Considering Book Covers: Different Needs for Print and EBook

I'm in the process of getting a series of books published and it's crazy how many details there are in what appeared to be a pretty simple path.  One thing that has been a bigger stumbling block than I had planned for:  the ebook cover. 

How the image appears in a thumbprint on Amazon's website is very important, and has very different demands than an eye-catching book cover on a shelf or table at the local brick and mortar. 

Very Different.

Here's a great blog post that not only discusses these differences but gives some nice covers as examples, with a critique of them: 

15 Ebook Covers: Success and Failure in the Kindle Store by Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer. 

Grading My Own Papers: Top Results In Google that Hold Over Time

On August 30, 2011, I was asked by a national legal marketing agency to provide them with some details on what I achieve in Google results, and while I explained that I cannot violate confidentiality by providing statistics from ghost-coaching clients or ghostwriting clients I could - and did - provide them with the following:

1. Performance example of writing style/content from blog that I write with Terry Lenamon

Terry Lenamon on the Death Penalty  

• This blog was holding at Google page rank of 5/10 with only 8 posts per month until our summer 2011 hiatus (now we're at 4/10). 
• Google Everything search: death penalty | Google rank: 4 / 26,900,000 (first blog shown in results) 

2. Examples of holding top search results in Google from my four personal blogs (posts chosen at random): 

Reba Kennedy.Writer.Lawyer. 

• Google Everything search: lawyer writing blog  | Google rank: 8 / 30,400,000 
• post example: Google Everything search: authenticate twitter evidence | Google rank: 1 / 1,990,000 | post written: 02/28/2011 (eight months old) 

Backseat Lawyer 

• Google Everything search: lawyer blog | Google rank: 12 / 90,000,000 (still in the first page of results) 
• post example: Google Everything search: jose baez | Google rank: 3 / 6,790,000 | post written: 01/15/2009 (2 years, 8 months old) 

Rebecca Kennedy's Blog 

• Google Everything search: fiction writing blog | Google rank: 10 / 129,000,000 
• post example: Google Everything search: thriller vs. mystery | Google rank: 1 / 13,200,000 | post written: 11/24/2006 (4 years, 10 months old) 

Everyday Simplicity 

• Google Everything search: simplicity blog | Google rank: 2 / 20,600,000 
• post example: Google Everything search: tips for surviving a depression  | Google rank: 3 / 3,580,000 |  post written: 11/28/2008 (2 years, 10 months old) 

Righthaven's Days May Be Numbered: Federal Judges Are Ruling Against Standing and More

More than one federal district judge appears to have had enough with Righthaven's strategy of buying copyrights from various media sources (usually in Nevada) and then suing for copyright infringement under federal law without so much as a form cease and desist letter.  (For details on the Righthaven plan of action and its early success, read my prior posts on the subject.)

The worm turns.

Federal judges setting in more than one state don't seem to think that Righthaven is doing the right thing, apparently.  Standing has been found wanting.  Fair use has been found.  Copyright has been determined not to be at issue in the first place.

For a nice recap of these various court opinions, read David Kravets' article in Wired's June 20, 2011 issue, "Righthaven Loss: Judge Rules Reposting Entire Article Is Fair Use."

Today's news: Righthaven isn't paying attorneys' fees.

This morning, TechDirt reports that Righthaven is avoiding paying around $3000 in attorneys' fees to a defendant even though it's been ordered to do so by a federal judge.  The company has asked the court for a 30 day stay ... doesn't sound smart, but we'll see what happens.