Monthly Archives : January 2010

So, since the announcement of the new Apple ereader-plus-the-kitchen-sink device, Twitter has been awash with jokes about the name Apple chose for it. They chose not the much-anticipated iSlate or even the iTablet, but the iPad. Seriously? Okay, so I kind of get it–it’s a riff on iPod, and Apple’s hoping this device does for ebooks what the iPod did…

I’ve gotten embroiled today in another Twitter conversation about piracy and one on Dear Author about authors airing their grievances with their publishers in a public forum. The two might seem totally unconnected, and in most ways, they are, but one thing that strikes me is this–when these discussions come up, the first party to get “thrown under the bus”…

Last week, a series of huge storms blew through Southern California. And when I say blew, I do mean “blew.” On Tuesday, the rain was accompanied by particularly large gusts of wind. One of these tore through the neighborhood just as my mom was outside the school waiting to pick up my kids (I was teaching at my office). The…

This article in today’s Publisher’s Weekly, Attributor Study Finds Pervasive Book Piracy is garnering lots of attention in the Twittersphere author community, receiving lots of retweets from many different sources, most of them citing the story’s claim that ebook piracy is “costing” the publishing industry “as much as $3 billion.” Setting aside the fact that the “study” upon which this…