Last week, one of my favorite authors, Robert Crais, was in town promoting his newest novel,
The First Rule. It's always a treat to see Crais again. At his signing, he read the less incendiary emails from readers who chastised him, and his Louisiana public school education, for using "bring" instead of "take." Crais discussed the emotional development of his main character, bad-ass Joe Pike, and how the influx of foreign gangs into L.A. shaped the creation of this story.
If you missed Robert Crais, fear not. This week, you have the chance of meeting another author of thoroughly bad-ass hombres and mujeres--Lori Armstrong, who will be appearing at the
Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch, Tuesday, February 2, at 7:30PM. She'll be signing copies of her new book,
No Mercy. Her accolades include a Shamus, a Daphne du Maurier Award, and a WILLA Cather Literary Award.
I got a nice write-up from Ed Hickok who now writes about local authors for the
Denver Examiner. It's another chance to see pics from my comic books. Hickok gets paid by the visit so use Chicago voting rules: drop by early and often.
The big tech news this week was of course the Apple iPad. I thought it was a large, fancy iPhone. In his press release, Steve Jobs dissed the netbook yet for me, the netbook uses the computer software I need, mainly for the Internet and writing.
The iPad does have the Apple word
processing software but as MS Word is the industry standard, I'll pass on the iPad until later. Not that I have the moola to buy one soon. But my older son, Mr. Tech Head, is as crazy about the iPad as he is about his iPhone.
We in the publishing business wondered what new tremors the iPad would bring to the whole epublishing earthquake. While the iPad did introduce color and a more reader-friendly page access method and a landscape format for periodicals, the big shake was that Apple will use an agency model to sell books. Meaning: the publisher (the agency) rather than the distributor--and we're taking about Amazon--will set the price of their ebooks. Which means ebooks will be more expensive (less discounts) but more money will flow to the publisher and the writer. Down the line, expect content providers to start charging access to their material on the Internet. However, we at Biting-Edge have made the commitment that we would never ever charge you for visiting. However, we will accept payola and bribes.
What say you of a pay-as-you-go Internet?