Some poor girl just moved to Portland. 21 and pregnant. Looked for baby clothes on Craig’s List. She met a woman through a listing and went to her house – and never came out alive.
Instead the other woman killed her, cut the baby out, and tried to claim it was hers. But she had to call 911 because the baby wasn’t breathing. She and the baby got taken to the hospital, where they figured out she hadn’t had a baby recently – and the ambulance crew had noticed an awful lot of blood around the house.
The really creepy thing is she had been telling everyone, including her boyfriend, who they don't think knew what she was planning, that she was pregnant with TWINS. And the police are tracking down other women who may have had contact with the killer.
I only heard about this type of crime a few years back. Do you think if it hadn’t been in the media, then crazy women like this chick would think of it on their own?
You can read more here.
And similar cases are listed here. Notice that none of them is more than a decade old?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
What will Kindle mean for books? Some eye-opening numbers
Publishers Lunch says that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said "Kindle sales are now 35 percent of books where we have Kindle editions" and print editions of the same title. PL says this is “more than three times the ratio that Amazon had reported previously, first in October and then again in February when Kindle 2 was announced. The initial reception at numerous trade publishers, executives tell us, was deep skepticism. But as sales departments crunched numbers, in many cases the data has confirmed the general range of Amazon's report.”
The most interesting part of the article was this unanswered question:
“Do Kindle Sales Cannibalize?
The big unresolved question for many houses is whether this spike in Kindle sales is additive or cannibalistic. (Amazon did not update their contention from last year that Kindle customers "buy the same number of physical books going forward as they did before they owned a Kindle. And then incrementally, they buy about 1.6 to 1.7 electronic books.") One executive believes strongly that, while their house's total Amazon sale on big books is rising when you include Kindle and print editions, the Kindle spike is taking market share away from other retailers' print versions (though this point will be hard to confirm until after returns are taken on recent releases). Other houses are just beginning to analyze the extent to which these sales are additive or cannibalistic.”
The NYT had an interesting article on ebook pricing. One sentence caught my eye: "But publishers argue that those costs, which generally run about 12.5 percent of the average hardcover retail list price, do not entirely disappear with e-books."
So if my current hardcover sells for $24.99, then as an ebook version, it should cost $21.86.
But it doesn't. It costs $9.99.
So how does that work?
Here's the answer, according to the article "For the moment, say some publishers, Amazon is effectively subsidizing the $9.99 price tag for new book titles in digital form by paying publishers the same $13 it pays them for a new hardcover title with a list price of $26. It’s a classic “loss leader” situation. Although Amazon won’t comment on the arrangement, the online bookseller is using low-price e-books as a lure to persuade consumers to pay $359 to buy a Kindle, or $489 for the new, larger Kindle DX."
But if the Kindle establishes itself as the dominant player in the ebook market, how long will Amazon be willing to pay publishers less? And if they pay do pay publishers less, you know that the publisher is giong to turn around and ask the authors to take less.
Lots more food for thought here.
The most interesting part of the article was this unanswered question:
“Do Kindle Sales Cannibalize?
The big unresolved question for many houses is whether this spike in Kindle sales is additive or cannibalistic. (Amazon did not update their contention from last year that Kindle customers "buy the same number of physical books going forward as they did before they owned a Kindle. And then incrementally, they buy about 1.6 to 1.7 electronic books.") One executive believes strongly that, while their house's total Amazon sale on big books is rising when you include Kindle and print editions, the Kindle spike is taking market share away from other retailers' print versions (though this point will be hard to confirm until after returns are taken on recent releases). Other houses are just beginning to analyze the extent to which these sales are additive or cannibalistic.”
The NYT had an interesting article on ebook pricing. One sentence caught my eye: "But publishers argue that those costs, which generally run about 12.5 percent of the average hardcover retail list price, do not entirely disappear with e-books."
So if my current hardcover sells for $24.99, then as an ebook version, it should cost $21.86.
But it doesn't. It costs $9.99.
So how does that work?
Here's the answer, according to the article "For the moment, say some publishers, Amazon is effectively subsidizing the $9.99 price tag for new book titles in digital form by paying publishers the same $13 it pays them for a new hardcover title with a list price of $26. It’s a classic “loss leader” situation. Although Amazon won’t comment on the arrangement, the online bookseller is using low-price e-books as a lure to persuade consumers to pay $359 to buy a Kindle, or $489 for the new, larger Kindle DX."
But if the Kindle establishes itself as the dominant player in the ebook market, how long will Amazon be willing to pay publishers less? And if they pay do pay publishers less, you know that the publisher is giong to turn around and ask the authors to take less.
Lots more food for thought here.
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