A rare batch: books and publishing round-up for 25 November.
I don’t often do a link-roundup post (I personally am of the opinion that no one really clicks any of the links, and many folks will skim a list, only pick up on 2-3 headlines, and the rest just scrolls past unread and unremarked) however I seem to have accumulated way too many interesting articles related to books and publishing to tweet in an effective manner, so…
A link roundup.
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[blockquote]
“Last week, BusinessWeek published a themed issue entitled, ‘The Year Ahead: 2014.’ It’s a fascinating compilation of interviews, data, projections, and ideas. I will be reviewing my copy of this superbly useful print publication for weeks to come.
“One article in particular caught my attention: ‘The Year of the Paywall.’ In a single page, it neatly summarizes the problems facing newspaper, entertainment, and magazine publishers, while touching on problems facing scientific and scholarly publishers by extension.
“The major premise? Publishers were demonized for having paywalls for individual subscribers, but now are finding that every alternative is either too unreliable or simply insufficient, and are returning to individual paywalls with a vengeance.” [/blockquote]
Will 2014 Be the Year of the Individual Paywall for Publishers? : Kent Anderson, 25 November 2013, The Scholarly Kitchen
for reference: The Year of the Paywall : Edmund Lee, 14 November 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek
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Is Government the Only Force Able to End Amazon Dominance? : Roger Tagholm, 25 November 2013, Publishing Perspectives
What If Amazon Was Run By the US Government? : Roger Tagholm, 25 November 2013, Publishing Perspectives
Are Book Machines the Right Fit for Indies? : Judith Rosen, 22 November 2013, Publishers Weekly
For those not familiar with On Demand Books or the Esspresso Book Machine I’d start with a simple Google search for Espresso Book Machine and start clicking links.
This guy even used the sentence “It’s a telling sign of how blind postmodern thinking can make us” and still manages to miss the whole point : The Bechdel test: Application, historical context, and introducing a male equivalent : Bonus points for “If the people who complain about movies using the Bechdel test would instead proactively contribute to making the postmodern movies they want, maybe things would look differently” like we all have a couple million lying around to make movies, or are even given the opportunity to ‘vote’ for better options with our dollars, in a world without options.
From campfire to holodeck : Joanne Jacobs, 24 November 2013, joannejacobs.com (“Linking and Thinking on Education”)
The Absence Of Serendipity, Or, Why I Hate Shopping At Amazon : Tim Worstall, 19 November 2013, Forbes.com : via The Passive Voice where you’ll find additional commentary
10 Reasons Amazon is Great for Book Lovers : Joel Goldman, 21 November 2013, joelgoldman.com
Comment: How I learned to stop worrying and love Amazon : Anne Treasure, 21 November 2013, SBS.com.au
What’s the Key to Solving the Book Discoverability Problem? : Laura Fredericks, 18 November 2013, Publishing Perspectives
The main factor contributing to the problem of book discovery is the sheer volume of books out there : Stephanie Anderson, 19 November 2013, Bookavore
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[blockquote]
“The digital revolution brought forth a frenzied hoard of futurists who declared the publishing industry is dying. They say publishers simply can’t compete with authors who can self-publish or the growing dominance of Amazon. I disagree. I don’t think the end is near. I think we’re looking in the wrong direction. Rather than look at the end, we need to look down the middle.
“To illustrate, draw a horizontal line and write ‘Free’ on the left side and the number ‘$9.99’ on the right side: Free represents content that readers can get at no charge, such as book samples, blog posts, free resources, etc. The number $9.99 represents the typical price used to sell digital e-books. To date, most publishers and authors concentrate their efforts on either end of the line. They give away free content to promote their titles and entice readers. Then, they charge consumers around $9.99 or more to purchase a digital e-book.
“Notice the wide gap between free and $9.99. I call it the ‘Digital Middle’” [/blockquote]
Making Millions in the Digital Middle : Rob Eagar, 25 November 2013, Digital Book World
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As noted in the post title, this is a relatively rare exercise on my part, but I needed to clear the link cache. My next essay on books will be on the discovery problem, or discovery “problem” depending on your approach to the topic, so I might be referencing a couple of these sites again there.
Tomorrow is a travel day, and then it’s family, Thanksgiving, a wedding (on Friday), and more family. If I can find wifi and the beer holds out I might be posting — else I’ll be back with more Monday next.
