Wreedle

First off, I'm not dead! Hooray!
Second off, I have awesome news! My cousin and I are developing an upcoming web site solely focused on helping indie authors get their books to as many readers as possible. On the flip side, the other half of the design is to help readers easily find quality indie books in their preferred genres. It's a daunting task but we are off to some great ideas here, and should have a beta site to show people very soon!

A few things that I need from you, dear reader, to help me in this endeavor.
First, if you're a self-published (or traditionally published) author and have two minutes, take this survey. This is us trying to find out exactly what authors want and need and how this will work.

Second, if you are a reader (which I'd imagine is everybody here), take this survey too. It's also short, but our attempt to get a better idea of what READERS want.

Then we're gonna mash 'em together and make a site out of it. It's gonna be great.

For now, we are accepting beta signups and will provide updates if you sign up on Wreedle.com. If you sign up there, we are giving away free stuff along the way (like adspace!) so it's totally worth it! Also, I'm in charge of the mailing list, so I don't send no spam or nothin.

In the WRITING side of things, I'm self-publishing! Steelgods 1 should be out January 1st, 2014, with any luck. I'm also going to be going crazy with a small group of friends, hopefully forming a squadron of self-publishers. Our goals are still up in the air, but just keep an eye out for that. And I'm going to be writing a lot more.

That's it! Sign up! Take surveys! Do it! Yeaaaah!

Review: Kindle Fire

Review Time, Sucka

So as stated earlier, both my wife and I got Kindle Fires for Christmas from our employer. Since then I've spent a good deal of time working with the device, messing with the Amazon App store, and even rooted the device and made it basically an Android tablet. Before I get to the meat of this review, I'll simply give you a "TL;DR" version in case you don't like my rambling. Which will consists of a Pros/Con list.

Pros


- Relatively inexpensive ($199) for a tablet.
- Small, looks nice, has fairly good battery life. 
- Screen is high resolution. HD movies look great.
- Decent assortment of apps from the Amazon store.
- Uses the Amazon cloud for pretty much everything. Extremely easy to get to your purchased Kindle books, mp3s, and more. 
- Can upload your own MP3s to the free Amazon Cloud and stream them to your Kindle so long as you have internet. 
- Interface/Skin over Android does what it needs to while keeping it simple. 
- Web browser is fast, runs flash, and supports tabbed browsing. 
- Amazon Prime members get loads of streaming videos that are integrated right into the device. 


Cons


- Touch screen isn't very good. Compared to an iPad or iPhone, it can be either too sensitive or not sensitive enough. I had to mash my finger on some buttons for it to take, while when I used the keyboard it kept adding letters if I just brushed past them. 
- Underpowered, especially compared to other tablets and even phones. Has difficulty running high-profile apps. 
- No physical buttons. Other android devices have a back, tab, and home button on the device. All these are touch integrated on the Kindle, which is a massive pain. The lack of a volume control other then going all the way to an options menu is extremely obnoxious.
- Speakers are very weak. 
- Limited to the Amazon App store. Can't install the full Android app store without rooting the device. 
- Amazon deletes your roots with its automated updates. Which it updates whenever it wants, without warning. 
- Too small to be a proper tablet, too big to be very portable. 
- Extremely fragile (much like the iPhone 4S). Drop it and it's done. 
- Reflective/color screen is much harder on the eyes than eInk, or even a traditional LCD monitor. (author's note: I am sensitive to this and prone to headaches; many people aren't. This is just personal taste)
- All the best apps are on the Android Store. Amazon's is extremely gimped, and they keep removing Apps like GoLauncher that would make the device more accessible. They also don't have any dedicated social networking apps, which is one of the main reasons I would use a tablet. 
- No 3G like all the eInk Kindles. And since it's heavy on the Cloud integration, you have to have a WiFi connection in order to get the full benefit. 
- Only 8 GB of space. So if you aren't in a WiFi range, you are extremely limited. 
- Doesn't come with a USB cord to connect to a computer, unlike every other Kindle they sell. Why is this? 




Blurb Opinion: If you want an eReader, get an eInk Kindle and a nice case. If you want a Tablet, get an iPad (or if you absolutely hate iOS/Apple, an Android Tablet). The Kindle Fire fits somewhere inbetween these two products, and suffers for it. Yes, it's a super-cheap tablet, but it's subpar on too many levels to recommend.

