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BookShift
Self-Published Authors Still Rarely Make the Jump to Publishing Houses
For many self-published authors, a traditional publisher is an elusive dream. It means a team of professionals taking over marketing, advertising, publicity and the mechanics of publishing one's own book on paper and electronically. It means already forged relationships with booksellers, critics and other writers -- and it means more time to write, rather than haggling over the costs of...
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BookShift
Print Books Still Rule the Holidays: The Trouble With Gifting an E-Book
My template for what Christmas should be was set during the holidays I spent at my grandparents' farm in eastern Nebraska. My grandparents had nine children and 23 grandchildren, and the gift exchange resulted in a sea of wrapping paper that my cousins and I would wade through, a bow on every baby's head. Sometimes you ended up with a...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #30: Netflix, Time Warner Make Peace?; E-Books Price-Fixing; Holiday Gadgets
Welcome to the 30th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week we have an eclectic mix of topics. First up is the UBS Media and Technology Conference in New York, where the talk of the conference was the rise of over-the-top video services and talks by...
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Business
The Challenges of Using Kickstarter to Fund a New Novel
This post is a guest post in response to a MediaShift story by Simon Owens that detailed how one novelist bypassed a publisher to raise money on Kickstarter. In this case, things didn't go quite the same way. Chances are you've never heard of Nick Miller. He's a writer, but you won't be able to find his work in literary...
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BookShift
E-Books and Self-Publishing Roundup, Nov. 23, 2011
The best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self-publishing1. For their children, many e-book fans insist on paper (New York Times)2. Thirteen ways to jumpstart digital revenue (FOLIO:)3. Mobile devices boost magazine reading (MediaPost)4. Five lessons on using e-books for news (Poynter)5. Amazon taps self-published authors for Kindle lending library (paidContent)6. Challenge for publishers in 2012: funding tablet and e-reader product development (eMedia Vitals)7. Penguin pulls new e-books...
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BookShift
E-Books and Self-Publishing Roundup, Nov. 3, 2011
The best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self-publishing 1. Amazon launches free e-book borrowing for Prime members (CNET Reviews) 2. E-book maker Kobo to become a publisher (CBC News) 3. Next up to sue BitTorrent users: Book publishers (ReadWriteWeb) 4. Our relationship with e-books: It's too complicated (GigaOM) 5. Magazine publishers look to book industry for digital sales...
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BookShift
This piece appears in Brian Reich's upcoming book "Shift & Reset: Strategies for Addressing Serious Issues in a Connected Society." Read the Kindle version here. Some people argue that books are outmoded, that there are other media available today that offer more immediate methods for delivering knowledge and insight. But right now, long-form, substantively driven, and thoughtful consideration of...
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BookShift
How Social Networks Might Change the Way We Read Books
Reading hasn't always been seen as a solitary act. Our first experiences with books demonstrate that: before we know how to read, we often have people -- a parent, a teacher -- reading out loud to us. But once we know how to read, there's a sense that we're supposed to read silently and oftentimes, alone. Even so, we're...
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BookShift
Why Self-Publishers Should Consider Using Lightning Source
Self-publishing services are on the rise -- a dramatic one. And because of this, technologies are evolving weekly, and advertising is flowing. If you're using a free subsidy press and e-book distributor to self-publish and sell your book, one service to get familiar with is Lightning Source. Lightning Source has free book cover templates, spine-width calculators, and bar codes,...
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Your Take
What Do You Think About Amazon's Power in Book Publishing?
Bookstores are closing. Book publishers are feeling cornered. Authors are confused. As Amazon becomes a growing power in the book publishing world, where does that leave the traditional players? The Kindle e-readers have revolutionized book reading, with convenience, low prices and portability. So do you think of Amazon as your hero, bringing you more great books at low prices? Or...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #25: The 800 Pound Gorilla of E-Books: Amazon
Welcome to the 25th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. This week is the Beyond the Book series at MediaShift, and keeping with that theme the podcast is all about Amazon.com.
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BookShift
Is Amazon Short-Changing Authors?
One day, publishers will mark their industry as existing between two eras: before and after the Kindle. Publishing has changed dramatically since the days when a handful of influential publishers -- mostly located on the East Coast -- determined what America would read.
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5Across
5Across: Beyond the Book: E-Books and Self-Publishing
Print books have survived the onslaught of so many new forms of media over the years, from movies to television to the Internet. But digital media finally caught up to books with the introduction and popularity of e-books and e-readers, with lower price points and the convenience of the "buy" button and quick downloads. Not to mention: who wants...
