Amazon’s Best-Selling Books of 2014

‘With the year drawing to a close, everyone from Google to Apple has been posting of their best selling titles for 2014. Yesterday Amazon published their list.

‘Since this is a single combined list for both print and digital, there’s not much of a chance that you’ll find indie titles on it. The market is still primarily print, which is still dominated by traditional publishers. In fact there is but a single indie title on this list: The Fixed Trilogy by Laurelin Paige…’

The first 4: (note that 2 and 4 are crime fiction)
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Gray Mountain by John Grisham
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Twenty Seconds Ago (Jack Reacher, #19) by Lee Child
more

2014 is barbaric for journalists as 66 were slain
‘In its annual report published on Tuesday, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said there was “an evolution in the nature of violence against journalists” with carefully-staged threats and beheadings being used for “very clear purposes.”

‘”The murders are becoming more and more barbaric and the number of abductions is growing rapidly, with those carrying them out seeking to prevent independent news coverage and deter scrutiny by the outside world,” it said.

‘Conflicts also led to large numbers of journalists fleeing their countries. Forty-seven Libyan and 37 Syrian reporters fled their homeland in the past year. A crackdown on privately-owned Ethiopian media drove 31 journalists into exile…’
more

The framing-up of Barrett Brown
US Government’s Argument Against Barrett Brown “Should Chill Journalists to the Bone”
‘…Federal prosecutor Candina Heath repeatedly had Smith read transcripts of chats that Barrett Brown had been involved. Using his own words against him, often taken out of context, the prosecution spent the afternoon describing Brown as a “agitator”, “propagandist”, “strategist”, and “spokesman” for Anonymous.

‘In one chat Brown discussed splitting Project Pm into two groups. One would be the “legal” faction and the other, lead by Brown, would do more radical activities. The prosecutions goal was to muddy the waters, and convince the judge that Barrett was neither a political prisoner, or a journalist, but instead a dangerous mind intent on creating havoc. The truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle. Some of the quotes the prosecution used include:
more

7 Contract Stipulations All Freelancers Should Know About
‘“Once you realize that you can negotiate on something, then you have arrived,” said K.M. Davis, founding attorney of Davis Law Office. “You are a business owner. You are a journalist. Because the worst that’s normally going to happen is that they’re just going to say no. It’s pretty easy to figure out what is non-negotiable or most important to someone.”

‘However, being aware of what you’re signing means you can make an informed decision if negotiating isn’t as fruitful as you’d hoped. Here is some important background about official contracts and seven concepts freelancers should know inside and out…’
more

Girl, 24, Beats Harry Potter Sales in One week

Zoella: Zoe Sugg’s book Girl Online becomes fastest-selling debut novel ever
‘The first novel by YouTube sensation Zoe Sugg aka Zoella has become the biggest-selling debut ever. The novel, Girl Online, has become the fastest-selling book of 2014 after selling over 78,000 copies in its first week.

‘The young adult novel follows the story of Penny, a teenager who blogs about her hidden feelings on friendship, boys and her anxieties.
Billed as “a modern day Notting Hill for teens”, the story follows the 15-year-old’s relationship with a US pop star that goes viral as her anonymous blog is exposed to the world…’
more

Novelist Isabel Allende on Her Literary Career and Memories of Chile During the CIA-Backed Coup
‘In a holiday special, we spend the hour with Isabel Allende, one of Latin America’s and the United States’ greatest novelists. Just this week she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Allende is the author of 20 books, including “The House of the Spirits,” “Paula” and “Daughter of Fortune.” Her latest is a mystery novel titled “Ripper.” Her books have been translated into 35 languages, sold close to 60 million copies around the world. Allende now lives in California, but she was born in Peru in 1942 and traveled the world as the daughter of a Chilean diplomat. Her father’s first cousin was Salvador Allende, Chile’s president from 1970 until Sept. 11, 1973, when Augusto Pinochet seized power in a CIA-backed military coup. Salvador Allende died in the palace that day. Isabel Allende would later flee from her native Chile to Venezuela. In April, Amy Goodman conducted a public interview with Isabel Allende at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas in New York shortly after the publication of “Ripper.” In this wide-ranging conversation, Allende discusses her literary career and her memories of Chile before and during the coup…’
more

From Apathetic Software Programmer to Award-Winning Hong Kong Citizen Journalist
‘He is a post-80s computer engineer who loves computer games, football and dating girls. However, his ideas and his life have changed tremendously in 2014. Enter 511 in any search engine and you find his name—Chan Chak To. He is one of the 511 people arrested on July 2 for taking part in an action of civil disobedience.

