Last night I was at a great birthday dinner downstairs at the “chefs table” at Blue Ribbon. Lots of cool people there and I got into a chat with a guy who works for an eBooks publisher.
Our conversation started with the Kindle - an eReader that is promoted by Amazon and the first one to [...]
I’ve been waiting for publishers to get a bit edgier with their online promotion for books.
Although this promotion (kinda NSFW) for the NYT bestseller Beautiful Children might border on simply being the porn it is modeled on I certainly see why it might get passed around the interwebs.
Of course, the big question is whether or [...]
There seems to be a growing number of publishers releasing video “trailers” for some titles, especially those in the “Young Adult” (read: teen/tween) market. This makes perfect sense in terms of going where your customers are and pitching them in a form they like.
However, you’ve still got to make something that feels fresh and exciting. [...]
Earlier, I wrote about the fascinating “We Tell Stories” project from Penguin books, a wide-ranging experiment in the overlap between traditional writing and the internet experience.
The first project to launch is called “The 21 Steps” by Charles Cumming and it is based on the classic “The 39 Steps.”
CoolHunter snagged an interview with Cumming:
“It was written [...]
ArsTech has a very thoughtful response to a pretty hyperbolic article in the London Times about the threats of digital piracy on publishers and authors.
Not surprisingly, this industry is facing very similar problems to the music and film industry largely due to the fact that the key things they’ve done is to manufacture and distribute [...]
There is some pretty intriguing news out of the UK publishing scene where Penguin is getting set to launch a pretty ambition alternative approach to some new titles that begin to make reading sound a lot more like an ARG. From the press release:
“But somewhere on the internet is a seventh story, a mysterious tale involving [...]
In the Beaverton Valley Times (yes, I dig deep for my loyal readers!) there is an article about an author who is publishing her book, one chapter at a time, exclusively online.
“Echo is a new literary role model for young readers created by 29-year-old Beaverton author Amy Alexander, but you can’t find her stories in bookstores…just yet. [...]
The International Herald Tribune (yeah, I’m that well read) has a pretty interesting piece on the growing trend of product placement in books, especially in the teen lit world:
“Cover Girl, which is owned by the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, has neither paid the publisher nor the book’s authors, Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman, [...]
Yeah, I opened with a bad pun. Made me feel good.
The GuardianUK has a look at another way to get people to read books in the digital age:
“Dailylit.com puts paid to the excuse about not finding time for good books; now the books come to you, as daily morsels in your inbox. Over 800 books [...]
BoingBoing has a quick post about the on-going free book discussion:
“Bottom line: low-risk/low-cost books are how readers discover new authors, and the biggest threat writers face is the overall unpopularity of reading books, not people reading for free.”
They point to a post from Neil Gaiman, (who’s book, American Gods, is “available” for free online) who [...]