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Business
E-Book Publishers Must Provide Flexible Access to Avoid 'Media Hell'
Trying to consume an e-book can be an infuriating experience. Consumers like me want to enjoy the digital version of a book when, where and how we want. We love to be able to read it from multiple screens, search it automatically, share annotations, even have the text read aloud as we drive or do dishes.
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BookShift
How a Novelist Bypassed His Publisher and Raised $11,000 on Kickstarter
This week on MediaShift, we are exploring the dramatically changing publishing industry in our Beyond the Book special series. Stay tuned for more pieces like this one in the coming days. Sign up for our new weekly newsletter on e-books and self-publishing here. Tim Pratt was confident enough that his publisher would print a fifth novel in his urban fantasy...
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BookShift
5 Reasons E-Books Are Awesome, Even for the Very Reluctant
This week on MediaShift, we are exploring the dramatically changing publishing industry in our Beyond the Book special series. Stay tuned for more pieces like this one in the coming days. Sign up for our new weekly newsletter on e-books and self-publishing here. When Amazon first introduced the Kindle in 2007, I had no desire to own one. I was...
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BookShift
Special Series: Beyond the Book
Digital technology is disrupting the book industry as never before. The rise of e-books is poised to overtake sales of print books soon, and people are reading books on Kindles, iPads, Nooks and more. Plus, the equation for authors is changing, as they get more tools to go around traditional publishers and go the self-publishing route. We decided to do...
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BookShift
The Book Publishing Industry of the Future: It's All About Content
This week on MediaShift, we are exploring the dramatically changing publishing industry in our "Beyond the Book" special series. Stay tuned for more pieces like this one in the coming days. Sign up for our new weekly newsletter on e-books and self-publishing here. I studied book publishing in graduate school, an aspiration that seems a tad shortsighted these days. At...
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BookShift
Did Apple Collude with Publishers to Fix Prices on E-Books?
Apple's iBookstore wields enough power to change how electronic books are sold and priced, according to plaintiffs in class-action suits against the Cupertino, Calif., company and several traditional publishers. The complaint alleges that Apple violated antitrust laws by colluding with publishers to keep e-book prices high. Hagens Berman, a consumer rights class-action law firm, filed the original complaint in U.S....
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Your Take
What Do You Think of the New Line of Kindles?
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had his Steve Jobs moment this week, unveiling a slew of new Kindles, a new Silk browser and even a Newsstand. (Here's a handy comparison chart of the Kindles, and here's a roundup of all the media coverage and analysis.) The big point was that Amazon was offering up a new Kindle Fire tablet that was...
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Business
How to Partner With a Pro on Your Self-Published Book
With triple-digit growth in self-publishing services, technologies evolving weekly, and advertising hype, it's tough for authors to figure out which vendors to choose for which services. In this series, I've been looking at three popular paths to get your print and e-book to online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores, without going through the subsidy presses.
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MobileShift
Best Coverage, Analysis of Amazon Kindle Fire Announcement
Amazon recently made waves by announcing its new Kindle Fire tablet, running a custom version of Android and starting at $199. Plus, there were the new Kindle Touch models in the mid-range and the low-cost Kindle, starting at $79 with ads. We scoured Twitter, tech blogs, Google+ and even Quora to find the best coverage and analysis of the announcement....
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EducationShift
School Libraries Struggle with E-Book Loans
Just as many predicted, sales figures show that more people are opting to buy e-books rather than printed copies. Sales of e-books rose 167 percent in June, reports Publishers Weekly, with sales totaling $473.8 million for the first half of the year. But sales of print books -- both paperbacks and hardcovers -- continue to decline.
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BookShift
How to Get Your Self-Published Book in All Kinds of Stores
With triple-digit growth in self-publishing services, technologies evolving weekly, and advertising hype, it's tough for authors to figure out which vendors to choose for which services. In a three-part series, I'm looking at three popular paths to get your print and e-book to online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores, without going through the subsidy presses.
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BookShift
A Brave New Book World: How Authors Become Entrepreneurs
A few years ago, I interviewed author Ron Carlson about his novel "The Signal." I asked him about his experience with his longtime editor, Carol Houck-Smith, who had recently died. He remembered back to 1977 when he had just signed a deal to publish a novel with Houck-Smith at Norton: It's such a treasure to me to have had this...
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BookShift
How to Self-Publish Your E-Book
With triple-digit growth in self-publishing services, technologies evolving weekly, and advertising hype, it's tough for authors to figure out which vendors to choose for which services. In the coming weeks, I'll be looking at three popular paths to get your print and e-book to online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores, without going through the subsidy presses.
