How Amazon’s crackdown on scammers is impacting indie authors
Source: How Amazon’s crackdown on scammers is impacting indie authors
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How Amazon’s crackdown on scammers is impacting indie authors
New words to live by: “Hypocrassy”
It is time, once again, for New words to live by. This is a word or phrase not currently in use in the U.S. English lexicon, but might need to be considered. Other words, such as obsurd, crumpify, subsus, flib, congressed, and others, can be found by clicking on the tags below. Today’s New Word is a compounding of two nouns into a new word. Without further waiting, hypocrassy (hypocrisy + crass) is the new word for this month.
OLD WORDS
Hypocrisy, n. 1. A person pretending to have moral or religious beliefs, principles, or a virtuous nature that he or she does not possess. In other words, a pretense toward something virtuous. 2. An instance or act of hypocrisy.
Crass, n. 1. Devoid of delicacy, sensitivity, or refinement. Also known as gross, stupid, obtuse.
NEW WORD
Hypocrassy, n. 1. A person pretending to have moral or religious beliefs, principles, and is devoid of delicacy, sensitivity, or refinement. In other words, he or she will repeat a lie even when told it is a lie or knows it is a lie in an effort to make the lie the “known truth.” Also, a group of supposedly virtuous people all promoting the same lack of moral or religious judgment.
Example:
A certain U.S. presidential candidate who continues saying he’s going to build a wall along the Mexican border and is going to make the Mexicans pay for it, and that the wall will keep undocumented immigrants out of the United States. And because he is, a judge of Mexican decent can’t officiate at a trial that involves one of the candidate’s many failed enterprises.
Filed under 2016, new word, New words to live by
Author turned bookseller
‘People are hungry for real bookstores’: Judy Blume on why US indie booksellers are thriving
At 78, the multimillion-selling author has begun a new career, opening her own bookshop – and joining a business sector that’s flourishing again in the US
By Alison Flood
She might be a beloved and bestselling author of classic children’s books from Forever to Blubber, but Judy Blume says she wakes up every day “and I look to the sky, and I say, ‘whoever’s up there, I thank you for not having to write today’.”
Blume doesn’t have to write because, at 78, she has embarked on a new career: she’s an independent bookseller. Together with her husband, George Cooper, she has opened a small, nonprofit bookshop in Key West, Florida, where she’s working almost every day. And she’s loving it. She had planned “to take a gap year” after she finished writing and promoting her last novel, In the Unlikely Event. “I was going to relax and read and have this whole time with no pressure. And then bingo – the chance comes along to open a bookshop, and there you go. I guess I like that in my life … To learn something new like this, at 78, makes it all the more exciting.”
Judy Blume (left), author turned bookseller.
“We’ve done better than anyone, including Mitch, thought we could do,” says Blume, down the line from Florida. “It has been a very satisfying experience … Writing In the Unlikely Event took five years – it was very long and difficult and complicated. This is just a great change for me, and I am enjoying it so much.”
Customers, she says, “sometimes” recognise her – an author who has sold more than 80m books around the world – “and they’re completely taken aback, especially if I’m sitting there dusting the shelves. I’m pretty good at recommendations – I’m good in the kids’ department for sure. I read all the picture books when they come in. And I can lead people to what they want, although I’ve not read as many of our books as some of our volunteers [the store has two paid employees, as well as Cooper, Blume and a series of volunteers]. I’m trying really hard to keep up. It’s like Christmas every day, working here.”
Business for independent bookstores in America in general, is “going well”, Blume believes. “I just think people are so hungry for a real bookstore again. So many people live in places where there isn’t one … It’s not just us doing well. A lot of independent booksellers are.”
The figures back her up. At BookExpo America last week, the American Booksellers Association announced that for the seventh year in a row, its bookstore membership has gone up, to 1,775 members operating in 2,311 locations, up from 1,401 members operating in 1,651 locations in 2009. The lion’s share of these are independents, says the ABA: in 2015, sales for independent booksellers were up just over 10%, and are remaining strong in 2016. In the UK by contrast, the Booksellers Association recorded 894 independent bookshops in 2015, a decrease of 3% from 2014. A decade ago, there were more than 1,500.
“Independent bookselling in the US is continuing not just to grow, but to thrive,” says ABA chief executive Oren Teicher, who attributes the growth to various factors: the localism movement, “which is exploding, and we are benefiting from that”; booksellers “getting smarter at using technology”; publishers’ increasing acknowledgment that “customers discover books in bricks and mortar locations [so] our colleagues in publishing have figured out that they need bricks and mortar stores as much as we need their books”; and the growing role of the bookseller as curator, in a world flooded with new titles.
