Just two news items that might be of interest. These are from earlier this month, but I’m sometimes slow when it comes to current affairs.

From Daily Finance: “Connecticut Attorney General Targets Amazon, Apple in E-Book Antitrust Probe.”

From The New York Times: “Biggest U.S. Book Chain Up for Sale”

So, both are signs of the evils of e-books? Or, this is just normal stuff that happens when the market (and the world) adjusts to new technology and market models? Questions, comments, concerns?

“For example, this crazy ruffled tee is probably too out there to sell in either store. It's a little rugby-meets-beauty pageant. But I really liked making it. It felt silly and creative and exciting. I haven't felt that feeling in a while.”--Jen Schneider

I’m finally done with the teach-at-two-schools thing. I’m committed now to teaching just at the Colorado School of Mines, which is my favorite of the 40+ jobs I’ve had so far.

Now that my life is less stressful and I’m on summer break for about two weeks (though I have to plan the upcoming semester) I thought, Now I have to get some serious writing done. I began thinking about finishing stories and trying to get them published and that—well, that killed any sort of creativity I might have mustered.

Yesterday I was reading my colleague’s blog for inspiration about blogging. And I was so interested to see her drama with creativity. I hadn’t realized she was selling her sewn wares: Read more »

I’m in the process of moving to Seattle, which means I’m living four hundred miles away in someone’s basement and making tough choices like a room of my own or a room with a view? Which sucks. I’m trying to keep myself excited about Seattle and the literary events there, like the show at the James Harris Gallery called “TXT artists investigating language,” and could be called “TXT artists making puns.” One of the (analog, btw) installations looks like a collection of pine-tree air fresheners, reading “Napalm.” Another artist has created textiles to look like the front page of South African newspapers, changing The Mail & Guardian to The Male & Guardian. C’est ne pas une pipe, yeah.

Walter Robinson's Forest smells horribly.

There’s also a bookstore I plan on checking out. I like the bookstore in my basement town, which pretty much does what a local independent bookstore does: Aunties sells books, invites authors to do readings and signings, hosts a book group, and provide space for the local writer’s guild to meet. I was always so satisfied with Aunties that I never thought to dream bigger.

Think about it: What else could a bookstore offer you? If your answer includes yoga, magic shows, beer, and access to a florist, I might have found the bookstore for you.
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Thanks to smart phones, one of the most common phrases in today’s English language is “there’s an app for that.” If Little, Brown Book Group’s latest book technology experiment is successful, authors will soon have to think about what supplemental materials will serve their readers’ small phone screens.

In the UK, the number of books available as iPhone apps passed the number of games for the first time this March. As Alison Flood of The Guardian reports, writers Ian Banks and Martina Cole are some of the early adapters and are working with their publisher and a software company to enrich their readers’ experience.

Readers who have bought the paperback of Banks’s latest novel, Transition, will be able to scan a unique barcode on their edition with their iPhone, and companion features for the novel will be transmitted to their screen.

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immediateinternetwhizbangdigitalondemandnownownow.  i think it’s safe to say that modern life frequently compels us to do/interact/consume more than reflect/consider/take stock.  not to say that we all need to run off to the woods, but i know that at least i could stand to stop and ponder the ramifications of my decisions a little more frequently.  and, i gotta tell you, when i did so this past week, i was somewhat baffled by my own behavior.

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We could probably convince Mark Knopfler that writing a book isn’t exactly “money for nothin’” and these authors aren’t playing “the guitar on MTV,” but other than that it’s pretty close to the Dire Straits song. Okay, so you might have to use your imagination to hear “Hawaiian noises” and see “bangin’ on the bongos like a chimpanzee,” but as music artists of earlier decades had to make videos for MTV to create hits, authors now put book trailers on YouTube to keep up with the Joneses—actually, the Roberts and the Pattersons. In other words, it’s not enough for writers to worry whether we are photogenic enough for the book jacket portrait, now we can also be anxious about appearing natural on film.   

Pamela Paul of the New York Times wrote an article earlier this month about the book trailer phenomena:

…the trailer is fast becoming an essential component of online marketing. Asked to draw on often nonexistent acting skills, authors are holding forth for anything from 30 seconds to 6 minutes, frequently to the tune of stock guitar strumming, soulful violin or klezmer music. And now, those who once worried about no one reading their books can worry about no one watching their trailers. (A mother still nursing her 8-year-old: 25,864,943 views; recent best-selling maternal memoirist: 5,124 views.) 

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Hey, do you like free books? Do you like free coffee from Starbucks?  Do you have a nook or similar E-reading device?

Well Sure you do.

Both Barnes and Noble and Borders are giving away free e-books on their websites. And not just books in the free domain though those are there too.  I saw a few big name sellers like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and a James Patterson book.  Not really my thing but its there.  The weirdest one I saw was a short story.  I’m not quite sure what I feel about short stories being sold or given away without any other works attached to them quite yet.  (More on that later)

Anyways download a free book, take your device to a Starbucks in a Barnes and Nobles, show the kid behind the counter that you have downloaded the book using the BN E-reader, and then the kid will give you a free tall coffee.

I was going to start this blog off with a confession about different files and programs I may or may not have pirated in my life, but then I thought better of it. You never know who actually reads this thing. Instead, I’m going to provide a couple links that argue the possible effects of pirating digital media and the future of authors and artists who create such media.

The first link is to Scott Adam’s blog. You might know him as the Dilbert cartoonist. He basically argues that within his lifetime authors won’t exist:

I predict that the profession known as “author” will be retired to history in my lifetime, like blacksmith and cowboy. In the future, everyone will be a writer, and some will be better and more prolific than others. But no one will pay to read what anyone else creates. People might someday write entire books – and good ones – for the benefit of their own publicity, such as to promote themselves as consultants, lecturers, or the like. But no one born today is the next multi-best-selling author. That job won’t exist.

As an author, my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that the media content of the future will suck because there will be no true professionals producing it. But I think suckiness is solved by better search capabilities. Somewhere out in the big old world are artists who are more talented than we can imagine, and willing to create content for free, for a variety of reasons. And so, as our ability to search for media content improves, the economic value of that content will approach zero. Read more »

I'll judge all I want.

…if it contains the phrase “compulsively readable.”
Working at the used-book counter of a major independent bookseller, I see more mass-market paperback mysteries and thrillers than your grandparents’ garage sale, and every other one has a blurb proclaiming the book “compulsively readable.” Don’t feel superior yet: A lot of so-called literary fiction has the same endorsement. Even putting aside the basic absurdity of this description (“readable”? why not “legible”? or “in English”?), it should also be obvious that when this many people use the same phrase in the same way, it doesn’t mean that the phrase is apt. It means it’s pre-fab and lazy.

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The BookBook Case

I was recently traveling by air–on Southwest Airlines to be exact–and I found something quite interesting in Spirit, Southwest’s in-flight magazine.  It was a product feature, in the “Business Perk” section.  Basically, an ad for the latest in laptop chic, the BookBook Case (pictured, left.)

This was not an ad placed by Apple.  Spirit specifically endorses this.  They titled their feature, “A Novel Idea” (super clever) and angled it toward the fearful traveler as a way to prevent laptop theft.  It’s an eighty-dollar case that is designed to look like a rare, leatherbound first edition (of what, it doesn’t say–are Russian authors more likely to scare away thieves?  What about Melville? Dickens?  Whose work is truly tough enough to work as a security system?)

Either way, the article makes sure to tout the benefits of BookBook ownership as it relates to potential theft.  And I quote:

Never again will you have to keep one eye on your laptop as you stand in line for a refill at the coffee shop.  Just zip it up in your BookBook.

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