books
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Assassins Among the Bookshelves: “Showrooming” is Deadly
If you ask a local business about “showrooming,” they’ll either scowl or, more likely, look befuddled. The practice is booming among consumers, though, and any business owner has probably seen it: a customer walks into the store, browses the shelves, and then whips out her smartphone. A few minutes later, she’s gone. Where’d she go?…
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Publishers Are Actually Getting Excited About eBooks
The general grumbling from book publishers and bookstores alike is that the whole eBook format is going to destroy them. Smart-mouthed, tech savvy people who like Disruption are quick to agree. They call publishers “dinosaurs” who don’t get it, and other mean things. Really, publishers are trying to get quality books into the hands of…
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Is Writing & Music & Art Getting Specialized to Death?
I just watched “Dear Mr. Watterson,” a light-hearted documentary about the impact that Bill Watterson’s ever-famous, ever-persistent comic strip, Calvin & Hobbes, has had on people over the years. The part that gripped me most was when several prominent cartoonists spoke in extremely gloomy terms about new media. Berkeley Breathed, the cartoonist behind Opus, Bloom County, and Outland,…
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If There Are No Bookstores, What Can Publishers Do For Authors?
Book sales are hard to figure out. On the one hand, we’ve seen a slow dip in sales for the past few years. On the other hand, independent bookstores reported a 10% spike in sales for the last holiday season. Then again, one study found that 85% of children readers aged 2-13 are using tablets…
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The Future of eBooks: Werewolf Love Stories, 3 for a Dollar
Sometimes, I like to do market research about eBooks by acting like someone looking for deals. I did that the other day and the first challenge, as usual, was finding out where I could actually find eBooks on Amazon. They don’t make it as easy as it should be… but I don’t think Amazon is that…
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How Amazon is Trying to Rescue Literary Fiction
Who’s going to save literary fiction? Prominent agents have said that big publishers these days are just focused on pushing out blockbuster titles. You know, things that will sell millions. That leaves self-proclaimed “literary authors” that write “literary fiction” biting their nails. But never fear, literary authors… Amazon is here. That’s right – the online…
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A Fictional Serial Killer Starts a Blog… Then What?
I forget what I was Googling, but I found a very unique press release that caught my eye: “Serial Killer Starts Blog Ahead of 2MCH4YA Book Completion.” Yes, a serial killer featured in the upcoming novel, “taRNished,” now has a blog. The blog is an example of what I’ve been thinking about a lot when it comes to…
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A Video Game or an eBook?
You may have heard the term “enhanced” eBook lately. Maybe you’ve heard… from people like me, even… that eBooks are going to have to include more multimedia as people ditch eReaders and go for tablets. Well, the picture to the left is evidence of that effort: pulling in more stuff to immerse the reader in…
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eBooks, Blogs, and Redefining What It Means to Be an Author
I’m accustomed to reading grim things about the future of books. That’s what a lot of this blog is about: how writers can just keep it all going in this day and age. Now, I’m a hardened veteran of indulgent speculation concernign the demise of eBooks and literary novels and making a living by making art. But this piece, “The…
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