Category: publishing

“Book Seer prompts a question above and beyond the functionality of its algorithms. Namely: what methods do most people actually employ to move from one book to another? Is it the “if you liked this, try this” suggestions of online retailers such as Amazon? Or perhaps newspaper and journal reviews, a bookseller’s expertise, serendipitous browsing or the opinion of friends? Could it even be, flying in the face of the maxim, a book’s cover?”

Using Google for research? Google Earth helps give an author a sense of a place he was looking for…

“Much has been made already of the Kindle’s significance for publishers. By creating a payment infrastructure for digital reading matter, the Kindle is helping prod many to reconsider charging for their wares instead of relying on advertising revenue. Less discussed has been the Kindle’s tendency toward unitasking–but it’s clearly part of the device’s appeal, and it, too, offers lessons for publishers.”

Authors Guild president Roy Blount Jr. has posted a letter in support of the Google books settlement. “Blount played down concerns expressed by some over orphan works, writing, ‘I can’t see any reason to dissent from the settlement over the matter of orphan books.’ Blount wrote that he is confident many of the rightsholders of orphan works will be found. Authors, he said[,] ‘are all findable.'”

“It’s in matching the fluidity of Wikipedia with the static fixity of a book” that Wired editor Chris Anderson — caught copying portions of his new book, “Free,” from Wikipedia — “has gotten into trouble, which says something about the digital-analog divide. … Still, the fluid media of the Internet has proven itself to be unexpectedly sticky. The news about Anderson’s book broke on a website, and the Internet is where much of the discussion about it is taking place.”

“News item: Former vice president Dick Cheney has signed a contract to write a memoir about his long career in government and industry, from his years as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff to his prominent role in shaping the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policy after Sept. 11, 2001. Your challenge: Propose the first paragraph of Cheney’s book!”

A growing number of France’s gastronomes think that the once-all-powerful guide has “become a dead weight for French cuisine. It discouraged creativity, demanded a level of opulence that made fine dining appealing and accessible only to rich fogeys, and was unacceptably opaque about its reviewing methods.”

“The National Endowment for the Arts is giving out funds totaling over $3 million to 269 organizations as part of its latest Big Read initiative. The program, which launched as a pilot initiative in 2006, has grown exponentially since its inception; in its first Big Read push in 2006, the NEA gave $265,000 to 10 cities to start community reading programs.”

“In the course of reading Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion, $26.99), for a review in an upcoming issue of VQR, we have discovered almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources. … Most of the passages, but not all, come from Wikipedia.”

“As the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh continues to serve more and more people and to renovate its aging branches, it anticipates a sharp decline in government support, including a $1.6 million cut in 2010 with more to follow, library leaders warned yesterday.” The library’s board chair “predicted a $6.1 million budget deficit by 2014 in an economic climate of declining revenue and rising expenses.”