Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 58
November 9, 2017
How to get reviews on Amazon once you’ve launched your book
Writing a book is hard work. As is marketing that book before and after launch. But when you distribute your book through Amazon, getting reviews may be the single most important thing to determine your book’s future success. There’s no secret formula, and no one way to garner the most reviews, but with a little research, a lot of patience, and a ton of outreach, those coveted reviews are but an email away.
Ask your existing readers or fan base
Whether you maintain a strong social media following, belong to many writing groups, or already have built-in readers from a previous book launch, your existing fans are your bread and butter. Since they already have an appreciation for you and your work, you are one step closer to converting them from fans to reviewers.
Now since they are already invested in you to a degree, they are also the best people to ask for a genuine review, the ones who buy your book on Amazon and review it. How do you get them to do this? Compose a strong email to them appealing to their passion for and knowledge of your genre, as well as their previous interest in your work. For some, that will be enough to pique their interest. For others, you may want to offer to supply them with the book for free. This way you are getting genuine reviews since the books were purchased through the site, but you haven’t required them to buy your book to do so.
Contact Amazon’s top reviewers
The top reviewers for Amazon have earned their status for a reason; they review everything from books to electronics, and other consumers rank their reviews as useful. While you might assume these reviewers are out of your reach—after all, they likely receive hundreds of requests a day—they are still worth contacting. Even if only a few end up reviewing your book, their reviews could make all the difference.
To get started, decide how many reviews you are hoping to get. If you have your eye set on 25, you’ll want to reach out to at least 100 reviewers.
Take a look through the list of Amazon’s top reviewers, and create a spreadsheet where you can start logging info about your potential reviewers. You are looking for reviewers who have already reviewed books in your genre, and once you’ve found them, any additional information you can grab about them, including email addresses, and any personal interests.
Now, the art of the pitch. Spend time crafting a pitch letter that succinctly tells a brief summary of your book, why you’d like the specific reviewer to read it, and how you’d like to offer them a free copy. Include references to similar books they’ve already reviewed so they realize you have done your homework and it is not a blind request. If this seems too time consuming, create a boilerplate review request with highlighted fields for personalization, such as their name, and recent books they’ve reviewed. This way, you can update the highlighted fields to quickly personalize your pitch request for each reviewer.
Follow-up is key. Every time you reach out to a reviewer, add the date to your excel spreadsheet so you can keep track of when you sent your letter, who says yes, who says no, and who never replies. Follow up two weeks after your initial request with a friendly and simple message asking if they have had a chance to read through your request and that you look forward to hearing back.
5. Close the deal. For those reviewers who do respond, make sure you are providing them with what they need (additional biographical info on you, previous works, whatever) and that you are timely in your communications back to them.
Get in touch with the book blogger community
Book bloggers have the uncanny ability to passionately and tirelessly spread the word about their views—and reviews. Unfortunately, many review books on their personal websites and blogs, and not all are posting those reviews (or variations thereof) on Amazon. But don’t let that stop you.
Start by looking for bloggers who review titles in your genre. You can start with Google. If you’re writing a thriller, type thriller + book blogger into the search field and see what comes up.
Next, go through the book blogger directories for WordPress and Blogmetrics.
Just like with the Amazon top reviewers, you are looking to create a short list of reviewers who favor your genre, and who will welcome relevant pitches.
Once you’ve got your list, go back to the boilerplate form letter you were using for the Amazon top reviewers. Tweak it a little, making sure to reference things spotted on the blogger’s pages, and adding any commonalities. Email them (if contact info is available on their site) or use the contact form on their site if available.
As above, be professional in your follow-up activities.
While soliciting reviews can seem to take a lot of time and effort, their value cannot be underestimated. Reviews immediately add credibility to your book, communicating to potential customers that it is a worthy read. They also improve your book’s ranking when consumers are searching on Amazon, which is the primary reason to stay committed to getting reviews. If you’re able to move your title into earlier search pages, you’ll be discovered by readers who wouldn’t otherwise find you. And that, hopefully, will translate into more book sales.
