If your Kindle is showing you a library screen that looks like this, I know how to fix it:

Numerous Kindle owners on MobileRead and the Kindle support forums are reporting that their newly updated ereaders are no longer working correctly. The several week old 5.12.4 firmware update apparently has a bug which is causing the library screen to freeze and only show a blank screen.

Thankfully, the rest of the Kindle functions are unaffected. Users can still access the main menu and settings menu, and one even said that they could find their ebooks via the search function.

Amazon has not announced a fix (although they have removed the 5.12.4 firmware update from their site) but users have found a solution. What you need to do is dereigster the Kindle, reboot it, and then register it.

Here's how you do that:

1. Deregister your Kindle
   * From the home screen, tap the menu icon in the upper right corner, and select the Settings option.
   * In the settings menu, select My Account, and then select the option Deregister Device.
   * Confirm deregistration.
2. Restart Your Kindle
   * Press and hold the power button (located on the bottom edge of your Kindle) for seven seconds.
   * When the power menu pops -up on screen, click restart.
3. Register Your Kindle
   * From the home screen, tap the menu icon in the upper right corner, and select the Settings option.
   * In the settings menu, select My Account, and then follow the directions to register your Kindle. If your device is already registered, select the option to deregister, and then register it again.

Let me know if this doesn't fix the problem!

You just finished reading How to Fix the Kindle Firmware 5.12.4 Blank Library Screen Bug which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• Donna Ferguson explains how she raised a bookworm.
• Oh, cool: Google Assistant on Android can read web pages to you.
• Confuse your kids with this 15th-century guide to good behavior.
• Neil Gaiman argues that libraries are where future readers come from.
• Daunt's plan for B&N is pretty much the same as for Waterstones: Act like an indie. 
• LitReactor has a list of 12 tools that every author needs. 
• Macmillan is considering three "new" library loan models. All 3 actually rather old, and one is a terrible idea. 

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 9 March 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

AI has been used to write everything from poems to blog posts to books, and now it's been put in charge of (for lack of a better term) a publishing company.

The Snakes and Ladders newsletter just tipped me to a site called The Library of Nonhuman Books. This site sells books that were written, published, and printed by AI.

This video explains how the process works.

I know the site is called a "library", and I know that it looks like a store, but if it really is AI-driven from one end to the other then I would have to call this an AI-powered publisher.

Now, the works it produces are little more advanced than the spam comments on a blog, and the codexes are less books than an especially abstract form of art, but I am still intrigued by the point being made here.

These books were designed for today's post-literate society, where most of the reading is actually done by machines, not people. That's not a dig along the lines of "people don't read anymore" so much as it is an acknowledgement that if you use a a search engine to find web content, that search engine "read" tens of millions of web pages to present you with the ten or fifteen you are actually going to read. (The same is true for Google Books, although with a slightly less extreme ratio.)

If most of the reading is done by machine, then why not write the content for the machines as well?

The Library of Nonhuman Books.

You just finished reading Guess What You’ll Find in The Library of Nonhuman Books which was published on The Digital Reader.

I was working on making an infographic on words that derive from numbers when I found the following video. (I was planning to crib from it, but I thought you'd get a kick out of it.)

You have probably heard the word quarantine a lot in the recent COVID-19 coverage, but did you know that it derives from the Latin word for forty?

Yes, the word was coined in Venice to describe the forty day period ships had to be isolated before they would be allowed to dock. The Venetian word for forty is quaranta, which has a Latin root.

There are a lot of words in English that derive from numbers - far more than you realize. For starters, there's obvious words like bicycle, words which hardly count for this post because they were coined by combining a Latin number with another word. But then there are the months September through December, whose root words derive from the Latin words for seven through ten. (This makes more sense if you remember that December was the tenth month in the calendar back when the new year used to start on March first.)

BTW, if you know of a word that should be mentioned here but is not, could you tell me about it in the comments? (I will start the fun with a couple words I found.)

You just finished reading A Dozen Words That Derive From Numbers (video) which was published on The Digital Reader.