The “resurgence of print” has also helped, says Teicher. A recent report in the UK revealed that in 2015, sales of printed books were up by 0.4% to £2.76bn, while ebook sales fell for the first time in the seven years the Publishers Association has tracked them, down 1.6% to £554m in 2015. In the US, the Association of American Publishers reported last month that while overall sales for consumer books were up 0.8% to $7.2bn (£4.9bn) in 2015, ebook sales declined, down 9.5% in adult books and 43.3% in children and young adult titles.
“Five years ago in the American book business, there was a widespread panic that somehow digital reading was going to replace physical books and they would be a relic of some other time and place. Fast forward to today, and I think digital reading has levelled off and calmed down slightly. It’s going to be a piece of our business, but print books aren’t going away. We’re living in a hybrid world,” says Teicher.
Added together, these ingredients make “the recipe for our success”, says Teicher. “But there is still a very modest margin in books, and people have to work really hard. We have significant challenges before us, clouds on the horizon that could interfere with our success.”
These range from pressure on wages and rents, he says, to the “1,000lb gorilla” – the continued growth of online shopping. “But independents are extraordinarily resilient,” he says. “If I had a penny for every time we’ve been counted out, I’d be a pretty rich guy today.”
Computer science script for $15,000
Google & The Black List offer $15,000 for scripts focused on Computer Science
http://deadline.com/2016/04/google-the-black-list-script-grants-computer-science-1201740858/
and
http://www.projectcasting.com/jobs/google-black-list?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare
Google, the online giant, is partnering with The Black List to offer financial grants in support of developing scripts centered on changing the image of computer science and computer scientists in pop culture. The submission process begins today and runs through July 15.
Beginning in the fall, the script site will grant up to $15K to three screenwriters — one feature and two episodic pilots — as they work to craft their scripts over a six-month period. At the end, each writer will present their work to Google and address how the grant was used to advance the projects. Writers will retain all rights to the work. Writers with scripts on The Black List site are also eligible.
This project is part of an initiative from Google’s Computer Science Education in Media program to encourage and inspire young people, especially girls and minorities — who historically have been underrepresented in the field — to not only use technology but also to create it.
Google would like to see if there were more movies about computer sciences that weren’t the stereotypical nerd movie. Are you an aspiring screenwriter? Do you want to work for Google? If so, Google will actually pay you to write a movie script.
New words to live by: “Democrazy”
It is time, once again, for New words to live by. This is a word or phrase not currently in use in the U.S. English lexicon, but might need to be considered. Other words, such as obsurd, crumpify, subsus, flib, congressed, and others, can be found by clicking on the tags below. Today’s New Word is a compounding of two nouns into a new word. Without further waiting, democrazy (demo-crazy) is the new word for this month.
OLD WORDS
Democracy, n. a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. Or, to borrow from U.S. President Lincoln: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people….”
Crazy, n. 1. Mentally deranged, senseless, insane. 2. Unsound, impractical.
NEW WORD
Democrazy, n. 1. The illusion of democracy or the democratic process obscured by the insanity of money, the senselessness of political debates over inane subjects (e.g., hand size), and the impractical notion that whoever is elected can fix it all. 2. Every four-year mental lapse in judgment and sanity where the supreme power is invested in money and those who have. 3. Any subset thereof, in which elections can be for state, local, and non-Presidential offices. 4. The last stage of democracy before it goes totalitarian.
Campaign sold out
Example:
See your local newspaper or most any TV channel between now and November. Plenty of examples exist there.
Filed under 2016, new word, new words, New words to live by
Oh, Mom
[Editor’s note: inspired by a neighbor’s actual event, as reported on Facebook. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers reading this.]
Oh, Mom,
I did it again, like when I was ten
And then, in the middle of the night
In panic and fright I committed the sin
Of turning your bedding off-white.
Oh, Mom,
I was queasy then and I am again,
And once more I stand at your door.
Too much to drink, this time I think.
I should’ve stopped instead of saying, “More.”
Oh, Mom,
As I now look in, the light is very thin.
I hear the roar of a brain-jarring snore.
Is that you or Dad? Oh, my achy breaky head.
I pitch in too soon, onto the bed — ka-boom!
Oh, Mom,
I will try again. Oh, where to begin?
I did not mean to do or repeat anew,
But my head went in, like when I was ten,
And turned white into red, white, and “Ouuh!”
Oh, Mom,
I did it again, like I did back then,
When, in the middle of the night,
In panic and fright I committed the sin
Of turning your bedding off-white.
–by David E. Booker
Filed under 2016, poetry, poetry by author
Five questions with Stephen King
Stephen King answers 5 questions from the BDN
Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2016/04/28/living/stephen-king-answers-5-questions-from-the-bdn/
Stephen King
We’re always curious about what best-selling author and Bangor resident Stephen King is doing. To find out, the BDN (Bangor Daily News) emailed him five questions Thursday morning. Sixteen minutes later, we had his answers.
