Friday round-up of interesting #writing #publishing posts: 'that app', romance sub genres, kindle, and a clever joke

Started the week by reading this post about Amazon's latest hi-jinks , not sure even now if I know what's going on. I haven't had any issues yet but who knows what's really going on
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/03/27/amazon-launches-unlimited-cloud-storage-kicks-kindle-owners-to-the-curb/

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Then there's the most appalling thing I've seen in a long time the Clean Reader App

http://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/post/114425387366/why-im-saying-fuck-you-to-clean-reader

A day later after reading the post above and a lot of posts about that app I read the ones below and can't help feeling happy about it. I mean how is it okay to change an artist's work? Could someone get away with changing the words of a song? Would musicians stand for that? Then there's painters and sculptors. How about someone chips off or paints over what offends them on a work of art? 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/27/clean-reader-books-app-censorship-victory-authors-celebrate
AND
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/03/26/smashwords-pulls-catalog-from-profanity-filtering-reading-app-following-author-outcry/

Yay for Smashwords. I'd already pulled my catalogue from Page Foundry, because NO, people don't get to change what I write.

Another down to earth post about the app is from Indie author Tammy Smith.
http://www.sassyvixenpublishing.net/sassy-vixen-authors-and-friends/thevixen-weighs-in-on-apps-that-cover-up-the-naughty-bits

INFO-graphics in the news

Screen shots above from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3010840/What-crock-rubbish-Clean-Reader-app-censors-swear-words-ebooks-authors-aren-t-happy.html

Just want to say this, please do not buy my books and use this app on them. It's a breach of copyright to change the words I've written, had edited, and published by reputable publishers. 

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In an effort to determine if I should write in a different sub genre of romance this week, I searched out what appear to be the best stats on what sub genre has sold best. The article uses 2014 figures naturally, and it will be interesting to see if this changes when figures are reviewed next year for 2015.
Article: from Romance Writers of America
https://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=5

From the article (go read the rest it's good info)

•  Top romance subgenres by format read primarily:
  • Print: romantic suspense (53%); contemporary romance (41%); historical romance (34%); erotic romance (33%); New Adult (26%); paranormal romance (19%); Young Adult romance (18%); and Christian romance (17%).
  • E-book: romantic suspense (48%); contemporary romance (44%); erotic romance (42%); historical romance (33%); paranormal romance (30%); New Adult (26%); Young Adult romance (18%); and Christian romance (14%).

• Top 10 popular romance tropes: (1) friends to lovers; (2) soul mate/fate; (3) second chance at love; (4) secret romance; (5) first love; (6) strong hero/heroine; (7) reunited lovers; (8) love triangle; (9) sexy billionaire/millionaire; (10) sassy heroine

Looks like I need to stop writing paranormal romance 

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So April dawned and I received the latest blog post from Mark Coker of Smashwords.............

http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/03/kindle-author-eliminates-need-for.html

I have to admit for the first half of this post I believed it and then ... I thought greedy Amazon isn't going to have spent the huge amounts of money it would take to do this LOL  Skipped to the end to discover it's a an April fool joke from the very clever Mark Coker, even so, I hope no millionaire wizard software writer reads it.