Randy Stapilus's Blog, page 8
June 10, 2016
The audiobook world
This is the first of two posts on the changing audiobook landscape.
No part of book publishing has grown faster in the last few years than audiobooks. The numbers of books published, of copies sold, and of audio formats, have been increasing dramatically, opening new opportunities for indie authors.
The growth in audio reflects changes both in how the books are produced and in how listeners use them. Audiobooks have become easier and more convenient for listeners to obtain and listen to, an...
June 4, 2016
Voter-built agency
Idaho voters over the years have had a hand in reshaping or founding several important state agencies, from the Department of Water Resources to the reapportionment commission. But the Department of Fish & Game may be the most voter-impacted of all.
The dispute ongoing now, involving two Fish & Game commissioners – Mark Doerr of Kimberly and Will Naillon of Challis – who were not reappointed by Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, makes for a direct reflection on some of that.
Idaho has had fishing...
May 28, 2016
Local factors
One of the hazards of punditry is a tendency to wrap things up in a neat package – a nice simple conclusion and overview of what usually was a messier reality.
Last week I pointed out a trend line in the recent Idaho primary election, in which relatively “establishment conservative” candidates, some challengers and others incumbents, tended to do better in seriously contested races than the more ideological insurgents. As a broad-picture view, I still think that was a reasonable take.
But a...
May 27, 2016
Mergers, acquisitions & agreements
New BookWorks post on the many mergers, acquisitions, agreements and more reshaping the environnment self-publishers work within.
It begins,
“On May 10, the R.R. Bowker Company, the main source in the United States for ISBN numbers and other services, said it plans to ally with two other publishing-related companies, FastPencil and Infinity Publishing, to offer a suite of services to help authors “write, edit, collaborate, format & publish your book.” It also indicated “distribution partner...
May 25, 2016
Arrival
Just got the box of Camping Idaho (2nd edition) author-copy books from Rowman Littlefield, via UPS. Always a nice feeling when the books show up.
The first edition came out about a dozen years ago. I did most of the work on this new edition last year. Good to have it updated.
This is one of four titles I’ve done for Rowman Littlefield (aka Globe Pequot). All but the most recent (the Idaho jerks book) have now gone to second edition.
May 22, 2016
Edging back
Whatever will Idaho do for viral quotes next legislative session? The most reliable providers won’t be back, and neither will a number of their allies. Or newcomers to the task.
The Republican primary election on Tuesday yielded a persistent theme in its results among challenged races. The more extreme insurgent candidates, whether incumbent or challenger, tended to lose to the more establishment conservative alternative.
You can find no better case study than in Coeur d’Alene’s District 4,...
May 14, 2016
How much pay?
The state of Washington has a agency called the Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, whose job is what its name implies. It has a catchy slogan: “We evaluate the position – Voters evaluate the performance.”
Might be interesting to establish a statewide commission for Idaho to compare and evaluate state pay more broadly. In the Gem State, pay for state elected officials is set by the legislature, and pay for many other types of employees are set in all kinds of ways.
The l...
May 13, 2016
Goodreads e-book giveaways
The major organized programs for helping authors give away copies of their books – as a way to promote them – until now have limited their options to print books. Giveaways in the well-established Goodreads and Amazon programs have not allowed eBook giveaways, frustrating authors who write only in that format.
This is changing. As of this month, Goodreads is expanding their giveaway program to include eBook as well as print books.
Author Anna DeStefano has become one of the first to explore...
May 7, 2016
41%
Because the land sales happened over a long stretch of time, and there were so many of them, and so many involved tracts of land moderate in size, they tended not to attract a lot of attention, and their accumulated amount largely escaped notice.
That end result should and may, though, stick in the memory of more than a few Idahoans, because it’s reducible to one startling number: 41%.
That’s the portion of the 4.2 million acres of land the state of Idaho had at statehood, granted from the f...
May 4, 2016
Presumptive only
So is that really it? Is Donald Trump now the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party?
Seems so – and yet, don’t oversell it. His train could slip the rails yet.
With the Tuesday Indiana vote in place, Trump seems to have collected 1,047 delegate votes. That puts him just 190 short of the 1,237 needed to win on the first ballot on the floor of the Republican convention.
With the departure of Texas Senator Ted Cruz from the race, Trump is well positioned to take to take nea...
