Interlude: You Want Me to Pay What?!

Reuters is reporting that Random House is getting into the ebook business with a pilot program offering downloadable books at $2.99 per chapter.
No, that isn’t a typo.  $2.99 per chapter.
Not per book.  Per chapter.  WTF?
For a model that requires almost zero distribution costs and no printing costs. That would be $60 for a twenty [...]

Interlude: The Democratization of Narrative

Today, I’ve been thinking about social networking as it’s unfolding within the concept of Web 2.0. See, when I think of Web 2.0, I think of things like open source software, wikis, blogs, creative commons and free, tweakable content — a bunch of people working together and contributing their unique talents and insights to [...]

Interlude: The Wisdom of Talking Heads

There’s a great article in this month’s Wired magazine (16.02) by David Byrne, former member of the Talking Heads. Byrne interviewed Thom Yorke of Radiohead about that band’s marketing experiment with their latest album, In Rainbows. (In short, Radiohead leaked their album to the internet in advance of the CD going on sale [...]

Interlude: Making Whuffie

whuffie – noun – 1. the ephemeral, reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow’s sci-fi novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. (Wikipedia.) 2.  Whuffie is a high five, it’s that look of appreciation you give for a job well done, it’s a thumbs up. (Craphound.)
I’m taking a momentary break from Sunday football (mainly because my [...]

Interlude: Clarifying a Stance

In my most recent post, I made a somewhat critical remark about Lulu’s Blooker Prize that probably requires some explanation (especially in light of the fact that one of the links on my sidebar is to a Lulu print copy of the novel I’m currently blogging here).
I want to state upfront that I have no [...]

Interlude: Really, Reading Off a Screen Sucks

I have to say that I’m not particularly surprised to learn that Eli at Novelr and no less than Cory Doctorow tend to agree with me that presenting novels online is going to be an uphill battle against most people’s reading preferences.  (Eli’s latest guest post indicates that there are certainly exceptions, but until I [...]

Interlude: I Feel So (Not) Alone

At the risk of coming across as a complete n00b at this whole Internets thing, I just discovered Eli James’s web collection at Novelr.  Eli has been grappling with this whole blook/blognovel/blovel issue for a great deal longer than I have and has uncovered some great source material for thinking about blogging fiction.
It would be [...]

Interlude: The Gatekeeper Conspiracy

I’ve gotten into the habit of talking about Gatekeepers as a mostly good thing within the context of their function as arbitrators of taste and culture for those of us too lazy to sift through all the dreck). From my perspective, the editors and publishers of the world receive their daily truckloads of creative [...]

Interlude: Zombies are Cool

I checked out author David Wellington’s site, where he’s posted several serialized novels for readers to enjoy.  (The link goes specifically to his novel Plague Zone, which I’m really digging.  You should check it out.)
Dave’s assorted sites and sub-sites are very professionally designed and the writing is top notch, but this isn’t actually a post [...]

Interlude: Command Line Conclusion

Going back a couple of days, but I wanted to close up the discussion on Neal Stephenson’s “Command Line” that I began earlier. Specifically, I wanted to focus on the concept of Mindshare. “Command Line” was written back in the heady days when various federal judges were going after the Microsoft (finger quotes) [...]