Long Review


Let me get something out of the way first: I might not be the ideal market for this device. I already own an eInk Kindle, an iPhone 4S, and a decent laptop computer. Pretty much I've got all my needs set, and this was before I was given the Fire. For the record, I LOVE my eInk Kindle, love the Amazon Kindle store, and think everybody should own one of these things. That being said, even though my expectations for the Kindle Fire weren't very high, I was really disappointed by it.

To better illustrate this point, I have made a high quality graphic using MS Paint, google image search, and bad copy/paste. You're welcome.

Here's how I figure technology works. You have your desktop. This sucker can do everything. Browse the internet, play games, edit movies, etc. It's basically, to use a lack of a better term, a computer. 
Next you have your laptop. This thing isn't as powerful as your desktop, but it can still do the internet, play games at the "medium" graphics quality (vs the "ultra" for your gaming desktop rig), edit movies, do your social networking stuff, etc. It's basically a slightly less good desktop computer.
I'd put netbooks here but the iPad basically killed that market, so RIP and all that.
So then we have iPads/Tablets. These devices really have taken off, probably because they provide the most wanted features of a Laptop computer in a more compact and convenient package. They do the internet really well, have all your social networking covered, and even have quite a few good games on it (though not nearly as good or powerful as a laptop or desktop).
Then you have Smartphones, which are a lot like the tablets only more compact. The internet browsing isn't as good, but it's convenient because it doubles as a phone. It has all your social stuff, and has a good bit of games too. They are considerably more portable than any of the above products, which is a big selling point.
Then we have eInk Readers, which are devices dedicated solely for reading. Which, as you might guess, means they do it really well. They do it better than your phones, your iPads (if you don't like screens), and certainly your computers. That's about all they do, but they do it well.

And then we have this thing. 

So you can see how, if you go down the line, we have features slowly being stripped until we get to the bare necessities. The problem with the Kindle Fire is that it tries to sit squarely somewhere between dedicated eReaders and Tablets, without really doing each very well. As an eBook reader, the glass screen an glare makes it impossible to read in bright sunlight, and can cause some people eye strain (read: me). On the flip side, it isn't a very good tablet. It's underpowered, which means apps load just slow enough to be annoying. Since the screen is small it's in that sort of lukewarm area with regard to web browsing: it's better than on my phone, but not nearly as good as it would be on an iPad. Locking the Fire into the Amazon Android store rather than the full Android Market is a massive mistake; there are no social networking apps, and pulling them up on the browser is inconvenient. The interface is also pretty bad if you try to do stuff other than what they want you to: you have a sort of "cover flow" of all your apps, books, and movies, which sounds great in theory except the touch recognition on it is completely horrible. You can favorite apps so they are always there (much like putting stuff on the "dock" bottom portion on an iPad or a real Android tablet), but even that is cumbersome.

The lack of physical buttons is a big bummer. The home and back buttons are touch-only, and they have a knack of receding right when you need them. There is no easy way to quickly change your music tracks without going to the upper menu, and the same goes for volume (which is the biggest bummer; not being able to change the volume with physical buttons is a massive oversight). This is only exacerbated by the fact the touch screen is not very responsive: it's hard to know when it's picking up your touch commands, often times it just seems to ignore them, and since everything depends on the touch screen interface, just navigating the UI is a chore.

I don't hate everything about the device, however, because I'm still a huge gadget nerd and love playing with new tech. When it comes to Netflix, streaming videos, and doing something simple on the internet like reading webcomics, the thing works like a dream. I've found it to be very useful for watching movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or GiantBomb while I'm in bed (when a laptop would be inconvenient). It's too bad that the built-in speaker is really quiet; my wife and I were watching A Bit of Fry and Laurie on Amazon Prime streaming at full volume, and we could hardly hear it over the house's air conditioning (which wasn't really that loud).

I was really hoping the .docx reader would be better (or at least include the Dropbox App which has a good built-in reader) so I could open up my own works and do basic editing on it, but considering how poor the touch keyboard is I don't see that happening. Also, if you do manage to get some non-Amazon store apps on it (through some back door ways, but luckily it doesn't require a full root) you can do some pretty cool things. This thing is the perfect size for playing emulated SNES games, with the touch controls working really well (though not so great for platformers, it is fantastic for RPGs). And, since Android is more open than iOS, once you figure that out you have boatloads of apps you can just throw on there (emulators, ho!). I haven't yet tested the PS1 emulator on it (which would be my benchmark with regard to how powerful this thing actually is), but the thing is just the right size to conveniently hold it like a controller and play. A phone would have been too small, and an iPad/Tablet would have been much too large. So hey, if you want to play pirated games by using a back-door method to load your emulator apps on it, it's a great device for that.

