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Thursday, November 29, 2012
Amazon The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Amazon Doubles Down on Exclusivity
Last year, a mere three weeks before a record-breaking Christmas for ebook sales at the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony and other retailers, Amazon convinced thousands of indie authors to remove their books from the virtual shelves of all Amazon competitors.
The lure: KDP Select, an opt-in program that requires authors to make their books exclusive to Amazon for a minimum of three months. I blogged my opposition to the program here at the Smashwords blog, and in the months since also spoke out against it here, here, here and here.
The controversial program has its share of opponents and supporters. Some authors have done well with it, and others have not.
I contended, and still contend, that exclusivity is a devil's bargain. When authors go exclusive with any retailer, they increase their dependence upon that single retailer, limit long-term platform building at other retailers, disappoint fans who shop at other stores, and hobble the development of a thriving and competitive ebook retailing ecosystem.
KDP Select places authors in a difficult position. They must decide if the short term benefits of KDP Select outweigh the long term harm caused to their writing career. The potential benefits are uncertain, and the harm is impossible to measure. How does one measure a missed opportunity? One thing is for certain: When I look at the Smashwords bestsellers, they're authors who maintain non-stop, uninterrupted distribution of all their books. They're the authors who are working to build their audiences at each retailer for the long term.
This Christmas season is shaping up to be another record-breaker for Smashwords authors. In the last 12 months, sales at the Apple iBookstore have surged as Apple continues to dominate the tablet and smartphone markets, and has built the world's largest global ebook retailing network with stores in 50 countries. Barnes & Noble has expanded to the U.K. with the support of 2,500 brick and mortar retail storefronts promoting, displaying and selling the NOOK family of e-readers. Kobo was acquired by Rakuten, a global ecommerce juggernaut, and has aggressively grown its global footprint and sales for the benefit of Smashwords authors.
Amazon's response to the rise of its competitors? Today, Amazon doubled down on its exclusivity strategy. It sweetened the KDP Select lending library pot with an extra $1.5 million to be paid out over the next three months (press release here).
Undoubtedly, some indie authors will reach for the carrot and immediately pull their books from distribution, and as a result will never know what they missed out on this holiday season. It's somewhat ironic that after decades of writers bowing subservient to traditional publishers who controlled the only path to retail distribution - and after so many traditionally published authors saw their books forced out of print when retailers dropped their books - that so many indie authors will now pull their books from distribution with their own hands.
What affect has KDP Select had on the growth of Smashwords? Not as much as our detractors might think. After Amazon announced KDP Select last year, some authors speculated it would put us out of business. Quite the contrary. We and our authors have enjoyed another record year this year, thanks to growth across the Smashwords distribution network. We've enjoyed record profitability, and have grown our staff to 19 professionals, all singularly focused on creating success for the 50,000+ authors, publishers and literary agents we serve. We're reinvesting our profits to provide faster support, improve the speed and reliability of our distribution, and open up new distribution and sales opportunities (I'm writing this post from The Hague, the Netherlands, where I just concluded two days of exciting meetings with representatives of the International Federation of Library Associations). We'll end the year with nearly 100,000 new titles added to the Smashwords catalog. Last Christmas was a blowout record for us, and I suspect Smashwords authors who remained fully distributed last Christmas and thereafter benefited by the reduced competition when thousands of KDP Select books disappeared from retailer shelves. I expect this Christmas will be no different. I expect some of our authors will pull some of all of their books, and the authors who remain fully distributed will become stronger for it.
Amazon is smart to realize that indie authors are the future of publishing. If they can convince a large percentage of indies to surrender their independence to Amazon, Amazon will enjoy long term competitive advantage.
Indies have a choice to make. They can support Amazon's strategy, or reject it. I don't envy the decision many authors must now make. It's unfortunate Amazon would play indie authors as pawns in its larger battle to harm its retail competitors. I wish the best to all self-published authors, regardless of their decision.
Image credit: Wikipedia
56 comments:
- Margaret Yang said...
This doubling down looks like fear on Amazon's part. If the original pot of money was working well, they would have no need to double it.
- November 29, 2012 at 7:43 AM
- Unknown said...
Great post Mark. I couldn't agree more. We have resisted exclusivity at any retailer with our titles at Diversion Books and it has paid off extremely well. We have been able to foster strong relationships at each of the major retailers ensuring multiple merchandising opportunities. We will continue to help promote an even playing field going forward.
- November 29, 2012 at 7:44 AM
- David Bowman said...
Here at Bluewood Publishing, we told our authors we agreed with you about KDP last year, and wouldn't be proposing to put any of their books into it. Not one of them disagreed. Since then, we've seen no need to change our policy, and none of the new authors we've taken on in the last year have voiced any oposition to that policy.
Sorry, Margaret,I disagree about it being fear from Amazon, 1.5mil is peanuts to them and they're simply pushing to establish thier monopoly. Which needs to be resisted!
It doesn't matter if you're a big publisher, a small publisher (like us) or a fully self-published author. A closed, single retailer market is a bad thing. - November 29, 2012 at 8:05 AM
- ModWitch said...
"KDP Select places authors in a difficult position. They must decide if the short term benefits of KDP Select outweigh the long term harm caused to their writing career. The potential benefits are uncertain, and the harm is impossible to measure."
First, I guess I need to laugh at this. If the second sentence is true, and I think it is, then the first one is only opinion. We have no idea if individual or collective Select authors are helping or harming their long-term careers. And yet I see this opinion expressed lots of places, by a lot of people who feel fairly free to judge me and the decisions I've made as somehow less wise, less informed, or less professional. I wish we could have this conversation with more respect - we're *all* guessing.
As for my single point of data, I'm a Select author. Since enrolling in the program a year ago, my audience has quadrupled. I don't know what would have happened had I not enrolled in Select - but I feel like my long term career looks pretty rosy right now, regardless of whether I stay in Select or not.
Good luck to all authors this coming year, no matter which paths they choose. - November 29, 2012 at 8:41 AM
- Webbiegrrl Writer said...
Wow, what a well-spoken commentary, Mark! I shouldn't be surprised. I've been of a mind with you on this subject since the get-go but you really are speaking here from as fair-minded a position as you can. As one of those Indie Authors who keeps wondering "Should I bail? Should I just try the Amazon KDP Select program out once?" I really appreciate your "missed opportunity" remarks. I cannot measure whether or not I'm missing a great opportunity. I suspect I'm doing better using Smashwords to get me full distribution worldwide instead of allowing Amazon to limit me to their select few but I can never know for sure. Your words are definitely reassuring for my doubtful moments. Thank you!
Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer
Heard about my 30,000th Hit Giveaway yet? It's a great way to kick off this season's sales - click here to enter the giveaway! - November 29, 2012 at 8:54 AM
- Unknown said...
Interesting read. I have some in Select and others are not. I think it ends up being dependent on luck and the author and what they are able to do to get exposure.
On a side note, I'm still waiting on your Tech people to fix a bug with being able to select a 'second' category. Hopefully that gets fixed soon. :(tom - November 29, 2012 at 9:00 AM
- K. A. Jordan said...
This side of the publishing business is so new that each author has to make up their own minds. I had my fling with Select, with one of my books hitting the 'sweet spot' in early December.
The rest of this year, my experiments have convinced me that the wider my e-books are available the better.
This year, I'm ready for the Reading Season with 2 paperbacks and several short stories with ads for the novels in the back.
The upside of Amazon's 'double down' is those of us who choose a wider presence will benefit from the smaller pool of books. A high-quality e-book will have a better chance of standing out.
The Smashwords platform has improved in many ways since last year. I've always gotten good Customer Service from the Smashwords Team.
Mark, I urge you to remind your vendors of how data-hungry author's are - like birds, we are prone to panic and tend to fly off if startled. It's in their best interest to provide fast access to data and royalties. Good Customer Service to Smashwords' authors is their best defence against Amazon and Select.
Timely reporting is going to be critical, because waiting 2 or 3 months to find out sales numbers drives authors to a vendor who reassures them with instant reporting.
I'm looking forward to a great Reading Season in 2013. - November 29, 2012 at 9:15 AM
- A.G. Claymore said...
I've tried select. My second book (first in a series) was signed up for a couple of three month terms. Early promotions got good results, leading to a respectable surge in sales. Then the algorithyms were updated. Later promotions led to a couple thousand downloads but almost no boost in visibility. I've brought that second book back to Smashwords and plan to do the same with #2 when it comes off select in a couple of weeks. I think that the recent announcement of extra Christmas cash might start a goldrush of authors, eager to get their hands on some of those borrow dollars. As always in this industry - when everyone is rushing to do something, it's time to do the opposite.
- November 29, 2012 at 9:33 AM
- Rick Carufel said...