After a decade of lobbying bu authors and book publishers, the UK government announced this week that the Value Added Tax collected on the sale of ebooks would be reduced to zero starting on 1 December 2020.

The UK Publishers Association is overjoyed, but I see this as a glass half full.

“We are delighted that the Government has decided to zero-rate VAT on digital books and journals in the Budget," Stephen Lotinga, CEO of the Publishers Association, said in a statement. "It’s fantastic that the Chancellor has acknowledged the value of reading. The decision to axe the reading tax will bring an end to the illogical and unfair tax on those who need or prefer to read digitally and should contribute to an increase in literacy in the UK. We want to thank all the parliamentarians, organisations and individuals who have supported this campaign and helped make the case for change – we look forward to continuing the important work of making reading accessible for all.”

Under the old rules no VAT was collected on print books sold in the UK, while 20% of the price of an ebook was paid to the UK government. (Yes, the UK has the equivalent of what in the USA would be a 25% national sales tax.) Print books had a 0% VAT rate due to an elitist and archaic belief that books were unique cultural objects. At the same time, ebooks were classified as software.

While this change would appear to be good news, the RNIB reminds us that the glass is only half full. Only ebooks will be getting the zero VAT under the new rule, but audiobooks will not. Speaking in their role as advocates for the visually impaired, the RNIB has a problem with this development:

While we welcome the announcement of a VAT exemption on e-publications, we are disappointed that it appears this won’t be extended to audiobooks. Printed books, magazines and newspapers have been VAT exempt since the 1970s, because it was recognised that there shouldn’t be a tax on reading.

The change recognises the unfairness of taxing some alternative formats and will help widen access for blind and partially sighted people who use e-Readers. However, for many people living with sight loss, audiobooks are their preferred format and allow them to enjoy their favourite titles in the same way as everyone else. It’s not right that they will continue to be charged 20 per cent more for books, and we urge the Government to make sure that audiobooks are included in the exemption.

I don't know what is more ridiculous, that the UK made this change twenty years after it was obviously a good idea, or that they still managed to screw it up.

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short.

image by Raymond Snijders via Flickr

You just finished reading UK to End VAT on eBooks (But Not Audiobooks) which was published on The Digital Reader.

Wikipedia has an ongoing problem where its more sexist editors constantly question whether a woman is "notable" enough to merit a page on the site. This is why, for example, the female 2018 Nobel Prize winner for physics did not have a Wikipedia page when her male colleagues did.

Goodreads has a similar problem with narrow-minded fools, only this one is more absurd than offensive.

It seems one or more Goodreads Librarians has decided that, contrary to Goodreads' own rules, original audio productions do not count as books. Earlier this week they decided to follow through on their belief by purging all "Audible original" titles from Goodreads. So far they have nailed a Stephen Fry title, a storytelling series, an audiobook about Malcolm X, an interview series, and Cut and Run, a comedy with Meg Ryan in the cast.

Some of the purged titles have been outright deleted, only to be restored by other Librarians (example) while others have been put in limbo. They've had the author metadata changed so that it reads "NOT A BOOK". (This is referred to by the acronym NAB, and is done so the titles aren't automatically added again by Goodreads' system.)

If you are interested, you can find a list of NABed books here. While most of the titles on that list should be in limbo, the original BBC audio productions should not. You'll also find things like an author's autobiography (this one is an edge case, I will grant you), and even the Orson Welles' production of War of the Worlds on that list.

And audiobooks aren't the only works being rounded up in this purge; apparently someone also decided to purge the audio productions of Great Courses lectures (this was stopped before too much damage was done).

What is particularly annoying about this situation is that Goodreads has a detailed list of what belongs in their system. All of the audio productions I referenced in this post qualify under Goodreads rules.

Alas, some Goodreads librarians do not appear to be familiar with their own rules. Or, given that a similar purge happened in December, perhaps they do not agree with the rules and are enforcing their own interpretation of what counts as a "book"?

