DOUBLE TIME: Interview with Trey Mills.

It's my pleasure to have Olivia Cunning and Sinner's rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist, Trey Mills as guests. Trey is one sexy guy and between him and Dare, one tends to hyperventilate in their presence. Fortunately, Olivia was kind enough to bring a nice paper bag for me to breathe into. Thanks Olivia! 

Trey, I've often wondered why you didn't join your brother’s band? Exodus End is a really good band. Why the Sinners instead? And Darren is a hot one, in my opinion.

We’re just spreading the Mills’ brother talent around a little. We didn't think the world could handle that level of awesome all at once. Heh, just kidding. 

Sinners has a certain feel. Much more relaxed than Exodus End. Besides I’d rather play guitar alongside Brian. He’s willing to share the spotlight. My brother is a stage hog. A bit of a control freak. Thinks he needs to dominate every aspect of his life. Don’t tell him I said that. Besides, Dare was already establishing himself as a talented professional guitarist when I was thirteen-years-old. That will cramp any aspiring rock star’s style. Who wants to share a stage with a geeky kid? How was he supposed to know that I’d outgrow that look? Thank God, I did. Darren was always good-looking. The ass.

You’re known as quite a party animal. Men and women seem to be all over you. Rarely the same ones twice. Your dressing room door seems a bit revolving. How do you keep everything straight? Or do you?

I have a great memory. I never forget a good piece of a– I mean, I keep track in a database or something. But I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I've given that up. Don’t need it anymore.

I have to say, you’re looking a bit more relaxed, more at peace. I’m wondering if a sexy female rhythm guitarist might have something to do with it? New member of your brother’s band, isn’t she?

Reagan Elliot. She is working with Exodus End for the time being. Poor woman. I don’t think she’s realizes what a bunch of workaholics those guys are. Yeah, they play hard, but who has the energy to play when you work too much? There’s another reason to be in Sinners instead of my brother’s band. More play time.

Mind sharing a little bit about Reagan with us?

She makes me laugh. Amazing instrumentalist. You should hear her play. She’s also cute, if you like that outspoken, tom-boyish type. I totally do.

You were there during her audition, weren't you?

We couldn't see them during the audition. I thought she was Brian, lead guitarist of Sinners. I've never met anyone who could play like him, so when I did, well… it was lust at first solo.

Now, this might be a bit intrusive, but I heard her call you her boyfriend…? You, who will party anytime anywhere and with anybody, is now a boyfriend? This is going tick off some of your fans, you know.

I was just waiting for the right woman. Sure I had to try out a lot of them before I found the right fit, but I’m sure my fans will understand. Not that they have a choice.

But I've also seen her with a really hunky, yowsa, guy, Ethan. I thought he was her boyfriend? 

They used to date. He is a looker, isn't he? Now he’s her bodyguard. Every hot woman rock star needs a bodyguard.

One of the Sinners just became a father. You know there are quite a few people who think rock stars aren't supposed to be married, much less have children. That it’s not a healthy environment for families to flourish. Care to comment on that?

I’m not sure why anyone would think that. Rock stars are people, just like everyone else. It’s tough to have a family when you’re on the road a lot, but I have lots of friends in the business who have successful marriages and happy kids. I don’t plan to ever be one of them, but I know any one of my bandmates would make a great father. I mean, Sed wants eight kids. Eight kids? What in the world would you do with eight kids? I guess he aspires to be octodad and have his own reality show or something. And poor Jessica. Her lady parts will never recover from that.

Speaking of lead singer, Sed Lionheart, he mentioned that the days of “estrogen on the tour buses was just a temporary situation.”  At the time, both Myrna and Jessica were traveling on the tour bus. From what I saw recently, I’d say estrogen seems to still have a presence on the bus. In fact I caught a glimpse of a really hot woman, dressed in a pink waitress outfit with your band’s drummer Eric—she dropped her menu and I got a look at it. Wow, that’s quite a, um, unique menu selection there. Who is she?