Amazon has a rapidly developing double standard for eBooks. If it's from one of the Big 6 they are treated with respect and fairness, If it's an Indie or self publisher they are treated like crap.
Amazon has degenerated since they adopted a policy of management by algorithm. They mindlessly support every questionable thing their program does and refused to answer any questions with real answers. - November 29, 2012 at 10:17 AM
- polarfly said...
I have all my books in Smashwords and will probably leave them there, except for KOBO. The covers of my books in KOBO have been replaced with blank black covers. Is this Smashwords problem or Kobo's? Growth is wonderful but not at the expense of expertese.
- November 29, 2012 at 10:33 AM
- LichenCraig said...
I am always amazed at this continuing effort to make Amazon the Great Satan. They are a BUSINESS, people. They are operating in America - land of free enterprise. They are operating smart, and making money. I see nothing wrong with it. They are not obligated to cater to hand-wringing writers. The bigger question is why any writer would stoop so low as to allow their books to be part of the KDP Select program (and Amazon is not holding a gun to your head). The benefits of this are iffy at best, and for me, there is an ethical issue with writers giving their books away for nothing. If you respect yourself as a professional, you do not agree to give away your product. Period. Meanwhile, you can continue to list your book with Amazon's regular program, and across other vendors/platforms as well. So what's the problem? All is fair in marketing. Use your head.
- November 29, 2012 at 11:06 AM
- Derek Haines said...
I'm eating slices of humble pie as I return cap in hand to Smashwords Mark. After a year with KDP Select, I can only say that while it started with lots of promises, and did deliver in the first few months, Select systematically stripped away the advantages as the months went by.
There is no 'Easy Street' in self publishing, and certainly no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but readers have made a decision about Indie writers. They DO like reading them. My hope now is that these readers will recognise that ebooks are available from sources other than Kindle.
But as many readers have told me, they are 'hooked' on 'One Click' buying and delivery and have to ask their kids how to load a book manually.
No matter what KDP Select does to sweeten the pot for authors, I still believe that 'One Click' purchasing and loading is Amazon's big advantage. Break this, and the playing field will be very, very different. - November 29, 2012 at 12:11 PM
- Frank Anthony Polito said...
Say what you will about Amazon, I've sold 500+ Kindle copies of my self-pubbed e-book LOST IN THE '90s and NOT ONE of the Smashword versions which I've offered on BN.com, iTunes, and all the other channels that Smashwords distributes to... Not sure why this is, but as an indie author, the $$ is what keeps me publishing via Amazon.
- November 29, 2012 at 12:32 PM
- Jeffrey said...
My biggest issue with Select is with my current novella. It sells extremely well on the Nook but not at all on Amazon.
- November 29, 2012 at 12:36 PM
- Ruth Ann Nordin said...
In my opinion, being exclusive will always be a bad move, no matter where you are exclusive at. I'm not a lottery player because I don't like risk. For the average indie author, the best thing they have going for them is control over their story and part of that control is where it's sold. Not everyone owns a Kindle or a Nook or an iPad, etc. Patience is necessary to be successful.
Shortcuts can hinder the ability to establish a solid foundation. I'd rather have a steady stream of income coming in from my books through multiple venues than reaching a peak with one or two books at one place. Sales rise and fall in different places at different times, and these are factors authors can't control. The more venues you're at, the better your chances are of making a living and sustaining that income. - November 29, 2012 at 1:10 PM
- V said...
Ruth Ann, you summed it up nicely. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. The wider the distribution, the easier it is for authors to reach readers using devices other than the kindle or even Amazon itself. Even looking at royalty statements I find that people buy books from various distributors and I'm happy they're able to find my books at sites they love to frequent.
- November 29, 2012 at 1:48 PM
- Darren G. Burton said...
During the Christmas/New Year period of 2010/2011, my sales on Amazon skyrocketed. Last Christmas/New Year, they actually dropped on Amazon due to the Select program (which I didn't enter into). For their exclusivity clause they're not really offering anything. The possibility of a few borrows and being able to offer your book free for five days. Big deal. Really don't see why so many authors are even willing to participate in the program. There's no real logical attraction there.
- November 29, 2012 at 2:03 PM
- Ty said...
Nope, not gonna do it. Fell for it once. Sales plummeted, across the board. To the day.
And when I opted out, sales shot back up. Across the board. To the day.
No, thank you. - November 29, 2012 at 3:04 PM
- Dovetail Public Relations said...
@margaret - Possibly. It's both a defensive and offensive move. I think they're trying to make the most of their dominant position while they still can. By most estimates, their market share has dropped since 2009, from around 90% to maybe low 60s. If their share drops further, they'll lose their power to play these games.
@ModWich - I'm not judging your decision as less-anything, nor am I questioning the wisdom of those who decide to try it. My purpose is to help authors understand all the potential implications. I know many authors have reacted negatively to my opposition to KDP-S and concluded I'm judging them. Not the case. As I've posted elsewhere and here, and as I predicted in my very first post, I recognize that KDP-S has worked well for some authors. Good for them. Every author's experience will vary. After doing this for almost five years, I've seen so many cases where books sell poorly for months or years before they suddenly break out in to bestsellerdom, or cases where they break out at different retailers at different times. Authors that don't expose themselves to full distribution risk missing those life-changing breakouts, however rare they may be.
@K.A. agreed agreed. We've made good improvements on reporting speed this year, but we still have more progress to make. I don't think we or our authors will ever be fully satisfied until we approach real-time reporting. It's a tough nut to crack as a distributor, but we'll keep marching in that direction.
@polarfly. See Site Updates on the Kobo cover problem. Kobo's working to fix it asap. It's even affecting my books. :)
@Frank I see six sales in your Sales and Payment report, but point taken. Six vs 500 is big difference. Congrats on your success at Amazon. Let's hope readers elsewhere start finding your book too.
@Ruth Ann thanks for stopping by. Your experience makes a great case study in patience and perseverance. You hit the top 10 at Kobo about a year before you broke out at Apple to become their #1 romance title for a period of time. Diversification irons out the inevitable bumps and unpredictability.
@Darren - You might have been affected by the fact that Amazon gives some level of preferential discoverability to KDP-S titles vs. titles that are at KDP but not enrolled in -S. This means authors who choose not to enroll in KDP-S are being disadvantaged, or dare I say "punished" due to their non-participation. After all, people who agree to exclusivity deserve something extra. Some authors might see this as unfair. Others might see it as strictly business. I see a risk to Amazon here. Their customers trust them to do a great job of matching them with books they want to read. What happens when Amazon knows one book would be more satisfying to a reader, yet another book is elevated above it because it's in KDP-S, causing the reader to receive a less-than-optimal read? Such instances could erode Amazon's customers' confidence in their algorithmic recommendations. If Amazon adjusts their algorithms to restore fairness, then KDP-S authors lose their advantage. It's a tightrope. It means other retailers who don't play the exclusivity game, and that treat all books equally, have a window of opportunity to develop better discovery to match each reader with the ideal book.
- November 29, 2012 at 3:07 PM
- BFuniv said...
I signed up for Select for my second Sparrow Swift series. Then, a bit late, I investigated what advantages there were for me. Not much. Happily Amazon gave me several days to repent and the books are now fully distributed.
I like open source software. I like distributed and robust systems. I like choice. What was I thinking? - November 29, 2012 at 3:18 PM
- ModWitch said...
"@ModWich - I'm not judging your decision as less-anything, nor am I questioning the wisdom of those who decide to try it."
Sure you are :). You talk about making devil's bargains and following carrots and surrendering independence. Wise people don't chase any of those things.
I can be exclusive AND building my independence. I The more my audience grows and the more they sign up for my email list, the more viable an author I am, even if every single retailer goes belly up tomorrow. The more stable my long-term career at one or all vendors is. No deals with devils or sentient carrots necessary.
"You might have been affected by the fact that Amazon gives some level of preferential discoverability to KDP-S titles vs. titles that are at KDP but not enrolled in -S."
Other than participation in the KOLL, where are you seeing preferential discoverability? I'm honestly curious - I watch this pretty closely, and I haven't seen any evidence that reader recommendations or any other algorithmic functions are affected by Select status. - November 29, 2012 at 3:19 PM
- Unknown said...
dear mr. coker,
in 1949 i declared myself a writer and have lived accordingly, experiencing a great life (with only a little writing success).
writing is a calling, a way to live, a philosophy, but not a way to make money.
i admire what you are doing for writers like myself, and you have my loyalty.
sincerely, david seed
- November 29, 2012 at 3:29 PM
- Dovetail Public Relations said...
