The middle of April marks the 6th anniversary of the MobileRead wiki. For the 5th anniversary announcement see here.
This has been a busy year for the wiki. It has now surpassed 1,000 pages in the main namespace and more than 1,100 content pages. In July the EPrdctn Twitter group began using our wiki for their articles on eBook production education and problem solving. Most recently Google+ has tagged the pages in our wiki for google+ users to share and comment on. The should increase our exposure to external sites. Each page now shows a small G+ icon at the top that can be used to comment on that page for google+.
While international demand is still high with 4 German pages in the top 100 overall popularity there are still only a few pages in languages other than English. The top German page is well maintained and now has more that 200,000 hits (11 place overall).
For milestones and wiki history see: Wiki Statistics. We are and will continue to be the main technical resource for all things eBook to supplement our forum.
Help us select the next book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for May 2012.
The nominations will run through midnight EST April 30 or until 10 books have made the list. The first poll will then be posted and will be open for 4 days, followed by a 3 day run-off poll between the two* top vote getters.
Book selection category for May is:
Fantasy
In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).
How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.
How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a pool at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.
How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.
How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others June consider their level of interest.
How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.
When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.
The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.
* In case of a first or second place tie in the first voting poll, the run-off poll June have more than two choices.
Official choices with three nominations each:
1)Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman [orlok, Synamon, WT Sharpe] Inkmesh search
2)The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan [JSWolf, fantasyfan, WTSharpe] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves. With cover art from the major motion picture, this first installment of Rick Riordan's best-selling series is a non-stop thrill-ride and a classic of mythic proportions.
3)The Voyage of the Minotaur by Wesley Allison [John F, orlok, MrsJoseph] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Description: In a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten, an expedition sets out to establish a colony in a lost world. The Voyage of the Minotaur is a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons. (from Smashwords)
4)Kraken by China Mieville [caleb72, orlok, Provenzano] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears? For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god. A god that someone is hoping will end the world.
5)The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany [fantasyfan, drofgnal, Hamlet53] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Come with me now for awhile, for we have worlds of magic to explore, and the Land of Dreams is close at hand.
If you’re tired of fat, cheesy fantasy novels that really do stink, and you want to experience what Fantasy writing once was and could have been, before a few lame-brained idiot writers took Fantasy down a dark alley and stabbed it in the back, then you should read Lord Dunsany’s beautiful prose.
"A proper fantasy story would, of course, devote nine or so books to traveling very slowly through the elfish countryside, slowly accumulating plot tokens in order to complete the quest. Dunsany spends one chapter on this journey, then gets to the real point of his story, which is what happens when a girl from Elfland is forced to live in the mortal world, and what happens when the two worlds collide. It’s 1924, and already the good baron is overthrowing tired and worn out fantasy cliches. Lord Dunsany’s story has more in it of culture shock and the price of novelty than magic mcguffin hunting and evil overlord overthrowing.
"The prose itself is some of the finest and most magical in all of fantasy literature. It is like Tolkien without the idle sentiment, or like Lovecraft with a greater gift for language and more synonyms for “odd”. A brief sample should suffice:
"'Near the Castle of Erl there lived a lonely witch, on high land near the thunder, which used to roll in Summer along the hills. There she dwelt by herself in a narrow cottage of thatch and roamed the high fields alone to gather the thunderbolts. Of these thunderbolts, that had no earthly forging, were made, with suitable runes, such weapons as had to parry unearthly dangers.'
"Lord Dunsany’s prose can fairly be described as “oft-imitated”. It is the sound of fantasy. Rarely has it been surpassed."
This critic says this:
"Much of what we call modern fantasy is a pale, predictable mesh of cliches. It is a bookshelf filled with stories that bear far too much in common with one another. Sometimes indeed it feels that originality, which ought to be the cornerstone of fantasy seems to be all but evaporated. Lord Dunsay is - different. He is one of those illusive pre-Tolkien fantasy writers and you will be shocked at how much of modern fantasy derives from him. And then doubly shocked to find he still did it better. Lord Dunsay writes beautiful and elaborate prose. He weaves stories in which magic is not some work-a-day technology but rather a brooding, powerful and very nearly living force."