(Editor's Note: I don't download ROMs of games that I don't own the actual, physical cartridge of. A glance at my retro game collection should put whatever fears you have of that to rest)

Check out that awesome glare. Imagine trying to read off that. 

A few more minor niggles. When you are reading a book, it is very limited in it's options with regard to text backgrounds. You can either have black text on BLASTINGLY BRIGHT WHITE, black text on a too-dark tan, or white text on black. Since the brightness options on the device are extremely limited (it's too bright, all the time), reading in the dark is eye-strain city. Come on, Amazon, you have a device that's way more powerful than your eInk reader, and you want people to use this thing like an eReader. Give me more options with my books. Why can't I have a really pale tan or gray background, so that the contrast doesn't burn my retinas from my brain? I read about 4-5% of Reaper Man on the Kindle Fire, then switched back to my eInk Kindle, and I couldn't believe how much better it was. I was going to read a whole book on the Fire before giving this review, but I keep having to either put the Kindle Fire a distance away so as to minimize the glare/headaches, or only read in really short bursts. I eventually just gave up and went back to my eInk Kindle which, for those who are curious, I have read about 8 Pratchett books on, most in 4-5 hour bursts in the middle of the night.

Amazon seems to hate rooting, because every update so far disables it. Also, if your kindle is rooted, it completely locks you out of the Amazon Prime Streaming Video, meaning you aren't getting your money's worth. The updates are completely mandatory and happen the minute Amazon detects it on WiFi, forcing you to update regardless of what you are doing. I've complained about Windows' super-intrusive method of forcing updates, but this is a whole new level of awfulness.

Thanks a lot. I didn't want a choice with this or anything. 

Speaking of WiFi, that brings me to another problem: the storage size. Amazon only put 8 GB of space on this (6 useable), which is ample if you were just putting books on it, but if you want to use it as a music player, to store videos, or load it up with apps it's extremely limiting. Amazon's way around this is their whole "cloud" thing: you can easily (and always) get your books, mp3s, and videos you've purchased (from Amazon) from their cloud. It's worth pointing out that while Apple does this same thing, it also allows a Kindle app (and hopefully soon a Google Music app) which lets you get ALL your stuff. Amazon is shutting everybody else out except themselves, probably because this thing is like a massive cash register for them. Anyway, this sounds totally awesome on paper. I mean, the cloud is awesome, right? Having access to everything, everywhere? That's rad!

Only 1.17 GB for Apps? Great. That's one copy of Infinity Blade, and that's it.  Not like this thing could run it, anyway. 

Yeah, except it isn't everywhere. Because it doesn't have 3g/4g. Only Wifi. Which means you'll probably only use it at home, or at free wifi spots, assuming you can get on (the wifi can be spotty). The second you are out of a wifi spot, you are done. 8 GB of space, sucker. Hope that's enough (hint: it really isn't. My phone has 16 GB and it's a constant fight for me to try to have everything I want on there). The lack of 3G really kills this thing, because hey...if I'm at home and I want to watch a movie/listen to music, wouldn't I just, you know, use my laptop (which has way better speakers)? Or my phone? Or...anything else that has a better UI with regard to music?

Lastly, put a password on your Kindle Fire. Because the second you buy it, it auto-registers to your amazon account. Conveniently, they pre-loaded the thing with an Amazon App store, which has one-click purchasing enabled. Which means if you lose it, someone steals it from the "KINDLE FIRE INSIDE" box in shipping, or your two-year-old gets his hands on it, you could find yourself buying stuff you don't want (or know about). There are currently no security options to disable this, no way to delete the Amazon store app, and the only protection you have is the usual screen-lock password. There are no parental controls of any kind, either to block material on Prime Video or purchases made on their app store. It's clear Amazon wants you to BUY BUY BUY on this thing, to the point of it being a security risk. Huge, huge oversight.

Turn this thing on. 