In either case, clearly someone needs to get these rogue Librarians under control.

ThanksFaith, for tipping me to Alan Teder's tweets about this problem.

You just finished reading Goodreads Doesn’t Think Audiobooks are Books which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• Plagiarized spam ebooks dominate the Kindle Store listings for Coronavirus, but not Amazon's competitors. 
• Romance authors write 3,000 words a day (or more). Here's how they do it. 
• Kris Rusch explains how, in selling off S&S, CBS Viacom is probably throwing away a rights gold mine that they didn't even know they had. 
• This handy chart will help you understand what type of SF you're reading, based on the ships in the stories.  I wonder if there is a similar chart for fantasy?
• A survey shows that, compared to readers of print books, ebook readers are more likely to be writers. 
• Rich Hollick shows us several machines used to clean print books. 
• Why it matters that representation is growing in audiobooks. 
• Book fairs and other public events can be intimidating for authors, but you still gotta do'em. Here are 13 tips to help authors get started. 

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 16 March 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

The US trade publisher Macmillan  just announced a pricing change in response to the current epidemic.

Macmillan sent librarians an email today, informing them that Macmillan's contract terms will revert to the terms in place in October 2019 ( library ebook prices up to 4 times retail, and a 52-loan limit per copy).

Here's the text from the email:

Dear Librarians, Authors, Illustrators, and Agents,

There are times in life when differences should be put aside.

Effective oNF riday (or whenever thereafter our wholesalers can effect the change), Macmillan will return to the library ebook pricing model that was in effect on 31st October 2019. In addition, we will be lowering some ebook prices on a short term basis to help expand libraries' collections in these difficult times.

Stay safe.

Given that the ALA has described these terms as "already unfavorable to libraries", I cannot be grateful to Macmillan. If they really wanted to help, they'd drop library ebook prices to match their retail ebook prices.

You just finished reading Macmillan Reverts Library eBook Licensing Terms in Response to COVID-19 which was published on The Digital Reader.

Remember way back in June 2013 when I showed you a proof of concept design for a battery-less E-ink screen powered by NFC?

The idea never saw widespread adoption, but I have some good news for you today. You can now buy E-ink screens in 7.5", 4.2", 2.9", and 2.13" sizes which will draw power and data from the NFC chip in your smartphone.

The screens are available both with and without a base station that you can use to program them. The base station has an NFC chip, a micro-controller chip, and a microSD card slot, and adds about $20 to the price of each unit.

If your smartphone has an NFC chip, you _probably_ don't need the base station.  Your best bet would be to order a screen, and then get the base station later if you run into problems (it costs $25 when bought by itself).

You can find the screens in the E-ink section on the Waveshare website.

So how would you use them?

If  conventions weren't suspended for the duration, I would get either the 7.5" screen or the 4.2" screen and make my own con badge. It would be something no one else had, thus giving the the ultimate geek cred.

Alas, I don't think I can afford it at the moment.

You just finished reading Waveshare Now Sells NFC-Powered E-ink Screens in 7.5″, 4.2″, 2.9″, and 2.13″ Sizes which was published on The Digital Reader.

Conferences are now getting canceled faster than the Dixie Chicks after they criticized George H W Bush. Virtually every public event in May has been canceled, and now Book Expo America is taking a breather.

Reedpop sent out an email Thursday afternoon, announcing that this year Book Expo America would be delayed until July.

After many hours of conversation, we have decided to postpone BookExpo, UnBound and BookCon from May to July 22-26 at the Javits Center. We have been closely monitoring the outbreak of COVID-19 in New York and around the country. Following the guidance of health officials, we are now complying with the State’s request that large gatherings be postponed to ensure the well-being of everyone involved with our event.

For as long as I have been covering the book publishing industry, Book Expo America  has always been held at the end of May or beginning of June. For a while there it was accompanied by one or more conferences, but even when it wasn't one could still block out the same couple weeks every year for going to, being in, and coming home from New York City.

Not this year, however.

