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Walt says what I’d be saying if I were even at the “Hey I’m going to ALA” post yet.

See you in Anaheim? Say Hi. I’m terrible with names and still an introvert, but I’m almost always approachable and ready to chat. And if I seem to be in a hurry…that’s just the way I walk, and shouldn’t carry any deeper meaning.

I’ll be at ALA starting from Friday sometime to Sunday late or Monday sometime. I am pretty much not available for one-on-one hangout mealtime but I really like running into people and finding ways to sort of co-conference.

After cycling off of Council I swore I wouldn’t work at another ALA conference unless someone paid my way. So, I’m presenting on a panel with Louise Alcorn on Saturday and MaintainIT is footing the bill. I’m getting day passes for Saturday and Sunday (blogging a panel then) and not registering for the conference which I can get away with because I’m not technically a librarian and not an ALA member anymore. I anticipate trouble.

Anyhow, here is my schedule. Please say hi if you see me. I’ll have my cell phone on me, ping me if you’d like the number, or it’s on facebook.

Thursday
- arrive LA, dinner/stay with high school pal

Friday
- get to Anaheim somehow [anyone want to give me a ride? late morning?]
- Mover & Shaker lunch maybe (unlikely actually)
- dinner with Macee from MeFi

Saturday
- my panel, 10:30-12
- MetaFilter meetup
- late night facebook meetup maybe

Sunday
- ALA Privacy Panel 1-3 Room 201D (I’m blogging, not participating)
- OCLC Blogger thing @ Hilton, Palisades room

Monday
- get to LAX (share a shuttle, anyone?) fly home at noon

I’m staying with Louise Alcorn at the Disneyland Hotel, lord help us. Anyone else staying there?

I’m wrapping up the end of “talk season” here at librarian.net. I’ll be speaking at the Rhode Island Library Conference on June 6th and the Connecticut Library Consortium on June 9th. Then I’m done except for ALA. Yes, I’ll be going to ALA, giving a presentation with the incredibly talented Louise Alcorn for the MaintainIT people. It will be the first time I’ve been funded to go to a library conference… ever. Exciting times afoot at the Disneyland Hotel.

This afternoon I finished giving a talk online for the Education Institute. It was called Collaborative Information Systems & Reference Service and I’ve put a lot of notes and links online. Basically I talk about the changing nature of how people look for information and “Ask A” type services like Yahoo Answers and, of course, Ask MetaFilter. I have some statistics there that I think are sort of nifty. It’s very strange giving a talk online. I basically sent people to tmy website and then did a talk over the telephone. Except for the convenor, Liz Kerr, I wasn’t really aware of other people being present and it was unnerving. I know that continuing education is important and especially so for people who are too remote to go to standard talks or conferences, but I still feel like we’re trying to find a good delivery mechanism for this sort of content.

First, just a reminder that Lydia Millet will be reading tonight at McNally Robinson in Manhattan in support of her new novel How the Dead Dream, which is very much worth reading. I'm planning on being there, though will probably arrive a few minutes late.

Second, there are suddenly a bunch of free books available for download via their publishers and authors:

• As many people have noted, Tor Books is giving away a free ebook each week to people who register with them. The current book is Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, which I happen to know is a book Lydia Millet is a fan of...
  
• Nightshade Books has a few downloads available, including Richard Kadrey's Butcher Bird, which looks like it could be marvelous.
  
• Wired.com's Geekdad blog has an interview with Jeff & Ann VanderMeer from which you can download Jeff's novella The Situation (coming soon from PS Publishing).

There has been plenty of chatter in the last few weeks about ebooks and ebook readers, technologies which might or might not dramatically transform how we buy and read books. But there has also been the odd item here and there speculating on the future of reading, examining how internet usage might affect how people actually look for and absorb information.

