Writers of historical fiction can have a rough time with authenticity. You can scour through pages of historical research and original sources, and even then you can be left asking yourself: Am I really getting into the lives of these people?

The New York Times recently clued us in to an effort to preserve one remarkable source of information about the real lives of historical people: the records stored in old churches. According to the evocatively named Dr. James Fenimore Cooper, who is a professor of history at Oklahoma State, “There is no other discrete set of sources that will similarly transport us into colonial America.”

And what sorts of details do you find in those sources? Continue reading →

In yet another absurd chapter of an absurd story that has inspired a firestorm of poorly thought-out spin, Amazon has had to do basic profit analysis to explain to the bumbling Hachette why higher prices do not necessarily mean more profit, more pay for authors, or more books for readers.

According to Amazon’s analysis, the basic problem with the thinking of Hachette (and the other traditional publishers with whom they conspired in 2010 to illegally raise ebook prices) is that it doesn’t figure in the effect of price on demand.

You know, week one of Economics 101.

[F]or example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000.

That’s not only more money for Amazon and Hachette, that’s more money for authors and more books for readers. Now, the real question is whether Amazon can turn that analytic expertise into a bottom line with less red in it.

Two interesting stories about the literary deluge. First, Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited ebook service is being criticized not only as quite limited at only 600 thousand books, but also as essentially full of junk you’d never want to read.

And, sure to add to the surge, a new program called Liberio will let aspiring authors dump their Google Drive into an epub file.

Open the flood-gates!

The Times starts off with a barely concealed prejudice, typical of the New York literati: “Writers are peeved at Amazon.” Are they? Which writers, exactly?

But, the article that follows can hardly be ignored. Amazon’s stock is dropping, after months of climbing, on fears that sheer ambition might be the only driving force at the internet giant.

There’s something to be said for a long-term investment strategy, but at some point shouldn’t the multibillion dollar company show a profit? Even a slim one?

At the same time, Apple is engaged in what looks more like mid-term investing, acquiring the BookLamp start-up and its Pandora-like “Book Genome” classification and suggestion system.

It looks like the ebook wars are really starting to get interesting.