Now we're going to have to go to NYC in July. No offense to its residents, but the city was hardly bearable in May; in July it is going to be both hotter and more humid.

I for one will be wearing shorts when I go; how about you?

image by Ajay Suresh via Wikipedia

You just finished reading Book Expo America To Be Postponed Until At Least July which was published on The Digital Reader.

I am still waiting to hear from contacts in China whether these devices have actually been released to market, but it would appear that E-ink's next-gen color epaper screens have arrived on consumer ereaders.

CNTechPost reported earlier this week that the Chinese firm iReader has announced the C6, a 6" ereader capable of displaying 4096 colors. They don't mention the price or release date, but Chinese language sources say the device will be released on 25 March, at a retail of 1499 yuan (about $211 USD).

The iReader C6 is powered by a quad-core CPU with 1GB RAM and 15GB internal storage. It also has integrated speakers, a front-lit display, and a capacitive touchscreen.

The product listing says it weighs in at 170 grams and measures 6.9 millimeters thin. This makes it about the same size as most 6" ereaders, but unlike its competition the C6 has a white shell rather than a black one. That was a wise choice because the white will probably make the color screen look better. (Similarly, most older E-ink ereaders have a black shell instead of a white one because a white shell would make the grayscale screen look grayer, while a black shell makes it look blacker.)

The C6 is not the first color ereader on the market, but it is the first that uses E-ink's latest color epaper screens. There were several ereaders that used E-ink's Triton and Triton 2 screens, but that tech was never widely adopted. Triton screens depended on a color filter placed on top of a graysclae E-ink screen and as a result its screen resolution was low and its base color was a dull gray. (It was also slow to refresh.)

We still don't really know anything about the C6's performance or screen quality, but I can assure you that I am doing my best to get one.

Stay tuned.

P.S. If you are wondering what this new screen tech means for the Amazon Kindle, I have a few thoughts.

You just finished reading Color eReaders Are Being Announced in China (Whether They Are Being Shipped is Another Matter) which was published on The Digital Reader.

With news breaking that new color ereaders ( the first in nearly seven years) may be shipping later this week in China, now seemed like a good time to start thinking about when those screens might show up on other ereaders such as the Amazon Kindle.

The answer is most likely not going to be as simple as you would expect.

For starters, it is fairly safe to conclude that the screen on the iReader C6 shown above will not also grace the Kindle.

The thing is, Amazon has money, and if Amazon liked this screen tech then they would have paid for an exclusive so they could be first, and they would keep their exclusive very, very quiet until they were good and ready.

If the Kindle were going to get this screen then the first you would hear about it would be when Amazon wanted you to know it was coming. They would either leak the info or announce it, and there's no way they would let themselves be upstaged by Chinese companies.

No, it is much more likely that Amazon is either working on a competing screen tech that they think is better than the screen on the C6. There's also a good chance that Amazon just doesn't think any of the color epaper screen tech is viable. (Remember, E-ink's older color screens, the Triton and Triton 2, were dreck.)

There's no way to say with absolute certainty which is more likely, but I do know there are a couple possible screen techs Amazon might plan to use.

For starters, there's ClearInk. This company has been about to release a screen to market Real Soon Now for the past 3 years. Their screens looked great 3 years ago, but we still don't know if they can be produced on the assembly line. (Remember, one of the problems with Qualcomm's Mirasol screen tech is that most of the screens failed QA  in the factory, and had to be trashed.)

For all we know, ClearInk could secretly have Amazon as a partner, and its screens could show up on the next Kindle model.

Another possibility is Liquavista, the screen tech company Amazon bought from Samsung in 2013.

Yes, I did tell you in late 2018 that Amazon shut down Liquavista, but as I noted at the time, Amazon was "unable to tell me whether Amazon still be pursuing this tech, if Liquavista's R&D work been shifted to another unit, or the state of their screen production".

A lot of Liquavista people still worked for Amazon at that time, so it's entirely possible they were still working on new screen tech that is based on Liquavista's tech.

