Tag Archives: Technology

by Ben Trube | July 13, 2016 · 12:05 PM

Snap Judgment: Way Down In Poke-Go

By now you’ve either been playing or at least heard of Pokemon-Go, an augmented reality app released last week that has people wandering around the real world looking to “catch ’em all.” I do not have a smart-phone, so my impression of this development is largely from observation of others and catching up on the news, but here are some thoughts in no particular order:

It seems oddly perfect to me that this property from the 90’s is what made augmented reality popular, or at least part of the conversation. There have been other games, including one by the same company, that have had a huge player base, but nothing has captured the imagination of people (or the media) quite like this.
There needs to be a better mechanism for non-players to verify public locations are gyms or Poke-Stops and give them the option to opt out. In the meantime our pastor has asked a member of the congregation who is playing the game to win our church’s gym so it doesn’t get renamed to something we wouldn’t like.
In that vein, there is a part of me that is tickled that someone won the Westboro Gym and renamed it “Love Is Love.”
There are privacy concerns, but my suspicion is this app isn’t really more intrusive than what other apps are doing, it’s just getting us to pay more attention, which is a good thing. Keeping the camera on all the time raises some obvious concerns, but ones we’ve needed to address for a while.
People need to use their phones more like a tricorder and less like eyes. You don’t see Spock staring into his black box without looking up around him. Otherwise you’ll end up like a red-shirt.
I do kind of wish I had the app so I could set a lure, then shoot people with Super-Soakers while yelling “Squirtle!” This would make up for the fact that capturing a Pokemon doesn’t involve fighting it, which seems wrong to me.
A video game that encourages exercise is not a bad thing, as long as people look where they are going.
I have yet to see people in the wild actually playing this game, though I see a lot of traffic about it on Facebook and Twitter, and I know a few people who’ve installed it, including one of them who told me it works while driving which seems … unwise.
It’s a bummer this is limited to smartphones and doesn’t work on my Kindle. Then again, I need to actually get work done and trying to capture a Charizard isn’t how I’m going to do it.

Over all, neat game though I imagine the novelty will wear off. But I am interested in the conversation it starts, and the next generation of games like this.

** Bonus points to the reader who gets the Gendo reference.

Your Kindle Doesn’t Know How Much You Read

I write mysteries, and I know there are some people out there who like to skip to the end before they read the rest of the book. I’m not a big pain about spoilers, but this one has never made any sense to me. I’ve heard that for some people it eases the tension, or gives you an idea if you’ll like how the book turns out before reading the whole thing, but part of being a mystery writer is trying to build tension and interest, not reduce it.

But if my book were on Kindle Unlimited, then those people who skipped to the end would be making me more money.

So here’s what happened.

Last summer Kindle Unlimited changed its rules for how it pays out to authors from the lending library fund. Prior to the change, authors were paid by the borrow (if the reader read 10%). This system resulted in a lot of short books getting paid the same as longer ones. In fact, this happened to me with my Fractals You Can Draw booklet (unintentionally I might add). I made about $0.35 for every sale, and $1.35 for every borrow.

The new system was supposed to pay you by the page read (at a rate of roughly half a cent per page). But as it turns out the system was flawed. Kindle reported the number of pages read by the farthest position in the book, not by the number of actual pages read. So if your readers skipped to the end without reading anything else, instead of counting for just 2 pages, that read counted for the whole length of the book.

Scammers naturally took advantage of this, using click-bait techniques and phonebook sized dummy books to rack up as many “pages read” as possible. In February, Amazon limited the maximum number of pages to 3000, which could still net you a little over $12 a book.

And here’s how it affects indie authors like me.

For starters the scammers are taking a big chunk out of the total lending fund, which is a fixed pool we all fight for a piece of (you can read a great analysis of this situation here). And if the scammers are top performers, they not only get the pages read, but some nice bonuses as well. And they negatively add to the reputation that all self-published books are crap.

But the other side of the coin is that Amazon’s failure to write good pages read detection code affects authors who use “scammy” techniques to provide what they think is a better reading experience.

