All tagged Amazon

Review: Sanctum by Sarah Fine

Review: Sanctum by Sarah Fine

Sarah Moon
Books

When Laura and I chatted with the folks from Amazon Children's Publishing at the ALA Midwinter meeting earlier this year, they were heavily pushing Sarah Fine's Sanctum as "the next Angelfall." While on some level I understand the comparison--Angelfall features angels who are quite demonic, Sanctum is set in an afterlife full of demon-like creatures--the two books aren't read-alikes and likely don't share a audience. 

With that said, as a fan of adult urban fantasy, Sanctum hits where so many other young adult novels billed as urban fantasy miss; it's a creative and unique novel I'd recommend to fans of the genre, teen or adult. 

Lela Santos, who's spent much of her life in the foster care system, is finally settled into a good life at the beginning of Sanctum. She's thinking about college--something she never believed possible; she has an unlikely best friend in the form of Nadia, who's the popular girl Lela never believed would be her friend; she has a stable life in a safe home. That crumbles when Lela's best friend kills herself in a bout of depression Lela didn't see.

Racked with grief and guilt, Lela begins to have visions of her friend tormented in a horrible place.  In her distraught frame-of-mind, she tries to find closure about Nadia's death, but instead (stay with me here--this sounds a bit wacky, but it all makes sense in the story) she winds up dead thanks to a freak accident. Lela plummets into a terrifying underworld, the same place she saw in her visions. Determined to find Nadia and figure out a way for them both to escape, Lela enters the Dark City, a terrifying, shadowy place where lost souls wander. 

This city is a scary place. Food is inedible, demon-like creatures called Mazikin wander the streets looking for bodies to possess, and the guardians of this creepy place are pretty scary too.

Links + Things: Before Midnight, Amazon Buys Goodreads, S + S vs BN, Cheapo Books and More

Links + Things: Before Midnight, Amazon Buys Goodreads, S + S vs BN, Cheapo Books and More

Sarah Moon
Links + Things

It's Friday, Friday, which means it's time for linky interestingness. Obviously, the biggest news in the book world this week was the Amazon acquisition of Goodreads, which I have many, many feelings about, which I can't possibly encapsulate in just a few sentences--maybe I'll muster the energy to do a brain dump post about it, fingers crossed.

This is a slightly abbreviate Links + Things, due to my awesome friend Lizzy being in town, so no cover art news, unfortunately. Don't forget to scroll down to the end find deals on a couple of CEFS favorites books.

This Week's Video of Awesome

I adored Before Sunrise (which I saw in the theater my senior year of high school and thought was the most romantic thing ever--sigh) and very much enjoyed the not-resolution in the 2004 movie, Before Sunset. There's a part of me that's ridiculously nervous about the third installment that's coming out this year, Before Midnight. But, obviously, I'll be seeing it as soon as it hits the theaters later this year.

Interestingness

Amazon Buys Goodreads (paidcontent.org)

Goodreads is also likely to be less open with access to its data now that it has been acquired by Amazon. In the past, the company has shared information about how its readers discover and buy books and about their digital reading habits, presenting the data at conferences and in blog posts. 

Undoubtedly, the biggest book news this week is that Amazon acquired Goodreads. I'm going to be honest, this didn't surprise me in the least. I remember a year or so ago, Jane at Dear Author predicted that this would happen and I recall thinking that while I, as a Goodreads user, consumer and person who lives in the world, didn't like the idea, from a business perspective, it would be a smart move for Amazon. 

Those of you who are Goodreads friends with me have probably noticed that I don't update or comment there as frequently as have in the past. That has more to do with the way the climate has changed, particularly that as the self-published books have been dominating my friend feed and all the drama and fighting that erupted awhile back.

Frankly, this news makes me want to be even more careful about the information I post on Goodreads, due to my increasing paranoia about Big Data. It's tough, because I am an Amazon customer, and love my Kindle, but I am so uncomfortable with the integration of all my information (hence, I don't link my Facebook account to Goodreads either) and the fact that it seems like all information will be owned by Amazon, Google or Facebook. 

Sigh...

Links + Things: NPR examines publishing, all digital libraries, book clubs take over a casino and more!

Links + Things: NPR examines publishing, all digital libraries, book clubs take over a casino and more!