There is no better prose stylist who touched both the heart of Fantasy and the heart of the Reader.
Like all the books I assemble on MobileRead, this too was assembled to reflect human intervention and artistic judgment.
I hope you enjoy it.
Don [MobileRead's own Dr. Drib]
6)The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley Beaulieu [sun surfer, hpulley, fantasyfan] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
From Publishers Weekly
Debut novelist Beaulieu paints a detailed and realistic portrayal of individual fates bound up in social responsibilities as well-grounded cultures clash. Prince Nikandr Khalakovo, facing an arranged marriage, also suffers from a wasting disease plaguing the Anuskaya islands. When the rebellious Maharraht loose a fire elemental and kill the visiting Grand Duke Stasa Bolgravya, civil war erupts, and all factions seek to capture a mysterious autistic boy who straddles both the spirit and the material worlds. Beaulieu skillfully juggles elements borrowed from familiar cultures (primarily Russian and Bedouin) as well as telepathy, airborne ships, and magical gems. Viewpoint shifts are occasionally confusing, but the prose is often poetic—airborne skiffs under attack "dropped like kingfishers" and "twisted in the air like maple seeds"—and the characters have welcome depth.
The Winds of Khalokovo is filled with clean prose, intelligent language, and brilliant imagination. Reading this fantasy was like sinking my teeth into a rich and exotic dessert. --Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show
Elegantly crafted, refreshingly creative. --C.S. Friedman, Bestselling author of The Coldfire Trilogy
Well worth exploring... --Glen Cook, Bestselling author of The Black Company
The boldly imagined new world and sharply drawn characters will pull you into The Winds of Khalakovo and won't let you go until the last page. --Michael A. Stackpole, New York Times bestselling author of I, Jedi
Exactly the kind of fantasy I like to read. --Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of The Saga of the Seven Suns
7)Nation by Terry Pratchett [sun surfer, HomeInMyShoes, Nyssa] Inkmesh search
8)Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson [voodooblues, hpulley, Hamlet53] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale spinner, author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails? What kind of world results when the Dark Lord is in charge? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises and magical martial-arts action that begins in Mistborn.
For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.
Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.
But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.
10)Oath of Swords by David Weber [AnemicOak, Nyssa, Synamon] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Whom the gods would recruit, they first tick off . . . Our Hero: The unlikely Paladin, Bahzell Bahnakson of the Horse Stealer Hradani. He's no knight in shining armor. He's a hradani, a race known for their uncontrollable rages, bloodthirsty tendencies, and inability to maintain civilized conduct. None of the other Five Races of man like the hradani. Besides his ethnic burden, Bahzell has problems of his own to deal with: a violated hostage bond, a vengeful prince, a price on his head. He doesn't want to mess with anybody else's problems, let alone a god's. Let alone the War God's! So how does he end up a thousand leagues from home, neck-deep in political intrigue, assassins, demons, psionicists, evil sorcery, white sorcery, dark gods, good gods, bad poets, greedy landlords, and most of Bortalik Bay Well, it's all the War God's fault. . . . (from Baen WebScriptions)
Earlier today, during the planned maintenance an issue arose that affected our database master server. We had to do another unannounced emergency shutdown for another 15 minutes or so to fix the issue.
This should not have happened and I apologize for letting you down today.
According to a Wall Street Journal article, they got an advance look at the Authors Guild's new website. The article states that the Authors Guild will hold a press conference at the Algonquin Hotel in New York on Monday morning to announce they will be releasing their own retail website in the second half of 2012. This website will allow the authors they represent to bypass eBook distributors, such as Amazon, and sell directly to the public.
