You'd have thought that after last year's Kindle eclat, Amazon would have learned their lesson, right? That it is just not smart to mess with books listed on the website by just taking them off (and taking them off reader's Kindles too, while you are at it)?

Well... it seems they haven't learned.
With the rise of e-books, a discussion has come up between publishers, agents, authors and (e-)booksellers about fair pricing of e-books and fair shares of profits. Then last week Macmillan (a not-so-small publishing group) wished to discuss a move to an agency model/commission sharing with their e-books on Amazon. The latter wasn't delighted (though actually they would not lose money with that model - on the contrary). And just because Amazon thought it would be good to throw a tantrum... they pulled Macmillan books off their website. All books, mind you, not just the e-books. Why on earth they thought that to be a good idea? I don't know. But it makes me a bit wary of them.

I do rely on Amazon for a stack of things - English books, mostly, and the (very) occasional non-book item. Their wishlist or direct links are a very convenient way to give other folks an idea of the things you like or to make sure that the presents you receive are really what you wished for. Their "express shipping" option has made me happy once and saved my butt one other time (though I do prefer buying in local brick-and-mortar stores for those goods normally). But actions like these make me think of looking for an alternative.

My book is being listed on Amazon by now, and I had originally planned to post about that today. I was pondering to post a link to the A.-site for it, but I was of two minds about that, because I still believe in supporting the local bookstore. I won't post a link to their site now.

There are more options than just the Big River Store: You can pre-order the book via every brick-and-mortar and every online bookshop. You can order directly from the publishing house. Or, if you don't want the book straight away and really soon, you can also buy a copy from me - I will be dragging copies of the book along to every market and event I will be going to in 2010, and I will be happy to sell them (so I don't have to drag them all back home).

My normal life style does not include lots of reading or listening to the news, but even if you don't try to catch news every day, the big issues sooner or later still come up somewhere. Like the Haiti earthquake.
To help with relief in Haiti, the Yarn Harlot has put up the knit signal (like the bat signal, but with more yarn) and asks for donations to MSF (Médecins sans Frontières, which means Doctors Without Borders).

MSF has been doing great work all over the world for many years, and I personally think that they are one of the best humanitarian organisations to give money to - because besides other reasons, very very little of the donations does go into the overhead, and most goes to where it is needed. So if you have a little money left over, consider giving them a bit - and if you need a better pro-donation pep talk, read Stephanie the Yarn Harlot's blog.

For those of you who can't read German, here's a short summary of the News from Cologne's homepage:

One of the two missing men has been found dead, but there is still no trace of the 24-year-old student. Search for him is going on, but there seems to be no hope; the tracking dogs have been exchanged for tracking dogs trained to find corpses. Since the desaster has been seven days ago, it would need an enormous stroke of luck for him to survive. About 70 helpers are doing their best to help the specialists. Unlike the heap of rubble of the archive itself, the collapsed houses are unstable, hindering the search and making it very dangerous.

Recovery of the archive material is also done with a lot of hands - and some good news for a change: Some of the objects are in a surprisingly good condition; firemen have recovered a steel locker with old seals almost undamaged. During the night, there have been about 150 persons working to save archive material, including many archivists.
Cologne Fire Brigade says they want to try recovering all the archive material and will not quit before this is done. First predictions say that work on the archive ruins might take up to one year.

And finally, a short video of the place and rescue work:


Link: rheinvideo.de