Archive for April, 2007
The "Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit" — the Dutch cartel police — is mainly powerless in face of megafusions in the energy, health or banking sector. But now they have found another group of criminals: translators. Illegally they have set a minimum fee, e.g. 5,9 Eurocent per word for translations from English or Hungarian. But this has now led to interventions, first an article in the NRC Handelsblad by Maarten Huygen (31. March). Now Mei Li Vos, Labour MP, asked the staatssecretaris van Economise Zaken 10 questions: if she was aware of this problem, aware of the (economic) pressure freelancers work under in the media, aware of the new regulations in Germany, where exactly such minimum fees are legal, and if she was prepared to introduce similar changes to the regulations in the Netherlands.
see also Mei Li Vos' website and the report on boekvertalers.nl
"I've always wanted publishers and organized crime to swap." This strapline caught my eyes this morning when I was combing through my already spam-stripped inbox. Some semi-intelligent robot out there on the net must have picked it up in order to fulfill one of my requests for up-to-date knowledge. (Yes, I admit, I am interested in organized crime).
But what it brought up today is a completely different story. It's the musings of Dusk Peterson, fiction writer, history writer, editor and journalist, on the not-so-delightful world of e-book publishing.
I spent nearly four hours researching whether I should make my online fiction available in e-book form at Lulu.com. While I'm still not sure whether anyone would actually buy my stories - I wouldn't buy an electronic text if it was available for free - I decided to go ahead and try the experiment. It can't hurt. At this stage, even a couple of extra dollars would help.
However, set-up fees, buying ISBNs — "which is more money than I've earned annually since 1992″ — and the time (and nerves) spent on preparing the cover art make this experiment a rather serious experience. Is this the brave new world of self-determined, self-controled, self-publishing authors?
Download der Datei auf die eigene Festplatte: hier
Dann am Samstag vor Ostern erst noch mal John Buijsman's Public Animal aus Texten von C. B. Vaandrager, dem Rotterdamer Punk-Poet der 60er. Danach Levende poëzie met Jazzmuziek hard-op:
