Monthly Archives: August 2014

North Carolina Saturday

  By Robert Watson | 23 August, 2014 - 16:48 |
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An Orthogonal Universe Blog and Friends has taken a couple weeks off while I’ve been on vacation. (Protip: it may not be a good idea to post your vacation plans while you’re gone)

Elizabeth and I have returned to the NC Outer Banks every July for our anniversary. This year, our plans were thwarted by Hurricane Arthur, so this year we went a month later.

I take a lot of pictures–enough that I decided I should invest in a decent camera–a Nikon D3200. I’m still learning how to use it. Nevertheless, here’s a snapshot of the NC Outer Banks.

Marsh on the outer banks

This marsh is near the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.

The water is surprisingly shallow in may places. If you walk out far enough, you'll have fish swimming around your feet.

The water is surprisingly shallow in may places. If you walk out far enough, you’ll have fish swimming around your feet.

Birds hunting for fish

Birds hunting for fish. I didn’t realize how many pictures of birds I had taken, until I started flipping through all of them (the pictures, not the birds. Flipping the bird is rude). They seemed to be everywhere this time; it was hard to not take pictures of them.

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Fun fact. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was built in 1870, but that's not where it started out. The entire lighthouse was moved further inland, to keep beach erosion from toppling it into the water.

Fun fact. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was built in 1870, but where it is now is not where it started out. The entire lighthouse was moved further inland, to keep beach erosion from toppling it into the water.

Our pilot told us that this island "points" to San Juan. Or maybe it was Barbados.

We went on a Cessna tour of the islands. Our pilot told us that this island “points” to San Juan. In this picture, we’re flying north. If you took off from San Juan and flew due north, this is what you’d see right after kicking yourself for missing the airport in Frisco.

Sunrise in Buxton, NC

Sunrise in Buxton

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For some reason, I keep wanting to imagine a little man riding on that bird.

Here is a shipwreck. There are many others like it. If you fly over the right places, the water is dotted with several spots that, upon closer inspection, are ship masts.

Here is a shipwreck. There are many others like it. If you fly over the right places, the water is dotted with several spots that, upon closer inspection, are ship masts.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse from the sky

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse from the sky. The path on the lower right of the image was the one they carved to move the lighthouse.

Not About e-Book Prices

  By Robert Watson | 22 August, 2014 - 02:25 |
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I received an email from Amazon not too long ago, asking me to write a letter to Hatchette, urging them to lower their e-book prices. Normally I’d populate the next line with links, but I’ve had a hard (but not impossible) time finding neutral viewpoints–so here’s the Colbert Report’s.

The email I received from Amazon was on the order of 2,000 words (!). Here’s the most relevant snippet.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

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– Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
– Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
– Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

I should have an opinion on this. At least, that seems like a reasonable expectation. But, I don’t. Perhaps I don’t feel like I really have a stake in this. After all, whatever happens, I’ll keep doing what I do.

The changing face of publishing has been a recurring topic on this blog, but it seems like we’re watching two giants fight over the last piece of apple pie, rather than someone figuring out how to cook something new.*

The more interesting question, to me, is who’s going to enter the arena while these two giants are focused on each other. The Kindle has been around for several years now… more or less “forever” in “tech years”. Will someone new sneak in?

* I’m hungry. That’s the best analogy you’re getting.