Edward Snowden and Every Other Whistleblower Should Be Declared American Heroes

I think Edward Snowden, the essential whistleblower, is an American hero, not even flawed enough to even be of use in my fiction. And he is one of the most respected brands in computer surveillance for his action in revealing the NSA’s unconstitutional actions: A real hero who sacrificed his future for the good of all. Like Jesus Christ.

Barry Eisler writes about the struggle to set the government's path into a more constitutional direction in his new thriller, The God's Eye View. I received a pre-pub copy for review. The technothriller I'm writing about this issue right now is tentatively called CypherGhost and I'm halfway through it, but my hacker antagonist is significantly flawed. Before Ed Snowden, there was no chance we’d think to write these books, based loosely on the dark, sordid reality of the NSA.

The idea of giving Snowden what Petraeus got is a slap in the face for all potential whistleblowers. Snowden deserves a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue. If our government is to defy the constitution because it no longer sees laws as the boundaries for its action, then it doesn't deserve to continue its existence. Rand Paul agrees on this... most of the other Presidential candidates fail in this respect. So, I've no one to vote for since Rand Paul isn't possible. Bernie Sanders comes close to what I believe on privacy issues, but not close enough. Lots of voters, especially libertarian-liberals, feel like I do, but we're a tiny fraction of the voting public.

Congress, in passing the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA S. 754 [114th Congress]), has taken a big step toward defining all hackers as terrorists. It further implies that all security consultants are hackers, and therefore terrorists. Without security consultants, all Internet use and all email will be caveat emptor. Countries within the five eyes, including Great Britain, are attempting to end encryption. Without encryption, everyone is at risk of identity theft whenever they use the Internet or send or receive email. By my estimate, over half of all Americans have already had their identities stolen. CISA makes it much worse. Snowden’s work illustrates the danger for all to see. The public debate occurred because of him.

So, as for Snowden, Russia isn't where he belongs. He belongs in Silicon Valley, a consultant to the high-tech world in effective personal privacy. He is a real hero, not a criminal.

UPWARD BLOOM THEORY – An Alternative Economic Theory, replacing “Trickle Down”

Ah, yes, the Presidential election year is on like a light and I’ve been thinking about economics lately.

Decades in the past, the Republicans hoisted “trickle down” economics on us, and, instead, brought untold wealth to the already wealthy. Not a solution. The poorest of us became poorer, and the middle class is now in tatters.

Bernie Sanders has an alternate economic theory.  I earned a graduate degree in finance and economics at NYU’s prestigious Stern Business School, so I have a bit of academic credibility here. So, consider this approach as a new economic theory, replacing “trickle down.” With that in mind, here is my review of his approach:

UPWARD BLOOM THEORY:

Like a tree that needs food and water at its roots before it can bloom, the economy has to have people who are wealthy enough to buy the products manufacturers produce. Otherwise, businesses shrink and fail. Those with enough wealth must also believe the economy will at least offer them their current level of wealth, or better yet, more wealth, for their state of mind to be optimistic enough to spend what they earn. Poor attitudes shrink the economy.

 If those at the low end of the economy have more spent by government on education, this would spur their hopes for a better future. I believe there is enough statistical data to prove that better educated people spend more money, especially since they tend to grow higher incomes over time.

The most wealthy people add no additional economic boost when they are given even more money. They tend not to even spend the additional funds on their businesses. Delivering more wealth to them is simple misguided waste.

So, my policy change would be quite simple. Tax the richest Americans at a much higher level and make education past high school much cheaper at state run schools. Also use the additional tax revenue to artificially lower the interest rates charged for student loans to half the prime rate or lower. Finally, use some of the additional tax revenue to pay teachers in public schools (K through 12) 33% more in average salaries.

I’ve run these numbers through my own economic models and the result is a vibrant, growing economy.

If you have comments, please post them. If you think this is important, share it with others

Spies Lie series Trailer UPDATED!

This trailer covers the entire series. Prepare for four minutes, walking the dangerous path of a spy.
https://youtu.be/C4w0kY_h2vM

Kirkus Reviews - ProxyWar, Book 6 of DS Kane's Spies Lie series

Just received: Kirkus Reviews posted their take on ProxyWar, Book 6 of DS Kane's Spies Lie series. Here it is for you to read, in its entirety:

“In the sixth book in Kane’s (Baksheesh Bribes, 2015, etc.) Spies Lie series, a motley crew of spies, hackers, and mercenaries unite to stop China and Russia from declaring war on the United States.

