Or at least, 50 million Americans aren’t readers. Of books, in any form. In a phone survey funded by The Gates Mega Couple, Bill and Melinda, 21% read an e-book. And those with e-readers, read 8 books more a year than those who prefer to open a physical thing . We who are the latter, … Read more
J. A. Konrath, whom I’ve heard of, only through facebook constantly recommending I friend him because so many of my friends are his friends, responded to an interview with a person from a publishing company–that interview I didn’t see, and don’t really need to–he shot down any and every argument the person offered for the … Read more
Publisher’s Weekly covered the announcement by Barnes and Noble, that they will not carry anything published by Amazon in their brick and mortar stores. The fact that I am championing B&N is not lost on me. Me, who ten years ago likened B&N to the ‘Evil Empire’, like the Soviet Union. But now, just like … Read more
Richard Russo interviewed several best selling authors about the recent amazon trickery, and the results were comforting, at least. The authors, including, Scott Turow, Stephen King, and Dennis Lehane all found amazon’s tactics less than a stellar business practice. However, the comments to the article were typical in the ‘oh you elitists’ and ‘poor amazon’ … Read more
You know, I honestly used to enjoy buying certain books from this giant non taxing paying Walmart in the ethernet sky. That was before slave labor was discovered, and the foisting of kindle on the masses began. This new development takes the slime bucket award. Mysterious Galaxy, a fantastic indie bookstore featuring mystery and science … Read more
Rereading articles about last September’s London riots, I became bemused over the point many newspapers and blogs made about the lack of looting and book burning during the violence. All had theories of why this was so. One–the rioters respect books, therefore didn’t touch them. I think we can rule that one out immediately. Some … Read more
An interesting article once again explores the impact of print on demand books. A offbeat attitude is displayed by the author of the article, Clive Thompson. It’s his contention that PODs will lead to *more* physical books, not less, actually he thinks in 20 years we will all be ‘neck deep’ in them. It’s what … Read more
I need books. All the time. I’ve always stated that if I become homeless the shopping cart I push will be full of discarded novels. So when I go away on vacation, I bring books. Yes, real books, with covers, and binding, and fragrant pulp wafting from the pages. Our vacations consist of road trips … Read more