That had to be Rebekah. She’s our front of house soundboard engineer. So she’s permanent part of the tour. She mixes the sound for our live shows. We’d keep her even if she didn't make our drummer, Eric, the happiest dude on the planet. Not sure what she’s sees in him. It can’t possibly be his lame sense of humor.

The band’s bassist, Jace, has been seen with a gorgeous, but tough looking, woman. Are they a couple? When did this happen?

Tough? Aggie’s a pussycat. It’s her darker side, who goes by Mistress V, that you have watch out for. When Mistress V is in her dungeon, she’ll drive you to your knees. Aggie was on tour with us in Canada helping Jace with his, um, little problem, but she hasn't been on tour with us since. Not that I minded having Aggie on the tour bus. She kicks ass. Literally. Don’t tick her off.

She has a dungeon? How do you know about it? Have you gone there yourself?

She and Jace give lessons to couples who want to explore the darker side of their sexuality. 

I couldn't wear these much now. Heels are too high
.

And maybe I've been there, maybe not. If you’re interested, I could give you her card. I think she’d train you to be an awesome domme, Sia. How’s your aim?

Awesome, huh? I have my own leather, thank you very much, and my aim is actually quite good, Trey. Of course, I’m not as good with my left as I am with my right. I need more practice. Are you volunteering?

Not me! But I'm sure Jace would volunteer.

As a popular band, what are some of the good things that have come your way? What would classify as a downside?

As far as I’m concerned, everything about being a part of Sinners been great. Amazing. I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I get to hang out with my best friends and make music. I meet a lot of people all over the world. The fan adulation is rather nice.

I know you suffered an injury and had some problems not long ago…?

There have been a few dark spots on my cherry life. I suffered from a head injury a couple of years ago, which I thought was going to end my career, but it doesn't bother me these days. And I might have had a bit of a run-in with a painkiller addiction soon after that, but I wrote a song about it and the guys thought it was good enough for the new album. Writing it was very healing for me. I sing part of it onstage to remind myself how low rock bottom feels. Because I’m so far from rock bottom now, it’s hard to remember how dark things can become.

Currently, things are great. I can’t imagine life getting any better.

Trey, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. I wish you and Reagan the best!

BUY: AMAZON, B&N, INDIEBOUND

DOUBLE TIME--Sinners on Tour Series

He Craves Her Music and Passion

On the rebound from the tumult of his bisexual lifestyle, notoriously sexy rock guitarist Trey Mills falls for sizzling new female guitar sensation Reagan Elliot and is swept into the hot, heady romance he never dreamed possible.

She Can't Get Enough of His Body

Ecstatic to be on tour learning the ropes with Trey's band, The Sinners, Reagan finds she craves Trey as much as she craves being in the spotlight.

They Both Need More...

When Reagan's ex, Ethan Connor, enters the scene, Trey's secret desires come back to haunt him, and pleasure and passion are taken to a whole new level of dangerous desire.

Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock ‘n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. 
  
You can find Olivia: 
  
Website, Blog, Facebook Fan page

.

MONDAY MUSINGS—IT'S ALL ABOUT THE ANATOMY

Getting the book discovered:

   Write a good book

                           Invest in a good editor

                                             Effective packaging

                                                                  Cover art is a selling tool

                                                                         Branding

… of the book. J

Sorry, folks, to tease you like that, but I've been asked to talk about what it takes to bring a self-published book to an author’s readership.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m both traditionally and self-published, and I own a business where I help authors get their books to market, www.formatting4U.com. It evolved because I was listening to authors on my loops talk about paying astronomical prices to have someone else do what I’d figured out how to do on my own. I couldn't see paying for it; I also couldn't see paying what those authors were talking about to have it done. So, I popped in to the conversation, said that I’d do it for $XX and dontchaknow? A few people contacted me.