@modwitch Every author values their independence, but that doesn't mean they're foolish to give up that independence if the price is right. Every author has a different price. If a publisher offered me $1 million for my novel, I'd probably be foolish to not take it, even though I value my independence, and even though I don't think trad publishers have a bright future. If you're doing great at KDP-S, I have no right to judge your decision as foolish or otherwise. Maybe your move was brilliant. Or maybe your books would have eventually taken off everywhere if given more of a runway. That's an unknown. What is known is that other authors are building fan bases at other retailers, and they have an advantage at those retailers against authors who are not there. We're still in the early days of the ebook revolution, but with the glut of books out there, and the tsunami of books to come in the years ahead, breakouts in the future are going to become more and more difficult at every retailer. As I mentioned in the Write Non Fiction post at http://writenonfictioninnovember.com/2012/11/12/the-immortal-ebook-fights-for-survival/ the first seven RL Mathewson books sold moderately well at Apple, but it wasn't until her eighth book that she experienced a huge breakout (to NYT list), and that was after months of moderate sales and smart iterations, and then the huge audience she built up over many months was primed and ready to propel her latest novel, Checkmate, to #1 in four countries in under 48 hours. She's only one example. Great books + ready-audiences = more success. Your success at Amazon proves that. Now your opportunity is to replicate that success elsewhere, if you choose. It would require a leap of faith that may or may not pay off for you.
Re: preferential discovery, from Amazon's very first Jan 12, 2012 post-KDP-S post mortem press relase at http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1647593&highlight= "Paid KDP sales grew rapidly in December — and results show that paid sales of titles participating in KDP Select are growing even faster than other KDP titles." If KDP-S titles sell better than non-KDP-S titles, it means -S titles are getting preferential discovery through sales rank alone. They're getting free days, something most non-KDP-S authors are denied unless they game the system by forcing price matches through Smashwords. When titles go off free, many authors see a temporary sales boost. Free downloads generate more reviews, which could give good books advantage over better books that might not have reviews. They're getting paid lends, something others don't get. And those lends reportedly give some measure of sale rank advantage, and better sales rank increases discoverability. - November 29, 2012 at 4:02 PM
- Darren G. Burton said...
@Darren - You might have been affected by the fact that Amazon gives some level of preferential discoverability to KDP-S titles vs. titles that are at KDP but not enrolled in -S. This means authors who choose not to enroll in KDP-S are being disadvantaged, or dare I say "punished" due to their non-participation.
I'm not sure if that's what happens or not, but it's possible. I attributed my drop in sales last holiday period due to the glut of free content on Amazon. People no longer had to pay money for my books when there was suddenly a deluge of free ebooks to choose from. - November 29, 2012 at 4:02 PM
- Dovetail Public Relations said...
Thanks for that comment, David. I appreciate you pointing out that for many writers, writing is a calling, and the act of writing and publishing in and of itself is a rewarding endeavor. We (meaning I) sometimes have a tendency to celebrate the commercial successes at the expense of the equally rewarding success that has nothing to do with sales. It's why I started Smashwords. Even a book with a perceived market of one has a right to be published.
- November 29, 2012 at 4:11 PM
- Catherine Jaime said...
I appreciate the work you have done with Smashwords, and the doors you open for self-published authors such as myself. However, for those of us with LOTS of titles, I don't think it has to be all or nothing one way or another.
I have more than 40 e-book titles. (I like to write, what can I say?) Many of them sell well through Smashwords and the other companies that they are distributed to. But I have just a few titles (3 at last count) that I was having trouble getting formatted properly for Smashwords and decided to put them in the select program at Amazon and give it a try.
It's been almost a year for two of them, and there have been ZERO borrows of those titles, so I have not shared in that pot at all. However I have put each of them as giveaways for 5 days during each of the 3 month periods. I have a decent number of downloads of those titles every time they are free AND the sales of some of my other titles go up at the same time.
So, all that to say, the majority of my titles will continue to be available through as many sites as I can get them on, and a very limited number will be enrolled in Amazon's Select program.
So, thank you again, Mark. Smashwords is great, but I will continue to try to "have my cake and eat it too!" - November 29, 2012 at 5:17 PM
- ModWitch said...
"Every author values their independence, but that doesn't mean they're foolish to give up that independence if the price is right. Every author has a different price."
That still sounds to me like you're suggesting those of us in Select have sold out, but I'll leave that alone now :).
"If KDP-S titles sell better than non-KDP-S titles, it means -S titles are getting preferential discovery through sales rank alone."
Okay, I think we interpret this differently. I say these authors are getting exactly the results the algorithms would give any author coming off free (and yes, Select authors have better control over that than others). But it's a result of a specific behavior that increases sales rank, not of simply enrolling in Select. I haven't used the free tools in Select for any of my full-length novels, for example, and I don't think they're get a sales rank boost boost simply for being a Select book.
The algorithms reward free (not nearly as much as they used to!) and they reward moving lots of copies via a promo (not nearly as much as they used to!) and they reward new releases. All authors are facing the same algorithms and the same sales rank calculations, but a lot of us have different tools. I don't have as many books as some, but I have a series. I'm in Select, some aren't. I'm not willing to use free as a significant promotional tool, some are.
I'm glad to see you weren't suggesting a bias in the algorithms to favor Select books. It sounds like you just mean a bias in the tools, and that I agree with - it's one of the reasons I signed up. - November 29, 2012 at 7:45 PM
- Rajasir said...
To Amazon "Enjoying your share is justified but every year coming with new pranks to try to eat the whole hog will land you in trouble in future."
Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Sony have their faithful customers but Amazon is only trying the method of luring people.
Not a good business sense in the long run.
Thanks Mark for giving us a chance to say a few words.
Regards - November 29, 2012 at 8:27 PM
- Virginia Llorca said...
I've been rotating my books through KDP, but I think you have a good idea to not do it at Christmas time. B&N has always been my best seller. I have had thousands of downloads during KDP freebies but it has minimal if any effect on my sales. Maybe a few extra right after. I have had exactly one borrow.
And it is great you put my new covers and blurbs up so fast. Thanks. - November 29, 2012 at 10:41 PM
- Bruce Grubbs said...
Although I do well well with KDP Select, I would leave KDP and republish with Smashwords but I can't because my books are nonfiction travel and how-to that are heavy on images. They simply won't fit in the Smashwords 5mb file size limit unless I remove some photos and illustrations, and that is unfair to the reader. That said, I agree with Mark that exclusivity is a bad thing for authors and publishers.
- November 30, 2012 at 6:36 AM
- James said...
One of the best things about Smashwords is that it is fantastic for non-American authors (like myself).
Smashwords gives me access to everyone but Amazon (which I can get on my own) and I sell far more through Premium Distribution than I have through Amazon. Apple alone outsells Amazon 3-1 for me, and Kobo does 2-1, while B&N sells just a bit less than Amazon.
Why would I give up six times the sales for the 2.5 times I would get with Select?
I also like that Smashwords pays every quarter - unlike Amazon, which punishes non-American authors with a payment threshold 10 times as large as American authors. KDP might be great for American authors, but for the rest of us, it's not all it's cracked up to be. - November 30, 2012 at 8:35 AM
- TheSFReader said...
Dear Mark,
I'm a fierce proponent of Smashwords, and it's my preferred e-bookseller for english language "indie" ebooks. I'm also one of those who agree with you on the BAD effect the exclusivity part of the SELECT program has on self-publishing from a macroscopic point of view. Select is indeed one of the reasons I've decided almost a year ago to boycott Amazon. (Hi ModWitch BTW)
However, moaning and cursing Amazon for their cunning is NOT sufficient to win against them, while providing better support for authors and readers would.
As a reader I'm still waiting for your getting rid of the meatgrinder, which IS one additional hurdle for authors to provide books through you, and which provides at best "correctly formatted" ebooks, way under the quality of properly manually formatted ones.
I seem to remember you saying some direct epub upload would be in the pipe but can't find it since there is no search option on the blog...
I also understand that the Smashwords site direct sales part is not really your priority, but still...
From a writer's POV, there still is the delays between changes made on Smashwords, and they being forwarded/updated by the final resellers. I understand that at least half of that is the reseller's fault, but I think some of the rest could be enhanced from your side.
While I HATE saying it, if Amazon has gotten that prominent position, and if it IS able to propose a program like SELECT despite its Exclusivity requirement, it is because they provide a better experience to "both" of your customers : readers of course, but authors too.
I'm sorry, but from my point of view, unless you step up YOUR side of the game, at some point in the future Smashword's catalog will keep on loosing some of the great authors it has. And it's not the mass of money-fueled 50 Shades-alike erotica authors that will keep me buying from you. - November 30, 2012 at 10:23 AM
- Scath said...
I'm more interested in what improvements Smashwords is going to make.
New site design? Accepting epubs (unless I missed the announcement those are being accepted now)?
And please bring Premium ISBNs back. They were superbly cost effective for small indie publishers with limited capital who prefer to be listed as the publisher of record. - November 30, 2012 at 11:40 AM
- Vicki Hopkins said...