Source:
http://www.blurb.com/blog/how-get-reviews-amazon-once-you-have-launched-your-book/
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Sean Parker on Facebook: ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains’
Sean Parker, of Napster fame and an early investor in Facebook, says the founders of the social networking site knew they were creating something people would become addicted to, reports Axios. “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,” he said at an Axiosevent in Philadelphia, noting that he has become a “conscientious objector” on social media, even though he still maintains a presence on Twitter and Facebook. (He is currently the founder and chair of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.)
Parker says the social networking site exploits human psychological vulnerabilities through a validation feedback loop that gets people to constantly post to get even more likes and comments. “It’s exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology,” he said. “The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.” In other words, using Facebook is like junk food: you get instant gratification when you post for likes and comments. It’s quick and easy but has little substance.
Parker says that the thought process when building Facebook was to figure out “how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” The comments are a little ironic given the billions Parker has made from being an early investor in Facebook. It’s not the first time a tech entrepreneur has disavowed something they’ve created or been involved with — Programmer Ethan Zuckerman famously penned an apology letter for unleashing pop-up ads into the world several years ago.
Public sentiment is also turning against Facebook, hit by issues surrounding fake news and Russian election posts that reached 126 million people. A recent deep dive by The Verge into technology companies found Facebook to be one of the most divisive. More people say they distrust it more than Amazon, Google, Apple, or Microsoft, though a majority of people said they would still care very much if Facebook went away. “The unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people … it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other,” Parker said.
Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/9/16627724/sean-parker-facebook-childrens-brains-feedback-loop
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We may not see Kevin Spacey in a new movie ever again
Kevin Spacey will no longer star in Ridley Scott’s All The Money in the World, despite the film being completed and scheduled for release in the US on Dec. 22. And it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll see him in a new film ever again.
The actor will be replaced by Christopher Plummer as John Paul Getty in the Sony project, which tells the story of the kidnapping of the oil billionaire’s teenage grandson in 1973. The decision follows numerous accusations of sexual harassment and assault against Spacey over the last two weeks.
According to Variety, Scott and production company Imperative Entertainment made the decision to fire Spacey from the project, and were supported by Sony.
It’s an unprecedented move given that the film’s release is only six weeks away, and Spacey has already featured in the trailer for the film. Re-shoots will now take place with co-stars Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg, and the film’s premiere at AFI Fest will no longer go ahead.
Scott and Sony aren’t the first to cut ties with Spacey since Anthony Rapp accused him of making sexual advances towards him when he was just 14. Since then, a number of others have made similar claims, including former TV news anchor Heather Unruh, who accused him of groping her teenage son last year. Netflix fired Spacey from the final season of House of Cards, which will now be rewritten, having already entered production.
These unprecedented moves by Netflix and Sony are symbolic of how different this scandal is in comparison to others that have plagued the film industry in the past.
Hollywood loves a comeback story, as we well know.
Many actors and directors have been welcomed back into the fold after personal scandals. For example, Mel Gibson acted in at least eight movies since 2011, and was even nominated for an Oscar earlier this year for directing Hacksaw Ridge, despite spates of anti-semitic remarks, as well as recordings that heard him admitting to hitting and then threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend seven years ago. Robert Downey Jr. is now one of the highest-paid and most celebrated actors in the world but between 1996 and 2001, he spent most of his time in jail for charges related to possession of heroin and cocaine.
But this time it’s different. The sense that Hollywood has been permanently changed by this scandal, which began with the accusations of rape, sexual assault and harassment against Harvey Weinstein, is growing. Weinstein has been sacked from his own company that bears his name and the board can’t sell it. Right now, a comeback for a Hollywood kingmaker like Weinstein seems almost impossible, and the idea of seeing Spacey in any more new films feels increasingly unlikely.
Spacey has two more films that are in post-production, Gore and Billionaire Boys Club. But if the film makers follow Ridley Scott and Sony’s lead, it looks like the last film or show we may see Spacey in is House of Cards, where he had a dishonorable discharge.