Former Mossad spymaster Yigdal Ben-Levy is dying of cancer, but he refuses to live out his remaining days in a hospice. Rather, he’s dead set on getting from Washington, D.C., to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, so that he can warn its members of a plot cooked up by Russia and China to attack America. What’s bad for the United States is bad for Israel, and Ben-Levy refuses to die with his beloved country in limbo after devoting his entire life to keeping it safe. In order to make it to the U.N. without getting killed by Russian and Chinese assassination squads, he calls on Jon Sommers, a former Mossad recruit who’s now working as a banker in New York. Sommers is furious with Ben-Levy, who’s responsible for the death of his fiancée, but when the dying man calls on him in his hour of need, he reluctantly agrees to help. He teams up with Israeli-soldier-turned-mercenary Avram Shimmel, expert hacker William Wing, and former covert operative Cassandra Sashakovich, a Russian, to get the job done. The strengths of this thriller are its lack of especially graphic violence and relatively straightforward plotline, both of which make it more accessible than previous installments. Other Spies Lie stories occasionally got so complicated that it was difficult to keep track of whom to root for. The story here essentially boils down to a long chase scene, packed with action movie set pieces that wouldn’t be out of place in a Michael Bay film. Kane neatly ties up all the loose ends left over from the roller-coaster story arc that began in Bloodridge (2014), while also setting up Jon, Cassie, Avram, William, and company for further adventures together, which will please fans and give newcomers an opportunity to enter this addictive fictional world.

The latest adventure in a series that only grows more engaging with each installment.” — Kirkus Reviews

Your gift for the holidays: Today through Sunday: DS Kane's Bloodridge, Book 1 of the Spies Lie series, only $0.99!

To find justice for those he loved, a man finds himself at the center of a dangerous global conspiracy…

When Jon Sommers finds out his fiancé Lisa Gabriel died in a terrorist bomb attack, he is visited by spymaster, Yigdal Ben-Levy, who throws Jon’s life into chaos, when he tells him that Lisa was not a fellow graduate student but a Mossad spy sent to bring h...im to Israel. Ben-Levy convinces Jon to seek justice for Lisa’s murder by joining Mossad and going after Tariq Houmaz, her killer.

Shortly after training, Jon’s entire new team is executed by the bomb maker, who murdered Lisa, and only Jon escapes the massacre. As he leaves the scene, Jon finds himself captured, threatened and turned into a double agent for MI-6. When his Mossad handler, Ben-Levy learns this, he wants Jon dead as an example to other Israeli coverts.

If being a hunted double agent isn’t enough, Jon comes across information in his spying for MI-6 that suggests Israel is in impending danger from Houmaz. To stop this catastrophe, Jon must put together his own team, one he can trust with his life. Can Jon bring justice to Lisa's murderer, or will millions of lives be lost?

$0.99 on KINDLE:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K0029J0/

A better analysis of eBook Sales in 2015 – Up Or Down?

Friends -

As someone who is involved in the publishing industry on a daily basis, and has so far accrued five Amazon Bestsellers over the last two years, I perform market research and consume market research of other suppliers. This article by Alex Newton answers questions I've discussed with my wife, Andre Brown, President of one of the most prestigious and successful literary agencie. My contention has been that the NY Times article on ebook sales slowing was based on a small sample that failed to include Amazon, and that Amazon is the majority seller of published books.

Please read on to see what has actually happened. Looks to me like the market is larger in total real estate, more competitive and more price sensitive. Trad pubs have located their real estate to the very high-end, where there are fewer purchasers. Lower unit sales therefore are a self fulfilling prophecy. This means that self publishers and small indies who price within the band of largest unit sales are growing. And, right now, that's where I live. I can sell 5k to 7k in unit sales a month, up by nearly 1,000% over last year. My feeling is that the NY Times article was based on selective and inadequate research. If your opinion differs after reading this article, please let me know, at dskane@dskane.com. Here's the text of the article, which I have permission to reprint:

 

eBook Sales 2015 – Up Or Down?

http://k-lytics.com/ebook-sales-2015/

By Alex Newton

December 2015 — It was just another case of “don’t believe everything you read.” It all began with a New York Times front page article in late September detailing how ebook sales are declining, and print books are far from dead. NYT reported that “Ebook sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year,” based on a report by the Association of American Publishers.” Read how misinterpretation by mainstream media led to a totally misleading picture of the ebook market.

Before we go any further, let me ask one question: Who could have a vested interest in making people believe that ebook sales are falling, and print books are seeing a renaissance? – Right. The big publishing houses.