There is a school of thought that says that Gutenberg's invention of the printing press - leading to the demise of the illuminated manuscript and the transfer of knowledge by linear type - actually affected the way that people absorbed ideas and information and that Western Rationalism might not have taken hold without the orderly presentation of text. So it is not implausible to imagine that as more and more knowledge and information is transfered via the internet, with popup windows, embedded video, infographic boxes and all the other eye-catching frippery competing for attention, we might witness significant changes in the way we read, and perhaps in the way we actually think.

This is probably already happening - in The Observer John Naughton quotes a report which described information seeking behaviour as 'horizontal, bouncing, checking and viewing in nature.' Teenagers, I was told today, start reading at the centre of a website moving outwards from the middle when something captures their digitally native eyes.

Of course not all books are linear - our sister company, Dorling Kindersley for example produces the most wonderfully designed and illustrated guides and reference books, but for fiction, generally, linearity is the rule. Beginnings, middles and ends. Words following words.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that in a few weeks Penguin will be embarking on an experiment in storytelling (yes, another one, I hear you sigh). We've teamed up with some interesting folk and challenged some of our top authors to write brand new stories that take full advantage of the functionalities that the internet has to offer - this will be great writing, but writing in a form that would not have been possible 200, 20 or even 2 years ago. If you want to be alerted when this project launches sign up here - all will be revealed in March.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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One of the things I don't think authors get is the concept of segregation in publishing. Let's go back to basics.

Segregation:[as defined by Merriam-Webster]

1: the act or process of segregating : the state of being segregated

2 a: the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means b: the separation for special treatment or observation of individuals or items from a larger group

Now, let's skip ahead to understanding the production of one's books [with regard to segregation]. As a writer/author you probably hear a number of classifications for how books are published/produced.

Vanity: when you pay someone else to publish your work
Self: when you pay to publish your own work
eBook: when your book is only published electronically
POD: when your book is printed one book at a time as ordered
Traditional: when your book is published by a house in NY

I have placed these in the order in which I generally hear most people rate them, with vanity being the least valuable and traditional being the most. Okay, my question to you is who cares? Next question. Why?

Vanity. I will admit that I do not encourage authors who are seriously seeking a career in this industry to go out and pay someone to publish their work. Generally, you pay a lot of money and get very little in return. I understand there are exceptions, but still. If being an author is what you want to make a living at, then you must carefully consider how you present yourself, as well as the value of your peers' perception of you and your work.

Self-publishing is not looked down upon as harshly, but darn close. Most other people in the industry do not feel that someone who cannot get published by a traditional publisher as being worthy of publication. I would strongly disagree with this. It is a matter of pride in one's work. Should you decide to self publish, say you only want to see a small group of people have access to your work, then I think this is quite acceptable, provided you take the same care a traditional publishing house would when developing and producing the work. Presentation is key!

eBook publishing is no longer a "fad" or a "thing of the future." It is here, it is viable, and it is widely accepted and universally embraced by some of the most prestigious publishing entities in the world, including nearly all traditional publishing houses. It is not a venue intended to replace traditionally printed books; it is an additional opportunity for readers to consider. There are no shots or vaccinations required for those who embrace eBooks, simply an understanding and appreciation for technology. Even readers are growing increasingly savvy and accepting of electronic books.

POD [Print on Demand]. This, my friend, is considered a dirty word--but only by those who know nothing about it. This is also one of the most misunderstood terms in the industry. Those who do not take the time to understand the opportunities available in the industry put entirely too much focus on this particular venue. POD is simply a type of technology used to print books. When utilizing POD, a publisher or author can submit a book digitally, where it is stored for future use. When an order is placed for a number of copies ranging from one up, the file is then digitally printed, bound, and generally drop-shipped to the purchaser, be it a bookstore or individual. Over the years, this type of printing has been twisted to cover vanity press. Many vanity publishers utilize POD technology to print their books, so they have become known as POD publishers. This is misleading and in many cases wrong as there are vanity presses that do not use POD technology. In the same regard, there are other houses, traditional, if you will, that use POD technology to print, but in no way are vanity presses. POD is simply what is says, PRINT on DEMAND. There are many aspects of POD that people don't understand. They tend to focus on the negative and not so much the positive aspects. The biggest bonus for those using POD technology is the ability to save money on storage fees. The down side is that they pay more per unit than if they were to print in a larger run. However, while the clients of off-set/traditional printers deal with the extreme fluctuation of paper pricing from job to job, POD pricing has remained nearly constant for at least 5 years [this is from my personal experience]. It's all in the terms.

