Archive for the 'Steve Weddle'

By Steve Weddle

So Chris F. Holm listed his “5 Favorite Musical Artists of Author Chris F. Holm” and, inasmuch as the list follows the title, I assume he is correct. I have no reason to doubt that these are Mr. Holm’s favorites. Perhaps he had originally thought REO Speedwagon or Air Supply could creep in around the top of the list, but wanted to maintain his street cred. I have no way of knowing this for certain, though. This was a list for a writer, Chris F. Holm. (PS Buy this book.)

Music for writers is different. Perhaps music for swimmers is different still. Music for neurosurgeons. If either one of my current psychiatrists were to tell me that his favorite musical artist happened to be, say, Nine Inch Nails, that would cause me some concern.

I wrote many stories this past year or two after getting some Drive-By Truckers stuck in my head. Frankie Bill sent along a CD with “Decoration Day” on it, and I misheard the line “The state let him go, but I guess it was best cause nobody needs all us Lawsons alive.” To my hear, the line ended “nobody needs all this loss in his life.” That sent me off writing a story about a man who tries to fake bravery to help his son.

I imagine that happens to most writers. You hear a line, rightly or wrongly, and it pushes into you, earworm.

While we’re hanging out in the “D” section of the library, I should mention The Decemberists, Dawes, Damien Rice, Dog’s Eye View, Dead Milkmen, and probably many others.

From “That Western Skyline” by Dawes, via John Hornor Jacobs:

So I followed her here to Birmingham, where the soil is so much richer
And though my aching pride might guide my hand, she did not ask for me to come.
So I wait for her all through the day, as if I wait for her surrender.
And every time I get her to look my way, she says I'm not where I belong.
But I watch her father preach on Sundays.
I know the hymnals all by heart.
But oh Lou, no my dreams did not come true.
No, they only came apart.

The best songs, the best songs for writers, are those that not only tell a story, but make you want to tell a story. Tom Waits. Bob Dylan. Afghan Whigs. The Avett Brothers. Dinosaur Jr. Pixies. Elvis Costello. Neko Case. Hub. Steve Earle. Emmylou Harris.

Maybe when I’m doing the actual writing, I’d rather have Gould’s Goldberg in my ear. (Not the more recent version, of course. Blech.)

But when I’m letting my brain mush slosh around a bit, ready to sponge up bits here and there, I’d rather listen to some Iron & Wine, Gillian Welch, or Justin Townes Earle.

The best songs, for writers, end up being writing prompts, with a little banjo on the side.

By Steve Weddle

Sheesh. Where to start, right?

First, our own Jay Stringer has his OLD GOLD out. It’s a great book. I’ve read it. I dug it. You should read it. In fact, I’ll grab a commenter and get you a copy.

Also, Sean Chercover's THE TRINITY GAME is just out. Look here and you'll have to get your own copy.

There’s this thing about Carroll Bryant.

And I guess I should mention some of this Harrogate-gate stuff. (In America, we end all scandals in “-gate” ever since President James Buchanan was caught one Thursday night, nuts-deep in a bowl of Watergate Salad.) Anyhoo, you can catch up here and here.

A couple of issues raised from the same author. One is alleged racism.

The other is that an author creates a bunch of accounts using faked names and gives himself many positive reviews. We’ve walked around this issue before and, certainly, will do so again.

This week, I’m thinking about books and video games.

Someone said something sometime along the lines of this: “If video games had been invented before books, we’d be telling our kids to quit staring slackjawed at sheets of paper and get interactive by joining their friends playing video games.”

It’s a matter of the more established thing being established because it had been established, I suppose.

So, along the lines of “what if this thing had come before that thing,” today let’s play THE LIBRARY GAME.

Imagine for a second that public lending libraries never existed. If you wanted to read a book, you had to buy it, or perhaps borrow the one book from your friend, who had to buy it.

Heck, maybe used bookstores don’t exist, either.

Imagine a world in which, in order to read a book, you had to purchase a copy of that book. In hardback.

Imagine how happy publishers would be. I picture them all having lunch in Manhattan, frolicking about in their bowls of Watergate Salad. (Do Yankees eat Watergate Salad?)

Consider that the norm for, let’s say, a thousand years.

Now, go out and try to start a public lending library.

Hey, we're going to let you have this book for a few weeks. You don't have to purchase it. Just bring it back when you're done, so we can let someone else read it for free.

