The Idiot Speaks!
And to think this simple post garnered such confusion. Well forgive me the mystery, technosnarl is after all an economic term, so I’d assumed a measure of familiarity with the laws of supply and demand.
For the uninitiated, a positive increase in the supply of Amazon Kindles means resellers will earn less per device, but sell more items at lower prices. Scarcity and all that–same way an unprecedented increase in the supply of books formatted for Kindle means no demand for .epub.
Now, perhaps I’ve earned the esteemed Mr. Rothman’s notice because he views any drop in Kindle pricing as “a victory;” in the same way he considers a night at the buffet where the servers don’t laugh at his repeated requests for Diet Coke a “fine dining experience.”
Still, I’m grateful for the technical insights of a man who can’t figure out how to make bolded headlines work in wordpress. So to return the favor, I thought I’d take a moment and help the fast-growing Munsey’s reading community understand Mr. Rothman’s own tangential relationship with the English language.
After all, I owe him, and it might otherwise be hard to really get a man who’s abandoned his dream.
When Rothman says:
He means:
“We already have a National Instruction Materials Access Center, but they’re not hiring mediocrities or otherwise letting me tell them what to do.”
(Replace above with NIMAS when he talks about National/Universal File Formats.)
When Rothman says, with Teleread:
“you’ll see that the mother could very likely be teaching her children to sing from a book”
He means:
When Rothman says, after yet another Teleblogger leaves for better pastures:
He means:
Dammit, even the Internet PhD is sick of my B.S.
When Rothman says:
If anyone from Gmail wants to catch up with me, I’m reachable at the usual dr NOSPAM teleread.org. Or better they can call me at 703-370-6540 (I have a busy mailbox and tell people to call if they don’t get a fast answer).
He means:
I’m an Attention Whore.
When he goes:
Hey, David, remember that Nick Bogaty is essentially just an extension of OverDrive boss Steve Potash, the head of the IDFP.
He’s stating the obvious. And later, in a critique of… many things:
Meanwhile, as the main ringleaders of the Consortium, Jon and I would love to be able to afford a $100,000-year executive director (yes, that’s about what the IDPF is paying Nick Bogaty). Same for Adobe’s mega-million-dollar publicity machine.
Then he adds, later:
We welcome Nick Bogaty as a contributor
Now, that suck-up might have got Rothman something, and there are other statements, showing the shift, but Farvre just tied it.
Let’s just go when Rothman salutes retailers :
He means:
And, when Rothman throws those same retailers under the bus by sucking to bigger companies and accepting the biggest load of BS imaginable,
He means:
“We take ads!” Integrity’s not required.
It’s all just about whatever. The pain for any grown man to go from “advocate” to fourth-rate online Walter Winchell is unimaginable and punishment enough, were it not for some real harm that Rothman has done while some were sleeping, or at least book festivaling.
Tragically, Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg doesn’t have anything to offer besides great books and an idea. So here’s Rothman on Hart:
Will Hawaii John, the WEL guy, own the trademark and maybe more? Or one of Michael’s relatives? Or PG as a group? Is this formally specified anywhere? Where? Documentation available? Has PG made helpful changes re the trademark, etc., in response to my posts? Happy to report and praise ‘em if so. For that matter, has Michael reported to the board all income he’s personally getting from WEL, if any?
(From an Email.) First of all, the trademark obsession and assumption of wealth contained therein? Useful when you start to think what that OpenReader crap was really for. But more to the point, IDPF’s OK, Bogaty a champion; Hart? A sleazebag (on $5k a year, his salary with PG… WEL I’m sure doesn’t make a profit.)
Rothman’s spiel on Hart and Gutenberg–false nearly to the point of libel, did actual harm, which some PG vets are even now working to recover from. But it got Rothman attention… all that matters.
Aside, the IDPF, bastion of integrity and standards, of course, hasn’t filed annual report since 2005, nor have I ever gotten a straight answer about rent expenses from Bogaty or any IDPF executives.