Traditional publishing is considered by some to be the only way to go for an author. This is where you enter into a contract with a large publishing house, generally one based in NY--though this is rapidly changing. For some it has proven to be very lucrative, but many others have been lured into the spotlight, only to find that they could not flourish or even maintain any form of success. There are more one book wonders in the publishing world than one hit wonders in the music scene of the 80s. With hundreds of thousands of books published each year, the competition for the limited number of slots in the traditional market is becoming increasingly more difficult. Established authors are supplying publishers with multiple books per year, writing anthologies, and building readerships that continue to crave their backlist. This decreases the odds for a new author to get into a slot considerably. Impossible? Absolutely not, but definitely a challenge that could have them graying way before their time.

How does this all go back to segregation? With a better understanding of the industry and how it functions, authors can utilize whatever form of publishing is best for them and still find some level of success. Our industry has been overrun with genres, sub-genres, etc. The industry professionals have taken the focus off of the craft and the author's ability to tell a story, and put it all on the "production." Do your kids care what company made "Tickle Me Elmo?" Of course not, only that it giggles.

Publishing is publishing. It matters very little to the readers who publishes your books or how, as long as (1) the book is produced well, (2) the story is engaging and entertaining, and (3) the story is well written. I can guarantee you that if you put your offset book next to a well-produced POD book; they would not be able to tell the difference, unless you told them.

STOP TELLING THEM! The point is, once your book has been beautifully written, exquisitely crafted, and effectively promoted, you don't need to tell the reader anything else. Get the book into their hands and let them focus on the story. That is what they are paying for. Authors need to understand that by putting classifications on their own work they are segregating themselves from the rest of the pack. It does your career no good, in fact it is harmful, not only to you, but to the industry overall.

Stop giving readers a reason to question your value, let them read your work and decide from there. This holds true for booksellers as well. There are many misconceptions in the retail world; POD is among the greatest, sad but true. It doesn't have to be that way. If your publishing house, or you if you self-publish, are serious about succeeding in the industry you have to play the game. It's all about terms. Know what is acceptable in the marketplace and abide by those terms. Pricing, discounts, and above all returnability. These are the three things that booksellers will look for first. How much will their customers have to pay, how much of a discount will the retailer get, and can they be returned if they don't sell. These are all basic, but the easiest way to segregate yourself in this venue is to put your own needs before those of the purchaser. You want to make more money yourself, so you make your 150 page paperback $20.00 with a mere 20% discount, and it cannot be returned. It also will not be sold, at least not in many stores. You have to consider that a similar book from another house may be $9.99 with a 45% discount and can be returned. You do the math. This may be out of your control if you are working with a publisher, but this is part of the research you should do before going into a partnership with anyone else. Know what you are getting into. This is your career, do what is best for you.

That is truly the bottom line. Don't say or do anything negative to set yourself apart from your competition, and there is plenty of that in the publishing industry. Focus on what is positive and important to the advancement and success of your career. Understand what segregation is and how it can harm your potential for success.

This is your career and if you are serious about it, you deserve the very best.

The Heat of the Moment
Benefits San Diego Fire Survivors

Order from
Amazon.com

Evan’s post last week, Do I Believe in Ebooks?: Part One, stimulated some interesting conversation in the blogosphere and I hope that Part Two, his bold recommendation, will encourage all of us to reconsider the potential of ebooks. I will be at the Tools of Change conference today and I hope some of my fellow attendees will share their opinions with me both in person and in the comments section below.

