Monday Morning Coffee – 17 January 2022

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. RCA released an album for a couple days over Christmas just so they could continue to squat on the rights.  Jane Friedman has some advice for writers who want her to read their work.  Passive Guy tries out an AI writing tool. The result was better than you might expect.  Tom MacWright looks back...

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Morning Coffee – 10 January 2022

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. FYI: Pottermore is turning off its ebook servers soon (they stopped selling ebooks back in September). Thus ends the era where some thought direct sales could “defeat” Amazon. For the past 5 years a conman has been finessing publishers, agents, and editors into sending him copies of manuscripts...

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Monday Morning Coffee – 3 January 2021

Here are a few stories to read the first Monday of the year. Winnie the Pooh was just one of many works which entered the public domain in the US on Saturday.  On a related note, this was also the first year that audio copyrights expired in the US. Sascha Stronach explores the uphill battle many non-US authors face when trying to get published. ...

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Morning Coffee – 13 December 2021

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. It’s time to get police out of libraries.  Here are five ways you can raise opt-in rates for your mailing list.  The AAP is suing over Maryland’s library ebook licensing law.  Sounds good to me – Pre-1923 audio recordings are entering the US public domain next month.  Many couples merge their...

Dec 2021

I’m in a Panel at DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon

I am really terrible about tooting my own horn, so you probably don’t know that for the past couple months I have been the volunteer webmaster for DisCon III, the 2021 world SF convention. It’s been an interesting experience and I learned a lot, but now I have bigger news. I am going to be on a panel. The title is Publishing Your eBook, and it is scheduled...

Dec 2021

Morning Coffee – 6 December 2021

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. B&N is launching a new Nook model this week.  One can’t have too many journals, but f you are looking for alternate gift suggestions for writers, this post will help.  Amazon is now shipping proof and author copies to New Zealand.  Someone made a site which lets you download all of the content...

Dec 2021

Morning Coffee – 27 November 2021

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. Jeffrey Wassetrom argues that assigning historical fiction along side history books (aka sanctioned historical fiction) can help fill in the gaps in the historical record.  Grammarly, a startup with an AI editor so bad it is the perfect example of how AI will never replace people, just raised $200...

Nov 2021

Morning Coffee – 22 November 2021

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. Writers are lucky that they don’t have to deal with copyright as it affects music, where you can own the govt-granted monopoly rights to a song but not the rights to the recording of said song.  Rachel Thompson has some tips for how authors can build their platform.  Merriam Webster has collated...

Nov 2021

Morning Coffee – 15 November 2021

Here are a few stores to read this Monday morning. Spotify is buying Findaway. (I had thought Kobo/Rakuten would buy them, actually.) In related news. Storytel just bought audiobooks.com. Draft2Digital’s Universal Book Links now includes print books.  Amazon has now added its multi-format series pages to more of its retail sites.  American conservatives...

Nov 2021

Morning Coffee – 7 November 2021

Here are a few stories to read this Sunday morning. (I am posting early, and with good reason.) The hot story this week will be Apple adding an explicit content label to some romance books. Given Apple’s history, this has the potential to be a disaster. There’s a dad on TikTok who has been posting videos showing how he edits Disney kids books to...

Nov 2021