Bwahaha. Fat chance, right?

Seems to me that, if libraries didn’t already exist, you’d never be able to start them.

The ebook lending fight is just a small part of it, you know.

Take this, from a PW article last year:

When it comes to e-books, the numbers are especially notable, because only half of the big six currently allow libraries to lend e-books (Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan currently do not enable e-book lending). In 2010, Macmillan CEO John Sargent called library e-books “a thorny problem” for publishers. “It’s like Netflix, but you don’t pay for it,” Sargent famously said. “How is that a good model for us?”

So, the library buys a couple of copies of SALAD RECIPES and lends them out to a couple of people every 14 days. You want to read SALAD RECIPIES, so you add your name to the waiting list. Which is fine, as you’ve been reading THE HARRIET LANE STORY for the past week and are due to get BACHELOR CONFIRMED when a patron returns it within the next few days. You’re set. You read many, many books from the library. Your tax dollars at work!

Publishers, and some authors, get mad when you use the library. Or when you buy a used book. I’m reminded of something Neil Smith said on Twitter one day, many months ago. He said that he didn’t care whether you got his books used or at the library or found them in a dentist’s office. He was just hoping folks read and liked them.

And, yet, there’s a huge disagreement in The Community about whether --
Writers who sell their Kindle books for 99 cents are devaluing writing
Free book pushes online are a bad thing
Libraries are draining sales 
Ebooks being lent is ruinous 
And on and on.

I grew up visiting my town’s library, my school’s library. I’d find books I liked by authors I liked, and I’d end up buying other books by those authors. I think many people do that. The library might have two of seven books from an author. If you like those two, maybe you'll buy the other five.

I don’t get to the library as often now as I did when I was a kid, but I still scan the catalog often. If I’m interested in a disposable book – some thriller I’m not likely to savor – I might check the library. If they don’t have it, I’ll check the bookstore – either physical or digital. Maybe I’ll grab the book there. For me, libraries are still important, still vital to finding new authors.

I’m much more likely to take a chance on an author if I see a good-looking book on the Just Arrived shelf than if I see that same book for $25.95 at my local indie or $12.95 online.

I am not a full-time author. I am not the president of a book publishing company. I don't see libraries as taking money out of my pocket, and I don’t have their much more nuanced understanding of what this means for profits.

I’ve worked in the newspaper industry for (counts fingers, removes socks) years. We’ve always sent subscriptions to local libraries so that patrons can read the paper without having to purchase copies.
I’ve never considered that money out of my pocket.

But publishers and authors are looking for the right “model,” and that’s not exactly the same thing that the libraries are looking for.

Libraries are successful when 1,000 readers line up to read the two copies of GONE GIRL. For publishers, this could be seen as a problem.

You can search the Internet yourself if you want, but various sites suggest that libraries account for about 10 percent of book sales for authors. Do indie bookstores account for more?

Are used bookstores "lost sales" for authors? Are yard sales?

For some authors and publishers, libraries are "lost sales" in the same way piracy is -- or used books.

When someone tells you -- "Oh. Here's my copy of GUN MONKEYS. You have to read it. Here. You'll love it" -- does Victor Gischler die a little inside?

Some authors, including Neil Smith, love for you to get a used copy.

Some authors, including Paulo Coehlo, love for you to get pirated copies of their ebooks.

Cory Doctorow loves for you to get his ebooks, many of which are free.

Other authors want to hand you a free copy of their first book in a series in hopes that you’ll spend $9.99 up the new second book.

And in with all of this is the fight over ebooks in libraries and, oddly enough, paper books in libraries.

Seems odd to ask if there’s a storm that’s been brewing, that’s getting more stormy -- with libraries on one side and publishers and authors on the other, but, well, there it is.

How did libraries become the bad guy?

By Steve Weddle

If you know anything about short stories and crime fiction, then you already know Sandra Seamans. Her blog, My Little Corner, is a must-read -- as are her stories.

COLD RIFTS, her collection from Snubnose, is on many digital TBR piles right. Here stories can be found all over the web. Here. And here. And here.

I've worked with Sandra on a couple of projects -- the very first Needle mag and the DISCOUNT NOIR collection Patti Abbott and I edited.

Sandra was nice enough to answer some of my questions about writing style and short stories and much more.

