The "Authors" Keep Coming

The readers run for the hills, and with good reason if the product is vanity published by any vendor. The result is always the same. 0-200 sales. A book like this stands no chance in the market. Craft and persistence still can reap a credible reward even if it's in name only. A real book, chosen by agents and publishers offers that status. In America, and beyond, this is everything.

Earth Day!

Go Hillary! There's work to do since those nearby planets are either too hot or too cold with no atmosphere at all. Only this one is just right.

Presidential Science

So the candidates have turned down an invitation to debate science on Charlie Rose. This is the reason Americans are so dismal and unprepared in science in general, even as we have some of the best in the business on our team. Alas, not enough.

The Society of Environmental Journalists held a conference today and each candidate had an advisor show up in their stead. I think it's time the candidates did. The voters need to hear the facts of science as understood by the three citizens who will inplement, or in the case of the current occupant in chief, hinder American progress.

Morons on the Human team

This is an example of why Jim Taranto of the Wall Street Journal didn't graduate from our alma mater, CSUN.

LiveScience.com, meanwhile, reports that the climate was changing millennia before the Industrial Age: Humans may have struck the final blow that killed the woolly-mammoth, but climate change seems to have played a major part in setting up the end-game, according to a new study. . . .
Scientists have long debated what finally drove the furry beasts over the edge. Researchers led by David Nogues-Bravo of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain used models of the climate, as well as models of woolly-mammoth and human populations, to study the relative importance of various factors leading to the mammals' demise. . . .
The team found that the brunt of the damage done to mammoths was due to Earth's warming weather around 8,000 to 6,000 years ago. Since Earth was coming out of a glacial period at that time, temperatures were climbing and recasting the planet's landscape, and the mammoth's preferred habitat, steppe tundra, was vastly reduced.
As far as we know, no one worried about climate change back then. They were too busy worrying about getting trampled by mammoths.

Remedial Math

Oops. Do we need to know what HE thinks is remedial?

Amazon Park

Remember how the T-Rex came out of the jungle to chomp the velociraptors? From Publisher's Lunch:

Ingram on Amazon: Ingram chairman John Ingram issued a brief statement on Amazon's recent move to drive POD publishers to use Booksurge if they want their books sold directly by the e-tailer, noting "it clearly is alarming many of our publisher partners." At the same time, Ingram reports that "so far we've been unable to get a response directly from Amazon.com." He says, "We all live in a world where decisions are made about insourcing and outsourcing, and free choice is important. At Ingram Book and Lightning Source, we are going to work really hard to continue to be the compelling choice as publishers make their outsourcing decisions.... At Lightning Source, we produce a great product and thus do justice to our publishers' valuable titles. There is no question that we provide the highest print quality, the fastest turnaround speeds, and the most comprehensive portfolio of channels for a publisher's books."

Yeah, here's the deal: Ingram, Lightning Source and Baker & Taylor are the vanity print-on-demand industry from Lavergne, Tennessee. To the publishing industry in New York, this is a nano issue. Less even. To vanity authors and to crooked scam outfits like Publishamerica, and pay to publish, straight vanity presses alike, it's the kiss of death. Whatever.