Liquavista's screens did look pretty back in 2013, though they never did start mass production:

BTW, Amazon does employ a lot of screen tech people, so there's a good chance that they are working on something new that Amazon is developing in secret, but there's really no way for us to know for sure until Amazon decides it wants us to know.

In any case, this is going to be an interesting year for screen tech!

You just finished reading What Do the New Chinese Color eReaders Mean for the Amazon Kindle? which was published on The Digital Reader.

I'm sure you read this past week that Penguin Random House is discounting its library ebook prices, but did you notice that none of the coverage actually mentions how much they're being discounted?

That detail was not mentioned in the announcement, and no one else seems to have followed up:

To further encourage book reading, especially among students, and to support school and public libraries that are closed with the escalating CV-19 outbreak, Penguin Random House will discount the prices of the e-book and audio book titles sold through wholesalers to these institutions.

This discounting begins immediately and will be in effect for a 90-day period.

“In this time of unprecedented disruption, Penguin Random House wants to continue and to expand our unwavering commitment to public and school libraries the best way we know how: by making our books more accessible for educators and students, especially those engaged in remote learning, and to library patrons everywhere,” said Skip Dye, Senior Vice President, Library Sales & Digital Strategy, Penguin Random House.

While that sounds nice, the fine print reveals that PRH's new prices are nearly the same as before.

According to the ALA, under the old terms PRH offered libraries a two year license on ebooks where the maximum price for an adult-oriented title were $55 from $65, and YA and kids books cost $45 and $35, respectively.

On Wednesday the ALA revealed the details of the new terms.

 For e-books, the company is now offering a one-year term for 50% of the price of the existing two-year term license. Additionally, libraries now may pay per circulation, at a price of 10% of the two-year term price. PRH has made the similar changes for its downloadable audiobooks.

The thing about multi-year software licenses is that you can often save 5% or more by paying for several years at once. If we turn that around we can see that, in charging half as much for a one-year license that PRH did for a two-year licence, they are giving libraries a discount of around 5%.

I don't think that is really a 50% discount, do you?

image  by emerille via Flickr

You just finished reading PRH “Discounts” Library eBook Prices, But the New Prices Are Virtually Identical to the Old which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• A few weeks back Macmillan proposed new contract terms for libraries. The ALA's position is that the existing terms are already unfavorable to libraries, and the new terms are even shittier.
• If you're looking for a class to take during the quarantine, Yoast has made their SEO training course free. 
• In the age of COVID-19, livestreaming is the new chatting over coffee. 
• If you've been thinking about updating your author blog so it's now an author website, I have a few ideas. 
• Barnes & Noble is expected to cut staff in response to the Coronavirus epidemic.
• Amazon has announced that it is prioritizing shipments of essentials goods during the current crisis.  PW (and pretty much everyone else) has misinterpreted that to mean Amazon is deprioritizing books, which is not the same thing. 
• If COVID-19 has disrupted your job to the same degree that it impacted mine, I have advice for you on moving forward. 

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 23 March 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

A friend just tipped me to the news that Amazon has retired its Author Rank feature. (Thanks, Morris!) I'm still getting a couple reports that people are still seeing Author Rank in the Kindle Store, but Amazon has an EOL notice in the Author Central admin pages, and has disabled the relevant page in Author Central.

Also, the Author Rank page on Amazon.com now redirects to the Amazon Charts page.

Originally launched in 2012, Author Rank has proven useful for little more than giving a few authors an ego boost, and many more authors crushing self-doubt. It will be missed by only the more obsessed authors  and their fans.

You just finished reading Amazon Retires Author Rank, Leaving Authors One Less Way to Check Their Social Status which was published on The Digital Reader.

It's 2020, and authors are expected to be jack-of-all-trades (even traditionally published authors). They're expected to grow their own audience, organize their own book tours, and even run their own ads. They're even expected to either design the ads or hire a designer, which can be expensive.