On the upside to Mr. Rothman, the big guys in publishing and software tend to dump useful idiots when they no longer prove expedient, so after the Archive’s 6-month cycle pops up July’s record the way it has June’s and every other Teleread month (cover-ups kill ya in DC, and not even a Conde Nast attorney could get the incriminatings off in time), he likely won’t be around long. Only question is, does he go down alone, or at least save the co-conspirator?)
There’s a wager.
More books in the A.M.
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January 20th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Um, David, this is a rather bizarre answer to the question of whether you were actually advocating a universal consumer format. Meanwhile I love the way you reciprocate when someone gives you the benefit of the doubt.
Now a few specifics. In your post you said, “Imagine how much better those numbers would be with a universal consumer format.” If you were in your irony mode, you could have done better. Are we to assume you’re actually coming to your senses on this matter? Perhaps not after your follow-up. A little clarity in the original would have helped from someone who supposedly has more than tangential acquaintance with the English language. Oh, well, this isn’t the first time you baffled your readers (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11957).
As for the bolded headlines, Robert Nagle, who does site maintenance these days because he believes in the site, will be addressing that issue in time. Gotta pick on him, too, eh? Nice reward for his good intentions, huh? By the way, we’re not the only site with limited resources; I haven’t checked recently, but I do know that months and months went by without Munseys doing Mobipocket conversions properly–to name just one of your technical atrocities. See why I was hoping you just might have come around on Tower of eBabel issues?
Sorry you don’t care about digital divide matters as much as I do, but just relax and be grateful for the extra Munseys customers TeleRead might be able to drum up if it happens. Illiterates don’t download Munseys books.
Ads? TeleRead went more than a decade without seeking them. They’re a way of keeping the site sustainable—I didn’t start it to make a buck. The site so far has cost money, not made it, and besides, many do-gooders take ads. We’re not all would-be Gekkos like you. Of course, if you were as successful as you make yourself out to be, maybe you’d even be able to hire a real site designer. Let’s see if people care enough to respond to the question where I asked if they might like the old Blackmask better than the present site.
.Epub? Not the same thing as the Nimas stuff.
Nicky Bogaty and the IDPF? The TeleBlog and OpenReader are no small reason why the IPDF is taking e-book standards more seriously. Bill McCoy at Adobe said as much. Hachette is now distributing books in the .epub format, with other big houses expected to follow eventually, and I hope that commercial use of .epub at the consumer level will happen in a massive way (your rival Feedbooks is already in love with .epub). At the same time, I’ve called again and again for monitoring of the IDPF and its standard, as a matter of sound procedure. I love to run pieces from people skeptical of the .epub standard, so that we can continue influencing things for the better. Meanwhile, yes, the TeleBlog reached out to Nick (no longer at the IDPF) when the group improved. Unlike you, we’re not into jihads. We even point people to Munseys stuff when it’s justified; I’m more interested in being pro-reader than anti-Moynihan or anti-anyone.
My saying it’s great that Macmillian is reaching out to smaller retailers? That means more choice for people at e-stores dear to many readers and writers, as opposed simply to Amazon. Of course, given your copyright problems, I’m not sure if the certain publishers are that eager to deal with you. Along the way, you didn’t help the public domain movement with such rickety arguments against Conde Naste—with which you had no business picking a fight in the first place. What the old adage about self-lawyering and fools for clients?
> Rothman’s spiel on Hart and Gutenberg–false nearly to the point of libel, did actual harm, which some PG vets are even now working to recover from.
The Gutenberg trademark issue–Michael Hart owning the trademark personally? If things have changed, let me know. PG is a great group with less than perfect governance, which is too bad, considering all the good PG does. With better governance, maybe it could draw some serious foundation money. I wish PG luck at it. Meanwhile please see projectgutenberg.org. Is that related to the real PG? If not, someone ought to be protecting the trademark since it will be weakened if it isn’t defended.
Attention-whoredom? Hey, I guess that was the point of your original post—to draw a response and a link. Sad. A more successful site wouldn’t need such cheap tricks.
I could go on, but I think people understand now. An idiot is speaking, all right, and it ain’t me.