The business has grown from a part time, help-out-my-fellow-author-and-earn-some-cash-doing-so hobby, to a business that I’m hoping to make full time. It’s grown from formatting books for Kindle, Nook and Smashwords, to more platforms, to doing print-on-demand layouts, to covers (both electronically and print), to editing, to PDF-to-text conversion, children’s books, and text books, services all requested by my growing client base. (Testimonials are at: www.formatting4U.com/testimonials).

The hardest part, of course, is writing the book...

So what all is involved? First, you have to start with a clean MSWord document. There are numerous theories and practices out there where people say you shouldn’t use a Word doc as your source, that you should convert to Kindle from Mobi Pocketcreator or Calibre and Sigil, to using Smashwords’ nuclear method, to a whole host of other options. And you know what? Each one is right for that individual. Depending on your level of technological know-how, you can find different ways to get your book online. There’s no one way.

This is actually the easy part of self-publishing. The hardest part, of course, is writing the book. The second hardest part is having your book get discovered online. If only I knew the secret to that…

The landscaping is changing daily on what works and what doesn't  Prior to June 2012, free promos worked well on Amazon. But they've changed their algorithms supposedly and I know from first-hand experience (with a book I put up under a completely different name and a different genre), as well as from fellow authors, that the KDP Select free promo days don’t have the same impact.



One of the biggest draws is going to be your cover...

So we have to look at all the other packaging for the book. One of the biggest draws is going to be your cover. You want to invest in a good cover artist. This is not the area to skimp. Actually, none of the areas are areas to skimp. You've spent how many hours writing the book and while I’m sure you love that you have a finished product, most of us do want people to buy it so we can recoup our investment and make some money. Spend money on an editor: you may only get one chance to capture the reader if you can get them to download your book. If you have shoddy editing, you’ll ensure they won’t pick up your next book.

Find a cover artist if you’re not familiar with graphics programs, or if you don’t have a good handle on marketing. Because covers are your selling tool. They need to look good in thumbnail sizes, they need to show the genre, and show your target audience that this book is one they will want to read.

There’s the front and back matter. Do you want to include cover quotes? Review quotes? A dedication? A glossary? Author bio/photo? Acknowledgments, dedication, links for other books in the series or your website? All considerations that help the reader experience and the author experience (if you can get the current reader to click over and buy your backlist/sequels, it’s definitely a good experience for your wallet!)

Branding is a consideration as well. I have two pen names. My light-hearted contemporaries (both paranormal and straight contemporary) are written as Judi Fennell and they have a certain look to them to give the reader a flavor of what they’ll get inside. As Raven Morris, my pseudonym for an erotic series entitled Tied with a Bow series, (The first book, JACKED, is free on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Kobo and AllRomance eBooks, and that, too, was a marketing decision), I created a hotter, sexier look since it’s erotic. But I branded those covers with the same font, the same swath of satin (but a different cover) and the sexy images.

I could go on (and Sia is probably wishing I wouldn't), but I do have these discussions with my clients. www.formatting4U.com isn't just a static, put-the-manuscript-in-the-engine-and-it-spits-out-a-digital-book-on-the-other-end type enterprise. 

It’s an interactive, interdependent relationship between the author and me, with full consideration given to the reader as the ultimate beneficiary from a job well done.

You may only get one chance to capture the reader, make it count. 

• Invest in a good editor. 
• Don't skimp on creating a cover.

 

You want your book to stand up to the competition—not fade out of the reader's sight. 

EXPLORING NEW WORLDS

It's my pleasure to again have Bestselling author, Terry Spear, visiting with the first book in her new series about Jaguars! Savage Hunger made me purr in contentment. I'm looking forward to book 2, Jaguar Fever.

Have you ever been somewhere really different that you couldn't see enough of because you just didn't have the time, but you would have liked to have just sat down and soaked up the essence of the place? Every sensory detail from the way it looked, to smelled, the feel of the place, the sounds there, even the way the air tastes?

I’m so excited to take you to the jungle, where I set this month’s release, Savage Hunger and some of the next story, Jaguar Fever (Aug 2013)!