‘On the evening of the arrest, Chan recorded in detail his frontline experience—from the moment he was arrested and taken onto a tourist bus, to what he encountered at the Hong Kong Police College in Wong Chuk Han where he was detained, up until the moment of his release. His article is full of humor, but sincere. The readers are transported to the very scene of the protest and are able to comprehend, from a closer distance and from a more realistic angle, how it all started. Chan’s article has won Best Journalism in Hong Kong In-Media’s E-Citizens Award. The day the article was published, it went viral online. It was a surprise for Chan…’
more

Something Worse Than Family Not Buying Your Book

When Friends and Family Lie About Buying Your Book
‘Well, it happened again. An author accused us of not paying royalties on friends and family book sales…that never occurred. He was unable to provide copies of receipts from the loved ones he claimed had purchased his book. In addition, he refused to provide any information about the purchases, nor the buyers, nor the stores where the purchases had (not) occurred. Even though he had zero receipts, and even though he didn’t forward any correspondence to me from those individuals, and even though he could not or would not give information about even one “missing” sale, he insisted I get the money from Ingram for the (non-existent) sales anyway…’
more

The Reader Privacy Act Vetoed
NJ Gov. Christie Vetoes Reader Privacy Act, Asks for Stronger, Narrower Law
‘As previously reported in The Digital Reader, the bill passed in September by wide margins in both houses of the New Jersey State Legislature and would have codified the right to read ebooks without letting the government and everybody else knowing about it.

‘I wrote about some problems I saw with the bill. Based on a California law focused on law enforcement, the proposed NJ law added civil penalties on booksellers who disclosed the personal information of users without a court order. As I understood it, the bill could have prevented online booksellers from participating in ad networks (they all do!).

‘Governor Christie’s veto statement pointed out more problems. The proposed law didn’t explicitly prevent the government from asking for personal reading data, it just made it against the law for a bookseller to comply. So, for example, a local sheriff could still ask Amazon for a list of people in his town reading an incriminating book. If Amazon answered, somehow the reader would have to:…’
more

For Publishers, Chat Apps Could Soon Be the Next Facebook
Why Chat Apps May Be the Next Big Driver of Referral Traffic
‘Think all of your social traffic is coming from Facebook and Twitter? Think again. Nieman Journalism Lab just shared a case study about the impact of chat apps—and it may just shed some light on your “dark social” traffic.

‘The mobile messaging app is proving itself to be much more than a free way to text. Nieman Lab reported media outlets like BBC are embracing WhatsApp as a viable platform for sharing news, calling it and its ilk “mobile-first social media sites.” BuzzFeed and Shazam have added a WhatsApp share button to their mobile sites, and earlier this year, BuzzFeed revealed it was getting more taps from its WhatsApp button than from its Twitter button…’
more

Source of Great Writers: Real-life Private Eye

Black Man Secretly Helped Great Crime Writers
Ever noticed the character names Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe in crime fiction? The names Sam and Marlowe was a code for Samuel Marlowe who was a real black private detective and a source for Chandler and Hammett.

‘…Marlowe, she said, was the city’s first licensed black private detective. He shadowed lives, took care of secrets, knew his way around Tinseltown. Ransil dropped the names of some Hollywood heavies — Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Howard Hughes.

‘But it got better. Marlowe knew hard-boiled writers Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, she said.

‘The private eye had written them after reading their early stories in the pulp magazine Black Mask to say their fictional gumshoes were doing it all wrong. They began writing regularly, or so her story went. The authors relied on Marlowe for writing advice, and in the case of Chandler, some real-life detective work…’
more

The Hard Truth About Kill Fees
‘…Had it been a less timely feature, I would’ve been okay asking for the extension. Instead, I submitted a draft, seriously stretching the limited information I had to work with. The editor responded with an edit memo—not an actual edit—saying the story had interesting bits but was missing the mark: It was too introductory for their audience, needed a buzzier lede, and required a bit of restructuring. That’s when I realized I hadn’t completely understood the assignment. We both should have verified we were on the same page beforehand. I focused heavily on the development of the models and why they were so important. He felt their readers already understood the importance and that I could’ve skip those sections. The next draft came closer, but still not close enough. He wanted a tighter focus and more details, and didn’t think he’d have enough time to help get it where he wanted. He then offered a kill fee, graciously attaching the edits he had made thus far…’
more

Verb Mistakes #1: Didn’t With Conditional
‘One type of conditional sentence refers to a situation in the past that might have happened, but didn’t. The speaker is speculating about what might have happened if things had been different. In this type of sentence, the verb in the “if clause” will be in the past perfect tense, and the main clause will contain the modal would or could.