Cheers,
David R.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:32 am
Please, Rothman, I’ve owed you this for a while, and all I do is say what most people are thinking, otherwise you’d've grown or been able to keep telebloggers of any competence. It’s good however to see that even in your pathetic self-defense you’re not even bothering to cite “the children” any more as the reason for your existence and our indulgence.
Listen, the only attention-whoring I’ll ever do in my life is turning your July 4th incident into a byword for corpulent buffoonery. And I don’t quite understand the confidence, as it’s a couple weeks ’til the Archive catches your “revisions,” and then you and a couple of other people’ll be all over, as Bill McCoy probably told you in a panic some months back.
As to needing visitors, or anything with formatting, come on, you shill for Manybooks. His traffic’s dropped in half since I came back. So much for power, Winch. I’ve actually had to slow the ads to keep up with DVD sales. If he could notify me about the next crash, that’d be helpful, otherwise I’ve got things to do with my weekends. I did get the rights-holders to a lot of Silk to start CC-ing things, and that’ll probably boost stuff more. If I really needed traffic, I’d just give away some smut; most of the stuff that doesn’t sell is vaguely literary anyway.
You think Macmillan was reaching out, how come none of the ebook storefronts “bought it,” and most of them have been avoiding you since? I mean, I don’t care, Amazon’s made the host obsolete, but it seems you might.
For .epub? Please, Adobe failed twice becoming a retailer. They saw a pair of useful idiots, took your “enhanced OPS” and made it their own, with some built-in regulatory capture, to our national disgrace… there’s even a few McCoy mentions of non-existent NIMAS compatibility. Thankfully Noring’s persona non grata now; you’re next after the utility vanishes. Nobody cares about your “monitoring.”
You’re trashing my design, or whatever. I value your opinion highly, but the cover images on homepage work wonders. Besides, the Indians built a script that searches the LOC for data about each individual book and appends said data to the descriptions (and the keywords to tags). Same protocol can search 40 or 50 libraries, or maybe 700, with just a handful of case else’s, depending on how a couple things go. It wasn’t that expensive a script, but it certainly could have been, you have to let coders play, so they got free reign on the design, and some other stuff, like the auto page images and a fortune cookie thing, that ain’t even around no more.
My Conde Nast experience, while deeply amusing, really proved one thing I’ve said all along about copyright. They’ve got the laws, but it’ll cost them more than anyone’d believe possible to try and enforce ‘em. And I’m vindicated on that one in a year’s time, but you can find the truth of the matter if you ever score a copy of the Fame & Fortune magazine replica.
Actually, I think Conde proved three things. I’m not a good person to mess with, and I know how the Archive works. The Gutenberg fud really inclines me to no mercy.
January 21st, 2008 at 3:34 am
Thanks for the laughs, David. Alexa ranks are hardly perfect measurements, but your main number sucks compared to the TeleBlog’s. You’re a mere 190,281 despite a redirect from blackmask.com. The TeleBlog, with zero budget for promo right now and no book collection to draw in the search engines, is 138,238. Who’s the attention whore and buffoon?
Kids and libraries? More risible crap from you, more chuckles. Which site did a 5,500-word review of the XO from K-12 and e-book perspectives? I want to do more of that–which takes time, which requires money, which means we’ll go after ads and, yes, write on popular topics to attract them. Incidentally, I paid $400 for the One Laptop Per Child machine and the related donation to a child overseas so I could keep up with the evolution of the software; as I said, the TeleRead site so far has cost rather than made money–do-gooding for kids can be expensive. Still, I got a kick out of getting the evil .epub to display on the OLPC machine and am rooting for better software to be on the way. In a related vein, one issue for kids and other library patrons is efficient use of resources, and so is ease of use. Care to join us in our fight against wasteful eBabel and the current Rube Goldbergish approach to e-books? Apparently not.
Despite your lower Alexa rank and your high buffoonery quotient, I appreciate the free advertising (you’re useful to some as a contrary indicator), but my time for debate is limited. I won’t mess right now with responding further to your innuendos. I can recall one email from you questioning whether I even owned a Sony Reader. Surreal. Imagine all the other lies waiting to be spun. That’s why I can only devote so much time.