I used to live across from one—not called a jungle on the map, but what do mapmakers know when you live across the street from one and can find all the neat jungle-like stuff right there!

The heat, the humidity, the giant mosquitoes, the poisonous snakes—water moccasins, rattlesnakes, alligators, no-see-ums, snapping turtles, feral pigs, tortoises, you name it, we had it. We explored the jungle-like swamps when I was a kid seeking adventure and making up worlds as I went.

I never imagined I’d write about the Amazon or the rainforest in Belize and draw on some of those “feelings” I’d experienced while living in Florida. I read where one visitor to the Amazon said he never saw as many venomous or harmless snakes in the Amazon as he did in Central Florida!

But no monkeys where I lived. Bears, yes. No cats, though in the Everglades, the panther roams the swamps.

Wilkimedia

My jungle was filled with the raucous sound of insects and of birds calling to one another, the same as in the jungle in South and Central America. One year, we had a flock of colorful parrots land in our tree! Just as though we were living in the South American jungle. They rested there for a few minutes, and then took off again on their migratory flight to somewhere else.

I've been to Busch Gardens in Florida. I've seen the parrot shows, which are remarkable, and floated down a river on a glass bottom boat filled with alligator, the boat moving under low hanging branches, one with a snake coiled around a sturdy limb. The boatman brought us close so we could see the massive snake. The branch was dripping with Spanish moss and I worried to death the snake would fall off into the boat and we’d all have to jump into the alligator-filled river. I made reference to such an idea when Kat, the heroine of Savage Hunger, was thinking about what would happen if she shifted into a jaguar on a river boat and all the people made a hasty retreat into the caiman-filled water. See where I get my ideas from? Real life!

It was NOT a Disney excursion either where the snakes, and alligators, and pirates are pretend.

Oh, sure, you say—but did you ever see a water moccasin or a rattlesnake where you lived? My father once pulled a minnow bucket from our canal, intending to go fishing with his buddies. No minnows were inside, but he did one cottonmouth with venomous fangs curled up inside the bucket. Cottonmouth is another name for water moccasin. And a rattlesnake? A couple of boys came pounding on our door, showed us the five-foot long rattlesnake they’d killed in our front yard and asked if they could keep it.

I guess they figured since it was on our property, it was ours. We figured they’d killed it, it was THEIRS, and by all means, take it AWAY!

Those are just a few experiences from my “jungle” growing up. 

• What about you? Are you prepared to take a wild trip to the jungle?

Thanks so much, Sia, for having me here today, and one lucky person that answers my question will have a chance to win a copy of Savage Hunger.US/Canada Addresses Only.

 

BUY: AMAZON, B&N, INDIBOUND

SAVAGE HUNGER 

As a jaguar he is graceful and gorgeous...

Speedy and stealthy...

Fierce, independent, and wild...

As a man he is passionate and powerful...

Willful and wonderful...

And he'll stop at nothing to protect what's his...

The Amazon jungle holds many dangers, as Kathleen McKnight well knows after her mission to bring down a drug cartel goes horribly wrong, leaving her the only survivor on her team. Determined to find the mysterious man who saved her, she returns to the jungle a year later only to find it holds more secrets than she could have ever imagined. 

Since saving Kathleen, jaguar shifter Connor Anderson hasn't been able to get her out of his mind. When she returns to the jungle to seek him out, he only knows one thing: that he must claim her for his own. 

USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear has captured hearts worldwide by wrapping the realities of nature into the glorious romance of the wild. Now, she turns her award—winning imagination from the sexy werewolf hunt to the intense sizzle of jaguar shape-shifters.

Terry Spear has written a couple of dozen paranormal romance novels and two medieval Highland historical romances. Her first werewolf romance, Heart of the Wolf, was named a 2008 Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, and her subsequent titles have garnered high praise and hit the USA Today bestseller list. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry lives in Crawford, Texas, where she is working on her next werewolf romance and continuing her new series about shapeshifting jaguars. For more information, please visit www.terryspear.com, or follow her on Twitter, @TerrySpear. She is also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/terry.spear .