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We may not see Kevin Spacey in a new movie ever again
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The availability of VR is changing the kinds of sexual and pornographic experiences people are looking for, say creators
People could soon be watching more and more “intimate” pornography through virtual reality headsets, according to experts.
New VR technology could allow for personal experiences of a kind even more real and perfect than the real world, and the consequences are expected to change every form of experience we have with technology today. Inevitably, those advances are also being used in the pornographic industry, to create new kinds of virtual reality videos.
One of the early adopters of virtual reality for pornography claims that the new technology is leading to new trends in the kind of pornography that people are searching for and watching, she told a meeting at Web Summit, according to news.com.au.
““People are asking for more romance, closeness, more talking. This is something you’ll find in a real relationship but not everyone in the world will have access to that kind of relationship,” said Dinorah Hernandez, who runs a studio devoted to such videos. “To be able to have an experience with another woman could give them something that maybe the real world can’t.”
But that kind of perfection, above and beyond the real world, might bring with it problems, according to researchers.
“As a society we are always looking for new and novel experiences but the porn industry brings with it an added risk because of its sexist stance and exploitation of women,” said Dr Madeline Balaam, a Newcastle University researcher who has
“We are already obsessed with body image and the digital industry is no different, creating the perfect virtual woman from Lara Croft to sex-robots. VR porn has the potential to escalate this.
“Our research highlighted not only a drive for perfection, but also a crossover between reality and fantasy. Some of our findings highlighted the potential for creating 3D models of real life people, raising questions over what consent means in VR experiences. If a user created a VR version of their real life girlfriend, for example, would they do things to her that they knew she would refuse in the real world?”
Research has suggested that VR porn could bring with it a whole host of ethical questions and challenges to relationships. The extra “reality” added by the technology could mean that people believe watching such content to be cheating on their partners, for instance, or it might allow people to act out fantasies that are considered violent or extreme.
“Pornography has played a key role in the development of new and emerging technologies – from the stereoscope in the 1800s through home video and now virtual reality,” said Matthew Wood, who was also involved in the Newcastle research. “But what VR offers for the first time is the opportunity to move from being simply an observer to being a participant and this changes the experience massively.
“One of our findings suggested VR pornography could be something more like cheating on a partner because of the increasing ‘reality’ of the VR experience.
“We found that for most people the potential of a VR porn experience opened the doors to an apparently ‘perfect’ sexual experience – a scenario which in the real world no-one could live up to. For others it meant pushing the boundaries, often with highly explicit and violent imagery, and we know from current research into pornography that exposure to this content has the potential to become addictive and more extreme over time.”
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November 8, 2017
Publishers experiment with audiobook-only productions
A growing number of publishers are skipping books entirely and going straight to audio — at least some of the time.
Anthony Goff, senior vice president of content development and audio publisher at Hachette Audio, makes the trend sound a bit like looting the mansion for hidden treasure. “We’re asking our best-selling authors, and all of our authors, about old stories, short stories that were never published, plotlines that changed,” he says. “Things they might find in their desk drawer that they could record in audio.”
Hachette and others are hoping to gain sound advantage from the flourishing market for audiobooks by either skipping the printed word entirely, or saving the print and e-book release until the audio version has run its course.
And no wonder. Audiobook publishers saw the third consecutive year of sales growth nearing 20 percent, with revenue of more than $2.1 billion in 2016, according to recent Audiobook Publishers Association-commissioned surveys by Edison Research and Management Practice. Sales of print books, which remain a far larger market than audiobooks, rose for the third consecutive year as well, Nielsen BookScan reported, but that was by 3.3 percent in 2016.
Audiobook listeners are a hot demographic, with almost half — 48 percent — younger than 35. Edison Research reported listeners completed an average of 15 books in 2016, marking them as avid “readers.” Plus, there’s room for growth in the audiobook segment; 24 percent of Americans listened to an audiobook in the past year.
Publishers acknowledge that podcasts have opened up the horizons of what’s possible.