Steve: Your “My Little Corner” blog claims to be a place for your “scattered thoughts.” In fact, your site provides a great deal of real news about what’s going on in the fiction community. From new publishers to contest and anthology calls, your site is one of the most useful sites for short story writers. How did you get to this point?

Sandra: Pretty much by accident. I started the blog without any idea of what to do with one and no expectation that anyone would actually read it. Once I figured out how to post links I started linking to online zines to make it easier for me to find markets when I had a story to sell and also to find stories to read. When I decided to clean out my email files, I discovered a whole slew of zine links and market listings which I added to the blog. It seemed a shame to stop there, so I just kept adding new links as I found them.

I always appreciated when other writers shared markets with me, so the blog was a way for me to pass that kindness forward. It's also been a joy for me to watch other writers get published in those new markets. It's such a big world out there on the 'net that having links in one place makes it easier for writers to find the type of market they're looking for.
Along the way I realized that by focusing only on mystery markets, crime writers were missing out on other outlets for their work. That mystery/crime stories fit in all genres, especially in many of the horror markets. So I began adding anthology calls, contest, and writing advice links for all the genres. It's been a lot of fun for me and hopefully useful to other writers.

Steve: Benjamin Whitmer, another of my favorite writers, has called your COLD RIFTS “a fierce, sorrowful” book of stories. How did you choose these stories for this collection?

Sandra: With a great deal of hair pulling. I knew they all needed to be dark stories because that's what Snubnose Press publishes. Since most of my work has been published online I felt the need to make the bulk of the collection new stories. I had six new stories and a half-written novella (which turned into a novelette) in my files that fit the bill. Besides finishing the novelette, I also wrote two more new stories and lengthened a pair of published flash stories. The rest was just a matter of deciding which published pieces would compliment the new work.

Putting them into some kind of order was the tricky part. I spent hours writing down lists of stories, their themes, lengths, male or female protags. I finally wound up loosely putting them together in groups of four - two dark stories, one paranormal and one humorous. What I hoped for in this arrangement was to break up the intensity of the darkest crime stories so that readers didn't feel like they were being pummeled to death with disaster. One other thing I did was mix in a good dose of male protags so the male readers won't be overwhelmed with a feminine point of view. I didn't want the collection to appeal strictly to women, I wanted something for everyone to enjoy

Steve: At a recent Mystery Writers of America meeting, Snubnose Publisher Brian Lindenmuth talked about your book in addition to some of the others that indie press is publishing. How helpful has it been to be in a community of like-minded readers and writers?

Sandra: It's like having your own private cheerleaders. They're always there with an encouraging word and a helping hand when you need it.

Steve: You’ve had stories published nearly everywhere, at places that continue and places that have moved on – Shred of Evidence, Pulp Pusher, Scalped ezine. How has the market for short story writers changed over the past few years?

Sandra: The biggest change has come in the last year or so with e-publishing. More and more small presses are putting together anthologies and writers are getting a percentage of the profits. The amounts aren't huge but it beats constantly giving it away for free or having it sit in a drawer collecting dust.

I also love that print magazines are making a comeback. We've got Needle, Pulp Modern, and Grift which are publishing some great stories. And it's not just the mystery genre, there's new horror and sci-fi/fantasy print zines showing up.

The online zines are always in flux and I suspect always will be. What I have noticed is that some of them are starting to put together "best of" anthologies and e-pubbing them which puts the stories in front of a larger audience. Others, like The Big Click, Noir Nation, Spinetingler and ThugLit, are putting out new issues in this manner, which helps pay their bills and put a little jingle in the writer's pockets.

Steve: GRIMM TALES, an Untreed Reads publication, is a collection of stories in which top authors retell a Grimm tale in modern terms. How did your story come about?

Sandra: The minute John Kenyon put up the challenge to rewrite a fairytale into a crime story, I was in. Yeah, I’m a fairytale freak. I also knew I wanted to do something different. There are only so many variations of the usual suspects that you can write. I found a website that had many of the Grimm's published. Reading down through the list of titles "The Blue Light" caught my eye. It was the story of a Soldier who'd fought for the King and when he was wounded and not as useful, the King sent him away. Through a meeting with a witch he finds a way to get his revenge on the King - perfect setup for a crime story. I used the basics of the fairytale but turned the soldier into a cleanup man for a mob boss, gave him some rules he lived by and off we went. It was a fun story to write.

