Moe Lane

[UPDATE: One of my readers made an observation that made me think of a question: if John Scalzi doesn't like getting paid for fanfic, why did he write Redshirts? - Great book, by the way.]

Situation:

Get ready for Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties. Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, with licenses for more Worlds on the way.

Point (Megan McArdle):

It’s a brilliant and even fair solution.  Some writers are better world-builders than others; why not let them profit off of their imaginations, while also compensating the folks who can do interesting things within that world?  Of course, some fan fiction purists may be disappointed in the control that this will give the world-builders over what is done with their work.  Amazon will not, for example, publish pornographic or highly explicit fiction.  Under those rules, 50 Shades of Grey would never have been published; it started out as slash fiction set in the Twilight universe.

Still, as a writer I’m always glad to see more ways to compensate writers.  And as a business writer, I’m excited to see how much innovation is taking place in this new market.

Counter-point (John Scalzi):

…I suspect this is yet another attempt in a series of long-term attempts to fundamentally change the landscape for purchasing and controlling the work of writers in such a manner that ultimately limits how writers are compensated for their work, which ultimately is not to the benefit of the writer. This will have far-reaching consequences that none of us really understand yet.

The thing that can be said for it is that it’s a better deal than you would otherwise get for writing fan fiction, i.e., no deal at all and possibly having to deal with a cranky rightsholder angry that you kids are playing in their yard. Is that enough for you? That’s on you to decide.

(more…)

If you want to seriously hurt a book’s reputation with a negative review on Amazon.com, a few good ground rules.

1. Learn to spell.
2. Learn to write.
3. Make doubly sure that the title of your review shows that you’ve mastered 1. & 2.
4. Don’t tell people that your review is based on other reader reviews of the book that you didn’t read.
5. Don’t tell people that your review is based on what a bunch of critics said about the book that you didn’t read.
6. Don’t tell people that your review is based on a totally cool lecture made by the author of the book that you didn’t read.
7. Don’t tell people that your review is based on a flip-through at the bookstore of the book that you didn’t read.
8. In fact – and I don’t believe that I have to write this – don’t tell people that you haven’t read the book.
9. Read the book.
10. Lastly, remember: the only thing a political writer values more than a good review of his book is a badly-spelled, badly-written, moderately incoherent negative review written by somebody who clearly felt stung by the mere existence of the author’s book in the local space-time continuum.  Honestly, people: spluttering oppositional froth = more sales.

Just wanted to get that out.

Moe Lane

No, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t have ‘em: I write for a major conservative weblog and I am a gleefully-annoying, startlingly-relevant, revolving son-of-a-bitch on wheels on my own hook.  False modesty is nice, but counter-productive in this case.

Anyway… those lurkers/trackers have a problem.  It’s the day before the New Year, and this year’s Amazon take is noticeably below par for the Christmas season.  While this may not be exactly surprising, given that retail sales this Christmas sucked, that will not really help the Left when I start writing needle-vicious posts about how genuinely awful Barack Obama is at generating retail sales* – to say nothing of the rest of the Democratic party, of course.  It’ll be fun… but, alas for me: if it turns out that I generated more referral fees this December after all then there’s not that all-important personal anecdotal evidence that the best pundits use to justify their partisan wrangling.

So.  Here you go, ye lurkers and personal trackers: Amazon.com.  The Cause DEMANDS that you let loose your inner faux-Keynes and spend some of your personal cash in a fashion that profits me.  If you don’t, then whatever happens next is your fault and your responsibility.  Sp start that spending!  – And, remember, this is what happens when you self-objectify yourself; you end up getting used by people with actual self-respect.  Weird how that works out, huh?

Moe Lane

PS: No, I have no intention of telling you what your target number is.  Best to spend as much as possible, yesno?

*Or, indeed, at anything besides getting Barack Obama re-elected dirty.

Well, weirder.  I just spent a half hour writing mini reviews on Amazon for stuff that I’ve recently bought for, as near as I can tell, no particular reason at all.

As Glenn notes, today is the last full day before Christmas at Amazon for two-day shipping.  Just as a reminder: shopping on Amazon via links offered by affiliates is an easy way to support those affiliates* (ahem), and it won’t cost you anything extra.

Moe Lane

*This is also true for affiliates who are ideologically opposed to me; lurkers, take note, and remember the sites that you actually like (instead of simply bitterly resent).