So, after reading this massive post of me complaining (sorry about that), I'm pretty sure I don't need to say whether I recommend one of these, right? However, I do have one positive thing to say about this: It'll force more competitive prices from other (better) tablets. It sold like hotcakes over the holiday, quickly becoming the second best selling tablet of all time (iPad still being #1). Already other tablet makers like Sony (and soon Apple) have begun to consider slashing prices of their tablets by $100 (to $299ish) to compete. So hey, I'm all fine for getting a better tablet for a lot cheaper.

As it stands, however, hold off. I'm hoping that, like the massive jumps the eInk Kindle has made, the second generation of the Kindle Fires will be much better. For now, though, if you really want an eBook reader, get an eInk Kindle. If you have to have a tablet, try either an iPad or one of the many Android Tablets.

I really wanted to like the Kindle Fire. I got it for free, after all, and I love free stuff. I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth here, I'm just giving my honest opinion. I really, really wish I could find stuff to do with this thing. So far I mostly use it to read Order of the Stick, and watch GiantBomb play Chrono Trigger. I still use my iPhone for all my music and portable gaming/social networking needs, and I use my eInk reader to read all of my books. Amazon took a risk trying to put a product in a spot that nobody knew they wanted (sort of like how Apple did the same thing with the iPad), and their sales I guess prove they weren't wrong. It just really isn't a quality device, and I cannot recommend it while there are better options on the market.

Moral of the story: Buy this instead. 

Kindle Fire, Yo!

For those who know (or don't know), I work a part-time day job doing phone tech support at NuSkin (where my wife also works). Anyway, it's a pretty decent job if you don't mind doing call center stuff, but what makes working here AWESOME is when Christmas rolls around and they throw presents your way. NuSkin had a record year this year, so as a reward (in addition to a few bundles of cash) everybody got a Kindle Fire!

Yep, this thing. 

Now both my wife and I got original flavor Kindles last year for Christmas (and I promised a review but never gave one, but here is my new review: THEY ARE AWESOME YOU SHOULD GET ONE THEY ARE ONLY $80 NOW DUDE), so I'm left wondering what the crap I'm going to use this thing for. So how about I compare it to the original Kindle and write a review?

...later?

See, I just got this thing yesterday. For those not "in the know" about Kindles, most of them use eink technology, which basically means it reads exactly like ink on paper. It's fantastic, and as somebody who stares at screens all day at work (then at screens all night when either writing or playing video games or whatever), it's a HUGE load off of eyestrain. It really is just like reading a book, which is why I think the original Kindles are fantastic and any book lover should grab one.

This thing, on the other hand, is essentially a stripped-down Android tablet with a full color screen and glass on the outside and all that. Basically a cheaper iPad, complete with apps, movie watching, etc. This means no eink, despite this still being heavily marketed as an ereader. So...does it work?

Well, I'm going to read through a few books on it before giving my final review. Out of the box? I don't like reading on it, frankly. Movie watching is great (I'm a Prime member so I have both Netflix and Prime's video library to pull from) and apps are...there (I have enough of them on the iPhone and the iPhone is more portable so...). Internet browsing is pretty good but I hate their keyboard (it doesn't register taps as correctly as the iphone/ipad does, despite it being bigger than my iphone). It runs pretty smooth but I have had a few missed taps already, especially with trying to hit the tiny gear "settings" button in the corner.

So yeah, that's my new Christmas toy. Expect a review when I get around to it. Currently I'm preferring the original Kindle, but hey...who knows. Let's finish Reaper Man on the Fire and see how that turns out.

Terry Pratchett is pretty awesome

This cover doesn't really fit the book, but whatever.

I don't know how I managed to dodge Terry Pratchett's books for the past who knows how many years, but now that I'm finally sitting down and reading them I'm really enjoying myself.
So far I've read Going Postal and Small Gods, and am almost done with Mort (which is my favorite so far). Mort was an earlier book than the other two and I can sort of tell: Small Gods was a very biting satire of religion (and I'd think Catholicism, though I'm not going to make any assumption) but isn't very high on the "jokes per page" quota. Mort, on the other hand, a story of Mort who becomes the apprentice to Death, is consistently goofy and is throwing jokes out left and right. If I had to prefer a style, I'd say I like Mort better, though Small Gods made me THINK more than Mort did.

Going Postal was straight up weird. I don't know what else to say about it.