Steve: You’ve been writing stories for years, of course. Have your habits of writing changed? Are you quicker? More deliberate? Has it gotten easier?

Sandra: In some ways it’s easier. The blank page doesn’t scare me as much as it used to. I’ve also discovered that every idea that pops into my brain won't always make a good story, but the time spent writing and going nowhere isn’t wasted. Bits and pieces of those “useless” stories generally find there way into other stories that do work.

I’ve also learned to take my time, to think more about the character’s motives instead of just charging ahead into the action. The hardest part for me is setting the story aside for a week or two then going back. Setting the story aside allows my brain the freedom to mull over what I’ve written and consider other options or new scenes that would open the story up more or help explain better what’s going on. When I finally reopen the file, I usually have several pages full of notes and new scenes sketched out.

Each new story, at least for me, is a learning process. I’m learning to take my time instead of just banging away, then having to cut out half of what I’ve written. The hardest part is learning to trust my instincts. Inside, you know what is or isn’t working. You just have to trust that inner voice. Trust that it knows you're doing what’s right for the story when you hit the delete key.

Steve: In the Age Of The Laptop, the “room of one’s own” idea seems to be fading away. People write in coffee shops, of all places.. Do you have a favorite place to write or are you one of those people who scrawls down a complete story anywhere?

Sandra: I have a small office in the house where I work on my computer. I don’t have a laptop that moves from room to room but you’ll find notepads (junk mail envelopes make great note paper, too) and pens in just about every room where I’ve scrawled down ideas for new stories, bits of dialogue for the current wip, or random scenes that I think will take an old story into a new direction.

Living in the country, there’s no nearby coffee shops, so it’s just me at home with my Mr. Coffee to keep me company.

Steve: What short story writers should people be reading now?

Sandra: There's so many of them, it's difficult to choose, and everyone's taste in stories is so different. Some of the writers I've enjoyed lately are Charles Dodd White, Seamus Scanlon, and Misty Skaggs. These writers tend toward the more literary side of my short story reading. For the crime/mystery group I'd say Art Taylor, Thomas Pluck, Jane Hammons, Libby Cudmore and Jen Conley. And of course, there are a hundred others out there that everyone should be reading, just click on any online zine and you’ll find them.

Steve: What are you working on now?

Sandra: I'm always working on the next story. Recently, I was invited to submit a story to a charity anthology with an end of the world theme. I was stumped until I came across an old micro-flash that I’d written and believe, that with a bit of research, it will work into a good short story. One of the joys of flash fiction is that there’s always more story to tell.

I also have several “finished” stories simmering in their file folders that need to be opened. They just need a few more scenes added and a bit of polishing before they get kicked out the door. And then there's the Western that I’m working on. I know pretty much how it’s going to unfold, it’s just a matter of getting it from my head to the page.

Check out My Little Corner to keep up-to-date on all the crime fiction happenings.

By Steve Weddle

Kids, gather ‘round. I’m going to tell you how it was when your grandma and I were your age.

See, we didn’t have all of this Twitter and Facebook. We grew up in East Bumfart. We had a weekly paper called The East Bumfart Beacon-Eagle. On Sundays, I’d drive up to Fartopolis and pick up the Sunday paper. They had a couple reviews of books. You know, a cookbook, maybe. Or something they got from one of those New York papers from a week before. Anyway, that was how we found out about books. And we talked to Gladys down at the county library. You probably don’t remember her. She was Berta Mae’s great-aunt. Anyway, she’d tell us about a book we should read and then she’d order for us from that Inter-Library Loan thing they got going down there. Then she’d give us a call on the telephone the next month and tell us the book was there.

Anyhoo, we didn’t always find out about books and such. Now that brings me to what I wanted to talk about: you and these author friends of yours.

See, now you have this terrible, awful weapon called GOOGLE ALERTS. And I know damn well what you use it for. See, you and your author friends put your names in there.

Holy shit, I’m tired of this grandpa voice. Hang on.

Barumph. Barumph.

OK. That’s better.

So last week I blathered about the Terry Goodkind loyalty thing and at the end there I mentioned the Terry Goodkind piracy thing.

