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If you haven’t heard about A’s latest dastardly deeds, here are two of the most recent: A (no need to keep repeating the name, the initial will do) was not ordering the number of books from various independent bookstores and publishers that they had placed large orders with previously. To have this happen just before the holiday season was a disaster. This is not in the update, but I recently heard from an independent bookstore owner that orders were now larger than they had ever been. I didn’t say anything, but I have a feeling the returns are going to be larger than they’ve ever been, too. Here’s the link to the response from the Independent Book Publishers Association: https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/news.asp?id=478273 As many of you know, writers’ rights to their work are bundled, like pickup sticks held together with a rubber band. For instance, you can sell the rights to the e-book, the rights to the audio book, the rights to the hardcover, and the rights to the soft cover. All these rights are sold separately, one pickup stick at a time. In the case I’m going to describe, writers sold the rights to the audio book version of a particular book. However, now A has decided to create an Audible Captions Program. What’s that? Instead of just listening to the text, the listener can also read the text on the screen. The sentences are broken up into a few words at a time. Then they disappear. A trumpets this as a way to help remedial reading students gain fluency in reading. Besides the disappearing text, the other problem is an “acceptable” error rate of 6%. On a page of three hundred words, there will be 18 “acceptable” typographical errors or otherwise mangled words. A intended to do this with all the books it had control over, not just those in the public domain (the writer is dead and the estate no longer owns the copyright). In other words, A was going to make a version of the book for which the writer had not been paid and had not given permission for the work to be produced (destroyed) in this way. Since September, A has been in court fighting a lawsuit waged by the writers and publishers whose work it had intended to steal. For now, A has agreed to roll out this program only for books in the public domain and the books it publishes. Look at the hypertext to see what happened to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Here is the link to the article from the Independent Book Publishers Association: https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/news.asp?id=467194 I am so pleased that so many of us at AALBC.COM are working together to break free from A’s chains. Troy, thank you for making this possible. I wish you continued success with your online bookstore.

News roundup for bloggers - Genius Media Group, Inc, the company behind the annotated lyrics website, is suing Google and Lyric Find for $50 million. The complaint mentions copying lyrics from the site and using it on the results page. Here's a link to the Brooklyn based media company's complaint filed December 03, 2019, in Brooklyn Supreme Court of New York State County of Kings https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=3E0o8kQz4X3cWcbbid67wQ== Several news sites report Internet Society (ISOC)'s Public Interest Registry, a nonprofit, sold the top-level domain dot-org registry. The winning bidder is a private equity firm Ethos Capital. Allegedly, the dot-org registry is Ethos Capital only asset, but their website ethoscapital.com indicates otherwise. In July this year, ICANN, the nonprofit responsible keeping all things equal and equitable in the domain registrar world, also voted to lift the cap on registration fees. According to news reports, there will be no registration fee hikes. Still, your dot-org registration fees could go up and become cost-prohibitive. Sadly, nonprofits mostly use the dot org extension for their organizations' websites. And other online nonprofit news media websites containing a treasure trove of information also use the dot-org extension. Should those websites not be able to pay the domain registration fee - that information might disappear. If you're a dot org registrant, you might want to secure registration for the ten years to keep your domain name. At least it will buy you some time while these things shake out.

I just got my copy of Publishers Weekly in the mail.

Google is notorious for copying content. What makes this so bad is that they bury sites in search results for doing the same thing! This acutally is a good idea anyway if the business or entity is not going away soon. It is less expensive and is a ranking signal the Google uses (domains with expirations far in the future get an SEO benefit.

@Wendy Jones me too! I'm so proud of us and @Troy for this "writer's write to be read and profit too" movement!!! :D

Hi Rolanda, I am a member of Word Lovers Book & Literature Club, and we review books. Please post link to your book's info.

I know I've mentioned this several times. But white imperial society rewards coonery and acquiescence. This woman is being rewarded by white liberals for her promotion of homophilia among black people. I'd also like to point out that Botham Jean's brother, the coon who hugged the white killer cop in court, was rewarded by white conservatives this week when he received an "Ethical Courage Reward" from a Texas police union. Crazy living in this world.

Ahh, ok thanks for that 😀

Hey! I haven't even seen this thanks for sharing it @Mel Hopkins

Thanks @Wendy Jones I was talking to a publisher and they told me "A" would order books send them back before the payment terms (that A defined) expired only to reorder the same books just to avoid paying for the books by extending the terms. The publisher loses money on each book they sell through A. They were forced to increase the price of the book. In the meantime, given the lack of competition the publisher is selling far fewer copies. Everyone, including the publisher, author, reader, and bookseller are worse off. The only one benefiting in this scenario is "A." The real problem is that readers don't appreciate how they are less well off. In an world with "A;" books are more expensive than they would be otherwise (save the most most popular titles), and readers are exposed to fewer titles because of a lack of competition.