If you were planning to order something on Amazon.com anyway, well… that link is set up through my affiliate program. I’ll cheerfully take my cut (I’ll also cheerfully note that if your favorite blogger* is making noises about money these days than s/he would probably dearly love to get his/her cut, too).

Moving on: charities!  Child’s Play, The Salvation Army, Toys for Tots: feel free to add worthy other examples in comments.

Moe Lane

*This applies to lurkers, btw: from what I can tell the Left-sphere has precisely zero in the way of support networks and is about to be disproportionately hit with the Mighty Karmic Hammer of Maximum Obamacare Fun.  This would merely make me chuckle, except that even liberals have kids who won’t understand why there’s no Christmas this year.

I suppose that it was inevitable; they’re normally pretty good about this stuff, but apparently not today.  Short version: when I signed up for my Amazon Prime membership they charged the wrong card.  OK.  They neglected to send me a warning that my free trial was about to expire.  Well, that’s not required of them – a good idea, but not required.  Here’s the thing, though: when I called them about switching the initial charge from my debit account to the credit card (which I did, about five minutes after getting the overdraft notice from my bank*) they told me that they could and would do that, easily.  Well, it turns out that they don’t do that… which I only found out when I called to check why it hadn’t been done.

This is usually the point where I start shouting, but fortunately for the customer service rep I’m sick this morning, which means that I’m taking extra care with my temper. (more…)

…at first to get Andrew’s book up there (his family could probably use the sales), but then more generally.

(pause)

Not much to add to that, really. (more…)

I noticed that AoSHQ has gotten itself an Amazon Associates store, so I thought that I should blatantly steal the idea and have one, too: and here it is. Note that I have a Friends of the Site tab (idea likewise blatantly stolen from AoSHQ): if you’re a regular reader/commenter and you’ve got a book that you’re selling via Amazon.com, by all means suck up for a link (I obviously need to put more stuff up on there). If I can figure out a way to get the MoeLane Amazon store to embed on a page here without it looking awful, I will do so.

Anyway, here’s some Pink Floyd.

Money, Pink Floyd

Feel free to click through to them.

Start thinking about pricing your books so that they’re competitive with the paperback versions, not the hardcovers.  Give you an example: I’m trying my best to get back to The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.  The hardcover goes for eighteen bucks and the paperback nine and a half… and the Kindle version is eleven.  I’m discovering that I’m more likely to finish nonfiction books on my Kindle than otherwise – don’t ask me why – but pegging the price as a discount on the hardcover is maybe affecting my cheapskate instincts.  Which is why the darn book is on of the piles scattered about the house.

Obviously, a new book is a new book; but if you’re bringing out softcover reprints, maybe linking the new Kindle price to that will help with sales? – Or not.  This thought just occurred to me.

Moe Lane

PS: Downloaded and read Confessions of a D-List Supervillain this morning.  Overall: well worth the three bucks.  Started strong, good character development of the hero/protagonist, action and plot maintained up until the last ‘chapters,’ which unfortunately did come across as slightly rushed (the book was originally a novella, and it still slightly shows).  The book probably could have used another two chapters or so of development, but It Did Not Suck.  Of course, I admit to having a certain weakness for books that have chapter headings like “Like I Need Another Reason to Invade Branson, Missouri” and get away with it…

Which is, of course, the Online Left.  The short version: NFL wide receiver Chad Ochocinco innocently tweeted the fact that he had grabbed Glenn Beck’s new book Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure, presumably to read on a flight.  As the Blaze link shows, some of Ochocinco’s fans aren’t all that happy about it.  Which doesn’t seem to have stopped Ochocinco from reading the book.

I note this not because it’s significant now, but because it might be interesting later.  Judging from the guy’s Twitter feed, Ochocinco seems like the kind of person who isn’t shy about expressing his opinions; and right now it looks like all the shouting is just encouraging Ochocinco to finish the book (which he is reasonably enough finding interesting, even if he doesn’t actually agree with all of it).  Assuming that he likes Beck’s book, or even finds it interesting, Ochocinco may talk about this later in a more public forum*, and in the process probably say something about Glenn Beck that will not be semantically equivalent to “Glenn Beck is the spawn of Satan.”

That’s when the fun will really start.

Moe Lane

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