Jan 30 2011
Amazon updates
Amazon announced recently that Kindle e-book sales have now surpassed paperback book sales (they did that to hardcover books late last year). That’s faster than anyone expected, no doubt propelled by many new Kindle owners who received readers for Christmas.
As it happens, I’ve just made my story Light Conversation, which appeared last year in Analog, available for the Kindle. I hope to make it available for other e-readers soon, but I used a typography trick in the story that makes it a little harder, at least from my experimenting so far. Note that this is flash fiction, only a thousand words, so I almost feel guilty putting it up for sale as a standalone. On the other hand, it’s about the same price as a candy bar, has zero calories, and won’t rot your teeth. 
I’ve also overhauled the covers of the two Jason Curtis (early T-Space) stories, Into the Fire and Renee (the full title is now Renee and the Space Raiders, to give a better feel for the story). I think they look much better and hope they’ll attract more readers. (Old saying notwithstanding, almost everyone judges a book by its cover.)
I’ll be updating the cover of my collection Starfire & Snowball too, but I may add a story (probably “Light Conversation”) first, to round it up to five.
Finally, the Colorado court recently granted an injunction suspending the Colorado law that requires internet businesses to report sales for the purpose of collecting sales taxes. That law prompted Amazon to end their affiliate program with anyone in Colorado (so that they could claim no physical sales presence, a tactic they’ve pulled elsewhere), meaning no referral bonus if you buy through one of the links on this site (although if it’s one of my books, I’ll get a royalty). If that law gets overturned, perhaps Amazon will resurrect affiliate status for Coloradans. Here’s hoping.