But wait–a question, nothing more. If you’re such a great business guy, how about claims from someone representing himself as the husband of a writer named Kenyon Charboneaux? He says you “stole all of her work and didn’t pay her one red cent”? In fact, he calls you a “scumbag.” I’ll be open-minded, however; what’s your side, and how much money is involved, and exactly for what? Hubby is saying you ripped off other writers, too, by the way. Are you sure you’ve been doing your Robin Hood act only on Conde Naste? Kenyon’s case, especially, might interest Munsey fans since I understand she’s in a wheelchair and on morphine, at least if facts from a very quick Googling are still current. See:
http://www.writers.net/writers/29892
and
http://www.kenyonslabyrinth.bravehost.com/
and
http://www.absolutewrite.com/freelance_writing/past_the_pain.htm
And for the Hubby’s story about you, see:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2006/05/09/blackmask-site-will-be-back-up-and-locs-approved-transfer-of-doc-savage-and-shadow-titles-with-reservations/#comment-694424
Oh, and I’d also suggest that people scroll up and check out the original post, not just the comment. The headline from May 9, 2006, reads: “Blackmask: Site could be back up–and LOC has ‘approved’ transfer of Doc Savage and Shadow titles, ‘with reservations.’” I’d love to know the full story here about LOC. In any event, the undeniable fact is that you replaced Blackmask with a less-than-stellar site that’s too didn’t even offer reliable Mobi conversions and at least in the past has had speed issues.
Still, I appreciate the better side of Munseys and will continue talk it up
when I wander over there and see things of possible interest. I won’t do so with much pleasure, though, David. If the Charboneaux accusations are true–again, I want to hear your side before reaching any conclusions!–you just might qualify as the meanest guy in e-bookdom.
Lie on, Bro’.
Cheers,
David
TeleRead: bring the E-Books Home
http://www.teleread.org
Blog: http://www.teleread.org/blog
January 21st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
woo-hoo! moynihan is back! and _dishing!_ thank you!
-bowerbird
January 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Hey, Rothman, you posted that comment three times so it labeled you as spam. Smart server.
For Alexa, not too reliable after 50k, but Munsey’s is picking up 10k per week (might be less with caching enabled, but then again, we’ll see what schools do with the Silk’s.) Google’s got me at 15k page views a day, which is roughly black mask territory, though that’s also down a bit with the extreme caching; google wants me to increase my ads, which I might do.
As to Kenyon, long story. I heard about her, I published her books, sold them in conjunction with optical media on Black Mask and Ebay. They weren’t selling; there were a couple of other books that did better, but of course the quality of black mask wasn’t that hot.
I knew her situation, I gave extra money to write some reviews, increased her “sales” from the low single digits to a significantly higher total. The problem was how I had to give her money, she was on hard times, moving around, etc. Checks weren’t getting there. They weren’t getting cashed either. I had to write two or three before she was paid in some cases. It was awkward.
I also was getting clobbered by CDs and DVDs and no longer had time to worry about some things, so I did let her go. Her husband was later incensed when it turned out that one of her books was still floating around in a network, 2checkout, that I’d briefly used as my credit-card processor (2checkout also had a digital commerce app… never got a sale from it so I forgot the whole thing.)
I regret how that ended, but it was small sums of money, and in fact I paid her approximately three times for every book sold, plus additional cash for reviews that weren’t quite what black mask visitors were looking for…. I wish her the best of luck, and she seems to have another publisher. If you’re really digging, from that period, I also had issues with Alvin Schwartz, a Superman writer and author of the Blow-Top, whom I would give paypal to, but he would not cash his paypal or answer his emails for months at a time (not a young man), so perhaps you can use that against me as well. In his case, the book was pulled, after he accused me of writing something about him that didn’t quite pan out. Then when Blackmask got hacked, it ended back in the system during my recovery, so while it never sold I did hear about it sometime later.
Then there’s Keith Deutsch, whom I paid money to before hearing that he didn’t own the rights to Fast One, or indeed any books serialized in Black Mask (Cain’s public domain; as is Whitfield.)