This isn't the first time I've tried Pratchett, to be completely honest. I got about 50% of the way through Good Omens, which is him and Neil Gaiman doing their thing. I honestly thought it read more like a Neil Gaiman book than a Pratchett book, though maybe they switched off chapters/characters because stuff frequently goes from weird to somber to weirdly somber as we bounce around viewpoints. I enjoyed the book a lot, but when it started focusing on characters I didn't care about at all (the witch-hunter) I sort of lost interest. I should pick it back up.

Granted I had the same problem with American Gods, so maybe it's Gaiman's fault. Though I can't fault the man for being extremely clever, which he most certainly is. He and Pratchett seem like a really odd mix, though.

Point being: check these books out. They are very entertaining. The best part is they are fast and light (unlike A Song of Ice and Fire, which I am stuck on the fourth books of) and I can finish them in a few days if I'm quick.

This is where I'm supposed to put notable quotes, but I can't think of any offhand. Needless to say, any book where Death quits his job and finds more job satisfaction in being a chef in a backwater restaurant is 10/10 in my book.

In personal writing news, Steelgods 1 is finally near finished after nearly a month and a half of pain and whining. Once it's finished I'll start submitting, while I write my next book.

And as a special bonus for all those who bought Paradise Seekers on the Kindle and liked the Steelgods snippit: since the odds of me posting it on Kindle are substantially lower than when I first put Paradise Seekers up (though I'm still keeping my options open), if you'd like a free, maybe-badly-formatted Kindle copy of the third draft of Steelgods just shoot me an email or a comment (or a Facebook harassment). I figured I'd reward you for being nice and buying my book. :) Though if I do sell it YOU'D BETTER BUY THE HARDCOVER. :P

 I'm getting excited to write again - anything at this point, I'm going crazy - so expect some more exciting posts hopefully soon. In the meantime, go read some Pratchett.

The Gears of Anbar - And so it begins

After a short respite, I have started on Gears of Anbar. I must say, even only taking a break from writing for a little past a week, I was already beginning to feel like something was missing from my life. I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything, even when I was massively editing Effulgent Corruption and having just finished a book longer than my past three combined.

I suppose this is a sign I should be a writer, hmm? If even one day passes and I haven't written I begin to feel off. I'll take that as a good thing.

To my amazing surprise I actually wrote 3.4k today. It's mostly dialogue, which is both for the reader's benefit (having just started a new book in the series) and my own. Gears is a darker book than Steelgods. While in the first Cevan's plight was certainly bleak, it was done in a way that it came off as less serious than it actually was. Not so in Gears, which takes place a year after the first one. Cevan's situation has gotten far worse, with both Gears and Peacemakers (or Peacemasters, based on the snippet at the end of the Kindle version of Paradise Seekers) hunting him voraciously. While this book will certainly have the humor of the first book, it's going to be a bit darker. I'm trying to get into that mood, and this chapter reflects that.

It also is going to be longer. I'm trying my hardest to write YA not Epic Wordy Fantasy here, and I don't know how well I'm doing. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

This will also be, like Steelgods, a big fat discovery write. Effulgent Corruption, while I found things out along the way, was a massive example of me planning and piecing everything together. Seriously, that book is complicated, but I made sure nothing was there "just because" or as a result of leftover discovery writing: everything had a place, even little things. Gears is more me having a basic idea of a story and seeing how I get there and what happens (which is also what happened in Steelgods). It's mostly a fun write for me because it's both easy (I don't have to worry much about it being good) and hard (I want it to be good, deep down, and going purely off discovery writing is a challenge). I also don't worry about it and just plow through as fast as humanly possible (I want this book done by the end of August), and since it isn't 353k I know it'll be done quick.

I'm also being less of a whiner about Kindle, and I'm reconsidering putting Steelgods up, probably for free. I will first attempt to sell this thing the "original style" (aka query letters, wee.), but if it fails I see no harm in putting it up. It also would give me a chance to redeem myself for the formatting monstrosity that was Paradise Seekers (though, Joe, I think I might have sent you a bad copy or something), and since I'm less attached to this story (I really wanted to sell Paradise Seekers, so the fact nobody bit still sort of irks me) putting it up won't be such a personal dilemma. Plus, I think it's a fun ride, and having more books up on the Kindle store certainly couldn't hurt.