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EducationShift
How e-Textbooks, Online Modules Could Keep Journalism Education Current
Journalism textbooks can be a challenge (or as one commenter on my recent post on the subject called them, an oxymoron) in today's fast-changing media world. The long wait between writing and publication usually means at least portions of a book about journalism will seem outdated when it finally reaches the hands of college students. Imagine trying to write about...
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Business
Publishers Doing an Apple End-Run to Deliver to iPad
Major publishers are starting to deliver content to the iPad outside Apple's App Store, avoiding the company's rules and restrictions that limit what they can do and how much they can earn. Instead of building native apps in iOS, the proprietary operating system for the iPad and other Apple devices, the publishers are using HTML5, the latest version of the...
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BookShift
Literary Agents Try New Role as Self-Publishing Consultants
With big publishing buying only the crème de la crème of books, and more authors turning to self-publishing, many literary agents are getting squeezed right out of the middle. But some savvy agents are acting as literary consultants to help their authors self-publish, a role that offers up new opportunities and challenges for everybody in the industry. I talked with...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #8: LinkedIn's Bubbly IPO; Grueskin on the New York World
Welcome to the eighth episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the big IPO of business networking site LinkedIn, with the stock price doubling to more than $90 per share in its first day of trading, valuing the company...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #5: Who Owns Social Media Followers?; Byliner CEO John Tayman
Welcome to the fifth episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show is about the various social media policies at news organizations, and how they vary from place to place. Plus, can media companies actually own the followers...
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Social Networking
Susan Orlean Explains How Twitter Affects Her Long-Form Writing
As I spoke to Susan Orlean about the role the social web plays with her long feature articles and books, I couldn't help but compare her to another famous writer for the New Yorker: E.B. White. Like Orlean, White had decided to leave the frantic mania of New York City life for a much quieter one in the country, moving...
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BookShift
The Easiest, Cheapest, Fastest Way to Self-Publish Your Book
You are excited to self-publish, but sorting through the sheer quantity of offerings, claims, and technologies is overwhelming. I spend a good part of each week researching the topic and, for authors of trade paperback books with no or few illustrations, my answer is to use these two services for creating your e-book and print book: Smashwords and CreateSpace. Create...
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BookShift
The Advantages of Middleman Services for Self-Published e-Books
Whether you're a self-publisher or a large publishing house, you're probably dealing with six to a dozen online retailers to sell your e-books. But several companies offer go-between services that simplify the process for publisher and retailer. Should you consider using these middleman services?
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MagazineShift
How the Kindle Made Single-Story Sales a Reality for Magazines
I've never seen a "Not for Individual Sale" label on a magazine story. So why can't I buy most individual magazine articles in digital form just yet? Selling stand-alone stories has seemed like a potential business model for magazines and other journalism organizations since the rise of iTunes. Observers hyped an incipient micropayment business model for journalism. But few companies...
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BookShift
2010: The Year Self-Publishing Lost Its Stigma
For over a decade I've been speaking at conferences about self-publishing to audiences of dejected, rejected authors. There was always a stigma associated with self-publishing, with many people considering it lower quality vanity press. But this year, new faces appeared in the crowd: agents, editors, and publishers eager to understand self-publishing. Why? Self-publishing books has finally reached the mainstream,...
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BookShift
Books in Browsers? Google, Amazon Bring E-Books to the Masses
For authors and publishers already overwhelmed, last week's news about the Google eBooks store and Amazon's Kindle for web only added to the waterfall of controversy pouring into an already raging river of e-book and publishing hype. The big takeaway from these two announcements, and a recent "Books in Browsers" event that I attended, is that the web browser is...
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BookShift
A Self-Publisher's Guide to Metadata for Books
Metadata used to be a wallflower, hiding out at the library with the Dewey Decimal system. Now it's at every party, flitting about gathering and sorting books on mobile devices, e-readers, and websites. Metadata is a core component of digital information and news; so good book metadata is good book marketing. It's an essential tool for all self-publishers. For those...
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Legal Drama
Who Owns Your E-Book of 'War and Peace'? Probably Not You
Who owns your copy of "War and Peace"? If we're talking about a dog-eared paperback copy of "War and Peace" that you purchased in your college bookstore, then you own the copy for purposes of copyright law. But if we are talking about an e-book version of the latest translation that was bought online and downloaded to an e-reader or...