And don’t get me started on Panhedron…. this by the way is a big part of why I only deal with one person on Olympia, and two groups for Silk.
For Kenyon and Al, it was black mask being hacked that really caused to me to… prioritize, if you will; the site as restored wasn’t truly functional for six months. I had even less to build black mask from this time. But of course you’re being disingenuous; you in fact posted about blackmask and Munsey’s many times, including my account of how the Dent Estate got $10 million in film rights from a stranger.
Note that, as a result of the deposition and documents required I actually have complete sales records for that period. I’m not too inclined to post them, but maybe the paypal can be shown while keeping people’s privacy intact. I really wish her the best.
I confess I didn’t read all your bloated prose on the OLPC. I did ask for screen captures of it, when you were talking about “FBReader” and how its .css worked so wonderfully on .epub, and what we needed to do was get everyone to campaign for FBReader as a default install on OLPC. That to me was curious, given that FBReader, though useful software, doesn’t actually support .css in the desktop version–a Feed book looks just like a Digital Editions Sample, which looks just like my samples–and in fact just like my HTML.
I’ve finally gotten a confirmation email, and my own OLPC is coming this week, so let me ask: why would you lie there? What possible motivation would you have for bugging the OLPC to include unfinished software? Unless it was to pave the way for Adobe’s DigitalEditions, since .css is “necessary?” And since they got you the soon-to-be lost publisher’s weekly job (it certainly wasn’t for writing ability or technical insight)?
And why did you lie to your traffic about buying a Sony Reader on July 4th? Do you just think they’re stupid? The cover-up on that one, whoo. Throwing Nagle under the bus…
January 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
> And why did you lie to your traffic about buying a Sony Reader on July 4th? Do you just think they’re stupid? The cover-up on that one, whoo.
As noted, David, I lack time for an extended debate here, but the Sony-related crap is so easy to answer that I can’t resist. Info from TigerDirect…
Price: $108.48
When ordered: 7/4/2007 8:00:44 AM
So why do you keep saying I didn’t order it? What or who led you to believe I didn’t? Totally bizarre.
David
January 21st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Well, apart from the fact that you’ve backdated your post and enlisted poor Nagle in the cover up, as the Archive will show, there’s the point that your “Oh, see my beautiful Reader lying there” sent off huge bs signals to me.
That, and the way you never commented on a .pdf bug with Sony’s Reader that makes it impossible (talking 10 second delay) to turn pages in a .pdf formatted book on Sony after the first 50 or so.
Also, out of strictly commercial interest for Silk Pagoda’s #2 seller (1, 3 4 are free), I was here busily scanning all through the July 4th period, monitoring that sale closely on all the sites, and you didn’t mention purchasing the Sony until well after it had sold out. I believe it was the 5th.
Aside from that, I guess nothing. Cute with the receipt and you might even have shipping right, though some got it free, but–why would you change the post after July ended?
(The Archive, by the way, catches everything at the end of a month, holds ‘em for six to process, and is so accurate it’s used in court cases.)
I guess it’s fitting that as attention whores go, you’re a deceitful 300-pound trollop, but, why’d you lie about .css support in FBReader again?
PS: Ebay searches are timestamped.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:43 pm
So, David, who’s the idiot now?
You’re actually asking people to believe that Robert Nagle and I went to all this trouble to make people falsely think I bought a Sony Reader on July 4. Because of factors such as possible database problems—I don’t know—something might show up weirdly somewhere. However, a technical genius like you should be able to factor in the what-ifs before jumping to such a wacko conclusion.
Did you even bother to read the comments and see the time stamps on them? The posts drew 12 comments with stamps. Did everyone who made them—Marcus Sandman, Ben, Rob Preece, Jon Morgan, Flametoad and a Wowio blogger, not just the evil duo behind the TeleBlog–participate in a cover-up? Or let Robert and me concoct posts with their names?
No need to trust me. Check out the Google cache:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:8B4Y1oKSwgsJ:www.teleread.org/blog/2007/07/04/sony-reader-on-sale-at-tigerdirectcom-for-99-but-hurry/ site:teleread.org july 4 sony&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
An apology would be classy, though I doubt it’ll be coming. Stick to the stuff you do best, David—finding delightful quirky old books. Woodstein you ain’t.