Hiring a designer can run into the thousands of dollars, and paying for an Adobe license can cost over $600 (and that's the annual price for a single user – the price goes up from there). Fortunately there are a number of online tools, both free and paid, that you can use to design your graphics.

I have previously posted a list of free online tools that you can use to do various things like remove the background, check an image's metadata, convert from one format to another, and even disassemble Adobe project files.

Today I would like to talk about two paid tools, Canva and Book Brush.

This post was originally intended  to be a review, but I don't know that you can really compare the two given that they serve such very different purposes. One is an online Photoshop replacement, while the other is a niche tool specifically designed for making marketing materials for selling and promoting books. There is so little overlap that if I had to pick one over the other, I would have to choose based on what I needed to do today rather than which one is the better service.

Full Disclosure

I have received no compensation from Canva, nor have I paid for its premium service. With Book Brush, I was comped with a plus service plan in March 2019. I have not actually used that plan much because I am not really Book Brush's intended audience.

I have however used both sites enough to talk about what they can do.

Canva

Canva is so capable that it might be better to discuss what it can't do. Basically, it is an online replacement for Adobe Photoshop that has certain limitations. You cannot, for example, upload a PSD file and work on it, nor can you download a project and work on it elsewhere. What you can do is design something in Canva and then download an image file, a PDF (for print or for online use), or a video (this feature is still in beta). Canva also recently added websites as a design option, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet.

So what can you make with it? At this point, you can make just about anything that can be defined by its width and height (this includes multi-page PDF documents). Canva has many different stock sizes, including the usual social media graphics as well as standard web ad sizes and even designs intended to be printed (such as business cards, bookmarks, flyers, and postcards).

I can't possibly list all of Canva's stock sizes, but even if I did I'd be missing about half its abilities because you can use it to make just about anything if you know the dimensions of what you want to make. For example, I buy ads in conference program guides, and each ad has its own specific size. That's not a problem for me because Canva makes it easy for me to design a graphic to fit the dimensions of one specific program guide. Then I copy the text and image from an old ad to the new one, rearrange them so they look good, and inside of ten minutes I have an ad ready to be submitted.

I started using Canva when I needed stock book covers, and I later branched out into using it to make flyers, blog graphics, infographics, business cards, bookmarks, signs, and ads to run in program guides at conferences. I even use Canva to make the lead magnets for my mailing list (these are typically 3-to-7 page PDFs).

When I begin a new project in Canva, I generally look for a pre-made design that looks good (there are usually dozens of options for any project you want to make). I then customize it with my content, and tweak the design to make the colors pop and improve the layout.

Sometimes I will even discard the original design, and just keep my alterations, but either way, the result looks professional.

Book Brush

Where Canva tries to do everything, Book Brush gives you tools to accomplish specific tasks. These tools include Instant Mockups, Box Set Creator, Video Creator, and Custom Creator.

I do not have the skill to show off the video creator, but I can show you the other three.

Box Set Creator

One of its newer tools is the Box Set Creator. You can use this tool to make a graphic to use when selling your series as a box set on Amazon. It is simple, intuitive, and relatively straightforward. Just provide your cover and images for the spines of the books, and then select which ones you want to assemble into a particular box set. If you don't have spines, you can either make them from scratch or customize a stock design.

I used stock spines and a cover image from my dummy folder to make this box set image in about ten minutes. This was literally the second one I made, and I think it's almost (I can do better) good enough to use for real.

Unfortunately, I don't see a way to save a previously made box set image so I can come back and edit it later, but Book Brush does save both the cover and the spines, so it only takes a few minutes to remake a box set image.

Instant Mockup

This tool is really simple and incredibly useful. It lets you insert one of your book covers into pre-made stock photos. You can put your book's cover on the screen of a tablet or smartphone, on a print book, or even (I'm not kidding) in a Polaroid.

Here are several of the mockups I made. This represents about half of the mockups I downloaded (the rest had white along one edge of the cover, or otherwise didn't come out well).