He had been blogging about releasing his book as an ebook and had engaged his audience about pirates. He’d said, as best I can tell, that he knows piracy exists and what should be done about it and why do pirates pirate and all. One of the big reasons was convenience. So he set about making the book available in all platforms. Seems that, in this Age of the Internet and all, engaging with readers is easier and, you know, kind of expected. So, that's what Mr. Goodkind did and good on him.

Then a dude pirated the book.

So, as the story goes, Goodkind contacts the dude and doesn’t like the response, so Goodkind then publishes the guy’s personal information.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and Mr. Goodkind tweeted back at me to say that he had most certainly not released personal information.

I will never understand how a book like this gets published. I have written five novels vastly better than this, and I can't find an agent. Yet here is this book, about a crime family of dragon breeders taking over San Francisco in the 1850s, and this book is now part of a trilogy? The writing is childish, the characters shallow, and the cover seems to have been scraped together by a diuretic rhinoceros. 

By Steve Weddle

So it's a Terry Goodkind week, huh? Um, OK.

First, there was this article by Alan Beatts. Off the news that Goodkind is self-publishing a book, Beatts uses the Borderland Books post to question Goodkind's loyalty.

To my eye the picture overall looks like Goodkind left Tor for more money (probably) and a bigger audience (by writing a main-stream thriller).  He failed to get anything like the sales that his new publisher was looking for and either they kicked him to the curb or he broke the contract.  The[n] he went back to his old publisher, who took him on.  But then, not happy with them for some reason, he has now decided to self-publish.
Bear in mind that Tor, the publisher he's treated this way, is the company that gave him his start.  Granted, publishing is complicated, being an author is hard, and that combination makes for some difficult decisions.  But still, perhaps Mr. Goodkind is not the most loyal fellow on the planet.

(By the way, if you'd like to read a post that Beatts wrote about Borderland Books, you can find it at Tor's website.)

The picture to my eye differs somewhat from the picture in the eye of Mr. Beatts. Looks as if Goodkind is doing what is best for Goodkind and Tor and Penguin are doing what is best for them, respectively.

Claiming that an author was given "his start" by a publisher is an idea that might not sit well with authors.

The post seems to suggest that Goodkind owes something to his publisher. He doesn't owe them blind loyalty. He doesn't owe them a lifetime of work. He doesn't owe them Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for everything he ever writes ever. He doesn't owe them anything except what is agreed upon by both parties. Who signed a contract. For both sides. Perhaps Goodkind granted Tor ROFR for the next fifty years. Perhaps he granted them Lifetime Loyalty. If he did and he broke the contract for Lifetime Loyalty, he should be flogged. Or sued. Or whatever it is they do.

But if he signed a contract for three books and delivered three books years ago, then, um, isn't that fine? I don't know. I'm just a simple caveman lawyer, but it seems that if he said he's going to do a thing and then he does the thing, then you're done. Unless you want to agree to do another thing. Which he did. With someone else. Which seems fine, right? I don't know. I'm sure it's hella complicated. A new contract is a new contract, right?

To my eye, though, if you and a publisher sign a contract, then once the contracty agreements are completed, then isn't that the end of the contract? He still owes the publisher because the publisher "gave him his start"? Yeah. My ass.

Couldn't the publisher drop him? Or worse?

Look, let me explain something to you. You sign a two-book deal with a publisher. They promote you and pay you and all sorts of lovely things. Then, for reasons not caused by you or your publisher, the book tanks. Instead of selling out the print run of 50,000, you sell 25,000 copies of the book.

What is the publisher supposed to do? Your second book is already under contract. They agreed to publish it. And maybe they don't drop you right there. But maybe they just don't overly promote your second book. Which, of course, sells nine copies. Should they have been obligated to spend full-page NYT money on your second book when your first book tanked? Are they bound by loyalty? Or is it just the author who is bound to the publisher?

Publishing is a business. Writing is a business. If Goodkind wants to self-publish a book instead of working with a publisher, isn't that fine? Does he owe a publisher anything? Of course he does. He owes the publisher whatever it is he and the publisher agreed that he owes the publisher. And the publisher owes him whatever it was that he and the publisher agreed upon. That's why they sign contracts. That's what contracts are. If you're not sure, you can google it. It's on the internet.

From what Mr. Beatts says, Goodkind was in the middle of a three-book deal when he decided to go ebook/self-pub with this book. OMG, guys. Tor is totally going to sue him for this. Oh, wait. They're not? Everything is cool? Hmm. Someone should tell the internet bloggers.

