Origami Unicorn

Apple and Bookselling Apps: June 30th

It's the big day when those who choose to buy and read anything other than iBooks on an Apple product find out if the company is dumb enough, and greedy enough to offend a hoard of customers. Futurebook reports.

When Authors Sell to Readers

Futurebook considers what happens when authors sell directly to their readers, rather than through a publisher, plus a survey of what one group of ereaders is reading on and where they are buying it. Moreover, a quarter of Stephen's readers are buying directly from him. Stay tuned for the future...

Hard Times, Alternative Funding

These days publishers are often not generous to their content providers, who have to find work arounds or make do. One newer method is crowd-sourcing. Publishers Weekly discusses crowd funding. Actually, this method is an old one revived. Subscription publication has been the historic norm for expensive productions with limited markets, and has brought us art, encyclopedias, and sundry editions of the Bible.

Talking to Authors

As it gets more expensive to move authors, and as bookstores start to charge for events, another way is being tested: group video calling. Forbes explains.

Tampopo

And the rest of the movie.

The Lost Thing

This is a not very good print of a film that is amazing in HD. It is the 2011 Oscar winner as an animated short and is a Hugo nominee. A look at its website will show the quality of the animation plus a lot of other information.

The Pottermore Poser

It's pretty much anything you want to see. A harbinger of the end of printed books. A blow for authors' freedom. An ego-driven ploy. Publishers Weekly tackles the "It's a special case" version of Rowling's new website. The Bookseller tackles the "it's a game changer" version. And The Guardian concentrates on the business acumen involved.

Charging For Author Events

It's a growing trend in a time when many people buy books online, leaving local stores with less income. The New York Times comments; Publishers Weekly has a book store owner talking about the idea; Galleycat sums things up and solicits comments. Next: the author concert tour?

Amazon's Crop of Spambooks

The recent trend to have ebooks priced at ninety-nine cents, with authors counting on volume to produce profits has also produced a swarm of spambooks: old, poorly-written, or aggregated content that would be worthless even if it were free. Reuters had the story first; then Salon picked up on it and expanded it. The age of digital self-publishing now moves to buyer beware.

Ebooks Are Fiction

A considerable majority of ebooks is fiction, according to a Bowker survey. Publishers Weekly reports. The genre breakout shows classic literary fiction and science fiction at twenty and nineteen percent of the whole, followed by Christian fiction at sixteen percent, and romance and mystery books, both at fourteen percent.