Custom Creator

The Custom Creator lets you make a graphic you can use when promoting your book in an ad on Facebook, Twitter, BookBub, or Amazon. You can also use it to make a header image for your Facebook or Twitter profile, or a bookmark, business card, or postcard-sized flyer. You can start with a pre-made template (just add your book cover and text) or you can start from scratch.

This is the one part of Book Brush that comes closest to being a direct competitor to Canva, albeit one with a strong focus on promoting your book. You even have the option of designing a graphic with custom dimensions.

Final Word

So which do I think you should use?

Ideally, both. These two sites serve such different purposes that there is very little overlap. They are really more complimentary than competitors, so I think you should use whichever one is better suited to the immediate task.

That said, learning how to use these tools can take time. It takes practice to make graphics that both look good and effectively promote your books, and if you don't have time to really learn how to use both tools then you should focus on whichever one you find the most useful. For me, that's Canva, but that is mainly because I need to make more general marketing materials rather than a graphic to sell a book.

But if you do decide to use both sites, you're probably going to wonder which one is worth paying for, and I would have to say Book Brush. The thing is, I have used the free version of Canva for over three years now, and I haven't found a good reason to pay its annual fee ($119.40).

With Book Brush, the opposite is true; the free version was so limited that I upgraded almost immediately.

Have you used the two sites? Which one do you prefer?

You just finished reading Canva v Book Brush which was published on The Digital Reader.

For the longest time now Amazon has provided authors and publishers who distributed their audiobooks though ACX with promo codes that could be given to reviewers, shared with friends, and otherwise used to promote an audiobook.

It had been SOP for Amazon to pay a royalty when a promo code was redeemed, but that policy ended today. Kirsten Oliphant Posted this in her FB group earlier today:

To summarize, Amazon will still give you the promo codes, but they will no longer be paying when the codes are redeemed. Which, TBH, is only fair; I can't think of a good argument in favor of paying creators to promote their own works.

You just finished reading Amazon No Longer Pays Royalties on Audiobooks Redeemed With ACX Promo Codes which was published on The Digital Reader.

Barnes & Noble has joined the many retailers and other businesses which have stopped letting the public in, instead opting to offer curbside service. (My vet adopted this practice a couple weeks ago.)

Out of concern for public safety, B&N has temporarily closed around 400 stores to the public. It continues to sell product online, and now an unknown number locations offer curbside pick up.

B&N has not disclosed how many or which locations are closed to the public, and the information is not listed on their website, either. Your best bet for finding out whether your local B&N offers curbside pickup is to place an order, select in-store pick up, and see what happens.

Earlier this month Barnes & Noble canceled all in-store author events through the end of next month. Like many businesses, schools, and freelancers, it is working to bring its events and services online.

Going by the website, no B&N stores near me are holding online events yet, although I cannot guarantee that detail.

image by Angel Xavier Viera via Flickr

You just finished reading Barnes & Noble Closes 400 Stores which was published on The Digital Reader.

Authors have discovered that the Internet Archive has converted its lending library site into an out and out pirate site, and they are not happy,

For the past few years the Internet Archive has been operating a site called The Open Library. This site fills some of the role of a public library by lending scanned copies of print books.

The site existed in a quasi-legal state, protected by a legal opinion that kept it from being explicitly labeled a pirate site, but that legal fig leaf was stripped away this past week when The Open Library director Chris Freeland announced this week that the Internet Archive would now start "lending" ebooks without limits.

To address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials, as of today, March 24, 2020, the Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later.

During the waitlist suspension, users will be able to borrow books from the National Emergency Library without joining a waitlist, ensuring that students will have access to assigned readings and library materials that the Internet Archive has digitized for the remainder of the US academic calendar, and that people who cannot physically access their local libraries because of closure or self-quarantine can continue to read and thrive during this time of crisis, keeping themselves and others safe.

What they are calling the National Emergency Library is really just The Open Library with a new name, and new legal issues.