I think it has its pros and cons. I opted into KDP on one book last May and the resultant downloads skyrocketed my romance into 3 days of being #1 on the best seller list, and then drove the next two months in sales for me to over $12,000 on the second in the series. After the free period ended, I had two books in the paid top 12, and I made the movers and shakers list.
Before that, I languished with selling 50-100 books a month making hardly nothing. That tactic gave me visibility to a bigger audience. I have two titles in KDP and three that are not in KDP. Every 90 days and I do a freebie to push interest.
I would not put all of my titles in KDP, nor will I leave the other two titles in KDP forever. I guess it just works differently for everyone. I know my experience was not the norm, but it was blessing at a time I really needed extra cash. - November 30, 2012 at 12:23 PM
- Sylvia said...
I'm sure I would sell more books with Amazon Select because despite excellent reviews my novels are not well enough known to sell more than a handful of copies elsewhere -- they don't fit neatly into any genre and they are not light reading. Since making one of them free, it has had thousands of downloads at Amazon and far more people have bought the sequel in the past two months than in several years before, whereas few people discover even the free title at other outlets. However, I will never give any retailer the exclusive right to sell ANY book, regardless of whatever advantages that might have. "Real" books have always been available from all booksellers, by special order if not stocked. To restrict distribution of an ebook is to turn it into a mere commodity instead of literature offered to the reading public on the same basis as a printed book. I believe ebooks deserve the same status in the eyes of readers as printed books and that Amazon's policy of treating them differently will delay their acceptance by traditional booklovers.
- November 30, 2012 at 5:20 PM
Okay. Everyone has awesome points on both sides. I too thought I was going to venture into KDP-S, but I had a horrible time trying to upload my book so I gave up. Not to mention Smashwords authors who do distribute to multiple retailers also can opt in to Amazon. Patience, one day it will come.
Hey, me personally, after all of the work that I do just writing my novels, I don't need the technical side to wear me out as well. When it's done, it's done and when it's ready to read, I want someone to read it.
Hats off to Smashwords for making publishing so easy for all of us. Mark started this company with us in mind and I appreciate all that Smashwords does for me! - November 30, 2012 at 7:32 PM
- Charl Dee said...
Mark, Perhaps your message would be clear if you proposed requiring exclusivity to set a zero price?
- November 30, 2012 at 8:47 PM
- jambalian said...
Amazon have had to double the pot now that Prime is available in countries other than the US. If they didn't, the share for each borrow would have tumbled. Anyone thinking they're going to get a ton of money from borrows should think again. I expect it will remain at just around $2 a pop.
Personally, I will be leaving KDP at the end of the month and going through Smashwords. - December 1, 2012 at 4:32 AM
- Unknown said...
I have to say this, and mostly because I love Smashwords: the Amazon bashing has got to stop. It's honestly really annoying at this point. Blog posts about how Smashwords can improve my career rather than why I should avoid the competition would be so much more helpful.
- December 1, 2012 at 11:35 AM
- Unknown said...
I am staying with Smashwords and Amazon. It makes the most business sense. Besides, I would never rely on one big giant who would squish me without blinking. I ain't crazy, and that's a poor business model, besides.
- December 2, 2012 at 11:44 AM
KDP ain't what is used to be. The Golden Months when a great give-away led to jumping onto the bestseller list waned some time ago. Now authors can give away a bunch of free books and get little in return. I think a lot of people download free books and never read them. The Prime payout sounds good, but with a wide selection, the income isn't that enticing. I created a KDP sampler of short stories and excerpts. It gives some freebie exposure without tying up all the books in the mighty ZON catalog. Dana Taylor
- December 2, 2012 at 5:50 PM
- LMKee, LLC said...
It does not hurt me by much if others take part in amazons double down. I will just sell more on the other sites due to less competition.
so I say let them go for it...
More people are buying Kobo and Nook readers now anyways. - December 2, 2012 at 6:21 PM
- Anna Rose said...
I have no desire to use Amazon's "exclusive" program, as I like my books to have the widest coverage possible. There are plenty of folks out there who feel that doing business with Amazon hurts other business, so they refuse to buy from Amazon.
I've got my books available on Smashwords and Amazon, and that's working for me just the way I have it. - December 2, 2012 at 6:34 PM
- The Cover Counts said...
I don't think there is any *right* answer. It's all growing and changing so quickly that there isn't much of a chance of nailing it down.
I do know that through it all, I've valued Mark's opinion and analysis. Whether I agree with it or not, it makes me think about the publishing industry carefully and in ways I might not have considered before.
Thanks Mark. Happy Holidays to you! - December 2, 2012 at 7:46 PM
- Jeanie Henderson said...
Harping is not attractive, nor is being defensive. I've not been successful on Smashwords since last May and found a mistake made on my SW site. Customer service never fixed it. Lastly, it's only three months. Three. Months. That's it. It's a free market system. Get over it.
- December 3, 2012 at 5:56 AM
- Gregory Paul Wilhelm said...
I've been with Smashwords since May of this year and I've yet to see ANY evidence of this "advantage" you keep harping about. I've been on Amazon in a much shorter time and my visibility with ereaders has multiplied tenfold. (By the way, not only has no one not bothered to download my book through Smashwords, no one's even bothered to download a sample of it.) Some "advantage". Also, I came up with a better description of my book and changed it. Did you guys distribute the change to retailers? NO! No you did not!
- December 3, 2012 at 7:29 AM
- Gregory Paul Wilhelm said...
I agree with Elizabeth Barone. In fact, that's the point I was intending to make with my original comment. Hate to say it Smashwords, but you guys need to take lessons from Amazon. Their KDP Select was what helped me get my book seen by more people. I know you guys have some info somewhere that's supposed to help people, but I haven't got the time to hunt it down.
- December 3, 2012 at 8:47 AM
- Unknown said...
I will check if the sales for my book The Clout of Gen increases this holiday with smashwords to decide what to do next year.
- December 3, 2012 at 11:11 AM
You Amazon apologists and supporters will learn your lesson soon. It does no good to keep all your eggs in one basket. I made more money from Smashwords than I ever did with Amazon, so I'm sticking with Smashwords. Fish or cut bait.
- December 5, 2012 at 1:05 PM
BTW, there is absolutely no guarantee you will earn anything with KDP Select, and I have about 50 authors who agree with me, all of whom publish on KDP. Most are pulling out of the program with nothing to show for it. Things to think about.
- December 5, 2012 at 1:08 PM
- Gregory Paul Wilhelm said...
That's funny. I just said the same thing about Smashwords. I'm seeing more DOWNLOADS on Amazon than Smashwords.
For those keeping count, that's 222:Amazon, 000:Smashwords. - December 5, 2012 at 1:14 PM
Thanks for sharing this, Mark. I'm posting a link to it on The Indie Writer's Network. We have a forum dedicated to discussing the ups and downs of the kdp select program, and this will bring another voice to the conversation.
--Amy Joy
http://indiewritenet.com - December 6, 2012 at 7:31 PM
- Anna_esq said...
I danced on KDP Select for two whirls of the dance floor. It did nothing for me either in borrows or sales. It didn't even net the reviews I'd hoped to get.
Goodreads ... so much better. You do a giveaway ... you get reviews (I got a 40% review rate). Why doesn't Smashwords import the Goodreads ratings like Kobo does? I went direct to Kobo's distribution platform for that reason, but love Smashwords (even the irritations of meatgrinder) for how author-friendy it tries to be. - December 15, 2012 at 12:41 PM
- Gregory Paul Wilhelm said...
@Anna Erishkigal-I'm also using Goodreads and I was surprised by your comment about their giveaway. I wondered how I missed that. But once I looked into, I remembered that I had seen it before and discovered that it was intended for copies in "print" only. As an Amazon KDP select member, I can do free giveaways of my "ebook". On Goodreads, I can't.
By the way, I did another "Free File Friday" last week and 20 more people downloaded my book. That's now a total of 242 people who now own my book. - December 17, 2012 at 12:02 PM
- Nancy Madore said...
No one seems to be mentioning the fact that the bestselling books that are in Amazon's select program are not exclusive, like, for example, the Harry Potter books. Those are for sale at Barnes and Nobles Nook store. It seems that there are two sets of rules. Only the indie authors have to give up their rights to sell elsewhere. This way Amazon gets to brag 'exclusive' books, while undercutting the other stores with free popular books. And those free bestsellers are getting all the funds in the pot. This whole promotion is about putting everyone else out of business. Has no one else noticed this?
- December 20, 2012 at 6:44 AM
- aliciasotomayor said...
Has anything changed after 5 years of this post? I just finished writing an ebook about little known remedies to eliminate body odor that were used in Latin American countries decades ago and are now pretty much forgotten. I was thinking of using the Kindle platform but I'm not sure if that the best way to expose my ebook to the greatest number of readers interested in buying it. Any suggestions? Thank you!