‘Note: The past perfect tense uses had + a past participle. For example, “had gone.”

‘A common error is to use a didn’t construction in the “if clause.”…’
Here are some examples

The First Online Animation Program

In 1989, there was already a graphic design program before the Internet came into being. So it’s not surprising that it was also the first program animators used for designing and creating.

‘When we introduced CorelDRAW in 1989, we knew we had something special on our hands. With the first graphics software for the Windows® platform, Corel changed the way people express and share ideas—and users have been trusting their ideas to Corel products ever since…’
link

Incredible Corel Painting Timelapse: A Woman’s Life
‘This is an astonishing time lapse of a constantly-evolving digital painting produced with Corel Painter 11 software by Korean illustrator, Seok Jeong Hyeon (“Stonehouse”) which depicts the image of a woman, developing from infancy to old age, displaying his mind-boggling skill in this medium…’
– See more

The Value of the Ungoogleable
‘In this magnificent Design Matters conversation with Debbie Millman, Ben Schott — who identifies neither with being a writer nor with being a designer but describes himself instead as “a writer who uses design and a designer who uses word” — shares the unlikely, remarkably heartening story of his success. Folded into it are Schott’s reflections on how his father’s obscure scientific papers on the history of the footnote shaped his miscellaneous mind, what Virginia Woolf can teach us about the secret of great design and craftsmanship, and why the art of finding the ungoogleable is of ever-increasing value today…’

“…The point was not to get stuff that was out there — it was trying to find things that no one else had talked about. Which is increasingly hard, by the way — to find stuff that is ungoogleable.” -Schott
more

 

Three Dos and Don’ts After You Get a Bad Performance Review
‘Performance reviews are already stressful, but when you get sat down and told that you’re not doing so hot, it’s even worse. Here are three things you should do after your assessment and three things you shouldn’t.

‘A bad performance review can send you in a downward spiral—especially if you feel like it’s inaccurate—but there are still a few good ways keep your head up and move forward. Carolyn O’Hara at the Harvard Business Review recommends you keep these principles in mind:..’
more

How Publishers & Copyright Gave Amazon The Very Power That Publishers Now Hate
‘We’ve been meaning to weigh in some more on the whole Amazon/Hachette battle, because lot of misinformation has been spewed around (including by Paul Krugman). Unfortunately there have just been too many other things to cover and we haven’t had the time to do a more thorough piece. However, Tim Lee, over at Vox, has a good short piece detailing how many of the publishers’ problems are really because of copyright law and the stupid DRM that the publishers themselves demanded — and which now gives Amazon its power over them in the market. The issue? The DMCA and the fact that Section 1201 makes it illegal to circumvent any DRM (even if for non-infringing purposes). End result, all those books on Amazon are stuck on Amazon.

‘The thing is, none of this is even remotely surprising. Almost six years ago, we warned book publishers of this exact scenario. This wasn’t hard to predict, because the same damn thing had happened in music, before Apple finally dumped its music DRM. But no one listens to us…’
more

How About a Fact-checking App for Articles?

Some computers like IBM’s Watson can store millions of facts and that’s a fact. If Watson could do that, it’s so believable that it could also check if articles are factual and do not contain false ‘facts’.

Free Journalism Ethics Hotline
‘The Society for Professional Journalists just revised its code of ethics for the first time in 18 years for the digital age, and the Online News Association is crowdsourcing a project that allows journalists to build individual codes of ethics on the premise that one standardized code can no longer represent everyone.

‘Lodged in between these contrasting initiatives is a question about whether more standardized ethics codes have become stale in a fast-paced media environment where the working conditions for journalists are ever-changing. Or, do they in fact represent much-needed, objective fix points in a fluid world where far too much is already relative and individual?…’
– See more

A Novel and Forbidden Collaboration Through the Net in Tibet
‘Five years in the making, solely through online communication, a unique music collaboration between a Tibetan musician in exile and a Tibetan poet inside Tibet, was finally released internationally in July 2013.

‘The first collaboration of its kind, the song Lam La Che is an example of how the internet allows Tibetans in exile and Tibetans inside Tibet to reach across borders to not only communicate, but also collaborate.

