Books*Authors*Pubs

Oh, Tipper, where are you?

Moriah

So our application to get The Proviso into the iTunes store was denied. Seems it’s a tad too racy for the terms of service. Who’d’a thunk it, right?

Roger from eBook App Maker tells us that Apple is in the process of applying a ratings system to their games and he doesn’t think it’ll be too long until they start in with the ebook apps. So instead of sanitizing the book, we’ve decided to wait until Apple has a rating system.

UPDATE:

Today Richard Curtis (I love this guy, really) discusses Steve Jobs’s dismissal of ebooks as a viable revenue source a la iTunes with the comment, “People don’t read anymore.” I’ve discussed this before and it makes my head explode every time I think about it.

Fortunately, a number of determined and enterprising programmers took it upon themselves to spec – or hack – a reader application for the iPhone. And even more fortunately, Jobs did not discourage them. One hopes he realized he had spoken recklessly.

There is another way to read The Proviso on the iPhone/iTouch and that’s using Stanza and our EPUB format (included in the zip file).

But he also talks about Fictionwise:

Aside from the satisfaction of seeing Steve Jobs proven wrong, it’s also inspiring to see Fictionwise taking this initiative. We at E-Reads are big fans of Fictionwise. It is our principal e-book distributor and a major reason why this industry is beginning to thrive.

Now, I like Fictionwise, I do. But we can’t get on Fictionwise, either, because they require a publisher have 25 different titles by 5 different authors and although B10 Mediaworx does have titles in the works by people other than I, it’ll be a long time before we see that goal realized.

Book Review: The Truth About Roxy

Moriah

The Truth About Roxy
by Jenny Gilliam
published by The Wild Rose Press

I like the longer single-title contemporary romance (no suspense, thanks, and the category lengths are just way too short) and lately, the ones I really like have been coming out of the smaller e-presses. They’re not as well edited as I’d like, but they’re fun reads whose story lines seem to stick with me quite a while.

The Truth About Roxy was a light, fun read that still managed to make me laugh and cry. I’ve read another of this author’s non-suspense novels (Letting Luce) and it was just as light and fun. Even *I*, lover of all alpha heroes monied, adore that Jenny’s characters are normal people like me, with normal-people jobs and normal-people problems.

Here’s the blurb:

Roxy Palmer is a walking, breathing cliché. And darned tired of it. Working as the assistant librarian in her small, Southern home town, Roxy also anonymously pens the local love column, ASK PAULA ROCKWELL–Thorton, Georgia’s answer to Dear Abby. But when the door leading to Roxy’s lifetime dream is slammed in her face by one of the good ol’ boys, Roxy brings out the big guns–and turns the genteel town upside down with her racier, feminist, home-wrecking new format. Paula Rockwell is making Sheriff Noah Kennedy’s life crazy. He’s got angry husbands lined around the block, demanding the cancellation of the column, fights breaking out and women catching their boyfriends’ trucks on fire. If he ever gets his hands on that woman… But he’s got his hands FULL of Roxy at the moment, and if he ever discovers the truth about Roxy, all hell will break loose.

Beefs first:

I thought Noah’s extreme reaction to Roxy’s coming-out (as it were) was too much, because he’d known her all his life and he should’ve understood her better.

And oh, that cover, bless their hearts. [Insert longsuffering sigh here.]

Good stuff:

Again, fun, light romp. The characters were engaging and I believed in the nutjobs and the goofy backwater Southern town because they were drawn so vividly.

I had a really good time with this book, and that’s all I care about.

More reviews for The Proviso!

Moriah

Wow. It doesn’t rain but it pours and I so want to thank the reviewers for their time!

First up is from R.J. Keller’s blog:

My faithful readers know I’m always looking for something more than just a good book. I want a book that moves me, or makes me think about or look at Stuff in a way I never have before. And I recently found such a book. […] This is a deep, intelligent book. It’s a long’un, yes, but so engaging that I didn’t want to put it down. The characters are real, the writing is top-notch…oh, and it’s damn hot, too!

One of the best books I’ve read in a very, VERY long time. Highly recommended.