The problem with this is that The Open Library's only protection was an untested legal opinion called Controlled Digital Lending. Go read it and you will see that it says said that a library could lend one scanned copy of a print book for each copy they had in their archive. This is great - in principle - because it means libraries can preserve their copies old and rare print books and instead lend digital copies.

CDL is a great idea, in my opinion, because it helps solve the orphan works problem. I do not however agree with how the Internet Archive has latched on to it as a justification for lending books that are widely available in stores and libraries.

But that does not matter today. In removing waitlists, the Internet Archive is discarding CDL as a defense, and is lending far more copies of each book than they have the rights for.

No matter your opinion of CDL, this is piracy plain and simple, and authors aren't having any part of it:

Dear @NPR — uhh hey hi THIS IS A PIRATE WEBSITE. It’s not legit! WTF are you doing?! pic.twitter.com/Nmioke4aQK

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) March 28, 2020

This is piracy, plain and simple. And your local library can get you ebooks—ones they have paid for.

— Mark Wunderlich (@MarkCWunderlich) March 28, 2020

Joining the chorus of authors saying not to promote this. They have my books, scanned, without any kind of permission or license -- it's just piracy.

Author's Guild: https://t.co/K0WcGzzEal

— Django Wexler (@DjangoWexler) March 28, 2020

This site is pirating books. You are promoting theft from me, from my fellow authors, from their estates, and from publishers. How dare you?

— KV Johansen (On a sort of retreat for a bit) (@KVJohansen) March 28, 2020

Ugh. This is one of those well-meaning but misguided efforts that ends up harming those who need help.

— Priscilla Gilman (@priscillagilman) March 28, 2020

This is disappointing.

They are violating copyright and are actually SAYING that they're counting on courts not having interest in copyright cases against them because of the national emergency.

That's not something to promote. They KNOW they're wrong.

— Ella Drake (@Lori_Ella) March 28, 2020

Please stop promoting piracy. If you don't know why this site is wrong, please see the author's guild statement.

— Isabel Bandeira (@Emberchyld) March 28, 2020

Hey, NPR, authors never agreed to this--and actual lending libraries that PAID for e-books exist. Promote those instead!

— Shveta ?????? ? (@ShvetaThakrar) March 28, 2020

NPR, what are you doing? This site violates many authors' copyrights. Don't share or promote this. Use libraries instead.

— Katherine Locke (@Bibliogato) March 28, 2020

Via @lilithsaintcrow
Doing a search on this site has led me to find books by Jack McDevitt, James S A Corey, Joe Haldeman, the late Jay Lake, Kameron Hurley and lots more.
This is piracy.

I am not happy about NPR giving Internet Archive a free pass here in glowing coverage. https://t.co/M3uwvwjjNT

— Paul Weimer ?? (@PrinceJvstin) March 28, 2020

image by blmurch via Flickr

You just finished reading Authors Protest Internet Archive Pirating Their Books which was published on The Digital Reader.

The Library of Congress published a post this past week highlighting their growing collection of open access ebooks.

We are excited to share that anyone anywhere can now access a growing online collection of contemporary open access eBooks from the Library of Congress website. For example, you can now directly access books such as Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, and Youjeong Oh’s Pop City: Korean Popular Culture and the Selling of Place from the Library of Congress website. All of these books have been made broadly available online in keeping with the intent of their creators and publishers, which chose to publish these works under open access licenses.

A key objective of the Library of Congress digital collecting plan is the development and implementation of an acquisitions program for openly available content. We have previously discussed a number of open access book projects, including open access Latin American books, and open access children’s books. Significantly, the Library of Congress has long been receiving print copies of open access books through multiple routine acquisition streams. These openly licensed works can be made much more broadly accessible in their digital form.

In addition to the LOC's collection, there are numerous free ebook sites such as Project Gutenberg, the major ebook retailers all have free ebook sections, and a lot of creators have released some of their works for free. This includes textbooks and other curricula that have been released for free as Open Educational Resources.

image by Pierre Blaché via Flickr

You just finished reading Library of Congress Expands Its Collection of Open Access eBooks which was published on The Digital Reader.