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March 2010
25 March 2010
Confessions of a compulsive reader
"Going to the loo without a book! It is a profound shock. Instead of reading, I stare at the walls and notice that there are still two empty nails on which I meant - a year ago - to hang pictures. Also, I notice the dust on the floor and the cobwebs on the ceiling. I sense that I will be doing a lot more housework than usual this week."
22 March 2010
Philip Pullman threatened by religious zealots
Philip Pullman, the best selling author, has been threatened by religious zealots amid claims he should be “punished” for a controversial new book about Jesus Christ.
19 March 2010
Glue Offers Authors an Alternative to Amazon
"Adaptive Blue’s Firefox browser add-on, Glue, has been downloaded an impressive 2.4 million times and counting, and it is integrated with a variety of book-related ecommerce, social networking and review websites, including Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, IndieBound.com, Goodreads.com, Oprah.com and many, many others. Their widgets are actively being used on a wide variety of book-related sites, from major publishers like Random House and Simon and Schuster, as well as marketing savvy authors like JA Konrath, enabling them to offer readers a variety of purchase options beyond Amazon."
19 March 2010
Short is sweet when it comes to fiction
"It's taken me a long time to realise how much I love short novels — those unintimidating, pencil-thick volumes which say: "Pick me up. I won't take up too much of your time. You could read me over (a longish) breakfast." The Outsider, A Clockwork Orange, The Great Gatsby, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star, The Old Man and the Sea and Of Mice and Men all barely break the 100-page barrier. The last three don't even do that."
18 March 2010
The Economics of e-Book Publishing
"Customers have a habit of demanding lower prices, especially when they believe a product’s price represents a huge profit for the company. The case in point here is e-books, just one of many digital products facing the e-pricing dilemma.
In recent weeks, thanks to the soon-to-be-released Apple iPad, five of the six major publishers banded together to demand a change in price. Up until now, Amazon, the leading e-book seller, has set most bestsellers at a $9.99 price point, but by making a deal with Apple to price books from $12.99 to $14.99 and threatening to remove their products from Amazon’s online store and it’s e-reader Kindle, the publishers were able to push up the price.
To illustrate why publishers keep pushing for the higher price, the recent New York Times article ‘Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book’ by Motoko Rich broke down standard hardcover book pricing and compared it to the new iPad digital pricing, also suggesting, according to Rich, that 'customers have exaggerated the savings and have developed unrealistic expectations of how low the prices of e-books can go.'"
16 March 2010
How to Choose a Font for Your Book
"As more writers explore self-publishing options and digital editions re-create print books, the time has never been better to brush up on book fonts. If you have to pick a font for your book, why not consult with the experts?"
05 March 2010
An Author's View of How Publishers Should Deal With e-Books
"Lately the publishing industry has been trying to commit suicide over electronic rights. It’s funny because every time in history a revolutionary new way to do business comes along, the first instinct of all established players is to strangle themselves with it. Movie studios fought the VCR. Microsoft fought the Internet. The music industry fought MP3s. TV networks are fighting PVRs. Eventually, these turn into important markets, fully embraced by the companies that tried to kill them. But until then everyone spends a lot of time throwing lawyers at anything that doesn’t look like a traditional business model."
03 March 2010
Authors choose their favourite books of the decade
"Zadie Smith and Cormac McCarthy have both scored well in a poll to find out which authors writers themselves enjoy reading."
02 March 2010
Beware of Your Chair
"Your chair is your enemy.
It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you."