One of the best ways for someone who’s never read your book before to decide if they want to buy from you is to read as much as possible. So a lot of authors chose to put the Table of Contents at the back of the book instead of the front, since the eReader can take them straight to it anyway. This meant that the TOC wasn’t taking up valuable sample book real estate. And even those who didn’t make this choice deliberately may have inadvertently done it by using book conversion tools like Calibre. In fact, some older eReaders prefer the contents to be at the back, otherwise they can’t detect them.

All of my eBooks actually have a front TOC and a back TOC to have the widest range of compatibility. Newer eReaders, like my current Fire, render the TOC as a side-bar, giving me direct navigation. To take advantage of similar navigation techniques on older readers, both TOC locations were required. But I have a hunch that at least some of my pages read (particularly the 582 spikes), resulted from someone going to the back TOC before reading the book. Again, not the reason I put that TOC there (for a book that was published several years ago I might add), but a factor nonetheless.

Earlier this month Amazon starting sending quality notices to authors requesting that they reformat their books or have them removed from sale. Amazon later revised this policy, stating that the back TOC is not recommended, but not in and of itself a violation of the publishing guidelines. I haven’t received a quality notice for any of my books (and Fractals: A Programmer’s Approach is the only enrolled in Kindle Unlimited anyway, though that hasn’t necessarily mattered to those getting the notices). If I do get a notice I will give my strenuous objections for why I want to retain backward compatibility. And then I may end up reformatting the book anyway.

The funny thing is, if my book were purchased by a regular library I’d get a tiny chunk of that sale, once per book, not per read, or per pages read. Kindle Unlimited, as a subscription service, is a different animal, and I think authors are entitled to a chunk of that pie. But I’ve always looked at it more like the library model, a way for people to try before they buy, or to get my book to people who can’t afford it, but still want to read it (though this last falls apart a bit with a $120 a year service).

I think Amazon needs to act with a more nuanced hand and instead of painting all indie authors with the same brush, try to enact better controls for getting rid of crappy books. And they need to write the code to actually detect pages read, rather than try to punish others for their lack of foresight.

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Some other great articles on this subject are here and here. If all this is kind of making you annoyed with Amazon, there are many other great places to buy eBooks including Smashwords, where my latest cyber-noir mystery, Surreality, is available for all of your eReaders and without the nasty DRM.

Chipping away

I think I’ve been given a great lesson in patience by having a job that involves a lot of repetition. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of opportunities for creative thinking, design, and analysis of tough problems. But there’s also a lot of work that needs to be done over and over. This patience has helped me in building databases of information for upcoming projects, keeping track of a growing library of books and music, and even drawing patterns by hand.

I have a weird ritual when I start working, whether it’s writing or my professional job. I take my “go bag” (which I mentioned in yesterday’s post) and completely unpack its contents onto my desk. I then put things away that I won’t need, or things I’m finished with as I’m working. If I’m at home, I may analyze if this particular object needs to go back in the bag, or whether it’s just taking up space. I’m always fighting the twin impulses to take everything with me, and to only carry the things I actually need and will use.

The ritual provides focus. Every day I’m making a quick analysis of what needs to be done on the day’s projects, and I’m even making some long term decisions about how I’m spending my time. I don’t tend to plan out projects too specifically in the long term. Sometimes all I’m doing is shooting for a particular date, and making decisions along the way to make sure I hit that date.

One of the recurring themes in my life is the desire to do a number of projects, but the time to only do one or two at a time. Sometimes I’ve tried to whittle myself down to a single focus, whereas others I’m exploring half a dozen different avenues of creative expression. Both can be valuable. Exploring a bunch of different ideas can help you determine what’s the best path forward. And focusing on a single project can bring a clarity and a lack of distraction.

My hunch, though, is that two projects is the optimal number, at least for me right now. I tend to be really focused and excited about something for short bursts, sometimes a few days, sometimes a few weeks, and then I need a mental break. I’m a disciplined writer, so often I just push through these fallow periods, but the times when I have felt most productive and engaged are those when I’ve had something else to fall back on. Having another project can get your brain thinking in a different way, which can in turn bring new insights back to your original goal.