Sarah Moon
Links + Things

Traditional publishing versus self publishing! A book club extravaganza! All digital libraries! Amazon coins! (Huh?)

All that plus cheap brain candy and some other bargain book goodness in this installment of Links + Things.

Why Traditional Publishing Is Really In A 'Golden Age' (NPR)

"What has changed in a really exciting way is the ways you can get people's attention. It used to be one book review at a time, a daily review, maybe you get into Time magazine. Now there's, with the Internet, this giant echo chamber. Anything good that happens, any genuine excitement that a book elicits can be amplified and repeated and streamed and forwarded and linked in a way that excitement spreads more quickly and universally than ever before. And what I'm seeing is that really wonderful books — the books that people get genuinely excited about because they change their lives, they give them new ideas — those books can travel faster, go further, sell more copies sooner than ever before. It's just energized the whole business in a thrilling way."

Self-Publishing Now The First Choice For Some Writers (NPR)

...traditional publishers are in the business of not publishing books but of selling books. And there's a big difference there. So they seek to acquire books and authors who they think have the greatest commercial potential. But the challenge here is they really don't know which books are going to go on to become bestsellers. Only readers know that.

Laura pointed me to this two-part series on NPR this week about self-publishing versus traditional publishing. The traditional publishing side is representing by the incoming CEO of Hachette while the Smashwords CEO makes the case for the supremacy of self-publishing. Both have an agenda, but it's interesting that both are so enthusiastic about the future of publishing and its potential. It's a nice contrast to the doom and gloom stories we hear so often.

Reportage: ALA Midwinter Meeting 2013

Reportage: ALA Midwinter Meeting 2013

Sarah Moon
In the News, Events

Laura, Sandra and I headed up to Seattle on Saturday to check out the exhibits at the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting. 

This is a large conference and trade event for the library profession. I also saw a number of people with identification indicating that they were teachers or educators, authors, agents and, of course, bloggers (I didn't see as many as I expected, however--I suspect the smaller midwinter meeting doesn't attract as many people who travel just for exhibits). The Big Six publishers all have a presence, as do many of the smaller ones, such as Algonquin, Soho and a number of independents I wasn't familiar with. Notably missing was the Harlequin empire, which I understand only exhibits at the major ALA conference in the summer. 

Here's a roundup of some observations from ALA--this is by no means exhaustive, as I was only able to spend a day and didn't attend any of the social activities. (Though we did get to hang out with Mindi for half a day, which is more awesome than any of the organized meet-ups.)

The vast majority of the books showcased were young adult and younger titles. We intentionally went on the "spotlight on adult fiction" day so we could see a diversity, but with the exception of some literary and women's fiction and a few key imprints or publishers, most were targeted at younger readers. I heard a number of librarians complain about this to exhibitors, which I though was interesting gossip. I was pretty disappointed that several publishers didn't even have their adult fiction catalogs available. I was also their wearing my educator hat, and was seeking non-fiction I could use in my communications classes, but only Wiley had much in the way of academic titles featured. 

I was pretty shocked at how little romance was being promoted, since I know that it's the most popular genre and that libraries carry romance pretty heavily. I assume more of this is showcased to librarians at their larger annual meeting. Even in the YA exhibits, it definitely skewed toward the fantasy/science fiction/historical fantasy realm (fans of YA fantasy should be very, very happy this spring and summer) or Issue Books (eating disorders, cutting, incest). 

E-reading Aggravations

E-reading Aggravations

Sarah Moon
E-reading + Digital Stuff, Listorama

Last week I went into detail about why e-reading works for me. However, not every aspect of e-reading works for me. There are a number of inherent problems with digital reading that frustrate me to no end, and I don’t think I’m alone. 

A book mark would be better! (LOC)

Platform Lock-in/DRM

This is probably the most frustrating thing for a many readers. That committing to an e-reader means that you’re likely committing to a specific vendor for your book purchases. Now, there are ways around this (which usually violate your terms of service), and people who own some of the devices that use epub format can buy from alternate vendors. However, in large part, people are locked in. We have several Kindles in our house, for example. Because I would have to violate my terms of service to move my ebook library to another platform, I’m essentially locked into the Amazon environment. Nook users face the same problem—if they wanted to move to Kindle, they couldn’t take their libraries with them. Functionally, this doesn’t really impact me, because I rarely re-read, but the principle of it really aggravates me. I still haven’t seen data that makes the case that DRM actually prevents piracy, so all it’s doing now is keeping consumers from being able to choose from a multitude of ebook vendors. (Part of me also wonders if DRM prevents specialty ebook vendors from cropping up, but that’s simply speculation on my part, because I haven’t seen data on that issue.)

