Day: September 3, 2010

Go Read This | FastPencil Launches FastPencil Premiere Imprint Designed Specifically for Top-Tier Authors

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 1 Comment

This is interesting. At first glance it doesn’t seem like much. But digging deeper it gets more radical.

FastPencil today announced FastPencil Premiere (http://premiere.fastpencil.com), a new and exclusive line of general interest titles that provides top-tier and best-selling authors a publishing home with all the benefits of FastPencil’s integrated suite of digital and social media publishing services to produce and publish the best in book content. Several best-selling authors are leveraging FastPencil Premiere to use its high-quality services to publish print and eBook versions of their titles in a simple, fast and top-quality fashion, while also gaining much higher royalties with more frequent payout.

via FastPencil Launches FastPencil Premiere Imprint Designed Specifically for Top-Tier Authors.

What strikes me the most about it is the Who Is Premiere For section which highlights three groups:

Best-Sellers
FastPencil PREMIERE helps best-selling authors get their eBooks onto the iPad and Kindle fast and easy in addition to all the print book channels.

Top Authors
If you have sold over 100,000 copies of your books and would like to find a publisher that is faster, more flexible and profitable, give us a call. FastPencil PREMIERE is for you.

Emerging Talent
If you have self-published in the past and are experiencing great interest, a growing fan base and over 10,000 copies sold, give us a call. FastPencil PREMIERE is for you.

Think that over for a bit. It’s basically saying:

“Oh, hello successful traditional and self published authors, we’ll take care of your publishing needs so you can worry about writing and promoting.”

That’s a long way along the disintermediation road in my book.

Eoin

Quick Link | How Apple Just Disrupted the Cable Guys | Epicenter | Wired.com

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Interesting view. Personally, I’m not sold. Maybe it’s the non-US based thing.

In the Apple TV ecosystem, the phone is not just an iOS controller, it is the hub of a new personal mobile media center. Don’t get distracted by Apple’s video rental service. It sucks, for now, and won’t get people to cut the cable. But they will buy the Apple TV box, because it is cheap and they have iPhones and iPods and iPads, and they see the inexorable logic of closing the loop between their Macs and their phones and their mobile media devices and their TVs.

This loop will make it really easy for people to start consuming new kinds of content on their TVs. I bet they’ll start to use it. A lot. This is what is disruptive about the new Apple TV, not the $99 price or the rental service. Apple TV is a paradigm shift, because you always have your phone but no one lets you integrate your phone into the media center.

via How Apple Just Disrupted the Cable Guys | Epicenter | Wired.com.