“We’re wondering if books drawn from podcasts might be the new hot thing,” said Jamie Leifer, associate publisher of PublicAffairs, part of Hachette. She notes the remarkable advance sales for “The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic” by Mike Duncan, host of “The History of Rome” podcast for 10 years, and, since 2013, the podcast, “Revolutions.”
“We weren’t sure if Mike’s avid fans would convert to readers,” Leifer said in an email. “But I’m thrilled to say that they have.” Two months before the book’s Oct. 24 release date, PublicAffairs had “racked up the kinds of pre-orders in hardcover, e-book and downloadable audio that Hachette usually sees for anticipated franchise fiction releases, not serious history titles.”
The crossover between podcasts and audiobooks is a natural, data from Edison Research suggests: Survey respondents who listened to both had consumed twice as many audiobooks as nonpodcast fans.
“Consumers are moving in that direction, and we want to be ahead of those consumers,” said Ana Maria Allessi, vice president and publisher of HarperAudio. “I think their appetite is expanding for very creative and extremely well-produced podcasts. Three years ago, I couldn’t have fathomed doing an audio original and getting away with it. Today, that’s just storytelling. Readers accept that.”
And it’s a great marketing tool, several publishers noted. They hope that audiobooks may push listeners to discover other titles in their catalogs.
Toward that end, Harper sponsored a radio drama-writing contest with New York University Tisch School of the Arts last year. The winner, “Rebuttal” by Jyotsna Hariharan, became an audio-only production.
Macmillan Audio made inroads into the podcast market a decade ago when it created the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network, beginning with Mignon Fogarty’s “Grammar Girl” podcast. Fogarty’s first book, “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing,” was an audiobook before it appeared in print. Now there are 14 separate QDT podcasts and several books by QDT podcasters.
But Mary Beth Roche, president and publisher of Macmillan Audio, said the first season of “Serial,” the spinoff from “This American Life,” was transformative. “Serial” relayed producer Sarah Koenig’s week-by-week examination of the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, who had been sentenced in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. After the broadcast, a judge vacated Syed’s conviction and ordered a new trial.
“It gave podcasting a kind of mass appeal,” Roche said. “It took us from some people saying, ‘What is a podcast? How does that work?’ To pretty much most people you meet, if they hadn’t listened to it, they had an idea how to.”
There’s a throwback quality to all this because several of the straight-to-audio podcasts under development are dramatizations. “It’s everything old is new again, like the old-style radio dramas,” said Michele Cobb, executive director of the Audio Publishers Association. But unlike some of the first audiobook dramatizations, today’s sound less like a 1940s flashback, with greater sophistication in storyline, sound effects, musical score and performance.
Macmillan moved into straight-to-audio dramatization in August when it launched the 14-part sci-fi podcast “Steal the Stars,” a full-cast drama that’s part love story, part alien encounter. “Steal the Stars” by Mac Rogers is produced by Tor Labs, part of Macmillan’s sci-fi/horror/fantasy imprint, Tor Books. On Tuesday, a week after the free podcast ended, it was published as a book by Nat Cassidy, based on Rogers’ podcast.
Later this fall, Macmillan will launch a true crime podcast, “Case Closed,” beginning with a book published by St. Martin’s three years ago, “Crazy For You” by Michael Fleeman. The book covered the 2010 slaying of Atlanta businessman Rusty Sneiderman, and the podcast will include new developments in the case.
Best-selling authors and genre titles — sci-fi, fantasy, romance, crime — are leading the charge into straight-to-audio for most publishers. But even these may have more in common with podcasts than audiobooks.
Christopher Lynch, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio, says that while he expects to see more straight-to-audio, he doesn’t expect book-length offerings.
“I’m thinking of things that are one, two, three hours long,” Lynch said. “If it’s in straight-to-audio, it will be an author people recognize. We’ve seen that in the past. People pay for that.” For instance, three years ago Simon & Schuster published an hour-and-20-minute audio production of Stephen King’s “Drunken Fireworks.”