DEER ME —WE INTERRUPT THE NORMALLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM

My apologies, Lori Foster was to be my guest Wednesday, with her fabulous book, Run The Risk, but due to circumstances beyond my control we will have that interview at a later date. 

This is not due to anything on Lori's part but mine. 

See, we had a bit of an accident...

We're entering the most dangerous month when it comes to deer-vehicle accidents due to deer migration along with mating season. 

Drivers usually have a very short span of time to react when a deer darts out in front of our car—as was the case with my husband at dusk Tuesday. He barely caught a flash of fur in his peripheral and although he reacted by braking and moving towards the shoulder of the road, the deer still hit the front left of the Jeep. The others in the herd missed him or he missed them. 

If he hadn't seen the flash the deer would have ended up on the hood and probably through the windshield and who knows where the Jeep would have ended up. 






He’s banged up, the deer walked/limped away with the rest of the group, and the Jeep? Well, it didn't fare as well. Front end doesn't look good, radiator’s shot, he lost two belts when the radiator caved, and the left front tire is damaged. 

Sigh.

And another car bites the dust.

Friday, my guest will be Terry Spear, with her new Jaguar series.

MONDAY MUSING: CATCHING THE EYE OF THE READER

How do you get new readers to not only discover you, but also plunk down their hard-earned money to read your stories?

You want to give them something provocative to keep them interested for longer than three seconds (according to marketing research) so they’ll consider buying the book.

I'm a very visual person. One of my pet peeves, as any who have known me the past five years will attest, is shoddy cover art. I feel strongly about it and have written articles about the importance of professional and competitive looking cover art—especially self published authors. You want your cover to catch the eye and induce the reader to pick up your book.  If one goes through all the time it takes to write a good story, have it properly edited both for story content and grammar/typos, WHY would they slap a crappy(and obvious) photoshop picture on the front and call it a cover? 

Earlier this month, Kat Sheridan shared an interview with L.B. Beckett, author of Guild of Spies. The cover art was imaginative and eye catching. It's beautiful. It doesn't scream *amateur* or self-published. Judi Fennell, Formatting 4 U, designed the cover and I asked her to share the process of such a project and the importance of cover art from a marketing standpoint. 

One of the biggest start-to-finish projects I've worked on recently was L.B. Beckett’s Guild of Spies. This story is an epic steampunk-speculative fiction-action/adventure-thriller with some romance. As you can see, it doesn't fall into any specific genre, so when it came to doing the cover, we were dealing with a wide-open frontier.

But this also allowed us to combine the genres. L.B. Beckett wanted to have an Asian influence, as that is prevalent in the story. Looking at the back cover copy, reading through some of the chapters, and my own knowledge of online marketing (finalist spots in 3 American Idol-like competitions based on vote-getting) and branding, I started looking around for a steampunk feel.

A lot of cover generation is hours of sifting through images. Now, I can do that for a client, but my time is money, or a client can do that for themselves (with direction from me toward a few websites I like to use) and save themselves some cash outlay, though giving up that much time isn't always what people want to do when they could be writing. Up to the client.

To add to the scope of this project, because the book is so long (184,000 words), the author wanted to offer the book as either a full-length novel at one price, or two shorter novels at a lower price. Oh, and we were doing a print book as well. That’s four different cover steps.

We had to look at it from both a branding viewpoint and a marketing one because we didn't want reader to feel that there were three different stories in this series. It’s one story, just delivered in different reading options. Therefore, we wanted continuity across the books, but with a noticeable difference.

I found three different backgrounds all in the same color scheme and feel, so that was one hurdle overcome. I utilized the title and author name graphics across all of the books, and took that Asian element—the phoenix—and kept it, but moved it around. We could also add the Book 1 and 2 titles in a consistent place so readers would be able to identify which book they’d already read.