By Evan Schnittman

In my last posting I promised to delve into my vision of the evolution of ebooks and in doing so offer a dramatic proposal to make them more mainstream and more widely used. I propose that an ebook license be granted as part of the purchase price to anyone who buys a new print book. Yes, you read correctly; the ebook is free with a new print book purchase. (more…)

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Kevin Kelly, who a couple of years ago wrote this provocative article on the future of books, is at it again, this time asking how it is possible to charge for something in a digital world where the cost of duplication and redistribution is almost exactly zero. While books are not the focus of his latest blog post, he could be talking about the publishing industry when he says 'Our wealth sits upon a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly.'

The problem for content producers and owners, as he describes it, is that 'Once anything that can be copied [eg ebooks] is brought into contact with [the] internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can't erase something once it's flowed on the internet.' For book publishers, struggling with issues of ebook pricing, or looking askance at the record business where copy protection is on the way out and the price of recorded music slides inexorably towards free, working out how to create value and encourage people to pay for digital products is becoming an important issue.

But happily Kelly has a possible balm;

'When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied.'

He suggests 8 'values', including authority, personalization and immediacy which increase value for the user and potentially could encourage payment for a something which might otherwise have a tangible value close to zero. I'm not going to copy his entire article here (though I could simply reproduce a digital copy at no cost to myself at all) - but I do suggest checking it out, it is a most worthwhile read. Perhaps most usefully (and something that really should be obvious) is his suggestion that business models are considered from the point of view not of the content creator, owner or distributor, but from the users perspective; What, he asks, can encourage us to pay for something we can get for free?

Meanwhile, the O'Reilly publishing conference is today starting in New York. At last years' conference Chris Anderson scandalized attending publishers when he said that he was trying to get his new book, Free, priced as close to, er, free, as possible since for him books were an advertisement for his speaking and consultancy business. As every single publisher said, 'that's great for him, but what about us?'. Kevin Kelly, thankfully, provides ample food for thought.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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By Evan Schnittman

Recently I was on an airplane reading an article in the New York Times when the woman in the seat next to me leaned over and asked what I was holding. I told her it was a Kindle, Amazon’s new ebook reader. I showed her how it worked, explained e-ink, walked her through my collection of titles and subscriptions, and showed how I could look up words in the built in Oxford dictionary. Her response; “That is really cool, but I prefer the feel and smell of a real book.” (more…)

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In this Show: To Disney of Not! EPCOT USA by Deirdre Flint Let me know where you are: Click on ‘Join the CLIP Frappr Map’ in the menu bar. Post a comment: Click the comment button below or leave a voice mail by clicking ‘leave me a message’ in the menu bar or by calling 206-350-6204 or e-mailing at [...]

Children’s illustrator Paula Nizamas is donating the illustrations from two previously published books to Books2Color.com (a non-profit activity-page website) for children to print out and color.

The first picture book, “My Little Diary,” will be turned into a printable e-book and available for free on the site on March 8, 2008. The second book, “Snow Queen,” will be available June 30.

I find this transition from actual hardcopy books which sold well (100,000 copies) into free ebooks interesting. I think this is a move that could encourage young children to read more–and hopefully to have some good-quality free ebooks (there are some dreadful free “children’s ebooks” out there, that aren’t well written or illustrated).

Illustrator and blogger Don Tate asks if Lookybook is a good idea. Lookybook is an online website with the mission to:"create a comfortable place where a curious and devoted audience can search, view, talk about, and buy from a diverse and rapidly expanding collection of picture books. We intend to create the greatest opportunity for authors, illustrators and publishers to reach interested

Have you tried the new Amazon Kindle - the hand-size ebook reader? I can't believe it - I got one! Plan to use it extensively this weekend as I downloaded a mystery by a favorite author. Like many others, I'm not crazy about the size page forward and backwards tabs (shown in photo) because it's too easy to leap pages by accident. What I will really enjoy is the EASE of getting new books via

Okay, who amongst us has tried a Kindle?