Self-help could be another strong candidate for audio-only projects, he said. “Tony Robbins was selling audio and video programs for years.”
“For us, the biggest question (is) how do we talk to our writers and their agents about doing this without taking them away from their day jobs,” Lynch said.
Source:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-books-straight-to-audio-1112-story.html
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Drake’s Hotline to Hollywood: Inside an Ambitious Push Into Film and TV
Stepping into Drake’s apartment on the 52nd floor of a Toronto high-rise, with sweeping, unobstructed views of the CN Tower and Lake Ontario in the distance, all is quiet, save for a large-screen TV playing nonstop coverage of Hurricane Irma on CNN. Though he no longer has a house in Miami, Drake is transfixed by the news. That’s just the way he approaches any subject that interests him. He dives deep, albeit on his own schedule. “This interview is kind of early for me,” he admits, though it’s presently 1:45 p.m. The night before, he started plowing through musical ideas — an instrumentation, a beat, an arrangement — well after midnight, and he didn’t stop until 10 a.m. “My wheels just start spinning faster than most people’s at that hour,” says the 31-year-old rapper-musician and former teen actor, dressed in a navy blue tracksuit and plain white Nikes. “It’s best for me to find an atmosphere that’s quiet. I don’t like a lot of people around when there’s a task at hand.”
Case in point, I find no entourage here, only longtime manager and business partner Adel “Future” Nur, 32 (not to be confused with Future, the Atlanta-born rapper). The duo is in their hometown of Toronto on this brisk September afternoon to debut their first movie as producers, The Carter Effect, a documentary about high-flying former NBA star Vince Carter, which is premiering at the Toronto Film Festival. The previous night, LeBron James swung into town to host a celebratory dinner at Drake’s pan-Asian restaurant Fring’s for a group of 30, including executives from HBO Sports and Universal Pictures and such stars as Idris Elba (who rolled in from his Molly’s Game premiere with an entourage of about 12). After heaping congratulations on his friend, James joked in a toast that they both now have “day jobs” — a reference to their budding Hollywood careers.
Drake is eager to talk about his ambitious push into film and TV, which includes teaming with Netflix to revive the critically acclaimed but short-lived British crime series Top Boy(think an across-the-pond version of The Wire). Drake and Future along with James’ SpringHill Entertainment will executive produce the series, which will go into production early next year for a 2019 debut. The pair also is shopping the Sean Menard-helmed Carter Effect, which also may land at Netflix. But the biggest indicator of Drake’s big Hollywood push is whom he is partnering with next: Steve Golin, who runs Anonymous Content (one of Hollywood’s hottest production houses and home of Spotlight and Mr. Robot), for an untitled TV series; film studio A24; and, perhaps most significantly, Apple, which has given him the go-ahead to produce whatever he chooses — at least, according to Jimmy Iovine — just as the cash-flush titan is poised to shake up the content space.
If some of the details seem vague, chalk it up to the fact that everything Drake touches becomes a news story or internet meme, with lengthy trademark battles ensuing. He once popularized the term “YOLO,” the acronym for “you only live once,” on “The Motto,” a bonus track from his 2011 album, Take Care. The term wound up on unauthorized clothing and merchandise and became a legal headache. That’s why he and Future won’t even divulge the name of their new company yet. Ditto for the specifics on their film and TV projects. Everything needs to be locked down first, including the rights to a magazine story that will serve as the basis of the Golin collaboration.
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Ruven Afanador
“When I get back into acting, I want to do things that make people go, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that,’” says Drake.
Yet, despite all the monetary success, three Grammys and artistic cred, Drake possesses a self-deprecating streak, which throws me. The 15-foot white walls of his apartment are mostly bare, save for a neon art piece that says: “Less Drake, More Tupac,” from L.A. artist Patrick Martinez. “I love it,” he says of the piece that set him back a mere $6,000 but allows him to take a certain ownership of the haters, and there are many who think he’s not hard enough. “I mean, people are entitled to their opinion, but this opinion, I’d just rather it be here than anywhere else.”
