Digital Elements » Emily Davidow

Bookmarks for 18 August 2009

Emily Davidow — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:36:19 +0000

Bits of destruction hit the book publishing business, a four-part series in ReadWriteWeb. Part 1 looks at the three big waves crashing down on the traditional book publishing business: Google Search, e-books, and print on demand. Part 2 speculates on how this might play out for all participants: readers, authors, printers, publishers, retailers, and e-book device vendors. Part 3, looks at the economics of returnability and the impact of the Espresso Book Machine on the supply chain. Part 4 focuses on authors.
Great essay on indie bookstores of the future from Portland outpost of Reading Local for exploring your local literary community (in USA).
In Book Business 101 (or 2.0), author Judith D. Schwartz grapples with business descisions around independently publishing her book.
See a new Espresso Book Machine getting installed at Mark Leslie’s bookstore.

Bookmarks for 21 August 2009

Emily Davidow — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:33:04 +0000

New Zealand authors crying foul over Google Book Settlement:

Google Steals NZ Taonga and Rips off Law Commissioners from Scoop
NZ authors protest Google book plan from Stuff

Bookmarks 13 August 2009

Emily Davidow — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:43:14 +0000

Jim Johnston, Aaron Small and Andi Zeller from Victoria University are using the colour-changing properties of quantum nanodots to create novel materials for ink-jet printing.
Competing for Eyeballs: Reading in the 21st Century
Sony adapts ePub format, making its books available on many readers.

Bookmarks for 10 August 2009

Emily Davidow — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:39:09 +0000

In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History “They don’t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote. Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”
Scribd gets more social allowing people to subscribe to other Scribd members writings and redaing lists. Musings – Twitter like updates – shows up in scribble box.
Reading Ahead, a project exploring the evolution of reading and books from a consumer perspective: what it means to be a reader, how artifacts from traditional books to devices like Amazon’s Kindles affect the experience and what the future might hold for readers, product developers and beyond.
Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, launchesa new self-published line of short books called the Insight Series, starting with Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times. From WSJ article: Sean Covey, a senior vice president at publisher FranklinCovey (and Covey’s son), said the company decided to self-publish the new books because it wanted to get the books quickly to market. The company also wanted to control the size of the books. “People don’t read long books any more,” he said. “These books are in bite-sized chunks.

Bookmarks for August 7, 2009

Emily Davidow — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:47:30 +0000

Kamil by Charlotte Peys

Read Write Poem is an online community for people who love poetry, and those who think they might grow into it. Beautiful implementation of BuddyPress for WordPress featuring illustrations by Charlotte Peys (including the image above.)
Innovative e-book hits hard times: A flexible fold-up e-Reader phone I’d like to see (and one that needs your help): The Readius by Polymer Vision. See it in action.

Hello Cutie! More pics and info available on the new Sony Reader. The pocket edition is offered in pink and the touch-screen model in red. Yes, style matters.

Bookmarks for August 6, 2009

Emily Davidow — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:38:48 +0000

What’s on your ideal bookshelf? We love Jane Mount’s Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM (pictured above), available in limited edition prints from Jen Bekman’s wonderful 20×200 project. Check out the Summer Reading exhibition at the gallery for more great book art.
NYT article on MediaCloud, Ethan Zuckerman’s new database that can show the flow of media and track the rhythm of the news cycle over time.
Sony takes on the Kindle with two new e-readers. The Reader Pocket Edition with a five-inch display (US $199) and Reader Touch Edition with a six-inch touch sensitive screen ($299).
Amazon’s E-Book Rival, Barnes & Noble, a Paper Tiger, for Now, David Pogue’s review of Barnes & Noble’s new “world’s largest e-bookstore” and free book-reading app for the iPhone and iPod Touch and Blackberry.

"Bite Size Edits" at the BookOven

Emily Davidow — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:45:04 +0000

Most of the time I have to hide my inner red pen and the urge to copyedit everything I read. How intriguing then, to discover BookOven, a site that invites us to indulge the urge to fix bad spelling and procrastinate “for the greater good.” (Could it break my non-useful Scramble habit?)

BookOven, introduced this week by the founders of Librivox, calls itself a place where we help each other make better books. You can help make their public domain texts perfect or upload your own content then invite colleagues, editors and friends to work on a private or public writing project.

Their “Bite Size Edits” alpha release serves up random snippets from public domain books (including Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother) and feeds the corrected texts back to Project Gutenberg. BookOven uses game techniques to make it fun and rewarding. You can see how many snippets you’ve edited in each session, your rank and how you score against other editors. You can also pick a specific project and jump right in. Tasty!