- November 20, 2017 at 9:43 PM


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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Holman's novel dubbed compelling, tantalizing
When I was a teenager, I became addicted to a late-night horror movie host named Bestoink Dooley. Based in Atlanta, Bistoink came on at midnight, and I can still see his stark-white face and his silly grin, complete with bloody fangs as he crawled out of his coffin and lurched toward the camera. Interspersed between ads for used car lots and factory rebate furniture, Bistoink and his assistant, a Vampirella clone, sang, delivered bad puns about graves and ghouls, and hosted a black-and-white horror film – things like "The Mummy's Curse" and "Cat People."
I was addicted to Bestoink Dooley, and I have no sensible explanation for my steadfast loyalty. Eventually, I learned that there was someone like Bistoink on every major television station in American during the 1950s through the 1970s. Many of them had clubs, membership cards and autographed photos.
One of the major characters in Witches on the Road Tonight is Eddie Alley, better known as Captain Casket. At one time, Captain Casket had hosted a popular midnight show, complete with a theme-song that bore more than a passing resemblance to Disney's Mouseketeers:
Who's the digger of the grave
For you, and you and me?
Related Items
It is all innocuous fun, of course, but Captain Casket's show has been cancelled and now, his alter-ego, Eddie Alley, has decided to chuck it all. He has swallowed a mega-dose of sleeping pills, and as he lies in his old prop coffin in his New York apartment, he muses on his life, his loves, his tragic mistakes and Wallis, his famous daughter, who is the celebrity anchor of a major TV news channel.
The mistake he doesn't want to remember is the boy named Jasper. As Eddie dozes, remembering his life in fits and starts, Witches on the Road Tonight occasionally becomes reminiscent of another great pop horror classic, The Late, Great Creature by Brock Brower.
Eddie's origins are fascinating. Born in a remote cove in the Blue Ridge mountains, Eddie's mother, Cora Alley, has a reputation as a witch. The local folks tell stories of the men who visited Cora and were never seen again. Eddie tells us that the stories are true and that he has watched his mother through a keyhole in her bedroom door and has seen her strip off her skin, hang it on a peg and fly away through an open window.
A turning point in young Eddie's life came during WW II when he is struck by the car of two WPA workers, Tucker and Sonia Hayes, who are working on an illustrated book on Appalachia. Eventually, Tucker reveals that he is a frustrated, alcoholic playwright, and Sonia – a gifted photographer – is not really Tucker's wife, but she is pregnant with his child. In an attempt to entertain the injured Eddie, Tucker shows him a film: a 13-minute silent version of "Dracula" on a hand-operated projector.
Witches on the Road Tonight is an intricately woven tale with frequent twists that lead the characters in unexpected revelations. Eddie's chance encounter with Tucker Hayes (and "Dracula") will provide the prime motivation for Eddie Alley's decision to find his way to New York where he will find work at a television station where he graduates from a "gofer" to Captain Casket. (Of course, his marriage to the daughter of the station owner helps a bit.)
But what about Cora Alley, who appears to be a gaunt, malnourished mountain woman one day and a vigorous and robust siren the next? Does she truly "ride men" over and through the foggy mountain coves at night? Does she really have a curious rapport with a mountain panther that does her bidding? What happened to Tucker Hayes? Are his bones scattered through the mountain undergrowth, or does he reside in the strange cabin on the crest of a distant (an unapproachable) peak?
Of course, this is not the story of a single witch but three witches: Cora, Eddie and Wallis. The dark powers that Sheri Holman finds in a mountain cove where a woman supports herself by searching for the elusive herb ginseng also abide in the DNA of the whimsical, bisexual Captain Casket and his frustrated and guilt-ridden daughter, who also finds night-time solace with one-night stands.
However, there remains another character: his name is Jasper, and he is a homeless waif that shows up at the television station where Captain Casket's show originates. Remembering his own childhood, Eddie gives Jasper the role of his assistant on his show. Essentially, he rationalizes his action by casting himself as a "father figure" for Jasper. To make matters worse, Wallis is drawn to the troubled young man. Thus begins a conflict that will eventually bring tragic consequences.
At one point in Witches on the Road Tonight, the successful, middle-aged Eddie returns home to his mother's abandoned dwelling. Eddie has a momentary wish to return and stay, and with the assistance of Jasper and Wallis, he sets about making his mother's rustic shack a possible home. It doesn't work, of course. For this witch-boy, there is no going home again.
In addition to producing a compelling tale that blends the supernatural with the unacknowledged darkness in the human heart, Sheri Holman's novel is packed with tantalizing bits of information about witchcraft, herbs and Appalachian superstitions. I was pleased to learn that a poison oak rash can be avoided by scrubbing your body with jewel weed (I live in the heart of Appalachia, but I missed that one). There is also considerable information on the history of ginseng, that marvelous plant that allegedly makes "old guys dangerous again."
As for the fate of Tucker Hayes, Holman gives you multiple choices, but I think the panther (painter) got him, even though he tried to evade it with the same tactics that Granny Pop used in Cataloochee. Granny Pop took off her clothes and threw them behind her. Eventually, she ran out of clothes, and so did Tucker.
Witches on the Road Tonight by Sheri Holman. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011. 263 pages.


text:
My last post, in which I suggested via t-shirt that persons unspecified should do something anatomically impossible to themselves and repeat from asterisk, has been up rather longer than intended. The plan was to follow up with something considerably chirpier, since bad moods are just that–moods. They pass.
The chirp has been pre-empted, however, due to a recent spate of suicides by young gay people.
This is not a new problem. Nor, sadly, is it uncommon. Suicide is the third-highest cause of death among Americans aged 15-24; and studies published in the past 15 years by the Federal government and the American Journal of Public Health suggest that youth who identify as gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender are two to three times more likely still to attempt to kill themselves.
It's probably the lurid nature of the events leading up to the death of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, that have pushed the problem out of the pages of specialty publications like our own, dear Windy City Times and into the mainstream media. Tyler Clementi's private life was surreptitiously streamed onto the Internet by his roommate, who also Twittered to let the world know what he was doing. Tyler, distraught at his abrupt outing and the subsequent torment by his peers, jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
Tyler was one of at least nine young gay men known to have taken their own lives in the past few weeks due to anti-gay bullying.
As a result there have been, and continue to be, statements made by high-profile types–Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Gunn, the cast of "Modern Family," etc.–under the theme I've used as the title of this post: It Gets Better. The message is simple, short, and (one hopes) effective: it may seem like life isn't worth living, but don't give up just yet. As you grow older, it gets better.
I'm certainly no celebrity, but I'm adding my squeaky voice to the chorus on the off chance that it might, in a small way, help somebody somewhere sometime. Who knows? Maybe there's a gay kid out there who's suffering at the hands of his classmates because he'd rather knit than kick soccer balls. And maybe he wandered in here after Googling "garter stitch" or "toy elephant."
If you're reading this, kid, it's for you.
I know what you're going through. That's not an empty statement. I mean I know exactly what you're going through, because I walked a mile and then some in those leaden sneakers when I was your age.
Thinking about suicide? So did I. In fact, I did more than think about it. I tried it.
It wasn't my idea.
I was egged on by quite a few authority figures, the ones who seemed at the time to run the world. They weren't my parents, I hasten to add. I got lucky in the parental department; they didn't always understand me, but they always loved me.
They–my bullies–were mostly teachers and school administrators. You see, I went to this really, really awful little private high school devoted less to academics than to promoting the veins-in-your-teeth cult of virility. It was no place for sissies, and if they suspected you might be a sissy they did their best to beat it out of you.
I was only there for two years, but the life lessons they taught on a daily basis have always stuck with me. Here's a small sampler, verbatim, including the language they felt was appropriate to use in front of schoolboys:
"We have to believe gay men choose to be gay. Otherwise we would have to admit that God makes mistakes, because there is no sorrier mistake than a bunch of faggots."
"If my son turned out to be gay, he'd have two choices. He could shape up, or he could get the hell out of my house before I shot him through the head."
"God created you to be a man, and to fuck women. If you don't fuck women, you're not a man. If you're not a man or a woman, you don't fit into creation and the sooner you leave it the better."
"Frankly, if I was a gay man I'd shoot myself. I mean, I'd be going to Hell anyway and I might as well get on with it and skip over dying from AIDS."
(Isn't it funny, Mr. Roberts? I don't remember anything you taught about biology–you were a lousy teacher, so that's no surprise. Yet I remember so much of what you said with shocking clarity.)
Day in, day out for two long, painful years, I drank it in. I remember being flabbergasted at how often our teachers could work jabs at homosexuality into topics you'd think were completely unrelated. I was 13 and hitting puberty hard, yet I swear I was less obsessed with dick than they were.