Speaking of Paradise Seekers, Amazon won't make it free even though I harass them about how it's free on Smashwords. I'm just going to keep spamming them until they figure it out, I guess. I honestly have no problem giving it away, minus the whole "perception of value" thing. I love the book, but I also want more people to read it. Truthfully, that means more to me than the money. I do this because I love telling stories and I love the craft. Would I love to make a living off it? Absolutely. Do I know if Kindle is going to do that for me? Maybe, but for now I'm skeptical, and in that regard I'd rather take pleasure in simply knowing more people are reading it rather than trying to pay off my cover art.

Which is really the whole thing. I don't want to downplay myself, but I wrote Paradise Seekers in less than a month. Honestly, the most frustrating work wasn't writing it or even editing it, it was the stupid task of formatting it. I love writing, I love editing, but a month's work isn't hard to just hand out. And as I mentioned at the start, I write to fill a void in myself. Maybe that gives me a warped perception of value, but if this is something I churned out fast and published myself, I see no problem with you reading it for free. Honestly, reading reviews that praise it (or even just review it) actually mean more to me than earning the 35 cents or whatever they threw down to buy a copy. You read something I wrote and actually finished it, and even went so far to say you liked it. That's praise enough.

Not to go far off a tangent, but that's also how I felt when I used to make indie games. I actually made quite a few back in the day, and never made one red cent off it. But it didn't matter. I had fun doing it, I had fun listening to feedback, and that was enough.

That being said, after spending seven months writing Effulgent Corruption (and probably seven more before the dumb thing is its "final" state), there is no way I'm giving that away for free (unless you want to alpha read, hint hint). In the perception of value thing, this monster is up there. Paradise Seekers, Steelgods, and even Harbinger were more for my own enjoyment, but Effulgent Corruption was a massive amount of sleepless nights, long walks to clear my mind, and stress. So yeah, if you thought I didn't value my work, here's the counter argument.

And holy balls did I get off on a tangent.

The point is, maybe I'm jaded because Paradise Seekers didn't sell. Maybe I'm jaded because my online group (most of which came from that indie community) didn't do jack crap to support me when I needed them most. I'm over it. I'm going to keep writing some damn entertaining books, and I'm going to keep letting you read them. That's it, end of story, QED, ~fin, whatever. I can get rejected by traditional publishing and by Kindle publishing, but I don't give two freaking craps. I'm going to keep flooding you with my mind vomit until you've had enough, and then I'll keep going.

I half expected corny, dramatic music to play when I was typing that. Imagine it narrated by Tom Hanks, that's who I'd have read that scene.

Anyway. Gears is go, I'm still writing, and that's that.

Before the quote, here's a "Personal news moment!" (because you haven't gotten in my head enough this post)

- My crown chipped. After a minor war, I convinced my dentist he should replace it for free. Thank goodness, now I can finally sleep at night.
- I won a Soundgarden Rock Band pack, valued at $10. Go me.
- I also won the grand prize in another Rock Band online thing, that netted me $20 in xbox bux and about $60 in indie games off Steam. Yes, I'm really lucky.

So I'm actually in a pretty good mood, despite this post. Anyway, here's some stuff I wrote today from the new, emo Steelgods book.

The Garbage Wagon seemed the least of our worries, what with the whole town burning. “We can’t stay,” I said, carefully rubbing my temples with my palms, making sure the Tips didn’t touch my flesh. “The Peacemakers-“

“Are undoubtedly on their way; yes,” Devent grumbled. “Quick, to the forest. They send their scouts first, but I’m certain a towering plume of town-sized fire should be signal enough for the whole Peacemaker armada to come for our blood.”

“Not your blood,” I bit my lip. “Mine.”

Devent was quiet, and he gave me an odd look. Rosemary looked at me with sympathy and a touch of sadness, but I could see in her eyes she wasn’t going to argue my point.

They came because they think I’m the Destroyer of the World, my headache left, and in my mind I could easily see the fires ravaging what remained of the lovely town of Red Graphite. They kill and murder and ruin everything, all because of me. And they’ll never stop, never, until I’m dead.

- The Gears of Anbar


Oh, and here's where the "Steelgods" word was inspired from. Yes, I get a lot of ideas from music ("Paradise Seeker" is a line from Escapist, by Nightwish). Sue me. 