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BookShift
A Self-Publisher's Primer to Enhanced E-Books and Book Apps
In a nutshell, an e-book is a digital snapshot of a book, an enhanced e-book adds multimedia and interactive features inline with the linear story, and a book app is based on a book but acts more like a game with multiple pathways that require the user to interact instead of simply scrolling and clicking.
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Kindle Gives Amazon More Bang for Less Bucks
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the surprising success of the Amazon Kindle e-reader in the wake of the hit Apple iPad tablet. While many people expected the iPad to impact the e-reader market, instead the major players cut prices and Kindle sales tripled in the past month. Plus, Amazon announced a new line of Kindles that will cost even less -- with no touch screen or color.
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BookShift
Want Your Self-Published Book in Stores? Weigh the Options
The rise of online book retailers means that self-publishers have better access to customers than ever. But many authors still want to be on bookstore shelves. The good news is that you don't really need traditional distribution to get into bookstores. The Databases With your ISBN and bar code from Bowker in hand (read my previous post that told you...
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BookShift
How to Pair Smashwords and Scribd for Ideal E-Book Strategy
Self-published authors are in a unique position to benefit from the increasing consumer acceptance of digital books. The challenge, however, is that so many companies are popping up to offer conversion, distribution and sales. It's tough for authors to know which vendor to choose for which services when it comes to their e-book. The truth is that it's wrong to...
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MobileShift
The conundrum with the iPad is that it's exciting to consider a sleek new form factor for getting news, movies, TV shows, games and web browsing -- but it's less exciting to be first in line to pay the most for the least. We all know the first version of a technology product costs the most and is missing the...
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BookShift
The Pitfalls of Using Self-Publishing Book Packages
The rise of self-publishing has made it possible for anyone to be an author. Now, some people are also choosing to outsource their book project by hiring an author services company. On the surface, this seems much easier than finding and hiring a half-dozen professionals to create your book. (For background on the self-publishing industry and author services companies, please...
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BookShift
Self-Publishing, Author Services Open Floodgates for Writers
In 2001, the Wild Writing Women, a San Francisco Bay Area travel writing group of which I was a member, decided to self-publish a book of stories. Why? Because none of us could find a traditional publisher for what we thought was our best writing. We had skilled publishing professionals among us, so we never considered using a vanity press....
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BookShift
Book Publishers Welcome Apple Pricing, Mixed on iPad Features
In the aftermath of Apple's January announcement of the iPad, people dished on the iPad name and pundits debated whether a tablet that didn't have a camera, multitasking, or Flash support could compete. But book publishers zeroed in on a different set of questions. These included how the iPad's iBooks app and accompanying bookstore might shake up e-book pricing and...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: iPad Mania; Yelp Scores $100 Million
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the hype and reality around the latest device from Apple, the iPad. While some have slammed it for what it's missing, it's too early to tell how media companies might use it to sell their content. Plus, Yelp gets up to $100 million from Elevation Partners, helping some employees cash out without an IPO. And I ask Just One Question to Google News' Josh Cohen about whether Google should have started working with publishers sooner.
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BookShift
Best Coverage, Tweets of Apple iPad Event
The hype has reached fever pitch on the new tablet device being unveiled by Apple today in San Francisco. You're probably tired of going through tweets, live blogs and photo galleries trying to find the latest and best coverage of the latesty shiny gadget. So we've collected the best coverage around the web in one handy place here on...
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5Across
5Across: Environmental Impact of Newspapers, Books, e-Waste
When I cancelled my daily newspaper subscription, I figured it was the right thing to do for the environment. No longer would someone have to print up all that newsprint and deliver it to my doorstep. But what I didn't consider was the environmental impact of all my electronic devices -- their energy use as well as the harm they can do when being "recycled" in developing countries.
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google Phone and Netbook; Kindle Under Attack
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at Google's various moves into consumer electronics. Rumors abound about a Google phone, code-named Nexus One, that could be out as early as the first week of January. And Google also might be coming out with its own branded netbook with Chrome OS by Christmas 2010....
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BookShift
Speculative Fiction Novelists Find Success with Online Donations
Over the years, many authors have tried versions of the online donation model, with mixed results. But one specific genre of writers, speculative fiction, seems to be experiencing a moderate level of success. Back in 2000, Stephen King became one of the first major authors to offer a book online using an "honor system" to solicit donations. The book was...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Kindle DX; Google vs. Newspapers
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the unveiling of the new wide-screen Kindle DX aimed at newspaper, magazine and college textbook readers. Will people pay $489 for it? Plus, I look at the AP and News Corp.'s moves against Google, with the AP playing hardball for running content in Google News. Meanwhile, Google...
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NewspaperShift
Should Newspapers Create Consortium for E-Readers?
