In the last 2~3 years the number of books published outside of the "big 6" houses has done a lot more than doubled, 3~4x I think according to Bowker ( and that's just the ones that have ISBNs assigned). One way a lot of us notice the growth is by having a really unpopular book listed on Amazon and seeing how bad the ranking gets. The most recent peaking genres were erotica (thanks to 50SoG breaking the ice) and of course Vamps. Nice to see Zombies shuffling in :D

Oh help us, imagine if this happened in the world of software, eeeeish, they'd probably create something like Linux! *shudder*.

Readers are the ultimate choice makers, while big publishing houses can bring some useful services to the writer they're quickly becoming less relevant as the whole industry reworks itself into more independent units for hire ( cover art, editing, proofing, marketing ).

Because fundamentally the tongue-in-receptical design of connector as such as the microUSB is not a good design for dealing with humans and high cycles. Plenty of laptops and desktops submitted here with broken USB socket tongues as well ( yes, the standard USB socket ).

The micro USB is an acceptable design, but the lightning connector is better for dealing with humans. You, me, and millions of other people might be fine with aligning and getting it right and never break one, but there's also plenty of people who don't handle these things well and do break the connectors and it becomes a costly affair at times to replace them, punishing the "stupid" perhaps some might see it as. I prefer the lightning connector in terms of mechanical simplicity and robustness.

If you do it yourself. Send it to a phone repair centre and that'll probably jump to $60~$80 depending.

The cable connector should break, not the device connector; in short, that's what's wrong with microUSB.

In terms of a living, I love the microUSB, so many broken every week to repair; but from an engineering/failure-management view it is backwards.

The lack of physical polarity is a nice thing, but the winning aspect of the lightning design in terms of dealing with "human handlers" is its significantly more robust tongue and that if something is going to break, it'll still be the tongue that is on a cheap cable, rather than an expensive device.

The lightning connector handles the most problematic aspect of computers better than the microUSB connector.... humans.

Sony Xperia phone recently arrived in my "broken USB connector to be repaired" list, at first I thought the client had reamed out the whole connector, but nope, instead it seems that Sony in their infinite forsight deviced "to hell with the physical orientation keying on the metal shell, let's just rely on the offset tongue holding the pins.

Needless to say, a lot of those phones are now being sent back for repair due to people not getting the orientation right first time, forcing it slightly ( and people do that, regardless of how sensible it is or otherwise ) and *SNAP* it's all over.

I'm glad to see Apple ditch the old connector, same principle as the microUSB, same mishaps ( fine on iPhones, since you can replace the dock assembly, but iPods require a lot of delicate work to replace their dock connectors since they're soldered directly on to the monolithic PCB with everything else ).

It's easier to engineer a better option than to teach people to be more careful.

Agreed as well. I get a lot of devices coming in for repair with broken micro usb sockets for repair. The lightning connector is infinitely more sane as a design ( barring perhaps the electronics complexity for the lane switching ). The smart thing about it is, if something is going to break, it'll be the tongue of the connector which is on a [comparatively] cheap cable, rather than a $$$ phone or other device.

I'm no fan of Apple, but I have to say that the new connector is a smart move. It's more robust than microUSB, and if it breaks it's the *plug* that breaks, not the socket, so it doesn't destroy your precious device. The addtional aspect that it's not physically polarized is a nice bonus, as most of the breakages I've had come in here for repair have been because people tried a little too hard to plug something in the wrong way around ( the latest Sony Xperia phones with their non-bevel-keyed microUSB socket is an absolute *disaster*, so much so I think it's a design or supplier fault ).

Agreed, I used to use those on a fairly routine basis at times, still miss them for times when things go wrong.

Oh yes, you can get the *glass* for cheap, like you can get the glass for the iP4/4S/5, S3, S4 and many other phones. Replacing the glass alone though isn't possible for 99.99% of people since they're fused units with the LCD.

Here's some examples of costs from one of my parts suppliers;

iP4/4S LCD/glass unit: $35 (AA OEM)
iP5 LCD/glass unit: $125 ( original )
Battery: $12.95

Galaxy S2 LCD/glass unit: $195
Galaxy S3 LCD/glass unit: $230
Galaxy S4 LCD/glass unit: $295

Other than the two pentalobe screws on the bottom of iPhones, everything else is fairly accessible with minimal glue/2-sided-adhesive (the iPods, iPads otoh are a major PITA). A lot of budget-end screen replacement services here in Australia range from $55~$150 for A, AA, Original grade replacements on the iPhone 4/4S phones.

You can still take the flash chips out and get the data off and reassemble it all if required ( yes, it's a major PITA, but it's something that is done routinely ). The data doesn't just vanish, in fact it's quite a problem trying to make data vanish in a hurry.

Fortunately iPhones are among the cheapest to replace those parts. Hell you can buy a new Nexus 4 for the cost of replacing a Galaxy S2 screen in some places, certainly S3.

I'm no grand fan of Apple, but so far as fixing/repairing phones their iPhones generally are a lot more sane in terms of design, cost and supply [ of replacements ] compared to others.

I'm afraid the time of Monty is coming to an end... the age of the shadow dwellers has begun.

There's two pen names, 10 books collectively spread between them and reasons for doing so.

Marketing... that's the crux. My wife is a writer, we've got about 10 books out there ( different pen names ), and honestly, unless you're either really lucky, or you pump the market constantly with a lot of effort you invariably won't float to the top, regardless of the contents of your books ( or products ). Even when you have a good run and make it in to the top-100 rankings on Amazon for a week or two, once you fall out of that it's a fast and long fall back down to irrelevance. We see a lot of other writers pouring money in to other pockets for reviews, promotions, blogs and social-name-dropping, it doesn't always pay off, but if you don't do it you really don't stand much of a realistic chance.