The Kindle Wars Continue

So either our Kindles refuse to download an updated version of Paradise Seekers, or it lied and didn't actually update, because I can only pull the old (unfixed) version from Amazon.
Odd thing is I changed the description and that went through, so I assumed the fixed copy is also in (this isn't the typo fixing one, just the format one. The typo fix will probably get shoved out sometime this week).
I'm going to ASSUME this is my Kindle being dumb and not Amazon not updating, but I can never know for sure.
I learned my lesson though: make sure the book is 100% perfectly formatted before sending it up, because hassling with it after the fact sucks.

In more interesting news, I went to CONduit, met a lot of authors I knew and new ones as well, had a lot of great conversations and generally learned a lot. It was quite fun, and I'll probably blab more about it later.

Part 1 is almost done, but first...a random blurb about eBooks!

eBook hate completely blows my mind.

Yes I went there and I'll keep going there. I follow a plethora of blogs starring editors, agents, and authors, and nearly ALL of them make at least one post a week on the evils of eBooks. Next to nothing is positive regarding these things, a few even going armageddon on me and saying books are dead and gone and nobody will ever read paper books again and publishers are going to go under oh noooo!

This reminds me of how something else started all those years ago...anybody remember that?
Perhaps it isn't weird to me because of my age bracket. I was born as the digital age hit full swing (or the "internet" portion of the digital age, anyway). I own a plethora of modern technologies. I play video games, and I don't buy retail boxed PC games anymore ever (I buy them all off the internet). I also never buy CDs anymore. My wife and I both own Kindles.

But parts of this gives me a bit more perspective, I think, than others. This is because I've had direct influence using the internet to try and market independent material on the two main fronts other than books (games and music; I haven't sold movies yet), and all I've seen are positives. Here are the examples:
1. My brother has been part of indie bands for years (both my brothers, actually). Their vast market comes from either local gigs selling cds, or promoting their stuff online through facebook (MySpace back when it was relevant). They got so popular they were able to tour the US and stay in fans homes across the nation. If they hadn't marketed their stuff on the internet, they'd be restricted to local only. The internet helps independent lables.
2. For a stint in High School I made indie video games with a pal Eric (who also helped with the planning of what became Lacrymosa, my first full fantasy novel). While we never charged for these games, combined total they got somewhere around 10k to 20k downloads. That's 20,000 people who have looked at at least one of my games somewhere across the world (And that tracking was just on one site; I didn't bother checking the stats from other sites). Also if you look at the game industry you can see indie developers making mad bank (the guy who made Minecraft, for example, is a millionaire now, and the game isn't even out of beta) or getting hired on by big companies.

Other examples could be Justin Bieber who (despite my loathing of his work) was picked up because of a youtube video, and others. Sure the ratio isn't bad, but it still happens. The internet is the key to distribution for PC games and music now. When was the last time you bought a CD? That's what I thought.

The point behind all this is that people wailing doom about eBooks need to realize something: IT ISN'T GOING TO STOP. The Music Industry thought it could kill it...heck, they even sued 12-year-olds for millions of dollars for sharing songs on Kazza. But despite all the crying and screaming, they found they had to adapt. iTunes came alone. Then the Zune store. Next thing you know, CDs are being bought less, but he industry isn't suffering because of it. It just took longer for it to happen.

Games, luckily, embraced it (probably because most gamers are more up-to-date on how technology and commerce can interact). Stream (basically iTunes for games) made over one billion dollers over the holiday season alone. And while some game developers still insist on selling hard copies (and filling them with anti-piracy measures that do more harm than good), Steam has become what I would imagine is close to the most profitable online distribution source ever (the only one I could think would even get close would be iTunes).

 So here are your options. You can fight it, claiming books will be gone forever (like we are going to make a huge fire and burn books, basking in the pyre's glow as we read our satan-created Kindles) and complain as you are dragged unwillingly into the inevitable future. Or you could embrace it (unlike the music industry, like the game industry) and find yourself profiting from adapting early. Are publishers going anywhere? Are game publishers gone because of indie games? Are record labels gone because of MySpace, Facebook, and iTunes? Of course not. They just adapted to this modern age where, sometimes, people want to read a book now rather than driving to the store and getting one.

Book sales will drop, yes, but they won't disappear. I have a feeling they'll level out, and the loss can more than be made up by eBook sales. Things will change, but that is the nature of the beast. You can't very well shut off the internet; the change to eBooks will happen whether you want it or not. Ball is in your court whether you embrace it and profit or get dragged kicking and screaming.