schedule, slot in 3 or 4 writing sessions a week and honour the commitment, than making rash unrealistic promises to yourself, breaking them, and feeling like a failure.

Quote from: JM
Have you ever written something with a character or characters you really didn’t like?

Karen Miller: Well, Empress was tough to write because Hekat is so not an easy character. I had to go to my darkside big time to fully bring her to life … I can’t honestly say I dislike her — like an actor playing a villain I find a way to relate to every character — but she was a tough broad to do.

Unabashed

Quote from: JM
Ah, yes. Getting into character. Do you find yourself having to do that a lot, or do your characters tend to be more like little pieces of you/your friends?

Karen Miller: Hmm. I’ve never thought about this exactly. Let me ponder …

sometimes I wonder if my background in theatre as an actor and a director has influenced how I approach character in my fiction. Because I write mainly character-driven stories, and because I use quite a tightly focused character POV narration, I’m always leaping in and out of character, so to speak. I have to look at the world through their eyes, and try to imagine what they would do in a given situation. In order to do that effectively I think, like an actor, I need to find the echo within myself of that particular person. So I’d have to say that so far, every single character I’ve written is available to me in some degree — but that many of my characters do things that I would never do, either for the good or the bad.

None of my characters is wholly or solely based on anyone I know, either myself or a friend or family or work colleagues from the past — but all the people I’ve met in my life have definitely informed me about human nature, and that goes into character creation.

Does that make sense?

Quote from: JM
Absolutely.

It’s never too early for talking about NaNoWriMo, is it?

I didn’t think so.

The word on the internet street is this year’s NaNo challenge will have some extra help when it comes to the inspirational articles participants will get to read during November. It’s said Sue Grafton will be giving words of inspiration and motivation as participants strive to hit the 50,000 word mark.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the email from Chris of the NaNo team:

FIRST CELEBRITY PEP TALKER REVEALED

In the last email, I alluded to the fact that we were turning over the weekly pep talks this year to a group of fantastic novelists. I also claimed that we were going to keep their identities secret until October. Then I got overly excited and began dropping broad and ridiculous hints because I wanted everyone to know who they were. And who am I kidding, really? I can’t sit on this kind of information for another three months. So in each of the next few newsletters, I’ll be introducing some of our pep talkers.

The first pep talker revealed: Sue Grafton. Yep, the author of the “alphabet series” (”S is for Silence” is the latest) will be penning an inspiring and funny pep talk especially for NaNoWriMo participants this year. We swoon. You can find out more about Sue at her website: http://www.suegraft on.com. Thanks, Sue!

And that’s it from here! Hope you’re having a great summer!

Chris
NaNoWriMo

Ladies and gentlemen, Operation Poem has been dormant since January of this year.

Whether or not you have been personally touched by the war in Iraq, countless others are being touched every day.

If you have the time, please write a poem and send it to MMB555@aol.com to be posted up on the site.

Agree with the war or not, we can still honor those who have fallen.

From the people who brought you NaNoWriMo now comes the June event: Script Frenzy.

From June 1st to the 30th, your goal will be to write a 20,000 word screenplay. What is a screenplay? Well, direct from Script Frenzy’s Intro to Playwriting:

So, you’re going to write a stage play. First, what is a play? Basically, it’s a blueprint for a stage production. It’s performed by actors and directed, designed, and perhaps choreographed by others. As a collaborative art, a script is the cornerstone of a production from which the actors, designers, and directors all take their cues.

Read the full article for directions of how to write a script, what to write and what not to write, and how to set up your scenes.

Now, I don’t usually write plays. I’ve written one play for my high school drama club and that was about four years ago.

However, were someone who is participating in this event or plans to participate to challenge me, I could hardly refuse, now could I?

Just to say…

Ah, it’s time once again for a bunch of little reminders and notes for what’s happened and going to be happening on Fiction Scribe as well as other little reminders. I’ll try to make it as short and sweet as possible.

And now for the site-specific announcements.

As many of you know, on May 5th 3pm Australia time, my fiancé and I will take our vows in the local park and officially become Mr. and Mrs. Scribe. I want to thank everyone for their well wishes via comments and emails, and a special thank you to Elisa for encouraging me with the wedding registry. (There are a few weird things on there.)

Due to the wedding, there will be a couple differences for the next couple weeks in the way things are usually run.

So, there are a lot of temporary changes, but I hope you enjoy them. Now wish me luck; I have an Australian to marry.

People around the many blogging communities are buzzing (and often arguing) about the April 30th day of silence. OneDayBlogSilence.com hopes this to be a day of remembrance for not only those to died in the Virginia Tech tragedy but for those all over the world who are dying needlessly.