I think it’s important and valuable to make quick and routine assessments of how things are going, and to make changes as necessary, Don’t spend forever deciding if a particular notebook should go back in the “go bag”, but maybe try to think about the last time you used it. Recognize that time, like the space in a carry bag, can be limited and is best spent focused on a few things. But take advantage of the space you have, and the place you’re in at that moment.

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ICYMI – Check out Berthold Gambrel’s latest review of Surreality. “A ‘hardboiled’ murder mystery with a modern twist.”

1 Comment

Filed under Writing

Tagged as Planning, Priorities, Technology, Time, Writing

by Ben Trube | March 21, 2016 · 12:15 PM

Tools of the Trade

My mom was talking to me this weekend about a commercial she’d seen for a new car. It involved a group of people tossing their smart phones into a wood chipper, then being asked how they felt about it. One girl’s reply was that she felt a bit sick.

Personally I think I’d be looking for a bigger, cooler object to shred, like maybe an old desktop that’s given me trouble. And I would want back the $600 I paid for the phone (in the hypothetical world where I own a smartphone in the first place).

My relationship to technology is a lot like a carpenter and his tools. I work with all sorts of gadgets, and I do buy things so that I can have some specialized new functionality. Just recently I bought a $6 bluetooth keyboard for my tablet (after looking through literally 1000’s of options). But I don’t live on my gear (all appearances to the contrary), they’re just tools in my toolbox.

One of the first things I do when starting a new writing project is to put together my “go bag.” Typically this involves going to the thrift store to find something cool with all the right compartments I need (I have probably as many laptop/computer bags as some people have purses). My latest is an orange sport bag with a nice thin profile, lots of pockets, and a total cost of $3.

For my current writing projects, I’m trying to work without always carrying around a laptop. I have a couple of good on-the-go computers, but the boot-up time and battery life can hamper opportunities to write in odd locations. The kind of projects I’m working on now benefit from the ability to whip out a keyboard, type for fifteen minutes, then pack up. My tablet can carry large amounts of reading material, music, and media, everything I need to be productive in small bursts.

But as much as I work on computers or tablets, there are still tasks that call for old fashioned pencil and paper. I think a lot of authors romanticize fancy journals, leather-bound notebooks with wrap-around ties, something that looks like an ancient scribe that will lead you to the ark of the covenant. I’m susceptible to this as much as the next person, though I’ve divested myself somewhat of the notion that I’m going to fill these books with wonderfully profound short-stories or thoughts. Usually I just use them for taking notes.

This still can require specialized equipment. Because I have a small bag I want something small, sturdy, with a lot of pages, and a little cool looking. Since I’m taking math notation, I need a gridded notebook that meets these parameters (bought my first Moleskine brand notebook this week). I’ve heard that notation on paper can aid in retention of information, though truthfully it’s just as much about speed and not having to flip back and forth between what I’m reading on my tablet and my notes.

My point is, I carry around abilities, not gadgets.

Some of those abilities are purely entertainment based, and some are more practical, but the tools are not part of me. Short of worries about losing notes, having to replace items, or being worried about credit card information, these devices are just gear. It’s gear I trade in and out based on the needs of the moment. I make some effort to be connected, to check-in on social media, to tweet an appropriate number of times, and to write these posts, but it’s not the primary function of anything I carry. It’s the nail-file on my Leatherman. Occasionally useful, but not primarily why I have the device.

Maybe part of it is that I spread out my gear. No one device has all my contacts, music, pictures, writing, etc. I try to keep things roughly interchangeable, to allow for my cycling of moods between trying to carry the minimum possible, and the whole kitchen sink. And I like specialized devices rather than multi-purpose ones. I actually think there’s a benefit to something that can only do one thing, my eReader is still the device on which I do the most reading, not my tablet, because there are fewer distractions.

I worry as I write this that I sound anachronistic, out of touch with modern culture and devices. My refusal to own a smartphone already puts me dangerously close to the Grandpa class. Heck, my Dad has a smartphone, and loves it. But I think skepticism is healthy. Then again, you are reading the opinions of a bearded man whose dream is to live in a cabin in the woods. So take that for what it’s worth.

I think at the very least we should examine our relationship to devices from time to time. And if the thought of losing them makes us sick, maybe it’s time to pull back a little.