Usually these barbs were volleyed at all of us, a general exhortation against the evils of buggery. But on especially bad days, they were aimed pointedly at me, the designated class pansy–while the other boys listened and smirked.
That led directly to problems with a classmate who decided after one such lecture that he was going to prune me, the mutant bud, from the Tree of Life with his own hands–since that's what God, the saints, and the faculty wanted. I appealed for help to a couple of teachers and to the dean, all of whom told me I was on my own.
If you're going to act like that, they said, you deserve what you get.
Sound familiar?
Now, I was brought up to be a good kid and respect authority. And authority was telling me I was a horror in God's eyes, and ought to bump myself off.
So I tried it. Not successfully, obviously. And not right then. I have a strong constitution; it took years for their poison to reach my vital organs. But it was probably bound to happen sooner or later.
It might not have if somebody, anybody, had been there tell me what I'm going to tell you.
People–teachers, parents, classmates, pastors, whoever–who call you a mistake are wrong. Totally wrong. Completely wrong. Wrongeddy-wrong-wrong.
You're no more messed up than the straight kid in the next chair.
When they say that your nature is unnatural, they do not speak from wisdom. They are either misguided themselves, or they know better and are deliberately lying to you. Either way–you don't have to listen. In fact, you shouldn't. In fact, don't.
I know. They appear to hold all the cards. They can force you to run laps, sit in detention, do punishment homework. But you have my solemn promise that this is temporary. One of these days you'll be out of there, and such petty power as they possess can no longer touch you.
Hang on. Don't let them keep you from pushing forward, because what's waiting for you beyond is quite wonderful. It's not all couleur de rose, but it's so much better than what you're going through right now.
There are ways to get help. The Trevor Project is a good place to start. You don't have to be desperate, either. Better, in fact, to seek a little support before you are desperate.
(And in the meantime, if you don't know how to knit, please consider learning. It's a marvelous way to keep calm, knitters are wonderful people to gather 'round you, and nothing says "piss off" to the bigots like a really amazing hand-knitted scarf.)


text:
The late night visit from the vet felt like a scene straight from a James Herriot book, only with slightly more technology - and antibiotics. Even the vet admitted he'd been thinking about James Herriot while driving out here, as he read over the directions I'd given him and realized just how far out into the country he was headed.
In the 13 years I've been raising sheep, I've never had to have a vet come to the farm. This was the third one I'd tried to get a hold of. I explained the situation and asked if he could drive over.
"You can't bring her down to the clinic?"
"It's gonna be expensive."
"I know." It's Cary.
Bear and I watched his headlights make their way down the switchbacks on the driveway and listened to the distant sound of his truck. When he got out he smiled and said, "This is the kind of place you move to when you don't want anybody to find you!" Then he looked around the darkness. "You're out here by yourself?"
"Tonight I am." And I led him into the barn.
Cary didn't have twins as I'd thought she might. That swollen belly of hers was full of one enormous baby, and it was very stuck. The normal position for a lamb about to be born is right side up, both hooves headed out, nose between the hooves. This one had one leg back, and its nose was pointed down. I've never had this happen. I talked to a friend who has more lambing experience than I do. She told me what to do. I tried and tried, but I couldn't do it. I needed help. Cary needed help.
The first priority is to save the mother. We lost the baby - a 15-pound (!!) black boy - but we saved Cary. She's expected to make a full recovery, and was up and nibbling on hay not long after the exhausting ordeal was over. I sat with her for a while in the little bonding suite after the vet had driven back out into the night, my forehead resting against her side, my hand stroking her neck. She didn't have anyone else to bond to. I didn't want to leave her.
I'm sure Cary would have been a wonderful mother, and I'm hopeful that one day she will be. But no matter what happens, she'll always be my baby. As the vet was packing up his things, I told him Cary's story. This morning when I came out of the Treat Room holding a little bucket of grain, she bumped her nose into my thigh like she used to do whenever she wanted her bottle of milk. She hasn't done that in over a year.
This is a short version of the story because I'm headed off the farm and won't be back until late tonight. But I knew many of you Cary fans would be anxiously waiting for an update. I'd been really worried that she would go into labor while I was gone today, and now I know that if she had we probably would have lost her. I'm so very grateful that we didn't.
Lambing Season 2008 has officially begun, and considering that we had seven lambs born in the first 24 hours of lambing season last year, I'm sure the next several days are going to be even chaotic than usual around here. You know I'll keep you posted.
© FarmgirlFare.com, the heart wrenching foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares the ups and downs of life on 240 remote Missouri acres.


text:
As someone whose family has supported Audubon Canyon Ranch for decades, who resides way out in the country with dozens of animals, and who once had four baby possums living in a 6-foot by 8-foot pink and black Art Deco bathroom (don't ask), I felt an instant kinship with Suzie Gilbert—which is how I found myself standing in the lumber aisle at Lowe's last Wednesday afternoon, alternating between laughing hysterically and reading excerpts to Joe as he loaded up a giant stack of boards for the new haybarn. Fortunately Wednesday afternoons are pretty slow at Lowe's.
At the risk of writing the longest book review ever (and probably violating a copyright law), here's a scene that no doubt caused more than a few Lowe's shoppers to wonder why there was maniacal laughter coming from the lumber department.
The companies donate the extra or imperfect ones, already dead, to the rehabilitators. You can rail about animal testing and feel badly about the death of so many animals; thinking that the dead are the lucky ones doesn't help. But the bottom line is that without these donations, nursing certain birds back to health would be impossible.
The contest is over. Thanks for all the wonderful entries!


text:
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text:
If 60 is the new 50 and 50 the new 40, well, what then is 97? Veteran bird guide Karl Haller is busy redefining what it means to be just shy of a century. He's been counting birds and teaching the art of bird watching at the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in North Texas for over 50 years.
His student this time: NPR's Wade Goodwyn.
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: A cool breeze is blowing off Lake Texoma and into the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge.
KARL HALLER: Well, it could be. Yeah. We'd only...
GOODWYN: In its mercy, a summer cool front has reached down from Canada across the Midwest, and made it all the way to North Texas.
HALLER: How much rain did you get?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Half an inch.
HALLER: Oh. Well, I got a little bit more.
GOODWYN: It's 8 AM and Karl Haller and his team of birders hang around a big white van sharing a dozen donuts. Austin College Professors Sandy Beach and Wayne Meyer, along with veteran birders Dick Malnory and Jack Chiles, have been meeting Haller here every Tuesday for more than 30 years. But Haller himself has been chronicling the life of birds since he was a young boy in West Virginia in the early 1920s. Purple martins got him going.
Through coke bottle glasses, Karl's eyes are huge and bright, and he's itching to get going.
HALLER: It's hard to say, you never know what you're going to see. Well, maybe a few ducks will be in, shorebirds - shorebirds, meaning sandpipers, hawks. And then the normal resident summer birds, like painted buntings, indigo buntings and...
GOODWYN: We pile into the van, leftover donuts are passed back to the trunk.
HALLER: All right, folks. Hear we go.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Can we get the mileage Karl?
HALLER: Oh, yeah. I can't read the damn thing.
GOODWYN: Ninety-seven years old or not, it's Karl Haller who drives through the refuge - he's still the number one expert after all. But when somebody spots something and wants to look through binoculars, they have to say, Stop Karl, Karl stop.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Let's count the pelicans Karl.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Whoa.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Whoa.
GOODWYN: Haller stomps on the brakes and snaps everyone's head forward. And when I look over I can see a tiny smile. It occurs to me that sometimes Karl hears just fine. He's just messing with his colleagues since he has the steering wheel to hang on to - 97 year old birder humor.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Where are the ducks?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: They're in the grass in the smart weed.
HALLER: What? One o'clock, three o'clock?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: The tail of one looked like it was a mallard. But I didn't see the other one well enough. OK, Karl.
GOODWYN: It's beautiful here. The vast Lake Texoma creates acres of marshes and wetlands, the birds frolic in the water and grass. But, of course, this is Texas so there's got to be some element of nuttiness.
GOODWYN: Off in the distance can be seen dozens of giant seesaws - up and down, up and down. They're pump jacks, 200 of them, all over the refuge pumping millions of barrels of oil and millions of cubic feet of natural gas. Don't ask.
GOODWYN: Away from the oil rigs, Karl Haller steps out of the truck, cocks his head and listens.
HALLER: Right out there it looks like a great egret, the white one. And I hear Dickcissels and red wing black birds. Of course I don't hear to well, so I'm probably missing some of the smaller things.
GOODWYN: Haller says what keeps him coming back is his love of birding, his friendships with his colleagues and the fact that even after 97 years, identifying birds still gets him going.
HALLER: Lot's of times the birds are difficult to identify. If you get lots and lots of experience, then you're able to do much better. And you can pick out things that identify the bird. And it's a challenge, really. Mm-hmm.