You Don’t Own Your Ebooks

Yep, you just own a license to view content (and on some platforms, the license restricts you even further to a specific device). I get the why behind this thinking: if consumer own their ebooks, that means they can resell them, but because electronic files are easily duplicated, someone could buy a book for $10 and resell the same file over and over again. But, again, there’s something about it that doesn’t sit with me. 

A Multitude of Formatting Problems

Now, this isn’t the exclusive domain of ebooks—I’ve had loads of print books with weird formatting issues. However, I have experienced some of the strangest formatting problems with ebooks, particularly non-fiction. My “favorite” was one that had the center third of the book centered and italicized. A tip: if you encounter any formatting weirdness, and you’re an Amazon customer, they will refund your money. (I have been told BN does not offer this same courtesy for Nook books.) I’ve also encounter overly large indents, odd page breaks and random hard returns between paragraphs. If this bothers you, and you like all of your books to be formatted consistently, there are some tools out there that will allow you to re-format your ebooks. Again, though, this is a violation of your terms of service.

Why I E-Read

Why I E-Read

Sarah Moon
E-reading + Digital Stuff, Opinion

I couldn’t care less how people read. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, Nook, iPad, whatever… I don’t care. Hell, you can read your books etched in stones if you want. (Though I question the practicality of that particular format, for both portability and storage reasons.)

As I’ve mentioned a time or a thousand, all I care about is encouraging people to read. The how or what is far less important to me.

However, a whole lot of people do care about the manner in which people consume books.

Jonathan Franzen and his cronies, for example, have stated that “serious readers” don’t read digitally. Other people have accused digital readers of heading to their Kindles or Nooks because they want to hide what they’re reading. Sometimes I can’t help but feel that I’m perceived as a less-serious reader or a traitor to “book culture” because I prefer a digital format, and honestly, that really bothers me. 

Whenever I come across another sweeping statement—which happens at least once a week—about people’s reading format preferences, I get my feathers ruffled. (The same feather-ruffling happens when 20-something digital natives accuse folks who prefer paper of being Luddites. Choice is a good thing—which is also why I think the possibility of print-on-demand is very intriguing.) 

In the effort of doing my little part of thwart the sweeping, inaccurate statements that pepper the web about the way people choose to consume books, I thought I’d delve a bit more into issues related to ereading and digital “stuff” (i.e., digital design, etc) in general, since I spend much of my time embedded in a digital environment and am an avid e-reader. I’ll start with talking about why I elect to primarily e-read. Contrary to the popular commentary, it has absolutely nothing to do with being embarrassed by what I read—instead, it involves a lot of factors, both sheer preference and the practical.

{Link-O-Rama} Sarah Ockler is Awesome Edition

Sarah Moon

Note: I’m taking part in an awesome blog-a-thon hosted by a local-to-me freelance writer, Michelle Rafter. The Wordcount Blogathon is its fifth year and loads of bloggers in all sorts of niches participate.

This is my first time taking part, though I’ve lurked on discussions for a couple of years. The goal is to post on your blog every day in the month of May. My personal goal with that is to experiment with different types of posts. Our weekly “List-O-Rama” feature has been tremendously popular, so I’m thinking about ways to do more of that sort of content. I’m also hoping to do more commentary and opinion-type writing here and do more sharing-type posts. So, expect more content from me, in addition to our regular schedule of reviews and commentary from Laura and Sandra. We’ll see what sticks after these 31 days. 

Y’all know that Sarah Ockler is 100% awesome, right?

This point is even more proven with the outstanding blog post about diversity (or more specifically, lack thereof) in young adult literature. 

But the discussion glosses over an obvious gap: white authors.

Demographically speaking, caucasians comprise the majority of young adult authors (according to Zetta Elliot’s 2011 interview with author Jacqueline Woodson, people of color make up less than 5 percent of children’s book authors published in the U.S. annually). So when you look at the sea of white stretching on forever along the shores of YA literature, know that white authors are by and large the ones putting it out there.