Amazonfail 2010, Mythmaker Interview, Updates

The big story over the weekend was that Amazon temporarily stopped selling all Macmillan books, which includes all my books from Tor, to protest Macmillan's new ebook terms. There's not a lot I have to add to this discussion, except to say that Tor's publicity department thought the illustration accompanying Engadget's article on the affair was hilarious. Still, if you haven't heard about what's been happening, or if you've emailed me asking why you suddenly can't buy my books from Amazon, check out the following links for a thorough rundown.

My evil nemesis John Scalzi probably said it best in the following blog posts (especially the last one): 1, 2, 3, 4. Other comments come from Cory Doctorow (1), Toby Buckell (1, 2, 3), Charles Stross (1, 2, 3, 4), Jay Lake (1, 2, 3, 4), and Scott Westerfield (1). As you might expect, these include quite a bit of cross-linking and cross-commenting. I also made a few comments on my Facebook page.

The current situation is that Amazon has said they "will have to capitulate," but so far they are still not selling any Macmillan books. If there are books of mine you were planning to buy in the near future, I've got a number of non-Amazon links for you here. Or, of course, stop by your local independent bookseller!

Now for a completely different controversial topic. In this week's Writing Excuses podcast, Howard, Dan, and I talk about whether a writer needs an agent. This is partially in response to Dean Wesley Smith's recent posts about the writer/agent relationship (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It's a complex topic, all sides of which writers should explore.

While I was in Los Angeles during the GATHERING STORM tour, I sat down for an interview with the folks from Mythmaker Films. Yesterday they posted an 18-minute film that includes footage from that interview as well as from my Los Angeles signing. If you're interested in how I got started writing and how I became involved in completing A MEMORY OF LIGHT, check out the video.

Finally, in the most recent MISTBORN 3 annotations, I have a discussion of Vin's interactions with Ruin while imprisoned and the first of a three-part annotation on Spook's climactic chapter.