GOODWYN: Haller says there aren't as many birds as there used to be. He blames it on the explosion of human population in the region. Decade after decade, bearing witness to birdlife decline, has made him philosophical.
HALLER: Well, this is just the way life is and you have to live with it. We'd like to have more of them. But unfortunately this is just the way life's going. Uh-huh, yeah.
GOODWYN: Pulling back up to the refuge headquarters in their van, Jack Chiles catalogues their days work.
JACK CHILES: Forty-seven Canada goose, two mallards, 10 (unintelligible), 10 (unintelligible), Two American white pelicans, seven great blue herons, 23 great egrets, seven snowy egrets, seven little blue herons...
GOODWYN: All this information is entered into the national database at Cornell University. As the day's light begins to fade a reporter asks one last silly question.
Are you going to keep going?
HALLER: As long as I can, sure.
HALLER: Yeah, I don't know.
GOODWYN: The Republican from Ohio, Warren G. Harding was president when Karl Haller first became a citizen scientist and started watching the world through a pair of binoculars. He even discovered a new species of warbler in 1939 and was given the honor of naming it. Could be he'll still be plugging away at the wildlife refuge when the next president finishes his term too.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: Kill it, Karl.
HALLER: Oh, the motor. Yeah. Just say shut if off or kill it or something like that.
GOODWYN: Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Dallas. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
Report Corrections Here
Cleveland County District Court
PO Box 606
Rison, AR 71665
Rison, AR 71665
Phone: 870-325-7382
Fax: 870-325-6366
Fax: 870-325-6366
Online Court Resources
Resources for the Cleveland County District Court as well as online resources applicable to courts generally in Cleveland County, Arkansas, and resources applicable to all courts in Arkansas.
Search court case records
Search Court Records
Search limited Circuit and District Court case information online. View a list of courts for which information is currently available.
Published opinions and orders
Adminstrative Orders
View the administrative orders of Arkansas courts by number and topic, or search the text of the orders by keyword.
Attorney General Legal Opinions
Search Arkansas Attorney General legal opinions by requestor name, keyword, or opinion number.
Forms and related information
Self-Help Forms
Arkansas Legal Services offers interactive forms and form packets, including child support, debt collection, divorce, domestic abuse, expungement, guardianship,wills, small claims, and more.
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Pay Hot Check Fines
Pay hot check fines online in most Arkansas counties by county name, hot check ID number, and last name.
Make Child Support Payments
Make Arkansas child support payments online. Registration is required.
Pay Probation and Parole Fees
Pay supervision, drug court, and restitution fees online by personal ID number or name. A transaction fee applies.
Self help, legal research, general information
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The Arkansas Judiciary offers information about the small claims court process and related issues.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
The Arkansas Judiciary offers information about Alternative Dispute Resolution, including a description of mediation programs, forms, and a list of certified mediators.
Child Support Services
The Arkansas Office of Child Support Enforcement offers information and services related to child support, including how to get child support, how to pay child support, online child support payment information, and other online resources.
Domestic Violence Resources
The Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts Domestic Violence Program offers instructions for obtaining an order of protection; information about domestic violence, electronic safety, safety planning, and victims' rights; links to forms; answers to frequently asked questions; and links to additional resources.
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View child support guidelines, income withholding orders, and support charts. A downloadable income affidavit is provided.
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The Arkansas Attorney General's Office offers information about consumer problems, scams, and related issues regarding finances and debt, vehicle purchases, housing including landlord and tenants rights, telephone, health care, identity theft, internet safety, television service, and travel. A telephone hotline, information about recent scams, and link to an online complaint form are included.
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Attorney Directory
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text:
Slides from today's Big Data Step-by-Step Tutorials: Infrastructure series and Intro to R+Hadoop with RHadoop's rmr
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.
Here are my presentations from today's Boston Predictive Analytics Big Data Workshop.
All code and config files are available at github: https://github.com/jeffreybreen/tutorial-201203-big-data
My portion of the workshop was divided into four parts, three focusing on different infrastructure scenarios and ending with a deep dive into the rmr R package:
Big Data Step-by-Step: Infrastructure 1/3: Local VM
Starting small. Just because Big Data tools like Hadoop were designed to run at "web-scale," across many nodes, doesn't mean you need to build a cluster—or even dedicate a single machine—to get started. In this deck we download and install a virtual machine from Cloudera which comes complete with a functioning, single-node Hadoop installation. As long as you restrict the size of your data set appropriately, this is great way to become accustomed to Hadoop and its tools. We walk through running a Hadoop Streaming job to make sure everything works. We later use this same VM to spawn a Hadoop cluster in the cloud (see part 3).
Big Data Step-by-Step: Infrastructure 2/3: Running R and RStudio on EC2
Not everyone has Big Data. Some of us have an occasional need to analyze a data set larger than comfortably fits in our existing analysis environment either due to disk, CPU, or memory constraints. For these times, launching a single, large machine in the cloud may fit the bill. This part of presentation walks through how to launch just such a machine using Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform. Since I tend to run R and RStudio on Linux, that's the focus of this tutorial, but the general outline may be helpful to others as well.
Big Data Step-by-Step: Infrastructure 3/3: Taking it to the cloud… easily… with Whirr
Scale up using the cloud. The Apache Whirr cloud management tool makes it easy to launch a Hadoop cluster on EC2. We use the Cloudera VM from presentation #1 as a launching point for the cluster and, thanks to a Whirr-generated proxy script, submit jobs and fetch results from our local VM just as before. For extra credit, we see how Whirr can save us money by bidding for excess capacity via EC2′s spot instances.
Big Data Step-by-Step: Using R & Hadoop (with RHadoop's rmr package)
Crunching Big Data with R. Originally a Java-only ecosystem, Hadoop Streaming allows the creation of mappers, reducers, and combiners in any language which can handle stdin and stdout—but that doesn't mean you want to have to write code to manage I/O at that level. After a quick (and undoubtedly incomplete) survey of Hadoop-related R packages, we walk through some of the abstractions and features of RHadoop's rmr package which make it easier for R developers to get started. We walk through a sample mapper and reducer, demonstrating and documenting the native R objects which carry the data from step to step.
Thank you to the session's sponsors, all the speakers, and to an interesting and engaged audience. Special thanks to John Versotek for arranging such an informative and enjoyable day, and for the opportunity to take part.
R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials about learning R and many other topics. Click here if you're looking to post or find an R/data-science job.
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text:
I spent most of my Labor Day with windows thrown wide open, sun and breeze streaming in on all the nooks and crannies that have been cooped up in the hot St. Louis summer. We spent most of the weekend enjoying playtime at Entre Underground with Dwane Lay, RJ Morris and friends as well as with family at St. Louis' largest ethnic festival, the Greek Festival at St. Nicholas. Clearly all I did was eat phenomenal food so, when Monday rolled around, I was ready for painting my laundry room and tidying up in the back yard.
After working most of the day, I grabbed a tall glass of iced tea and sank into the couch for a little television. Flipping through, I came across The Waltons. Sure, people may poke fun at shows that are a little sappy and that always have a moral, or two, but I still like them. The nice thing about a seventies iconic show like The Waltons is that even though it was made more than thirty years ago and supposedly took place during the Depression years, it still has lessons that apply today.
The wealth of characters in the show who have debt problems, moral dilemnas, trouble finding or keeping a job, weddings, funerals and everything in between are really like all of us. It's nice to have a reminder every now and again that we're all not that special. We may have technology and larger mortgage payments but our problems are all rooted in pure human nature and most situations can be resolved with good communication.
That's my take away from today….to start the week with communication in mind. How about you? Any good thoughts for the start of a short week?


text:
Key dates
Submission: February 11, 2018
Notification: May 06, 2018
Camera-ready: May 25, 2018
(All deadlines are at 11:59PM Pacific Time)
Note: There will be absolutely no exception to these deadlines.
We invite submission of papers describing innovative research on all aspects of knowledge discovery and data mining, ranging from theoretical foundations to novel models and algorithms for data mining problems in science, business, medicine, and engineering. Visionary papers on new and emerging topics are also welcome, as are application-oriented papers that make innovative technical contributions to research. Authors are explicitly discouraged from submitting incremental results that do not provide major advances over existing approaches.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Big Data: Large-scale systems for text and graph analysis, machine learning, optimization, parallel and distributed data mining (cloud, map-reduce), novel algorithmic and statistical techniques for big data.
• Data Science: Methods for analyzing scientific and business data, social networks, time series; mining sequences, streams, text, web, graphs, rules, patterns, logs data, spatio-temporal data, biological data; recommender systems, computational advertising, multimedia, finance, bioinformatics.
