Ebook craziness - How to hose your customer

I just have to comment on this, so <rant on>

While some books just *deserve* paper and wouldn't be the same without it, I do like ebooks for most of my reading. Compared to hard cover books, they don't take up a ton of room, they're light and generally a little cheaper, and I suspect they are better for the environment too.

That said, I do have an issue with the way some publishers are pricing them.

This graphic is the pricing on 2 books I recently bought from Amazon. For both, Amazon notes that the ebook pricing is set by the publisher; $13.49 is by Penguin and $16.12 is by Random House Digital. Both ebook prices include taxes, where the price for the physical versions don't.

What gets me is that they want the same price or more for an ebook as they do for a physical copy. An ebook is just electrons packaged in DRM, has no real reproduction or delivery costs, and is really just licensed to me. They can take it back in a heartbeat too, as we've seen back in 2009  when a publisher made Amazon pull purchased George Orwell books from thousands of Kindles.

A physical version has all of it's associated costs for paper, shipping, storage, etc., and I can share it with friends or make some extra cash back by selling it used.

It makes no sense that the physical hard cover book costs the same as an ebook. None. And I understand that the US Dept of Justice has questions about that too.

I think that me and other folks that read ebooks are being used.

Publishers are not doing themselves or their authors any favours either. Sure, I bought the books this time, but you know what? My respect for these two publishers has disappeared. I feel like they are gouging their readers and that I'm helping prolong their misery in a dying industry. From now on, I'll stick with independents publishers, or at least those publishers that respect their readers.

The authors in question supposedly represent a new, progressive version of online entrepreneur - but they're stooping to using old media companies and hosing their fans at the same time. Interesting contrast between word and action, eh?

Author Joe Konrath discusses how these media companies treat their writers shabbily too. A different, but interesting viewpoint is here by Mark Coker of Smashwords.

I expect that if the old guard publishers keep treating their writers and readers they way they are, the push back will only increase, and publishers will end up like the dinosaurs. Er, well, more like dinosaurs than they already do.

<end rant>

Movin' on to Spring Next Week

Hard to believe, but the spring equinox is March 20 - that's Tuesday next week. I love the rush of life that happens in the spring.

In Bear Creek Park in Surrey, during one of our brief sunny breaks this week, I caught these crocuses coming up among the dead leaves from last year. It's a busy photo, but it a way, it makes a statement about the seasons we know and love: all things rest and then begin anew.

Here's one more to herald the coming spring.

Escape from Skyrim and back to work

RPG Xbox games are not usually my cup of tea. I much prefer first person shooters to role playing games. However, on recommendation from a 'friend', I updated to the new Xbox and picked up a copy of the Skyrim game in early February.

Hmmmm…from the (lack of) posts over the last month or so, we can see what happened after that! Quests and bandits and dragons can be quite addicting….thank you 'friend' ;-)

But in the end, all's good. Along with some business networking in February, I popped out to the local parks when the sun poked out. More walkabouts and playing with the camera than any serious photography.

Early this month, I got out to Delta and to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary to see if I could see their Sandhill Cranes. Lots of ducks, coots, geese and pintails, but no cranes for me this time.

On the way back home, I stopped on the dike near the Delta Airport and got some photos of a couple of Snowy Owls nestled amongst the logs on the beach. To find them, all I had to do is look along the dike and spot the bevy of other photographers with their half-meter lenses looking seaward. Heh, it does get to be quite a show.

Over all it was an interesting day, and I learned how much more I need to learn about long lens photography. This Snowy Owl shot was done with my Sigma 120-400 lens on the Nikon D300. I used a Manfrotto ball head and tripod under the lens, but should have used a remote shutter release as well.  The exif data should be accessible from the photo on Flickr, along with some other shots from the day.

Starting to Network Again

I'm trying to get out more to socialize with the local business community. After close to a year of being layed up and out of the loop, I'm finding it harder to catch up and keep up with what's going on.

At an Surrey Board of Trade (SBoT) Business to Business networking event on Thursday night, some people I met suggested I come to their morning networking breakfast at the Kalmar Restaurant on King George Boulevard in Surrey. There was no commitment expected, other that to see how it went.

About 20 people made it out to that event on Friday morning, some of whom I've known from SBoT and others from different times, or from other events around town. It was good to catch up over a nice breakfast and learn more about what all those people are, and have been up to.

According to the Meetup page for the group, the Surrey Langley Business Support Network, there are a lot more than 20 members, so I guess, like with other organizations, the number that attends individual events can vary a lot.

That's good. More people means more stories over time, and that keeps things interesting. Also, if too many people show up, the organization might have to move from the intimacy of a restaurant to some bigger venue at a lot more cost.

It was nice to get out and socialize on a Friday morning. It was also a good excuse to pack up some camera gear and get out to take some pictures after the event.

Going to have to do more of that.

The Eagles Have Landed in Delta

I caught this bad boy in a tree over near Boundary Bay Airport. A buddy of mine has been making the trek from North Delta over to the Delta Hospital in South Delta for the last couple of weeks and mentioned that the eagles were back on the flats.

I was out late last year and earlier this year, looking to see if they were around, but I guess I was too early. The big birds are sure out there now.

In one area around the airport, there were at least 5 trees with a minimum of 5 eagles sitting on their branches. Some of the farmer's fields are full of gulls and the eagles are joining them to feed on something. Not sure what it could be, other than some rodents, or perhaps older gulls.

Anyway, the eagles are all over the place and seem quite tolerant to people right now. Usually they are pretty skittish, but this fellow was in the middle of a off-leash dog park, so he's probably use to people and dogs running around under his tree.