Odd Lots

[jeff_duntemann]

• Sony just announced its own entry in the ultra-mobile PC arena, and it's an interesting one. The unit weighs only 1.2 pounds, with a 3.5" 1024 X 600 color display, built-in wireless a/b/g, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that may or may be especially useful, except for the thumb-and-peck school of typing. There's 512MB of RAM, 30 GB of hard drive

Comments

[anonymous]

Hi

[jeff_duntemann]

These are certainly the best of times to buy existing books--almost anything that's ever been in print can be had somewhere, and abebooks.com is the best place to start looking. The problems are with hidden issues like margins, cash flow weirdnesses, and the fact that only bestselling authors actually make much money writing anymore. Small publishers are giving up, and big publishers are laying off people and working their remaining staff to death. This doesn't bode well for the continuation of the current business model, which is really what I was talking about. Both wealth and decision-making power are flowing into fewer and fewer hands in publishing, and that worries me. With margins as thin as they are, whether Wal-Mart decides to carry a book may tip the decision as to whether the book is actually published or not, which is a scary notion. It's a race to the bottom.

I really appreciate your buying my novel. It's unclear whether The Cunning Blood will ever be in a retail store in hardcover, and I haven't yet gotten any nibbles on