Ready For Arrival

I read an article yesterday that said ebooks aren't ready yet.

By what standard?

Let's try for some *reality* based reality instead of just congratulating ourselves on how reality-based we are.

Ebooks are ready, they're here, they're not going away.

The camera body is on the truck for arrival so if it comes early enough and I can charge the battery before the sun goes down, I will do some test shots and add them to the end of this post.  Otherwise, tomorrow.

Yesterday I had occasion to speak with someone who spent many years in the publishing industry then became an agent.  She confirmed everything I've been saying about the business--the poor treatment of writers, the unwise business decisions, the motivated intent to ignore the technology bearing down upon them.  One could say she's just spouting off (one should say I do that) because she's jumping ship and moving into ebooks herself. 

There are always reasons you are unwilling to be forthcoming when things are terribly wrong.  I don't remember ever going to NBC and telling them about the production problems we were having on The Doctors.  It was a team, you have to work with these people and you want to keep your job.  I expect the same thing is true in publishing.  People don't burn bridges the way I do but the truth starts to leak out and we're seeing that.

That's not to say there aren't fine and decent people in publishing and that everything is wrong.  That wouldn't be fair or true.  But there are problems.  We know that.  If paper publishing is to compete with ebooks in the future, they'll have to change the way they do things.

One of the most important things this person said to me as we were talking on the phone and she was perusing this blog is that the covers for Rise and Burning Daylight are spectacular.

Yes, I'm still glowing with that praise but beyond the personal, it's again confirmation that we can do it as well as the professionals in legacy publishing.

If you want to compete with traditional publishing, you have to put in as much effort to turn out an equivalent product as they would put in.  They have a team.  You only have you.  It's a major investment in time, effort and thought.

Write the best book you can and then make it the best book you can.

Okay.  Nikon D7000.  I haven't had that much time with it.  It's similar to the D70 but better thought out.  The manual was written by someone who was *not* stoned.  Way to go, Nikon!  If I have to say something about it I will hedge my statement like crazy and say it seems like the autofocus mode works amazingly, shockingly, well.  I won't say anything else because I'm not sure and I've lost much of my light outside.  Maybe it can see but I really can't.