• Foundations: Models and algorithms, asymptotic analysis; model selection, dimensionality reduction, relational/structured learning, matrix and tensor methods, probabilistic and statistical methods; deep learning; manifold learning, classification, clustering, regression, semi-supervised and unsupervised learning; personalization, security and privacy, visualization.
Submission directions
KDD is a dual track conference hosting both a Research track and an Applied Data Science track. Due to the large number of submissions, papers submitted to the Research track will not be considered for publication in the Applied Data Science track and vice versa. Authors are encouraged to read the track descriptions carefully and to choose an appropriate track for their submissions.
Following KDD conference tradition, reviews are not double-blind, and author names and affiliations should be listed.
Submissions are limited to a total of 9 (nine) pages, including all content and references, and must be in PDF format and formatted according to the new Standard ACM Conference Proceedings Template.
• LaTeX users, unzip acmart.zip, make, and use sample-sigconf.tex as a template;
Additional information about formatting and style files is available online at: http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates. Papers that do not meet the formatting requirements will be rejected without review. Submitted papers will be assessed based on their novelty, technical quality, potential impact, insightfulness, depth, clarity, and reproducibility.
Submissions for KDD 2018 should be made at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=kdd18
Important policies
Submitted papers will be assessed based on their novelty, technical quality, potential impact, insightfulness, depth, clarity, and reproducibility. Authors are strongly encouraged to make their code and data publicly available whenever possible. Algorithms and resources used in a paper should be described as completely as possible to allow reproducibility. This includes experimental methodology, empirical evaluations, and results. The reproducibility factor will play an important role in the assessment of each submission.
Every listed author must take responsibility for the entire content of a paper. Note that changes to the author list after the submission deadline is not allowed.
Dual submissions
Submitted papers must describe work that is substantively different from work that has already been published, or accepted for publication, or submitted in parallel to other conferences or journals. However, there are some exceptions to this rule.
1 Submission to KDD is permitted of a shorter version of a paper that has been submitted to a journal, but has not yet been published in that journal. Authors must declare such dual-submissions on the submission form. Authors must make sure that the journal in question allows dual concurrent submissions to conferences.
2 Submission is permitted for papers presented or to be presented at conferences or workshops without proceedings, or with only abstracts published.
3 Submission is permitted for papers that have previously been made available as a technical report or similar, in particular in arXiv.
Conflicts of interest
During the submission process, enter the email domains of all institutions with which you have an institutional conflict of interest. You have an institutional conflict of interest if you are currently employed or have been employed at this institution in the past three years, or you have extensively collaborated with this institution within the past three years. Authors are also required to identify all PC/SPC members with whom they have a conflict of interest, e.g., advisor, student, colleague, or coauthor in the last five years.
For each accepted paper, at least one author must attend the conference and present the paper. Authors of all accepted papers must prepare a final version for publication, a poster, and a three-minute short video presentation (details will be in the acceptance notification).
Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings by ACM and also appear in the ACM Digital Library. The rights retained by authors who transfer copyright to ACM can be found at http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Retained. For accepted papers, the authors also agree that the papers will also be made available to general public on the KDD website immediately after the camera ready submission (June 9, 2018). If you have an objection to your papers being posted on the KDD site prior to the conference please send us an email at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
An urgent plea for help from orphaned pets
More than 3,000 animal shelters in 17 countries are expected to participate in the 12th annual Iams Home 4 the Holidays adoption drive, which begins October 1 and will run until January, 2011. More
Homeless pets are in dire need of help
An animal welfare organization is urging those who have already adopted or who are unable to adopt to consider becoming a foster pet parent, volunteering at shelters and donating food or money to humane societies. More
Influx of homeless pets overwhelms shelters
Animal welfare organizations across the United States report that their shelters are filled to capacity and foster care volunteers who provide temporary shelter for pets have become an essential part of their work to provide care for the newly homeless animals. More
These hungry pets are begging for your help
Feeding Pets of the Homeless is trying to collect 60,000 pounds of pet food to distribute to the approximately 30,000 pets that are forced to sleep on the streets each night with their less fortunate owners. The effort also helps prevent these pets from ending up in shelters already crowded with millions of pets waiting for adoption. More
Help homeless pets by taking your dog to work
Take Your Dog to Work Day gives dog parents across the United States the chance to show off the benefits of having a companion in hopes of convincing co-workers to adopt a shelter dog. More
Warning issued about pet adoption scam
Scam artists are bilking hundreds of dollars from unsuspecting buyers who are being asked for money upfront and then the animal is never delivered. Learn how to avoid being ripped off. More
Dogs and cats are going to manners school
In an effort to combat pet homelessness, a Florida humane society has implemented a program to teach dogs and cats proper household etiquette and good behavior to make them more adoptable. More
Advice for those adopting purebred dogs
Reports about irresponsible breeding practices causing inherited health problems in purebred dogs have given some people second thoughts about adopting one, but a leading animal welfare organization is offering some guidance. More
Recycling effort raises money for homeless pets
A Tennessee humane society's program to turn metal into cash is catching on - and starting to pay off, too. More
Economic crisis could leave 1 million pets homeless
The expected surge in homelessness because of the economic recession is likely to create a huge burden on already strained humane societies and rescue shelters. More
So easy to read. You choose the topic!
Adoption | Behavior | Food | Health
Rescue | Safety | Surveys and Studies
Like MySetterSam on Facebook


text: ACCEPT | -----Original Message----- | From: email@example.com | [mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com]On Behalf Of | Steven M. Christey | Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 10:29 PM | To: email@example.com | Subject: [CVEPRI] Please Vote on Text of CyberCrime Treaty Statement | v5.5 | | | All, | | Please vote on the current text of the CyberCrime treaty statement, | included below, which I've labeled v5.5 (just in case it doesn't turn | out to be the "final"). This is *NOT* a vote on how we will present | signatures and organizational affiliations, as that issue is still | under discussion and can be separated from the actual text. | | Since the list has been quiet about edits in the last day and a half, | this is the only concrete way to be certain that the Board is ready to | bless this statement and agree to a "final copy" to use to draw | support from outside the Board. | | Please send one of the following votes to me and Dave Mann | (email@example.com), or to the Editorial Board list: | | ACCEPT - accept text as recorded | | MODIFY - make modifications. Please send any MODIFY votes to the | list. However, at this time you are strongly urged not to | suggest minor modifications that could be labeled "pedantic | wordsmithing" :-) | | NOOP - use this if you wish to abstain from voting. | | REJECT - use this vote at your own risk ;-) | | | It is requested that you send your vote by Tuesday, May 16. If a | "final decision" can be made at that time, I'll announce it. | | I will gather and count the votes. Of the 26 organizations | represented on the Board, 21 have established that they are aware of | this issue. | | It seems reasonable to require a minimum of 16 ACCEPT votes, which | would be 75% of the "active" Board member organizations, and 60% of | all Board member organizations. | | Note that I will be unavailable for all or most of Friday, so if | you're voting then, please make sure that Dave Mann knows how you | voted. | | - Steve | | | ************** TEXT of CyberCrime Treaty Statement v5.5 ************** | | Greetings: | | As leading security practitioners, educators, vendors, and users of | information security, we wish to register our misgivings about the | Council of Europe draft treaty on Crime in Cyberspace. | | We are concerned that portions of the proposed treaty may result in | criminalizing techniques and software commonly used to make computer | systems resistant to attack. Signatory states passing legislation to | implement the treaty may endanger the security of their computer | systems because computer users in those countries will not be able to | adequately protect their computer systems and the education of | information protection specialists will be hindered. | | Critical to the protection of computer systems and infrastructure is | the ability to | * Test software for weaknesses | * Verify the presence of defects in computer systems | * Exchange vulnerability information | | System administrators, researchers, consultants and companies all | routinely develop, use, and share software designed to exercise known | and suspected vulnerabilities. Academic institutions use these | tools to educate students and in research to develop improved | defenses. Our combined experience suggests that it is impossible | to reliably distinguish software used in computer crime from that | used for these legitimate purposes. In fact, they are often | identical. | | Currently, article 6 of the draft treaty is vague regarding the use, | distribution, and possession of software that could be used to | violate the security of computer systems. We agree that damaging or | breaking into computer systems is wrong and we unequivocally support | laws against such inappropriate behavior. We affirm that a | goal of the | treaty and resulting legislation should be to permit the development | and application of good security measures. However, legislation that | criminalizes security software development, distribution and use | is counter to that goal, as it would adversely impact security | practitioners, researchers, and educators. | | Therefore, we respectfully request that the treaty drafters remove | section a.1 from article 6, and modify section b accordingly; the | articles on computer intrusion and damage (viz., articles 1-5) are | already sufficient to proscribe any improper use of security-related | software or information. | | Please do not hesitate to call on us for technical advice in your | future deliberations. | | Signed, | | | [** signatures, affiliations, and disclaimers deleted - still under | discussion **]