the quarterly magazine is a something of an anachronism — a covered wagon on the information superhighway
Kate Taylor for the NY Sun Link
Month: April 2008
“Reading too much… is a disaster for a writer. To immerse yourself in literature – particularly those of your contemporaries – makes your work derivative at worst, and unoriginal at best.”
I’m surprised that one of the photos I submitted to the DITLO project was chosen as the jugde’s pick. The Day in the Life of Asheville photo project took place between 12:00 noon April 18 through midnight April 19 in Asheville, NC city limits.
Does a blog leave a carbon footprint?
When I started blogging four years ago there were, according to Technorati, 6 million blogs. There are almost 113 million blogs presently.
Imagine all those server farms burning up energy in order to power 113 million blogs 24 hours a day. What kind of carbon footprint does that leave?
A book or magazine or newspaper I can recycle, but the energy to power a blog is spent and spent and spent and…
Videos – documentary shorts and poet profiles
A link for people who love their poetry and coffee, and because I received an email asking if I knew a “poem pertaining to coffee.” Last summer I read a beautiful poem about coffee, or rather a café in Hungary that served the best java. It was published in Alimentum. I couldn’t locate the copy of the journal. It will be a delicious discovery once found.
Why should contemprary poets care what Wikipedia does or does not find “noteable?”
Can a computer write books?
From Jeff Gomez, author of Print Is Dead: Books in our Digital Age
Philip Parker, a science professor who has “written” more than 200,000 books…. But Parker doesn’t really write the books; instead he has invented a series of “computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject… and… turns the results into books in a range of genres….”
…just because the rats in Ratatouille are computer generated, the idea and the story and the dialogue weren’t computer generated. Computers are increasingly helping us be more creative but, in the end, that’s all they’re doing: helping.
There’s already services available that convert blog content to book format. Like Gomez stated, it still requires the human touch to generate the content. Technology made it easier to collect the information into an enjoyable package.
I’m confused
Micheal Smith (head of the International Digital Publishing Forum) says”
E-books are a growing niche for now… but I certainly don’t see a time when everybody will be reading them. People just love what the traditional book represents to them. Link
Yet…
Public sightings of e-books remain rare compared to iPods or iPhones… Link
And…
Publishing house Penguin said today that it…. is… working on turning its 5,000 title Penguin backlist into ebooks for publication this year and next. Link
Yet…
The publisher is digitising its entire worldwide backlist so that it can make the most of the emerging ebook trend. It also hopes the print-on-demand opportunities – whereby customers can have one-off copies of out-of-print titles printed, bound and shipped to them – will give older books a new lease of life. Link
Does that last part make sense to you? Penguin plans to publish ebooks and POD out-of-print titles? Why? Why, I ask, if the ebook is available would you want a POD of that title?
Here’s an idea; why not offer limited edition printings of out-of-print titles to collectors and bibliophiles. Due to limited supply, Penguin could charge more for these special lifestyle objects. Ebooks are geared for a completely different audience—an audience who just wants the content and not the packaging. Don’t waste time on POD. POD books are for university creative writing students and vagrant poets.
“Ninety-two percent of word of mouth happens offline”
Why is it the more I am connected online, the more alone I feel? Because I a[m] missing the one thing that online can help facilitate, but never replace: the magic of a face-to-face encounter…. Yes, connecting people online is fantastic. But being able to connect them face-to-face heightens everything.
Spike Jones of Brains on Fire Link
(via AdPulp, Link)
behaviors are changing
Sean Howard (via AdPulp) Link
Our always-on wired world doesn’t leave room for contemplation… Charles Bukowski once lamented that writing poems that were published soon after felt like throw-away journalism. But…. the Web never sleeps.
Jeff Gomez of Print is Dead Link
G.U.
43 Folders offers five tips on getting unstuck.
Down the road
Seth Godin writes:
“The best time to look for a job next year is right now.”
The best advice I received years ago by an old radio disc jockey was—always think two or three jobs down the road. It changes your perspective on what you are doing currently.
To hold a pen is to be at war.
Voltaire (via livejamie) (via brocatus)
This quote reminds me of this post about a fountain pen: Writing Like It’s 1884
Could it get any worse?
More doom and gloom about the declining influence of books and readership.
MSM outlets report these desperate stories, yet the printer who manufactures the books I help publish report that book sales increased from 2007 by 7.4% . Maybe people aren’t reading the books they buy. Juvenile hardcover increased 46% while adult hardcover is up almost 8%. Further, audio books is up almost 20% and e-books are up 23%.
Can Kindle increase the number of people reading?
Coffeehouse Junkie 