It seems that Goodkind has books under contract with Tor, but not this book he is self-publishing. Or it was, but now it isn't. OK. So what's the problem?

Beatts suggests:

There is no reason that a publishing contract can't include a prohibition against the author self-publishing anything without the publisher's permission.

GAK! OK. I'm done throwing up. Wait, not yet. Hang on. 


If I weren't a good Christian boy, I might say "JESUS GOD!" As it is, I'll just offer a HOLY HELL!

Are you kidding me? Of course there's a reason a publishing contract can't include that. It's smells predatory and unfair and unethical. But if both sides agree to a contract, isn't it fair by nature?  No. Look up predatory lending and predatory contracts. (Always a good idea to have fantastic agent.) 


If you've delivered two DragonBanger books of your three-book DragonBanger contract with HF Publishing and you have a YA story about a race car driver, why the hell would you need HF Publishing to allow you to upload it to Kindle? That doesn't have anything do with loyalty. It's in the contract.

If HF Publishing has Right of First Refusal in the contract, fine. That can cover books of the same genre, though sometimes it merely covers similar "novel-length" works. Saying contracts could "include a prohibition against the author self-publishing anything without the publisher's permission" is unworkable. Anything? Anything? Publishers can prohibit you from self-publishing a collection of letters to your puppy? If you write a series of urban vampyre romances for Trends Today Publishing, then you shouldn't be able to publish a book called "100 Ways to Baste Your Turkey"? Beatts isn't suggesting what publishers OUGHT to do, he explains in the comments. He's just saying there's no reason a contract couldn't include that. I disagree with that. I think common sense disagrees, too.


You enter a contract with a publisher. You're equals in that regard. You provide the writing, and they provide all the publishing


What's the next idea?  "There is no reason that a publishing contract can't include a prohibition against the author's promotion of non-HFPublishing books without publisher's permission." So, Author, you want to promote books that we didn't publish? Where's your loyalty?

Publishers provide great, often immeasurable benefit to writers, and writers provide great benefits to publishers. Publishers and writers, when successful, tend to work their respective asses off. They are in this together, but they are under contract, not best buddies who get married. (Though they are not prohibited from marrying each other, depending on the contract.)

They think a best-selling novelist of symbologist thrillers can make them money. And if the author is late with a book, well, then people get fired. This is a business. Then maybe the publisher doesn't devote as much time, effort, or money to the next one. Not because the publisher isn't loyal to the author, but because it doesn't make business sense. And maybe the author signs a deal elsewhere, because the Anaheim Angels need a home run hitter. Or whatever.



To my eye, saying that the author "owes loyalty" to a publisher because the publisher "gave him his start" misses a key component of the publishing business -- you know, the business part.


Publishers, those that last, don't succeed because they believe an author is an A-OK kind of guy. They don't look at an author whose last three books have shat the bed and say, "Oh, I gotta pony up some more dough for that cat." They continue publishing because they were correct in believing that the author's contracted writing is a good investment. If that works out, then the two parties continue to work together. When publishers and writers make good decisions based on finances, they can afford to stay in business.


As an author, you have to make the decisions that work best for you. I can guarantee you that the smart publishers are making the decisions that work best for them. When those overlap, it's a beautiful world.


I've signed many contracts in my 42 years. I don't go back to Clyde's Auto Emporium because that's where I signed my first contract. I go back because that worked out pretty great. And Clyde (though it's Clyde's half-sister now, after the propane accident) doesn't offer me a contract because of my charm and good looks (though I wouldn't blame anyone if they did). We continue to enter into contracts because the contracts work for us. That's what contracts are.

Can you imagine if the publishing world tried to work based on loyalty?

Here's another Tommy Terribone thriller. You all hated the last three, but we're sticking with him.

Ah, sorry. Forgot the rules. That would never happen. The publisher is investing in the author. Only authors have to show loyalty, right? Beatts concludes:

Our society has generally been in agreement for centuries that when someone is willing to risk their money on something that may or may not be successful, they're entitled to all the profit that comes from that risk and that they're allowed to protect that profit within the law.  Should publishers be held to any other standard?

I love it when our society agrees on shit for centuries.You know, except for slavery.

---------

Oh, and the other Terry Goodkind news? He did a thing about an alleged ebook pirate.