Thanks,
David
> Well, apart from the fact that you’ve backdated your post and enlisted poor Nagle in the cover up, as the Archive will show, there’s the point that your “Oh, see my beautiful Reader lying there” sent off huge bs signals to me.
January 21st, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Geeze, Rothman, four hours and the best you can come up with is “database issues?”
While I enjoy watching your stance against me shrivel up like a giant slug after a salting, I think I’ll point out that, the google cache is either maybe 3 days old or at most dates from the time I first mentioned your possession issues to Bill McCoy–October, wasn’t it? He got so freaked out he started posting for a day or two (but I went to Texas).
You, of course, changed things.
Oh, I’d've blasted you then, but you see, I know the validity of the Archive, just like I know in DC, it’s the cover-up that kills ya.
I will ask, is it because you think you got away with that deception that you lied about .css support in FBReader?
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 am
[…] in his twin strategies of deliberate obtuseness and character assassination, longtime ebook attention whore and, ’til yesterday, useful idiot for Adobe Systems David […]
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:10 am
[…] Rothman’s tactics begin with deliberate obtuseness, followed by character assassination, and as soon as I bring up the Sony, he drops both […]
January 25th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
David, how nice after all this time to speak with you again. I’d like to make this a longer response but my partially paralyzed right leg threw me for a header and injured the radial nerve - so now my right arm is partially paralyzed which means my right hand is a “dropped” and useless. This happened day before yesterday - only you get me out of bed to write this with my left hand. And because I’ve been in several hospitals for 7 back surgeries I’ve not updated my website for a long time. As Mr. Rothman says, I’m on morphine - the interthecal pump which injects morphine directly into the spine. A hole yjrust into the dura is what paralized my leg. Now, about us. At least now I know why you ended your final e-mail with something like “As a human being I am despicable.” And I know why you neveer answered my e-mails and certified letter about why you simply cut me (and my royalties) off. You never answered Writer’s Beware or a Freelance association asking for your side of what happened. The only reason, as you know, because I e-mailed you, that I reported you was because you kept selling my work, first thru a kind of backdoor to Blackmask and thru the 15,000, 20,000, et al, disks and other buyers as well. If you’d answered my 1st e-mail asking why you’d cut me off by saying you paid me 3 times over for my books (which sold so badly I still have a copy of your books sold where Blood Kiss was no. 1 for 3 weeks runnng) I’d have known you were lying. As for the reviews, inone e-mail I asked if you were bringing in a new reviewer and if you were it was fine with me. If your readers didn’t care for my Dorothy Parker-type reviews, that was your fault. I asked before I wrote the 1st one, should I call it as I saw it or stroke the author and your response was to call it as I saw it. At least one site quoted my (good) review of Jeff Strand. My work is on sites all over the world because of you. I may not be happy that you pirated my work, but as an Australian producer is interested in Blood Kiss for a movie, I guess I have your piracy to thank you for his interest. I have no set publisher, but I did for some time teach writing (up until my 3rd surgery) for Easy Way To Write. He still uses my lessons and, with my permission, gets all the money. After all, he’s doing all the work now. I don’t really feel like suing you anymore. I’m glad you wish me well, but I do feel that - regarding what happened between us I Do think an apology is in order - private if you wish. It was a duspicable thing to do. I also wish you well. Life is so precious and as precious - believe me - I absolutely know how true that is - to hold a grudge. Finally Iam sorry for any typos. It’s damn hard to do this with just my left hand!
January 25th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Kenyon, nothing sold that well on blackmask, with or without DVDs and CDs. It’s why I started Olympia.
I didn’t answer the allegations posted elsewhere because you were obviously very hurt, and raising a defense would not have helped matters. I’m glad you’ve found other folks who can do a better for you.
I do wish you the best of luck.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
[…] at least a handful of aspiring authors looking for publishers. Because of past experience and the hurt feelings and accusations that go with sales below a certain threshold, unless the work is something I know I can sell well*, […]