Disclaimer--I know this is no longer new news but remember I've been away in babyland. So it was news to me. And yes, I'm casting about for Christmas gifts. Various news outlets covered it--Newsweek among them. Here's a Cnet review of Kindle vs. Sony eReader.

I saw in the comments that people were bummed they couldn't check out library books to them.
That makes you feel good, huh?

The video makes it look really appealing.



They are backordered now, and for $399 I might think about an iPhone instead. But I heard all kinds of grief about the iPhone because you can't feel the keys. So it is hard to text while you drive, have the phone in your pocket, etc.

But texting while driving. I can't condone it but I can't say I haven't done it, either.

It also randomly reminds me of something I heard the other day--that advocates of the blind don't like the Prius because it's too quiet!

It was very synchronistic that Alvina posted about her Sony reader yesterday as I was listening to this really interesting show on npr last week when the Kindle was released, which got me thinking about reading and technology.

I remember when I was going to art school one of my parent's friends asked me how I felt about the fact that I was going off to study a dying art form (book illustration). I said that even though technology changes the context of art, that doesn't mean it has to die. Photography changed the nature of representational painting (when we could take photographs, painting suddenly evolved to serve a different purpose than capturing reality), but this didn't cause people to stop painting.

I wonder how much that metaphor can be applied though, now that technology like ebook readers are getting closer and closer to the experience of reading a book. So my question is, what is it that is special about reading a printed book?

I can quickly list the tactile things that I love about reading paper books: the weight in my hands, the smell of the ink and the old browned paper. The anticipation that builds as you turn a page, the sound of that page turning, like the flap of a bird's wing.

I can also quickly bring to mind the things I hate about reading on a screen: the haze that comes over your eyes from long stretches of staring at something bright, the lack of design (most web sites use the same, universal type faces for the text). The confusing mish mosh of information and advertisements that, when poorly designed, can be overwhelming.

But apart from these tactile differences, which technology promises to overcome at some point (as the show above points out, it was only 50 years ago that a single computer filled a room), what about reading a printed book would be lost if all goes digital? Ultimately when you are really lost in a story, does it matter in what form you read it? Is there an inherent difference when it comes to children's books in particular?

Because picture books are so much about the art, it seems that the readers out right now are a far cry from catching up to duplicating the experience of a printed page of artwork... so perhaps printed picture books will live a longer life than printed novels. But it does beg the question, what do we value about reading with children, and how will the essence of this change or stay the same as we move away from printed books, if this is the trend?

One of the guests on the show points out that these new devices help us connect with authors more, since we have access to more information about them... blogs for instance open up the writer/reader relationship in a whole new way... more and more it seems necessary that writers actively interact with their audience for their books to be successful. Do ebooks provide ways to further this connection?

If reading a book must increasingly be an interactive, participatory event for the reader, so that they can feel part of the story and the author's world... and if technology makes this easier, does that take some responsibility away from the author/illustrator to accomplish this with the skill of their craft alone?

I’ve taken the Amazon.com Kindle off my mental wishlist. It’s way too expensive, and there are a lot of things I don’t like about it.

But I just discovered an eBook Reader that’s worth waiting for–the Seikeo eBook Reader.

It’s super-thin, at only 3mm, super-light at only 57g, has a 6.7-inch screen display with a 1,200 x 1,600 resolution that should make for crisp text, and will have WI-FI. All that AND it’s aesthetically pleasing? It looks like something I want to get my hands on. It also looks like Seikeo’s listened to consumers’ want-lists for a perfect eBook. The Seikeo eBook Reader hasn’t been released yet, and I haven’t seen a release date, but it’s on my wishlist.

Found at Gizmo do and BizToolBelt.

