Icarus sells soul to Google | Honeybee Whispers reviewed

You may have noticed the new search box on the left there.  We’re trying out Google Book Search “online library” for the next few months.  It’s not working yet; our books haven’t “gone live” (apparently the approval process is handled by real people at Google, and may take upwards of 2 months.  It’s been three days since I uploaded our first books.)

A few interesting things about the program… book previews (a minimum 20% of the entire book is made available for viewing) are ad-supported; publishers are automatically enrolled in Google Adsense.  The other thing is that Google requires the entire book to be uploaded to them, regardless of the percentage of the book you are making available for preview.  This is a sneaky, calculated move… a plan to offer paid ebook sales/subscriptions is long under way.  Publishers already using Google Book Search will be more likely to make their catalog available for sale since, having already uploaded the entire book, the extra work amounts to a few clicks.  Perhaps Google’s all-inclusive approach of combining online library, webcomics-esque ads, and more traditional online purchase/subscription models may best efforts such as Wowio and the more tightly controlled Amazon Kindle.

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The first review of Honeybee Whispers is out, courtesy of Anime On DVD.  Purchase, rental, or steal it from a friend?  Heck, does anyone actually offer our books for rent?  Click through to find out!

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Comics212, with a quote-friendly post on whether the new Archaia/Kunoichi contract terms are industry standard, and even if they were, should that actually matter:

Stop defending the comics industry when it behaves badly! Go get yourself deprogrammed from this Stockholm Syndrome Nightmare that tells you that this is just the way things are! It’s a lie! If your work really wasn’t worth anything, these assholes wouldn’t want a cut of you.

Shitty deal is shitty.

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Anime News Network has an interesting tidbit on two measures currently making their way through Japanese parliament… one seeks to restrict sale of explicit anime and manga, the other wants ficitional illustrations like anime and manga to be clearly exempted from child porn-related regulations.

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Manga Xanadu spots a sign that the whole religious manga gimmick has not only jumped the shark, but the shark’s bloated corpse is floating belly up in the pool, having succumbed to malnutrition.

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Writing for PWCW, Todd Allen is perplexed by the lack of a clear revenue stream for a few recent, high-profile webcomic sites.

Also at PWCW, Brigid Alverson looks at the publishing plans for both the Haruhi Suzumiya manga, and the novel that spawned it all.

As an aside… I freakin’ hate the voice-over narration in that anime.