‘Tibetan musicians making pro-Tibetan art inside Tibet risk censorship and imprisonment for their work. Tibetans diaspora musicians can produce art freely but know that their work might not reach Tibetans living under Chinese control…’
more

Following Political Pressure, Citizen-Led Rural Libraries Shut Down in China
‘China’s rural areas don’t receive the same education resources that the country’s wealthier urban centers do. This gap is a widely acknowledged problem, and many organizations have been established to improve the facilities in rural China and ensure that the students there aren’t left behind.

‘However, Chinese authorities don’t exactly welcome citizen-led initiatives with open arms, and recently an independent library project called China Rural Library (CRL) was forced to close due to political pressure…’
more

Why investigative journalism is so important

Plato on-line

‘Bloggers appear to have filled a void particularly in political commentary. A key difference between bloggers and traditional media is that bloggers have little or no reputational risk or editorial objectivity in what they comment on.

‘Apart from libel laws they are largely free to say what they want with little commercial constraint.

‘But real investigative journalism is crucial to a well-functioning democracy. Unfortunately it is a costly endeavour for media outlets struggling to survive. This leads to a tendency towards descriptive reporting rather than investigation. This reduces the accountability of politicians and other powerful entities in our society…’
more

Why The Poor Pay $1,400 for Old iPads
‘Would you pay $1,439.28 for an early model iPad? Some who can’t afford it do. In some ways, the predatory lending to the poor that threw America into a tailspin in 2006 has moved on to smaller items like iPads and couches…

View original post 249 more words

Cartoon Network Seeks Filipino 3D Artists

In 1993 when 3D animation isn’t popular yet, Walt Disney subcontracts our office Tokyo Animation in Manila. Lion King was just one of the movies we created scenes of.

‘Silas Hickey, Cartoon Network’s creative director for animation development in Asia Pacific, said the country is loaded with skilled animators in 3D.

‘“We do a lot of lab work in the Philippines because a lot of people love to draw. You are much aware that Johnny Bravo was developed by a Filipino artist based in the United States,” he said during his talk with Top Draw Animation Inc. animators and students held at Tektite Tower, Pasig City.

“’We want to grow the next generation of storytellers in Asia Pacific,” Hickey pointed out…’
more

The Abusive Campaign of Gamergate
Lazy coverage of Gamergate is only feeding this abusive campaign
‘Gamergate’s self-image of itself as ‘crusaders for ethics’ isn’t supported by its actions, so the media should stop describing it as such

‘For any traditional protest movement, a front-page story in America’s leading newspaper linking it with death threats, harassment and terror threats should be a death knell.

‘But this may not be the case for “#gamergate”, an online movement started in August as a harassment campaign against a little-known indie game developer which has now widened to include nearly all games industry feminists as its target…’
more

This Artist Is Also a Robot
‘Between 2004 and 2008, I worked as a video editor in Hollywood. This description comes with plenty of qualifiers: It wasn’t a job with any artistry or excitement (it was, as I described it to curious/confused parties back then, “industrial editing”). The motto of the company I worked for was “Know Better,” and its logo looked eerily like an Illuminati eye; it sold itself as a way for corporations/PR companies/freelancing-citizens-full-of-vanity to amass knowledge about their place in the business world through the monitoring of media. To do this, it recorded TV and radio broadcasts from around the country, and resold commercial-free chunks of said broadcasts to the as-yet uninformed. Need to see how your opposition is being perceived by CNBC’s Jim Cramer? We got what you need. Want a shot of you catching that foul ball at the game? Give us a call…’
theawl

The Four Psychological Functions of Great Literature

‘The question of what reading does for the human soul is an eternal one and its answer largely ineffable, but this hasn’t stopped minds big and small from tussling with it — we have Kafka’s exquisite letter to his childhood friend, Maurice Sendak’s visual manifestos for the joy of reading, and even my own answer to a nine-year-old girl’s question about why we have books today.

‘In this wonderful animated essay, they extol the value of books in expanding our circle of empathy, validating and ennobling our inner life, and fortifying us against the paralyzing fear of failure…’
more

Is H.P. Lovecraft’s Legacy Tainted?
‘Laura Miller recently wrote about the backlash in a piece for Salon.com. She says that objections to the use of Lovecraft as the face of the award began to surface when Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, who won the WFA for best novel in 2011 for Who Fears Death, wrote a blog post about her discomfort with the trophy after she read a racist poem that Lovecraft wrote in 1912.