This is a great article and I’m surprised the Big Six publishers haven’t tried to do something similar. I tried to add a link to the Journal’s story, but it is one of those annoying pay links and I can’t find a non-pay link to the story (if you have a WSJ subscription try the Pay Article), but here is what the article said <i>in my own words</i> (moderators, this is not a copyright violation)—
The Authors Guild will announce Monday morning that they have developed a website to allow its members to sell eBooks directly to the public, and authors will receive 100% of the royalties on sales. Yes, that's correct, 100% royalties. The Authors Guild hopes that members of the public who want to support their favorite authors will take this into consideration when deciding on where to make a purchase. All right, there is some fine print on these royalties, but it is pretty reasonable.
The website will work similarly to any other online retailer, where you can search on an author's name or on the title of a book. Books will also be rated and reviewed by the public, but the books will also contain an additional rating that the public can view but that only authors (i.e. Authors Guild members) can vote upon.
The website will also include "special sections" that feature the work of selected authors (e.g. books displayed on the front page of the website), or that show similar books to the one that is being viewed, or sections where authors pick their favorite authors and books, or sections displaying what other readers purchased, etc. It is these "special sections" of the website that will finance the website.
When a reader searches the Authors Guild website specifically for an author or book title then the author receives 100% of the sales price of any books the reader buys. However, if the reader buys a book because it was displayed in one of the "special sections" then the author will receive 70% of the sales price and the website will receive 30%. Additionally, authors will not be displayed in these "special sections" unless they explicitly opt-in to have their books displayed in them. Since the Author's Guild is a non-profit organization all money raised will go back into supporting the authors in the guild, so ultimately 100% is returned to the authors in one way or another.
An additional benefit of purchasing eBooks through the Authors Guild is that none of their eBooks contain DRM. All books will be available as either non-DRMed ePub files (e.g. Apple and B&N’s format), or non-DRMed mobi files (i.e. Amazon's book format). Additionally, purchasers actually own the books they buy, and they can transfer ownership to other individuals.
When an eBook is purchased through an online retailer, such as Amazon, the eBook is usually encrypted so that it can only be read on a device owned by the purchaser (i.e. the file has DRM). The purchaser cannot give or sell this eBook to anyone else, as only devices owned by the purchaser can read the eBook. However, eBooks bought from the Authors Guild are different. Instead of DRM the eBooks will contain pages at the beginning and ending of the book that contain the name and email address of the purchaser along with a unique identifying number. This won't stop Piracy, but should be enough to stop casual copyright violators from uploading a file to the internet. Note: J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore website was the inspiration behind this protection scheme.
The Authors Guild website also allows users to transfer ownership of an eBook they own to another user. They just go to the website and enter the name of the new owner, and the Authors Guild website will email the new owner a copy of the book containing his or her name and email address. The original owner is trusted to be honest and to delete his copy of the eBook from his device, and only the current owner can transfer ownership. In other words, you can only transfer ownership to one person, but the new owner can still give it away if he or she desires.
Lastly, eBooks whose rights are owned by traditional publishers will also be available on the Authors Guild website. This is to ensure that all books available to the public will also be available through the Authors Guild website, but only "authors" are eligible for royalties of 100%. Publishers selling their books through the Authors Guild website do so at the standard 70% and 30% split. However, the entire 30% split is returned back to the eBook's author, so the authors still make substantially more when the public buys through the Authors Guild website as opposed to another distributor’s website. (If a publisher's eBook was purchased because of a link from a "special section" then the Authors Guild website will retain 15%.)
The last paragraph is where they reveal that probably 98% of the books on the site will actually be the same 70/30 split that occurs on Amazon and Apple, but I guess the authors still get more royalties when people buy through the Author Guild website. Personally, I don't think they were being completely honest about the 100% royalties. However, it still looks like a great deal for the authors.
The Amazon has made a binding offer to purchase Mobilread in exchange for 10,000 shares of Amazon common stock at current market value. Alex Turcic, the owner, will still retain most control. He has also negotiated with Amazon representatives to grant each moderator, who have had enormous impact on the site, 1000 shares of stock each as well.
The transfer of stock and ownership will take place by end of second calendar quarter of 2012.
We anticipate the site will continue as it has before however exclusive titles from the Amazon will also be available in the Mobile Read library to MobileRead prime members.
MobileRead Week in Review: 04/14 - 04/21
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