Between the prevalence of hearing loss (~28 million Americans, to some degree) and the ambient noise present in most urban settings, who's going to notice that these new formats sound any better?
For most applications, CD-quality is good enough.
About Reflecting Fires
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Reflecting Fires
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· Score: 5, Informative
Since I wrote Reflecting Fires, I figure I may as well join the conversation. There's another review that recently went up at 3am Magazine in case anyone cares.
With regard to the price, I agree it's too high. That's the one of the main problems with Xlibris: The otherwise fair contract, which grants the author all rights, lets Xlibris set prices without consulting the author. The reason for that is that Xlibris is set up to make money off of authors rather than readers. A friend of mine recently published his own novel as well and I suggested that he avoid print-on-demand. By using a traditional printer and a short run of 1000 or so books, he can price his books around $14 and still make a decent profit. I get about $2 per book sold at Amazon...Amazon and Xlibris get the rest.
With regard to the post, "Self publishing could be a sign of bad quality" that's true, unfortunately. I like to think Reflecting Fires is among the exceptions because I make a living as a writer and editor. Still, that's not really my call to make. But also note that the primary consideration of publishers is not quality but commercial potential. The state of the publising industry is beyond the scope of this post, but for those interested, check out Holt Uncensored. Here's a quote from one of her newsletters...
It seems to me that the toughest thing facing an author today is an industry that's going to ask for one compromise after another: Change your book to suit our needs, publishers say. Don't expect us to nurture you. Find your own manuscript consultant before you submit to an agent or editor. Create a marketing plan - write the pitch we'll consider for jacket flaps and catalogs and sales reps (then be quiet). Don't expect us to advertise - learn how to promote your book in publicity interviews (many of which you'll have to set up yourself).
I've been working on a story for New Architect about RIAA's lawsuit against Verizon and in that case (as well as this one), the RIAA appears to have little regard for standard legal procedure--according to those I interviewed, it's trying to subpoena information about a P2P file trader without presenting evidence of wrongdoing and without actually filing a legal action against that person. In effect, the RIAA wants the law and your ISP to view you as guilty until proven innocent where copyright claims are concerned. It's a sound legal strategy, actually--certainly, it's more cost effective than trying to sue several million music fans.
It's not a binary proposition. Visual interfaces will work best for certain tasks and audio interfaces will work better for others. Instant messaging on mobile phones would be vastly improved if you could speak your message, translate that to text, then send it (assuming you want to save bandwidth by sending text instead of audio files). Likewise, querying a server "When does the next flight leave for New York?" through a mobile phone will work better by voice than through some visual interface. But I wouldn't want to edit a film using voice commands.
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Between the prevalence of hearing loss (~28 million Americans, to some degree) and the ambient noise present in most urban settings, who's going to notice that these new formats sound any better?
For most applications, CD-quality is good enough.
With regard to the price, I agree it's too high. That's the one of the main problems with Xlibris: The otherwise fair contract, which grants the author all rights, lets Xlibris set prices without consulting the author. The reason for that is that Xlibris is set up to make money off of authors rather than readers. A friend of mine recently published his own novel as well and I suggested that he avoid print-on-demand. By using a traditional printer and a short run of 1000 or so books, he can price his books around $14 and still make a decent profit. I get about $2 per book sold at Amazon...Amazon and Xlibris get the rest.
With regard to the post, "Self publishing could be a sign of bad quality" that's true, unfortunately. I like to think Reflecting Fires is among the exceptions because I make a living as a writer and editor. Still, that's not really my call to make. But also note that the primary consideration of publishers is not quality but commercial potential. The state of the publising industry is beyond the scope of this post, but for those interested, check out Holt Uncensored. Here's a quote from one of her newsletters...
Thanks for listening.
Thomas Claburn
Here's an interview with Congressman Rick Boucher, for those who can't get enough of him.
I've been working on a story for New Architect about RIAA's lawsuit against Verizon and in that case (as well as this one), the RIAA appears to have little regard for standard legal procedure--according to those I interviewed, it's trying to subpoena information about a P2P file trader without presenting evidence of wrongdoing and without actually filing a legal action against that person. In effect, the RIAA wants the law and your ISP to view you as guilty until proven innocent where copyright claims are concerned. It's a sound legal strategy, actually--certainly, it's more cost effective than trying to sue several million music fans.
Squishy DRM is about as good an idea as soft handcuffs.
It's not a binary proposition. Visual interfaces will work best for certain tasks and audio interfaces will work better for others. Instant messaging on mobile phones would be vastly improved if you could speak your message, translate that to text, then send it (assuming you want to save bandwidth by sending text instead of audio files). Likewise, querying a server "When does the next flight leave for New York?" through a mobile phone will work better by voice than through some visual interface. But I wouldn't want to edit a film using voice commands.