SEPTEMBER ZOOM MINUTES

ZOOM ATTENDANCE:

Katharine Nohr, Larry & Rosemary Mild, Shauna Jones, Jenny Delos Santos, AJ Llewelyn, Lizbeth Hart, Rose Tiegarden, Dennis Ihara

1. CONGRATULATIONS TO ROSE: Published her new book Prophecy

2. NO HBMF: this year. SINC national is not giving out grants for public events due to Covid-19

3. ZOOM MEETING WITH PALMETTO CHAPTER: When: Sep 19, 2020 12:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Re: The Poison Lady on poisonous plants with Yasmin McClinton 2020 winner of the annual Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color. Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqcuCvpzsjGdPky-I5hSSrKTicpLuUmv_5

4. FAYE SNOWDEN PRESENTATION: Join SinC Coastal Cruisers on Sat Sept 19

There is still time to register for our September 19, 2020 10:30am to 12:00pm, (GMT-07:00) meeting if you would like to join us: How to Help Your Characters Outsmart IT

Author Faye Snowden of SinC NorCal will speak on How to Help your Characters Outsmart IT. She works at the University of the Pacific in the IT department and will talk about ways that characters can realistically dodge detection in all things digital. Faye is the author of three published mysteries with Kensington— Spiral of Guilt (1999), The Savior (2003, 2004) and Fatal Justice (2005, 2006). She has published short stories and poems in various literary journals and small presses including The African American Review, Calliope, Red Ochre Lit, Bay Area Poets Coalition and Occam’s Razor. A new book, A Killing Fire (Flame Tree Press) was released in August, 2019. The sequel is underway. Faye is also a member Mystery Writers of American, and serves as secretary to national Sisters in Crime. E-mail vkazarian@gmail.com to register

5. ALIGNABLE & LOCAL SPARK: Alignable is a company situated in Boston that connects the world’s local businesses and organizations. It’s made up of a partnership between various companies and provides business owners with a technology that helps them connect with customers. The platform allows you to effectively network within the local community. LOCAL SPARK is their weekly newsletter

6. AMAZONS MARKET POWER: Three prominent publishing organizations wrote a joint letter to the chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee investigating the market power of Big Tech, pressing their case that, over the last several years, Amazon's growing dominance over book publishing and bookselling has fundamentally altered the competitive framework of the industry. If Amazon's power is left unchecked, the letter claims, competition within publishing could diminish even more.

But today, the letter continued, “Amazon no longer competes on a level playing field when it comes to book distribution, but, rather, owns and manipulates the playing field, leveraging practices from across its platform that appear to be well outside of fair and transparent competition.”

The letter states Amazon’s power is far reaching which includes predatory pricing and its market dominance “to engage in below-cost pricing of books. The intent is to squash competition in the book selling industry as a whole.” The letter also states, “that Amazon acts anti-competitively in multiple ways, dictating economic terms of relationships with suppliers so publishers, their authors, and booksellers pay more each year for Amazon’s distribution and advertising services but receive less each year in return.

· 4 RECOMMENDATIONS Prohibiting Amazon WERE REQUESTED:

1. Tying Distribution Services to the Purchase of Advertising Services

2. Imposing MFNs and Other Parity Provisions (MFN most favored nations)

3. Using Loss-Leader Pricing to Harm Competition

4. Leveraging Data from the Operation of its Online Platform to Compete with

and Disadvantage the Suppliers Doing Business There

Read more using this link to the article https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/84119-publishing-leaders-issuing-warning-over-amazon-s-market-power.html?fbclid=IwAR0ZHvuLyPmhNpIIRg1_B-x_a7iHYZwWRdaR8t7QJ-nLvug8Htk0BlXFfPY

7. PANDEMIC PRINTER JAM: Serious supply issues are disrupting the book industry's fall season. Capacity issues at the two largest printing companies QUAD and LSC communications are among the factors creating havoc for both authors and publishers. Plus Quad is selling their business. Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/books/printing-companies-backlog-book-publishing.html#click=https://t.co/BtOtfCIavP

8. ROSE ON MARKETING: Book Club - Books set in Hawaii – Marketing attempts

9. ROUNTABLE:

a) AJ - Had surgery and not been able to do much writing . Will have new book published around thanksgiving.

b) Katharine – made pitches to 4 play screen agents. Writing Death from a Selfie

c) Rosemary and Larry -3 projects Rivken mysteries and menehune stories. Rosemary doing book of essays titled in my next Life Ill get it. Also wrote of Fractured Fairy Tales.

d) Shauna – story in Fractured Fairy Tales. Also writing a love story on Woodstock

e) Jenny – 2 projects. Trying to do a play on first book on domestic violence. Should be showing next month. Writing book on late congressman Montikai

f) Lizbeth – in class on how to do our own book. They edited student work to help learn. Non-fiction/spiritual essays in the wake of Angel Hero. Found online teacher –Sheila Bender. Feels her essays are getting better. Published short story In the Rugby Player

g) Rose – online book club to get buyers attention.

h) Dennis – converting play to book – about surfing and surfer wanna-be. Gets in trouble and tries to link with Yakusai Japan