And second is from Julie Weight’s blog:

This books moves at a slower pace than I’m used to but it’s been a long time since I picked up and read a lengthy, layered story that delves into the details of the characters. As I read it and sometimes got annoyed with the slow pace, I remembered that I loved Shogun – and if you’ve read Shogun you know how involved that story is! And this story takes the time to acquaint you with the characters. […]

[…] in my opinion this is a character-driven story. Any story about religion, money, politics and sex is about entanglements, complications, lies, deceit, manipulation, good and evil – and this The Proviso delivers in spades while delving into the human side of the main characters. My favorite part of the cover says what this story is really about: “…embroiled as they are in their war, the last thing they expect to find on the battlefield is love.” […]

Bottom line? Big thumbs up for this first novel by new author Moriah Jovan.

Julie also notes:

I have a print copy of the book and the first thing you notice is it’s size. It’s huge. The second thing you notice is that it’s absolutely gorgeous. The cover art is extraordinary, in my opinion. If you walked into a bookstore and this was on the table inside the door, you wouldn’t be able to resist walking over and running your hand over the cover before you flip it over to see the back (also beautiful artwork). When you lay it open, the inside is as gorgeous and rich as the cover and there are actual chapter titles, something you rarely see any more in a book.

The print copy is expensive. I know the author believes in e-books and of course the e-book version is much more affordable. However, for those of us who like the tangible feel of a print book, this one is worth it (and would make an excellent gift for any reader on your list).

Emphasis mine.

And really, you have to read Keller’s post on “more than just a good book” (linked above) because I so identified with it as a reader. Those are the books I read as a teenager and they’ve gotten more and more scarce over time. I’m still looking for those books, though now I have a head start since I’ve got a copy of Shogun in my hands.

Thank you, ladies!

You can purchase The Proviso at B10 Mediaworx in print ($27.99, and we do offer gift wrapping) and ebook ($8.99). It’s also available for the Kindle and soon you’ll be able to purchase it in the iTunes store as an iApp (we’ll let you know).

My way or the highway

Moriah

Lately I’ve been reading a snowballing number of posts in the ebook community about adopting EPUB as the international (and pleasepleaseplease DRM-free) standard. This is great and I’m SOOO on board with that. What’s got me disturbed is that the subtext (and sometimes it’s not even that subtle) is that in order to adopt EPUB, publishers ought to ditch every other format, I assume, to force the issue of EPUB format adoption for everyone.

No fucking way!

Are you serious?

As a consumer and producer of ebooks, let me tell you, this is simple crackpot evangelism. EPUB is the future; I do not disagree and I would love to see it come into its own and beat the competition.

HOWEVER

The competition exists for a reason and that’s because there are competing machines out there. Why in the world wouldn’t a producer find and exploit every digital outlet he could while they exist?

Now, I understand it’s perfectly reasonable for a producer of analog music to give up making vinyl records and 8-track tapes when there are few enough record players and 8-track players that it makes no sense to spend the time to do so. But if there is fairly equal money in each format, it would be foolish for the producer to give up producing even one of those formats.

In short, there is no way we would give up any one of the (now) 10 digital formats we publish in unless and until all devices can and will read one format and that the majority of the users of those devices are choosing one format:

AZW (Kindle)

EPUB (any device using Stanza or Adobe Digital Editions)

HTML (a lot of devices, plus any browser)

IMP (eBookWise)

LIT (Microsoft Reader)

LRF (Sony PRS)

MOBI/PRC (any device using Mobipocket)

PDB (Palm)

PDF (any device that reads PDF), and coming soon,

iApp for the iTunes store (iPhone/iTouch)

The fact of the matter is that once you’ve formatted for one of the above, you’ve formatted for over half the rest with minor tweaks. Yeah, it takes time to make each pretty for its own device, but it’s worth it as long as people feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth.

And every single one of those formats has a serious issue or 3 that consumers don’t like. However, each consumer still has the choice of the format with the least number of annoyances for him. Giving me 1 format (or, in the case of a book I really really really wanted to buy) 4 formats that are pure hell on me isn’t going to get me to adopt those formats; it’s only going to jolt me out of my impulse buy and now that I’m not BUYING paper books anymore, I’ll get it at the library.

So, Hachette Book Group. Thanks for saving me some money, ’cause I wasn’t strong enough to withstand the temptation if it had been in a format I could use.