13 April 2008

VIDEO coverage of New Voices

Ozarks First News Coverage

This is well worth watching. It says it all about why we do the New Voices contest!

Brenna

11 April 2008

e-Books and Pirates

For months, people have asked me when I'm going to break down and put up a petition about dealing with pirates. Looks like I finally did.

Fact- The FBI, by their own account, are charged with investigating and shutting down cases of piracy involving copyright infringement (the illegal copying and distribution of works, in their entirety, on grand scales). The FBI does so, if it's digital media like films and music. But, they don't do the same for books, whether they are e-books pirated as e-books or print books converted and pirated as e-books.

Fact- In addition to breaking copyright laws (which a pirate recently told an author friend of mine are "useless"), these pirates are often breaking the Millennium Act, as well. No matter what justification they make for it, they are breaking laws. I've even seen a recent "sharer" claim that the laws don't take right and wrong into account and so should be disregarded. No matter what they say, no one is getting rich in this business...at least not in indie/e...save, perhaps, Ellora's Cave. Still, that doesn't excuse pirating anyone's work, even EC's.

Fact- The FBI talks a good game. They have a blanket warning to put in the front of e-books, talking about the penalties. They've given permission for authors and publishers to use this warning, as long as we don't use the FBI seal with it. That's not enough. Where are they, when the chips are down? Certainly not helping the industry enforce those warnings.

Fact- The FBI has been provided with information about the e-publishing industry, our use or not of DRM, our warnings in books, the methods of pirates to pass both e-books and print books in e-formats...and information on several major and longstanding offenders. To date, there has been no movement on this by the FBI. Why?

Postulation- They don't realize that anyone cares, except a few vocal individuals. So, this is our chance to prove we do.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ebooksandpirates/

Let's make a wave. Invite anyone willing to sign...authors, publishers, editors, cover artists...indie/e and NY...interested readers. I mean this. Blanket permission to pass this call is encouraged. If you're in this industry, you have an interest in protecting it. Let's make them take notice.

Brenna

03 April 2008

TOO geeky for words

Okay...so, everyone who knows me knows I'm something of a geek. Want to know how severe a geek I am? Picture this...ah, heck...I'll link to it! My second grader decided that "numerals" couldn't possibly mean anything but ROMAN numerals and promptly did her entire homework sheet in said format. I wasn't about to make her redo it, so I sent the teacher an apology on the sheet.

To which...the teacher sent back word to me that she doesn't "know much about Roman numerals." Since she teaches second grade (and the school district doesn't teach it until late third/early fourth grade), she didn't feel the need to learn it. Of course, this is the same teacher that wouldn't put gecko on the list of animals they were making, until I proved it was a real animal. After all, it wasn't in her book of them, so it might be a Pokemon or something. Grinning...

No...I am not making this up. I write fantasy...not dementia. I just live that.