If it were up to Hollywood, that art piece would simply read: “More Drake.” At a time when the film business is arguably broken, an increasingly bifurcated system of globally consumed tentpoles lacking any cultural specificity and small movies that fall into the ether, Hollywood certainly can learn something from the Drake model. “They’re really geniuses with the marketing of their music,” says Golin. “Their social media, the way they do all that, that’s very interesting to us. I’m kind of enamored of the way that they communicate and interact with their fans and their audience.” He also just finds them pleasant to be around. “There’s a lot of vain musicians at that age who are successful that I can’t deal with, but those guys are very accessible. Drake doesn’t mind when it comes to meetings and being involved; he wants to be proactive.”
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Rakuten to bring eBooks, digital content to libraries in Hamamatsu
Rakuten Inc has signed a comprehensive agreement with Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, to cooperate in enhancing the reading environment and promoting globalization through multilingual education utilizing information technology.
Based on the agreement, residents of Hamamatsu City will be able to use Rakuten OverDrive, the Rakuten Group’s service providing eBooks and digital content to libraries and educational institutions, at the public libraries in the city (23 libraries and one branch library). With OverDrive, residents will be able to borrow eBooks and other content from the libraries*1 on their own tablets, smartphones or PCs, at any time and place.
By offering OverDrive’s vast library of more than 1.6 million multi-language works, Rakuten and Hamamatsu City said they hope to support and strengthen the foreign language education of the city’s residents. In addition, Rakuten Communications Corp. will provide a wi-fi environment and tablets*2 to an number of libraries in the city to give residents the opportunity to try out the OverDrive service.
Hamamatsu is an industrial city with a population of 800,000, and its more than 20,000 foreign residents give the city a very international feel. With a vision to become a city where people of different cultures can co-exist, Hamamatsu is implementing measures to promote multicultural understanding and study ways to provide support to foreign residents.
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We’re told to be grateful we even have readers’: pirated ebooks threaten the future of book series
The bestselling American fantasy novelist Maggie Stiefvater is leading a chorus of writers warning readers that if they download pirated ebooks, then authors will not be able to continue writing because they will be unable to make a living.
Stiefvater, author of the Shiver and Raven Cycle series, raised the issue after she was contacted on Twitter by a reader who told her: “I never bought ur books I read them online pirated.” On her website, Stiefvater later explained that, when ebook sales for the third book in the Raven Cycle – Blue Lily, Lily Blue – “dropped precipitously”, her publisher decided to cut the print run of the next book in the series to less than half of its predecessors.
“This is also where people usually step in and say, but that’s not piracy’s fault. You just said series naturally declined, and you just were a victim of bad marketing or bad covers or readers just actually don’t like you that much,” wrote Stiefvater, who had seen fans sharing pdfs online and was “intent on proving that piracy had affected the Raven Cycle”. So she and her brother created a pdf of The Raven King, which consisted of just the first four chapters, repeated, and a message explaining how piracy affected books.
“The effects were instant. The forums and sites exploded with bewildered activity. Fans asked if anyone had managed to find a link to a legit pdf. Dozens of posts appeared saying that since they hadn’t been able to find a pdf, they’d been forced to hit up Amazon and buy the book. And we sold out of the first printing in two days.”
Stiefvater revealed that she is now writing three more books set in the Raven Cycle world, but that the new trilogy “nearly didn’t exist because of piracy”. “And already I can see in the tags how Tumblr users are talking about how they intend to pirate book one of the new trilogy for any number of reasons, because I am terrible or because they would ‘rather die than pay for a book’,” she wrote. “As an author, I can’t stop that. But pirating book one means that publishing cancels book two. This ain’t 2004 anymore. A pirated copy isn’t ‘good advertising’ or ‘great word of mouth’ or ‘not really a lost sale’.”
According to the Intellectual Property Office’s latest study of online copyright infringement, 17% of ebooks read online are pirated – around 4m books.