‘The issue this raises for fans of Lovecraft or any other artist is how much you can separate the artist and their beliefs from their work. Miller says many fandoms struggle with this when something unflattering is revealed about someone they admire…’
more

Do Writers Need Media Training‏?
‘In September, Charles Bethea wrote an article for The Freelancer titled “I Went on Good Morning America, and It Was Far from Lights, Camera, Action.” Bethea’s piece was entertaining, to be sure, as he peeled back the curtain on what happens when the broadcast media interviews a journalist who isn’t used to being on camera. According to his account, the overall experience wasn’t great.

‘In my opinion, two words could have changed everything for Bethea: media training.

‘Media training helps you, the writer, transition from the interviewer to the interviewee by teaching you new skills that boost your confidence once the cameras start rolling. I would know—I’ve received media training, and now I train others. Getting help in this arena is probably more common than you’d think…’
more

Remember ‘No Child Left Behind’? So what happened?
The Bill was signed into law in January 2002 by George W. Bush, with the liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, by his side.

‘The law set a simple if daunting goal: All of the nation’s students would perform at grade level on state tests. Every single one. 100 percent. Or as the name of the law put it, there would be No Child Left Behind.

‘So here it is, 12 years later, 2014. And the law, NCLB, is still in effect. All children, under federal law, are supposed to be at grade level…’
Spoiler alert: They’re not.

The Most Expensive Typo in Legislative History

When I was a public Internet manager, a client brought a handwritten affidavit who wanted it to be word processed. While I was doing it, I came across a sentence saying, ‘…I jumped ON the van…’ I told the client that this was an affidavit and should be precise. I asked him if he really meant ‘on’ and not ‘inside’. He thought for a moment then said ‘on’ is ok (I began to suspect some deception).

‘In 1872, one misplaced comma in a tariff law cost American taxpayers more than $2 million, or $38,350,000 in today’s dollars.

‘In the middle of a 1969 interview, writer E.B. White paused, smiled, and declared what he loved most about the publication he wrote for: “Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.” An avid grammarian, the Charlotte’s Web author thoroughly enjoyed this routine.

‘Unfortunately, the United States government doesn’t share the magazine’s zeal for punctuation — and sometimes, it costs taxpayers money. Curious about the most expensive legislative typo in American history, we dug into the matter…’
If you’re anything like E.B. White, what we found will rile you up:

The Unsung Heroes of Innovation
The Role of the Critic-Curator in How Ideas Spread
“Those who bring attention to valuable ideas, then, are themselves vital agents of change, without whom the inventors and their creations would slide under the cultural radar and into obscurity. Editor Ursula Nordstrom did this for a young and insecure Maurice Sendak. Publisher John Martin did it for Charles Bukowski. Ralph Waldo Emerson did it for young Walt Whitman.” -John Gardner

‘Gardner returns to the underappreciated, vital role of the critic-celebrator in amplifying the ideas that improve society and precipitate progress:

“We tend to think of innovators as those who contribute to a new way of doing things. But many far-reaching changes have been touched off by those who contributed to a new way of thinking about things…”
more

Three Rules of Writing and Four Elements of Style
Timeless Advice from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 1914?
“Literature is a nurse of noble natures, and right reading makes a full man in a sense even better than Bacon’s; not replete, but complete rather, to the pattern for which Heaven designed him. In this conviction, in this hope, public spirited men endow Chairs in our Universities, sure that Literature is a good thing if only we can bring it to operate on young minds.” -Quiller-Couch

‘Acknowledging that “some doubt does lurk in the public mind” as to whether writing and the art of literature “can, in any ordinary sense, be taught,” Quiller-Couch counters:

“That the study of English Literature can be promoted in young minds by an elder one, that their zeal may be encouraged, their tastes directed, their vision cleared, quickened, enlarged — this, I take it, no man of experience will deny.”

‘He goes on to outline three guiding principles that make this quickening and enlargement of vision possible…’
more

Why People Don’t Like Paying Writers
‘…It’s interesting, because most people who ask me for free writing are the most cunning of business people. They always seem organized, relentless and ready to conquer the world. Many of them already have thriving companies with lots of cash flow. But once they start looking for a copywriter or blogger, that money is nowhere to be found.

‘This isn’t to say that everyone is a cheap skate, but tons of job listings ask for free submissions prior to hiring. I mean seriously? Let’s say I’m pitching to four or five companies for blogging positions. If all of them wanted a free 500 word sample, I would end up working an entire eight hours for free.

‘Since most writers want to get paid to write, this started turning my mind wheels. Why is it that writers, and other artists, are so often seen as free labor, while any simple data mining worker would always get their due?…’
more