We had a tag line, too, something that summed up the story:

In a country of secrets, even a spy has her limits…

I tried putting that on the cover, but with all the gears and gadgets and words, it was too much. This was a tough decision from a marketing standpoint because you want to give readers that hook. You want to give them something provocative to keep them interested for longer than three seconds so they’ll consider buying the book. At least, that’s the though process for traditional publishing. But we’re in a new business model and what’s worked in the past doesn't necessarily work now.

Branding was a bigger focus for this story. Keeping those books identifiable for the readers. So we put the tagline on the back. Now, on the digital versions you won’t see it. That is, you won’t see it on the cover. You will, however, see it in the interior. So we've got our hook and it’s included in the online description.

When it came to marketing, we made sure to include “Book 1 of 2” for the half books. We looked at price point—what would encourage a reader to buy a bigger book at a bigger price when they could “sample” the first part of the story for a lesser one? We also included excerpts to the other half of the story at the end and a link to find out where to buy that other half. So now, if a reader finishes Book 1, The Open Hand of Tem, he/she can read what happens in Book 2, The Hand of Tem Closes, and then have a link to buy the book. One stop shopping made simple.

As you can see, there’s a lot involved in getting a book to the readership. But you know what? It’s the same thing for a print book traditionally published. Discoverability has always been a hot button—how do you get new readers to not only discover you, but also plunk down their hard-earned money to read your stories? And how do you keep them coming back?

$2.99 is the price point at which authors will earn 70% royalties. A lot of authors are using that price point to start out to see what happens with sales; I’m going to ask you to consider price point carefully. If everyone is putting something up for $2.99, where’s the differentiation in the marketplace?

More and more I’m finding my clients raising their prices as a symbol of quality. I've experimented with pricing and I can honestly say that my sales have increased with the price point. 

Perception is nine/tenths of reality.

WEDNESDAY: REMEMBERING YOU

SiaMcKye

Did I Notice Your Book, Blogfest

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com

http://www.ciaraknight.com/blog

Here I was, wandering around a quaint New England town looking for breakfast and a good cup of coffee (which is always a must for me), when I heard the voice of one of my favorite tenors singing NessunDorma. My ears fell in love with a place that unapologetically plays such music, my lips smiled as I heard a man singing bits of it as he worked. I breathed in the wonderful smells emanating from the diner. Yep, this is the place to stop for breakfast.

I hovered near the door listening to the murmur of voices, clink of tableware, and laughter from the good-natured insults, in Italian, and closed my eyes. It was just like coming home. I reached for the door and almost grabbed the police officer coming out with a bag and a tall coffee. Wow! Not a bad handle to grab. I heard voice in the background call him Petie.

As Petie ushered me through the door he assured me Uncle Sally did indeed have the best food in town. Who would know best than the town’s finest, right (and he truly was fine)?

This is not only the best town to visit but you’ll love the Gennovase family.

Remembering You 

Robyn Rand

When Genna goes home to Rhode Island to spend a long-awaited vacation, she finds that her family is falling apart and she has only twenty-one days to put them back together. 

Her new promotion as Executive Chef at the posh Littlefield Country Club in Delaware is a dream job. It’s more than the pay and benefits; she has the chance to achieve what she’s always wanted – her own kitchen – and Genna can’t wait to get started when she returns after the Fourth of July holiday.

However, her vacation is far from relaxing. Two men are vying for her attention – an ex-fiancé who wants to fix the mistakes of the past, and an old school chum who finds her irresistible, and inspires mutual feelings in Genna. Her aunt’s forgetfulness is also causing concern. However, the family is in denial; her cousins are unable to cope with their mother’s changing behavior and her beloved uncle, dealing with all the stress, has a heart attack. 

Genna steps in to keep his diner open and the family together while he recuperates, and she questions what’s more important – breaking the glass ceiling or remaining with her family. The clock runs out and Genna finds she is needed at her new job, needed by her family, and by lovers old and new. Now Genna must search her soul to find out what she needs.

