zoom. zzzzoom.

In Minneapolis Airport. En route to Atlanta airport where I change planes for Dublin.

My dog has now learned the signs of me leaving -- a bag coming down from upstairs, the kitchen table with travel-stuff piled on it (coat, pens, ink, passport) -- and he doesn't like them. Walks around trying offset the inevitable, ears back, worried...

On the good side, he has a week to go before he is allowed off-leash, and can go up and down stairs, and run, and do all the stuff that he is convinced he ought to be able to do right now anyway. So when I come home he will be a much happier dog.

...

For the record on the last post, I have a terrific agent, who looks out for me and whose job it is to make sure that a) I make money by writing and b) that I don't somehow wind up having sold the same rights to two different groups of people. So her concern that text to speech violates audio book rights is natural and sensible.

And when I got this,

I'm glad to know that you support the Kindle text to speech capability. As a C-4 quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury a few years ago recent improvements in technology allow me the independence to write this e-mail with assistance only from my computer, software and a microphone. However the technology is still young, clunky and not without drawbacks. (It will probably take longer to "write" this short e-mail than it did to listen to my friend read me the first chapter of Coraline!) (Don't ask how long it took me to write the word Coraline either-twice even!) Because there isn't big money for marketing products for para and quads we have to rely on technology progressing just for the sake of technology progressing. I think it would be silly and sad to slow improvments just because of money issues. Thanks for supporting technology and hope to see you at comic-con. -Brook McCall

her reply was,

Well. Okay. Yes. (sound of agent with no argument)

Because she is a wise woman.

oops. gotta board. Happy Friday the 13th. Watch out for lovcratian beasties coming up the argh...

Labels: agent, Cabal and me, copyright, merrilee Heifetz, zoom

Quick argument summary

Just found myself having a long argument/discussion with my agent over the Amazon Kindle text-to-speech capability. I'm going to summarise it here.

Her point of view: The Kindle reading you the book-you-just-bought infringes the copyright (or at least, the rights) to the audiobook. We've sold audiobook rights and print book rights as separate things. We must stop this.

My point of view: When you buy a book, you're also buying the right to read it aloud, have it read to you by anyone, read it to your children on long car trips, record yourself reading it and send that to your girlfriend etc. This is the same kind of thing, only without the ability to do the voices properly, and no-one's going to confuse it with an audiobook. And that any authors' societies or publishers who are thinking of spending money on fighting a fundamentally pointless legal case would be much better off taking that money and advertising and promoting what audio books are and what's good about them with it.

There.

Which I am putting up here to save everyone time asking me what I think. 

Just went down to the Beehives. Kelli-hive is doing brilliantly, Kitty-hive is still alive but I don't know if she'll survive the winter. 

I got a pair of Coraline Dunks in the post this morning. Batman 686 is out now, and if you want a copy you may want to buy it fast, and Andy Kubert is drawing like a madman right now to try and get Detective Comics 853 out, while keeping the levels of quality as high. And no, I'm not telling you what happens next.

Right. Workbacktonow=me.

Labels: bees, Killing Batman - it's like killing Amanda Palmer, Kindle, merrilee Heifetz

plan four....?

Merrilee, my literary agent, is out here for a couple of days, so that we can figure out what I have to do this year. We do this every eighteen months or so, and it helps both of us, I think. It got a bit confusing yesterday evening, after plan one was completed, when the phone rang and I suddenly found myself agreeing to write a couple of films I hadn't planned for earlier that afternoon. So now we're into plan two. (Plan three: lock me in a cupboard and let me out when everything is written.)

Over on John Scalzi's blog is a terrific piece about convention etiquette which should be spread around. I read it and just kept nodding, like one of those toy dogs in cars (do they still have those?): http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=581

Here's a remarkable little film clip about Leonardo da Vinci which Bob Morales just sent me, that left me going "Oh, of course," at the end.

Labels: agent, John Scalzi, Leonardo da Vinci, merrilee Heifetz, nodding dogs