This post here makes no claim whatsoever that the NYT article was in instigated by the traditional publishers’ lobby. The author, Alexandra Alter, is a renowned author of the New York Times and has covered the publishing industry for both the NYT and the Wall Street Journal for years. The NYT’s point of view should be as independent as mainstream media can get. Still, it is ironic that the Big Five book publishers have their U.S. headquarters in New York City, where the “media snowball effect” started.

Other mainstream media picked up the NYT story and spread it. Soon, many Facebook groups and bloggers joined in the general doom and gloom mood for ebooks. All of a sudden, there were blog posts and commentaries that discussed “The End of An Era” in the ebook market.

There is only one problem: The original New York Times article that got the snowball rolling relied on insufficient and misinterpreted data.

AAP eBook Sales Data Questionable

The “market data” was based on a sample of 1,200 publishing companies, all members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The bulk of the revenues in this sample come from the “Big Five” publishing houses.

The point is, the reported sample is simply not representative of the U.S. ebook market. The most dominant player, Amazon Kindle, which arguably controls about 67% of the U.S. ebook distribution, is not entirely reflected in the sample.

The website Author Earnings did a terrific job at dissecting the ebook sales numbers for the U.S. market: The AAP’s 1,200 publishers account for no more than 50% of Kindle revenues and around 32% of ebook unit sales on Kindle. Their share represents a rapidly declining portion of the ebooks that are sold through the market-dominant Kindle platform.

By contrast, self- and indie-published ebooks, as well as Amazon’s own-published ebooks, continue to gain share on Kindle.

And as for the Kindle store as a whole, Amazon told the Wall Street Journal that sales “are up in 2015 in both units and revenue.”

eBook Sales Are Declining For The Big Five – Not For Amazon

Thus, when the AAP reports “declining ebook sales,” they are, in essence, reporting the eroding ebook market share of the Big Five. Specifically, Simon & Schuster (CBS Corporation), HarperCollins (NewsCorp), Penguin Random House (a subsidiary of Bertelsmann and Pearson), Macmillan U.S and Hachette Livre.

Their declining share in the ebook market does not come as a surprise. In fact, it has largely been self-inflicted. Over the last one and a half years or so, the Big Five struck new ebook distribution deals with Amazon. They seemed to get what they desired: the right to set the prices of their ebooks and avoid the substantial discounts the online retail giant often applies. Since then, the major publishers have been raising their ebook prices so they can keep their print sales up and reduce “cannibalization” by their corresponding ebook editions. The bullet backfired, though, because ebook readers are price sensitive. The new agreements resulted in higher ebook prices and a decline in units sold.

There may be root causes other than pricing, too, but the net result of all these developments is reflected in the latest ebook sales figures announced by these large publishing companies:

• Publishers Weekly recently reported on the decline in digital sales at HarperCollins (11.8% drop in digital sales, mainly ebook-driven) and Simon & Schuster (where E-book sales are estimated to have declined about 17% in the quarter.)
• Pearson reported “weaker ebook sales” at Penguin Random House in the press release on their recent quarterly results.
• Hachette has just reported that their overall sales in the United States have decreased by 4.2% in the third quarter ended September 30 vs prior year. Ebooks accounted for 24% of total book sales in the first nine months of 2015, down from 28% for the same period in 2014. If you do the maths on this, we are talking about an 18% decline in their ebook sales

The facts speak for themselves. It is mainly the big traditional publishers that have problems with their ebook sales. Amazon, self-publishers and indie-publishers continue to gain share.

Total eBook Demand – Up or Down?

The analysis above makes it clear how the market shares are shifting in the U.S. ebook market. This leaves the question, though, whether the size of the cake, i.e. the total ebook market, is growing or shrinking.

Weighing the reports on the (unrepresentative) AAP numbers against Amazon’s statements on its ebook business, it is highly likely that the ebook market has continued to grow in 2015.

Unfortunately, there are no reliable sources for this. We already discussed the issues in the AAP numbers. The market research firm Nielsen also offers an ebook market panel called Pubtrack Digital. Yet, the numbers from this group seem even more “unrepresentative” than the AAP data; Pubtrack follows unit sales data supplied by only 30 US publishers – excluding Amazon.

In late September 2015, Fortune magazine wrote: “Ebook sales aren’t falling: Amazon is winning, publishers are losing.”

Whatever the case may be, it is highly unlikely that total ebook sales growth was anywhere near the growth of ebook supply. Therefore, proper niche selection (and creation) is more important than ever before.

Of course, the ebook market has matured. It has become tougher. That has been the case for at least two years, if not longer. It does not come as a surprise to any publishing industry professional.