1. What are you working on today?
“Just thinking about a new story. That’s always the first step.”
2. What keeps you awake at night?
“Nothing, currently.”
3. Are you a glass half empty or half full person?
“Three quarters full. I like to relish the good stuff and take care of the bad stuff as best I can. Or let it go, if I can’t. Most of my worries look silly a month later.”
4.What is it about Bangor that keeps you here, at least some of the time?
“I love the neighborhood, and seeing people I know at the Corner Store, the Fairmount, the baseball field, and downtown. Not to mention strawberry pancakes at Nicky’s Cruisin’ Diner.”
5. If you could have a 5-minute conversation with anyone living or dead, who would it be?
“I’d talk to Lee Harvey Oswald (but I’d keep him at a distance, and make sure he was unarmed). It wouldn’t take five minutes, just a four-word question: ‘Did you do it?’”
How to write for the American Theater
In keeping with the theater them of the Shakespeare’s words and phrases (posted earlier), follow the flow chart. (Click on it a couple of times to enlarge to readable size.)
Words and phrases from the Bard
Words and phrases we owe to Shakespeare. Born around this time in April in 1564.
Filed under 2016, word play, words, Words to live by
Bookmobile
Ann Patchett’s Nashville Bookstore Hits the Road, With Dogs in Tow
by Alexandra Alter
Nashville’s newest bookstore is an old van.
The bright blue bookmobile, which hit the road this week, is a roving offshoot of Parnassus Books, a popular independent bookstore. It will roam around town, stopping at food truck rallies, farmers’ markets and outside restaurants.
The arrival of a bookstore on wheels is a fitting evolution for Parnassus, which is co-owned by Karen Hayes and the novelist Ann Patchett. The store’s name comes from Christopher Morley’s 1917 novel “Parnassus on Wheels,” about a middle-aged woman who travels around selling books out of a horse-drawn van.
Parnassus takes to the streets of Nashville, TN.
Since Parnassus opened in 2011, Ms. Hayes has wanted a traveling bookstore of her own. She looked at taco trucks and ice cream trucks and felt envious of their freedom to take business wherever people gathered, she said.
“A bookmobile made so much sense, because food trucks work so well in this town,” Ms. Hayes said by telephone. “It’s a great way to get our name out there, too. It’s a rolling advertisement.”
Ms. Hayes found the van on eBay last spring, and bought it for $10,000 from a library in Georgia. The van was already outfitted with angled shelves, which keep the books from flying off, but still needed $20,000 worth of work.
It is a logical and efficient way for a small bookstore to expand its footprint, especially as big chains have shuttered locations, leaving a vacuum for enterprising independent stores to fill. A handful of independent stores around the country have taken the trade on the road, in an effort to stir up business and bring books to neighborhoods and suburbs without a bookstore. Little Shop of Stories, an independent store in Decatur, Ga., used a grant from the author James Patterson to turn a used school bus into a mobile bookstore. Fifth Dimension Books, a bookmobile in Austin, Tex., stocks a rotating selection of science fiction and fantasy books from its collection of 100,000 volumes.
Bookmobiles are not about to become as prevalent as food trucks. But their arrival in Nashville and other cities offers another encouraging sign that independent stores are thriving again, after years of decline. Sales at bookstores rose 2.5 percent in 2015 over the previous year, to $11.17 billion, for the first annual increase since 2007, according to the United States Census Bureau.
Dozens of small bookstores across the country are opening multiple locations, expanding into mini chains. Books Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area independent store, now has 11 locations. Third Place Books in Seattle will soon open a new store, its third. Greenlight Bookstore, a prominent independent store in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, is opening a second Brooklyn store in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.
In 2015, the American Booksellers Association counted 1,712 member stores in 2,227 locations, a big jump from 2009, when the group had 1,401 stores in 1,651 locations.
“The trend is unmistakable, and we see it not only continuing but growing,” said Oren Teicher, the ABA’s chief executive.
Parnassus is expanding too. It will double in size, adding 2,500 square feet of retail space, when it takes over a recently vacated storefront next door. Its owners considered looking for a second location, but decided the book van would be a better way to expand the store’s geographic range and customer base.
The van packs around 1,000 books, mostly new releases and best sellers — a small fraction of Parnassus’s stock of 20,000 books. Its owners have managed to make the cramped space bright and inviting: customers can walk the narrow aisles between the shelves, and can linger and sample books on one of the padded blue benches.
“One of my hopes is that we’ll be able go into some of the outlying suburbs and cities that don’t necessarily have a bookstore,” said Grace Wright, a Parnassus bookseller who will manage the bookmobile. “There’s nothing like a good bookstore.”
Another bonus: the physical bookstore has four resident dogs — Opie, Belle, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Bear — who love riding around town, Ms. Wright said.
“They seem to have fun in the bus,” she said.
Booker's Blog 