My Review 

This is a book I feel should have more attention than it's received, because it really is a good story! I really enjoyed Remember You, check it out.

###

Here’s a couple of pictures I took yesterday around the ranch. Our trees are at their peak and I’m sure going to miss these bright yellows when they fall. L

Sia's Field of Gold

Walking Companions--the dog was at my side.

The back pasture

 

MONDAY MUSINGS: REACTIVE VS PROACTIVE

By Moniqe

The leaves may be falling all around us but anti-trust suits seem to be blooming. Perhaps it’s because of the economic environment with more companies looking to consolidate and protect their profit platforms. Computer technology has changed the way companies do business. Of course, for last twenty plus years, cyber market and digital content have become an increasing chunk of the profit pie—especially with digital technology. There has been a lot of modernization in the publishing field as a result. 

I've been watching, with interest, the whole debacle over e-book price fixing. The publishing giants were slow to move on this new technology, but less narrow-minded entrepreneurs saw the possibilities almost from the inception and set about developing and adapting the technology for their own profit. That’s not to say the giants didn't move toward it, they did, but more as an afterthought than with the focus of utilizing it proficiently for future profits.

Reactive versus proactive.

wikimedia commons

The problem with reactive is you’re already behind by the time you realize what’s going on. You’re playing catch up while those who watch the trends in technology were already reaping the profits of their hard work and long vision. If you’re accustomed to being a leader of the pack, your short sighted decisions have left you with bits of fur and stringy meat on left over bones and envious of those who have the juicy fat haunch of the profits to feast on. You’re used to being in the alpha position and to carry the analogy further, you resort to cunning to get the choice bits. Chancy decision because the new alphas might not be as experienced in this particular hunting ground but they didn't get the position by being stupid. They’re lean and mean and intend to keep their juicy bits. Being reactive can get you hamstrung or dead.     

It looks like Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster have settled an antitrust lawsuit about e-book prices. A U.S. court approved the settlement on Sept. 6, which has allowed Amazon to start discounting some of those companies' titles. Amazon has already sent out letters of notification of funds for a credit, pending court approval of the settlement in February 2013. The Attorney General estimates a credit of between 30¢ to $1.32 on eligible e-books purchased between April 2010 and May 2012—unless you are a Minnesota resident. The Attorney General of Minnesota chose not to participate in the settlements. 

The above mentioned companies have agreed to pay $69 million in restitution to e-book consumers to settle U.S. litigation. 

That's a lot of dollars, ladies and gents.

I'm curious what Apple will be offering here in the United States. The last I heard, Apple and Macmillan refused to talk settlement with the Justice Department, opting for their day in court. Penguin is still trying to sit on the sidelines while polishing the dents and mud off their halos and look innocent of any wrongdoing. The trial is scheduled to begin in New York Federal court June 2013. So, they have offered to settle with the European Union but are gearing up to fight a court battle here in the United States. A lot can happen in eight months, including a similar settlement, now that the precedent has been set in Europe.

Apple and Macmillan have formally have offered to settle with the European Union. The offer under consideration, according to the European Union, for the four publishers--CBS Corp's Simon & Schuster, News Corp unit Harper Collins  French group Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, which owns Macmillan in Germany, is as follows:

"For a period of two years, the four publishers will not restrict, limit or impede e-book retailers' ability to set, alter or reduce retail prices for e-books and/or to offer discounts or promotions."

They also will suspend, for five years, contracts that effectively barred publishers from selling e-books at prices lower than Apple's. A side note to this—the discounts allowed by Macmillan is only for European retailers and not for the US vendors.

Some grievous wounds indeed in the battle for the proprietorial alpha positions.

The anti-trust suits have caused others to cast a speculative look around for a target. There are several contenders out there. Google is one of them. So far, nothing has come of it, but you can bet Google isn't being shortsighted but taking a real close look at eliminating any vulnerability in their proprietorial alpha position.

Yet another side to proactive vs. reactive.