Ebook piracy is “a very significant issue and of great concern” to publishers, said Stephen Lotinga of the Publishers Association, which works to take down and block pirated ebooks links and sites. “As an industry we’ve not had the situation that the music and film industries have gone through,” Lotinga said. “But that obviously is 4m ebooks that authors and publishers aren’t getting paid for, and should be getting paid for, and it’s a particular worry for publishers at a time when ebook sales are slightly in decline.”
[Ebook pirates] tend to be from better-off socio-economic groups … It’s not teenagers in their rooms.
Stephen Lotinga
Last week, a poll on piracy from Hank Green, the brother of the bestselling novelist John Green, was responded to by more than 35,000 people. Just over a quarter (26%) said they had pirated books in the past, while 5% said they currently pirate books.
Samantha Shannon, author of the Bone Season series, said that attempting to stay on top of pirated editions of her books was “a Sisyphean task”. “I think all authors experience it to some degree, unfortunately. It’s a reality of modern publishing,” she said. “I don’t often look for pirated copies of my books, as I find it too dispiriting, but I do batch-send links to my publisher now and again in the hope that they can remove some of them.”
Shannon wrote on Twitter that “the thing that’s really exhausting about piracy is that authors are often not allowed to be upset by theft of their work. If we ask people not to do it, no matter how courteously, we’re told we should have more compassion or be grateful we even have readers. Outside the creative industry, people broadly dislike theft. Within the creative industry, it becomes a grey area where people aren’t sure.”
“Authors who ask you not to pirate are not attacking people who are too poor to afford books, or people who genuinely can’t access libraries,” wrote Shannon – but Lotinga at the Publishers Association said that those people were not often the perpetrators. Ebook pirates “tend to be from better-off socio-economic groups, and to be aged between 31 and 50-something. “It’s not the people who can’t afford books,” he said. “It’s not teenagers in their rooms.”
Novelist Laura Lam wrote on Twitter: “I’m personally not bothered by the small percentage of readers who pirate because they have no access to books any other way. But of readers, I think that’s a small percentage. I’m more heartbroken by those who can easily afford books but pirate anyway. Any sales lost via those readers will have a very real impact on my career.”
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Audible.com Launches Dedicated Chinese Content Offering
Audible.com launches dedicated Chinese content offering at http://www.audible.com/chinese (Graphic: Business Wire)
NEWARK, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Audible, Inc., the world largest seller and producer of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment, today announced the launch of Audible in Chinese, a tailored listening destination where US and other international Chinese-speaking audiences can discover Chinese audiobooks and audio dramas on audible.com.
The Audible in Chinese catalogue at launch comprises over 300 audiobooks and audio dramas in Mandarin and will grow to include many more over the coming months. A dedicated landing page (www.audible.com/chinese) houses a curated content library featuring best-selling contemporary mysteries and thrillers, romances, classics, children’s titles, Chinese translations of popular English content, Chinese language learning materials and other categories, as well as helpful text and video guides for Chinese-speaking customers. Among the titles available today are 鬼吹灯 – 鬼吹燈 (Candle in the Tomb), 步步惊心 – 步步驚心 (Scarlet Heart), and 西游记 – 西遊記 (Journey to the West). 童谣经典选 – 童謠經典選 (Classic Nursery Rhymes) is also available as a special free download.
“Audible.com currently offers content in 38 languages, and I am excited to extend our catalogue to include Chinese in such a dedicated way,” said Audible Chief Content Officer Andy Gaies. “For the first time, Chinese-speaking audible.com customers can now explore and enjoy a diverse library of authentic content. Through these incredibly produced titles, Audible can now offer the tens of millions of Chinese speakers outside of China compelling listening experiences.”
Audible in Chinese is available to audible.com customers, and new customers can download any one of the Chinese titles included for free with a 30-day trial of the service. For more about Audible in Chinese, please visit www.audible.com/chinese.
ABOUT AUDIBLE, INC.
Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio content, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible was created to unleash the emotive music in language and the habituating power and utility of verbal expression. Audible content includes more than 375,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Audible is also the provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple’s iTunes Store.
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