COLUMBIA, MO -- I am attending a half-day symposium here at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri's journalism school, this time a meeting of the "Digital Publishing Alliance," a group of newspapers and tech folks who are looking at how newspaper content might work on various e-readers like the Amazon Kindle. The timing of the meeting is...
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BookShift
Glaser & Son Consider Pros and Cons of Kindle 2
I am what you might call the late early adopter. Rather than live on the bleeding edge, I wait safely until Version 2 comes out with the bugs and problems fixed. I got Windows 98 in '99, waited for the iPhone 3G, and checked out the Kindle 2 rather than 1. But when my e-book reader from Amazon arrived in...
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BookShift
5 Great Services for Self-Publishing Your Book
In past posts, we've looked at some of the questions a new writer should keep in mind when considering whether to self-publish her opus. But let's say that an author has made up her mind that pushing ahead without a traditional publisher is the way to go. With the rise of new print-on-demand (POD) technology, literally dozens of self-publishing companies,...
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Guides
E-books are electronic books, or books you can read on your computer or on handheld devices such as e-readers or smartphones. The first e-book was likely created by Michael Hart at the University of Illinois in 1971, when he typed in the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence onto an early version of the Internet. Hart founded the Gutenberg Project, an online collection of e-books that are taken from public domain books.
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Legal Drama
Can U.S. Laws Protect Online Speech from Foreign Libel Suits?
"...in cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance." That's a remark famously made in 1997 by John Perry Barlow, one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Barlow's complete statement is well worth re-reading but one implication of this particular remark is that the reach of American constitutional values may be limited by our country's physical borders. When...
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BookShift
6 Ways Authors Can Succeed by Self-Publishing Books
When most authors write a book, they go the traditional route: pitch it to publishers, wait months for a reply, shop it around, wait some more, go through rewrite, and wait some more... But when blogger Sramana Mitra partnered with Amazon's BookSurge to self-publish her new book, she was taking a different route. For a book about web technology and...
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Legal Drama
Court Rules Print-on-Demand Service Not Liable for Defamation
Book publishers can be sued if they publish a book full of libelous statements because, the reasoning goes, a publisher should know what it prints. The publisher reviews the manuscript, edits and proofreads it, and distributes the finished book to retailers. It is involved in every part of the process. But the Internet has given rise to a new...
more »Your Take Roundup
Kindle, E-Readers Must Be Cheap, Flexible to Supplant Books
Are e-readers like the Amazon Kindle going to make print books obsolete, or will people's undying love for the printed book continue on in the digital age? While the Sony Reader didn't catch fire, the recent release of the Amazon Kindle has brought another round of debates over the future of the print book.
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
5 Reasons I Won't Give Up Books
Last month at the highly anticipated MacWorld conference here in San Francisco, Apple honcho Steve Jobs said some words that left many agape. Those words weren't "Macbook Air" but "people don't read anymore." He was predicting a doomed future for Amazon's new Kindle e-reader. Shocked, I've been going over this for weeks now, trying to cut through the punditry...
more »Your Take
What might entice you to use e-books or e-readers like Kindle?
It seems like every few years a new e-book device comes out that promises to revolutionize our reading experience, hoping we'll throw out our book collection and read everything electronically. Recently, the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle have been the contenders in e-books, but many people complain that they are not open enough for different types of books and that...
more »Philosophy
New media have certainly changed the landscape of communications and education in an even more dramatic manner than electronic mass media did as was documented and analyzed by "Marshall McLuhan" in 1964. I had the good fortune to collaborate with Marshall back in the 1970s and have tried to carry on his tradition, as have others, by focusing on the impact of media independent of their content. McLuhan's pithy way of describing this approach was through the use of his one-liner "the medium is the message," which he made famous in his '64 book "Understanding Media."
more »Open Source Reporting
Eliminating Physical Media Sprawl of CDs, DVDs, Books
Lately, I have declared my own personal war on clutter in my life. That means all the paper littering my home office had to go. Those outdated hats from Burning Mans past also were out, as were old loose photos of places I don't remember. But for whatever reason, in each clean sweep I do of my stuff, I can never part with my collections of books, CDs, VHS and DVD movies (not to mention vinyl records and audiocassettes).
more »BookShift
Your Take Roundup::Books Don't Need Digital Reinvention, But...
The promise of digital books or e-books or the universal library is that we can have all the books ever printed available on any device to read. While it's an idea that sounds good in theory, many of you were skeptical that the good old book really needs to be reinvented, scanned and put onto an electronic device. Perhaps...
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