not falling down

A little obsessed with the Narnia movie.

Diane Duane, once one of my favorite YA authors, wants to write a third book in a series that has many fans, but didn’t sell well enough to merit her publisher’s interest. She’s putting out feelers to determine whether that small but fervent audience would pay $20-$25 for a paperback copy; if so, she’ll finish writing it and self-publish. I’ve already seen her plugged by Neil Gaiman, Copyfight and who knows where else. Alan Wexelblat (in the latter) lauded her for “experiments in new business models.”

Except it’s not a new business model at all. Webcomics and indie RPGs, to name just the two that I know of, have built industries out of nothing via self-publishing and print-on-demand. It’s not about vanity anymore–it’s the members of Blank Label putting out their own collections, cheap, with unheard-of profit margins; it’s Dogs in the Vineyard still selling two copies a day after a year and a half, which is more than most big-press authors can say after their first three months. The only thing new about Duane’s idea is that she’s got offline name recognition going into the thing. And, well, it’s new to her.

I wonder if some kind soul is going to inform her of the existence of Lulu?

Man, all I post lately is little link blurbs, but I have to plug this: Holly’s amazing crossword-based constrained-writing project and PhD thesis is finally going online! Two stories in and I am already jealous of her ideas, in both format and content.

I was disappointed to notice My Morning Jacket, Louisville band turned critical darling and national success, on the list of Sony CDs carrying MediaMax DRM software, which has recently shown to cause vulnerabilities as badly as the infamous XCP rootkit. I knew the band probably had little input in whether their CD would be DRMed, but it was still bad news. Then the EFF blog brought to my attention that MMJ is offering their own recall–a more ethical, more friendly and more business-sensible path to their audience than the one their own label has taken. I am positively flush with Louisville pride.