Let us look at some facts:

Unrestrained eBook Supply

The number of English-language ebooks available on Kinde as of December 1, 2015 was 3,259,072. Exactly one year ago, that number was 2,489,639. In other words, the supply of books has been growing by approximately 64,000 titles per month or 31% in one year’s time. This rate of new titles has been relatively constant over the last 24 months, fluctuating between 55,000 and 75,000 new English titles every month. If this rate continues like this for the next 12 months, we will be looking at a growth of the supply of ebooks of 20-25% for 2016.

Five of the 30 main book genres have seen above-average growth in ebook supply:

• LGBT eBooks +200%
• Comics & Graphic Novels +119%
• Teen & Young Adult +63%
• Romance +42%
• Children’s eBooks +41%

No wonder that competition is reported being tougher than it used to be, especially in these genres. As a result, prices have shown an almost continues decline in Romance and LGBT to price points around and below $2.99 even for the Top 100 bestsellers on Kindle.

eBook Prices – Mixed Developments Based On Genre

I believe there has never been any significant pricing power for ebooks on the supply side, except for highly technical genres (medical, law, etc.) where books can command anything between $9.99 and $200.00 and up.

The fact is that the average price of the Top 100 titles across 27 of the main Kindle genres was $6.17 per November 1, 2014. Twelve months later, the same average is $6.74. In other words, ebook prices, at least in the indicator Top 100 increased by 10% across the board.

Of course, there were winners and losers. Given the over-proportional rise in the supply of books described earlier, three genres saw a significant drop in price levels compared to a year ago:

• LGBT eBooks -22%
• Romance -20%
• Comics & Graphic Novels -12%

eBook Market Saturating

The ebook market is a mature market, no doubt. Let’s look at the following ratios:

On the supply side, Amazon displays close to 15 million English language paperback and hardcover titles per November 29, 2015. This is 4.6 times the number of available Kindle ebooks.

Probably coincidentally, on the demand side, the total U.S. publishing trade revenue is also about 4.5 times value of the ebook market (within the AAP sample).

Most authors and publishers will confirm: the ebook market has matured and become increasingly saturated. Growth in supply is outpacing the growth in demand.

The result is a highly market competitive environment. At K-lytics, we track the sales performance of more than 2,800 book genres and sub-markets. Then we compare the level of sales with the degree of competition as measured by the number of available titles in each sub-market.

The result? Out of more than 2,800 Kindle categories analyzed the K-lytics ELITE database, some 15% show an attractive “sales-to-competition” ratio. These are the profitable niches you should go after if you are an author or publisher who is in the game for profits and wants increase the odds of success (see exhibit below.)

Ebook publishing has become like drilling for oil: lucrative for those who have the right technology and know “where to dig”, less fruitful for those who do not.

Self-publishing and platforms such as Kindle have torn down any barriers to entry in the ebook market. Unfortunately, this has also torn down any barriers to low quality and junk books that keep flooding the market. Although Amazon has shown some signs of fighting at least fraudulent ebook uploads in KDP, the amount of “ghostwritten crap” that gets uploaded as “books” is still staggering. Consumers and the whole industry would hugely benefit from an introduction of a quality stage gate in the Kindle Direct Publishing process—but this is another topic for another day.

The Show Will Go On

So do I believe in “doom and gloom” for ebooks? – No.

Whatever the macro-picture is, the answer for the individual indie author will remain what it always has been:

• Write good quality books
• Do so in quantity
• Select your niches carefully (i.e. write for markets where demand is high and competition as low as possible)
• Market the books aggressively
• And hope for a bit of luck

Happy publishing!

Take a Spy Home for the Holidays

Ah, yes... It's that time of year.

I want to thank everyone who read one of my books this year. You, my readers, are the reason why I write. I hope I've given you something worthwhile to think about. This year, we distributed over 33,000 copies of Spies Lie books!

The month just passed was a milestone for me. First, I was a NaNoWriMo member. I got a head start on CypherGhost, Book 7 of DS Kane's Spies Lie series. I'll be busy with that new book for at least the next nine or ten months. It's about a war between the hacker community and the government.

Also, just now being released: ProxyWar, Book 6 of the Spies Lie series. The paper version is now available at Amazon, and the ebook versions should be out in the next two weeks.

Finally, for those of you in Florida: On December 29 at 7:00 p.m., I will have an author event at Vault 39 Wine Cellar, 4580 Donald Ross Road, Palm Beach Gardens, FL. I'll be selling and signing paper versions of the Spies Lie books. Those who purchase one of my books will receive free wine and snacks, And, I will read passages from several of my books.

I hope the coming year brings you joy.