As an asteroid nears Earth, giving humanity three weeks to put its affairs in order, a man (Steve Carrell) finds himself alone after his wife flees in panic. He and a young neighbor (Keira Knightley) take a road trip so he can reunite with his first love, a woman he dated in high school, and she can find her family. Trailer follows:
Looks like fun, and it kind of reminds me of LAST NIGHT (1989), another great it’s-the-end-of-the-world-last-chance-to-find-meaning movie:
TamingTheBookshelf.com Names THE INFECTION one of the Top 10 Non-YA Books of 2011, writing, “I don’t know where or how I found this book, but I’m so glad I did. Crazy Action-Packed Zombie Novel with original twists that totally blew my mind. This one has MOVIE written all over it. This is more of a ‘boy’ book, but I’m a girly-girl and I really enjoyed it too.” Thanks, Tara!
Click here to see the complete list.
Another great article about Amazon.com getting into the book publishing business here.
So here you have the world’s biggest online book retailer deciding to publish its own books under the Amazon label.
Let me preface by saying I LOVE Amazon as an author writing for indie publishing houses. They offer a major sales channel for indie publishing, and without them, I would not have achieved a fraction of the success that I have as an author writing for an indie horror publishing house. If the big retailers like Barnes and Noble were a little smarter than they are, they would set up a team of talent scouts to scour indie publishing, identify top-selling titles, get somebody to finance some printing, buy some insurance against the returns, and put them in their stores. But they don’t, so Amazon eats their lunch.
But like any corporation Amazon wants more. So they set up a publishing arm. They typically get 30% of the list price, while small publishers get the rest. Print on demand (POD) printing is very cheap; eBooks are even cheaper. Amazon already has a POD printing arm. So Amazon figures, hey, if we put our own label on the books, we can flood the market with what used to be indie fiction, and instead of getting 30%, we can get 90%.
And since it’s all print on demand and eBook, they can do this without any real risk. All they have to do is buy some big name authors with some big advances to lend credibility to the program, and BANG, they’re making a lot more money than they used to. This has been described as an assault on big publishing, but it isn’t–it’s actually something of a threat to indie publishing that relies on Amazon in a big way for its sales, and that Amazon seemingly would like to replace.
This is obviously great for Amazon, which would presumably increase revenues while gaining extraordinary control over this part of the market. If you’re an author, you get an editor and maybe some promotional favoritism on the Amazon site. If you’re a reader, you get a lot more choices, with the Amazon label providing some assurance that the book meets certain quality standards, injecting a “gatekeeper” into this part of the market.
If you’re an indie publisher, well, it might not be pretty. You would have to compete with your distributor. And your authors might find Amazon a better deal.
If you’re a big publisher, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Amazon is eating your lunch because you refuse to talent scout hot titles in indie publishing. And now Amazon is wooing away some big name authors to lend legitimacy to their new program. Overall, not a big deal. I guess the ultimate threat is that if the Amazon private label brand is perceived as high quality over time, people may seek it out instead of going to bookstores. This could hurt the big publishers but I doubt it would destroy them. People still love going to bookstores and browsing books.
Then I read this article, and things are getting even more interesting. My understanding was the Amazon program was going to be limited to print on demand and eBook publishing, but Amazon is apparently hoping to put at least select titles into bookstores. The article says:
Adding insult to injury, Amazon also hopes to sell the books they publish in the very stores they’ve long treated as obsolete and unnecessary.”
This might be limited, more cosmetics for their program to make their private label sexier than just a brand for a POD/eBook program dressed up as publishing. It might even be an empty gesture to generate a little excitement. “Hopes” doesn’t mean “will,” and it doesn’t mean “will in a big way.”
But it might be a major effort toward distribution for its top-tier titles, in which case Amazon would be partnering with the brick and mortar distribution it once denounced as irrelevant, not to mention its biggest competition, while competing directly with the major publishers for precious bookshelf space. With its deep pockets, Amazon would be very tough competition.
If this were to happen, the effects would be revolutionary. The publishing industry–from indie publishing market to big publishing–would be transformed.
Personally, though, I don’t think they’ll make a big effort to get major brick and mortar distribution. If they did that, they would be jumping into a business model that is much higher-risk, and give a big piece of the revenue away to the retailer. Why bother?
It’s just my opinion, but I don’t think Amazon is going to do that. In fact, any talk about doing it and threatening the big publishers is all part of creating the impression that the Amazon publishing brand is powerful instead of diluted, as I understand they will be publishing up to hundreds of titles per year. No, the real threat is to indie publishing, a growing market in which Amazon takes 30% of the revenues as the primary distributor, and would like to take 90%.
In A DAY CALLED X, a short film produced in 1957, we see how Portland would respond in the moments prior to an atomic attack based on its civil defense plan. The predictions of the filmmakers were optimistic, to say the least.
In PERFECT SENSE, a chef and an epidemiologist meet and fall in love as an epidemic begins to rob the world’s population of sensory perception, threatening apocalypse. The film has gotten a lot of negative reviews for overbearing sap (it appears to be a love story, with the plague and resulting apocalypse used as plot devices), but the premise looks intriguing–reminding me of BLINDNESS (great book, so-so movie)–so I’ll probably give it a shot.
In the post-apocalyptic short AFTER THE FALL, two young men live in a derelict amusement park, scavenging for food and using their imaginations to try to keep themselves entertained after the end of the world. When a young woman enters the picture, their friendship must adapt. But after the apocalypse, there are no rules and some things no longer bend, they break.
In the short film CIVILIANS, a group of teenagers struggles to survive in the ruins of their old lives, now destroyed by endless war.
Civilians from Ceremony Films on Vimeo.
Jacqueline Druga, author of FLU by Permuted Press, reviews THE INFECTION in this video review, giving it 5 stars and calling it “amazing! It captured me, I was engrossed, I couldn’t put it down. I had nightmares!” At the end she gave me what is probably the highest compliment a horror author can receive. Thanks, Jackie!
Check it out below:
Left Overs reviews THE INFECTION, writing, “DiLouie’s greatest strength is in his ability to move the story along at a fast yet organic pace. There isn’t a single spot of unimportant or boring information, and the characters develop on their own … I was so impressed by THE INFECTION that I almost flipped to the first page to read it again … This book will appeal to readers of all levels of zombie experience, from the diehard survivalist who is counting the days until the apocalypse, to the closet zombie reader. Whatever you do, go and purchase this book RIGHT NOW!” Thanks, Holly Ann!
Read the entire review here. And get ready for THE KILLING FLOOR, the sequel coming soon from Permuted Press!