However, as you can see from some of the comments here, not everyone feels silence is the best way to go. I agree with them. On April 30th, Fiction Scribe will not be observing the day of silence. Not out of disrespect, by any means, but for what I feel is a necessity.

I’m not protesting the day of silence. I think it’s a wonderful so many people are gathering together to send warm thoughts to those in pain. However, this is a “last straw” situation for me, and I don’t think silence is the answer. I think we’ve been silent too long.

Communicate. What happened is terrifying. It’s a horrible tragedy that never should have happened. Speak! Word of mouth is one of the most powerful forces out there. Advertisers would sell their souls to get the key to word of mouth advertising.

No disrespect meant to the people in mourning right now. I feel for you, and my heart is mourning with you, but I will not observe the day of silence. Too often in too many horrible situations, staying quiet is considered the best option. This is not the time to stay silent even for a day. This is the time to help those in mourning and speak up so these horrible things will stop happening.

As one who stayed silent in the past when something needed to be said, yelled, shouted at anyone who would listen, I won’t do it again. Take a moment of silence, but only a moment. The longer your mouth stays shut in these situations, the longer your words remain trapped, the easier it is to stay silent.

In the words of Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Speak up. Be the change.

To be honest, even after reading the Virginia Tech shooter was an English major and a writer, I wasn’t keen on writing about the incident. To say the least, I felt upset over the incident which took place. My university days aren’t nearly long enough past for me to not think about how easy it would be for the same thing to happen on the two campuses I attended. However, given the commentary in this article and having written about depression last week, I feel the need to say…something.

“Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be.”
- Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department

True enough.

I feel like I can’t give a full, informed opinion on the events when the counseling department refuses to comment, but from what information I have, I can’t help but wonder how much help was really given/offered to the shooter. If he was offered suitable help and refused, did anyone keep an eye on him? Given the length of time he’d been writing “disturbed” pieces other students and professors were aware of, I would think someone or something would have been done concerning his mental status.

I’m not putting blame on anyone except the shooter for his actions, but given at least a few of his professors are at least familiar with the way writing can reveal things about the author, what was done? Writing isn’t always the key to the author’s soul, but pair that up with his other behavior and put him in a major where most, if not all, of his professors are familiar with the intricacies of what writing can truly mean.

Due to his privacy, he would rather his name not be mentioned, but a friend of mine always wrote very revealing poetry - if one knew to take his words seriously. Shy, a loner, and dealing with bipolar disorder with no medication, had he not had friends (including myself) who took his poetry seriously, I would hate to think of where he would be today. (He is currently enjoying a happy life full of support.) His poetry was the way he said what was on his mind.

It seems obvious to me the VT shooter certainly had a lot of things on his mind and let them free in his writing. This is where I get stuck. Was he in counseling because of concern raised about his writing? It’s not clear to me in the article exactly what the duration, if there was any, of his counseling was. When did it happen? If he continued to write things like the things mentioned as well as continue on with his behavior, was anything done about it? Were there meetings between the teachers? If he quit counseling (assuming he started), what did they do after?

These are the things that get to me. If it was so apparent through his writings that something wasn’t right, then what was done about it?

I suppose being a writer helps me to have an opinion on this, whereas I think a lot of media will spin it as he wrote disturbing things so he was obviously disturbed. I don’t like making that assumption because I’ve killed off scores of characters, but that doesn’t make me a potential murderer. It’s when the behavior fits the writing you should be taking definite action.

I hope my musings are at least somewhat understandable. If you’d like to comment and let me know what you think, I’d like to start a discussion about this.

Elisa at The Books Stacks gave me a heads up on this one, and I’m glad she did! I’m so excited.

As it turns out, the United States is hosting another American Idol, but this one is a different sort and is likely to have writers stirring. Using the same sort of popularity voting which is a vital part of the show American Idol, authors will post up their work and get voted through to following rounds by readers.

The ultimate prize is $5,000, a book contract with Touchstone Fireside and distribution by Borders.

How awesome.

U.S. contest seeks to be “American Idol’ of books

I was actually getting the URL for Elisa at The Book Stacks, and upon nosing through her posts (when it comes to Elisa’s site, I nose, not skim:)) I found her post about the book Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause being turned into a movie.

I invite you to head on over to her site and nose around a bit yourself. The book is a good read (oh, I do hope they go on to make The Silver Kiss as well), and Elisa’s post is a good read as well.

Admittedly, this is slightly old news, but I just came across it so it’s new to me!

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for any journalist’s resumé.

The press release is locatedhere.

You can read all about the fine print in the link provided, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of my readers because I find it fascinating. This is truly a show of how we’re moving forward in the ways of technology that they’re adding the Online Journalism category.