I love gadgets. So this new ebook reader–the Kindle by Amazon.com–is on my radar. It looks like the kind of gadget I’d love to have–were it not for the price tag. At $399 US for the ebook reader alone, it’s way too pricey for me. But that doesn’t stop me looking at it longingly on the screen.

There are some things to love about the Kindle . There are also some things to dislike.

Things to Like:

• The screen is highly readable, like paper, and has no glare (and is not backlit) so you can easily read it outdoors (or indoors, as you would a book). It uses the same digital ink technology as the Sony Reader.There are six different font sizes; you can select the one that works best for you.
• You don’t need a computer to download or buy books, and it’s very easy to buy and download them. The Kindle uses the same wireless technology that cell phones use to get online, so you never have to find a WI-FI spot. You don’t have to fiddle with anything or be connected to your PC to get online, and you don’t have to pay to get online. Some users will really like this.
• Some of the prices of ebooks are fantastic, like Philip Pullman’s the Golden Compass for 3.19. That’s the price i think ebooks should all be. Not all their older books are so inexpensive, though. Christopher Paolini’s Eragon: Inheritance is $6.99, which seems overpriced for an ebook.
• A copy of every book you purchase is backed up online in case you ever need to download it again.
• You can read samples of ebooks before you decide whether or not to buy.
• It has a long battery life; if the WI-FI is turned off you can read books for a week before having to recharge it. If the WI-FI is turned on, you’ll need to recharge every other day.
• The design is supposed to be ergonomic, so that you can read and turn pages easily from any position, and so that both right-handed and left-handed people can easily turn the pages.
• It can store 200 book titles.
• It has a built-in dictionary, and you can also look things up online at Wikipedia.org.
• The size and weight of the Kindle seems pretty good–10.3 ounces–the size and weight of a paperback book–yet you can carry around hundreds of ebooks. That’s great for traveling.
• It has a bookmark feature which you can also use to add annotations to the text, and you can export your notes. The Kindle automatically opens your ebook to the last page you were reading.
• Besides eBooks, you can also read newspapers, magazines, and blogs on the Kindle (which you also have to pay to read). The prices of the magazines look great, many at about $1.50 each, though there are only eight so far.
• You can also listen to audiobooks and MP3s on the Kindle.
• The Kindle has a basic web browser.

Things Not To Like

• The price. $399. US is way too expensive for an ebook reader. You can buy a heck of a lot of books for $399. I’d love to!
• The screen is only about 3/4 of the total size. Visually, I think the screen should be larger and take up most of the room of the eBook reader. The screen is also only greyscale; some users might prefer some color.
• The keyboard takes up a lot of room–about a quarter–looks ungainly, and is only in QWERTY layout (what about all of us DVORAK layout users?). I’d rather there wasn’t a keyboard at all, though I understand its usefulness. (Why not a tablet with a pen?).
• The Kindle is proprietary; you can only read Amazon.com Kindle ebooks on it, which means you’re limited to only buying ebooks from them. You can read a few other types of documents on it (such as unprotected MS Word documents) but ONLY if you pay a fee to email the converted versions to yourself. Why should you have to pay a fee to be able to read your own documents? And what about people who have purchased eBooks in other formats? There are already a number of ebook formats around. Why couldn’t they have used one of those?
• It’s not aesthetically pleasing. That may not matter for many readers, but it will for some.
• Most newer books, such as Stephenie Meyer’s Eclipse, are $9.99. Why would I pay $9.99 for an ebook that’s just digital, when i can buy the paperback when it comes out for about that, or hold the hardcover in my hands? Want me as a frequent buyer of ebooks? Price them cheaply. Because they’re an adjunct to my library, not a replacement. eBook readers are a great idea for carting around a bunch of books at once, like when you’re on vacation. But I’m sticking with my beautiful paper books.
• There aren’t a lot of children’s or YA kindle ebooks available yet. There are 1,184. This sounds like a lot, but it’s really not, not with all the wonderful books out there. So right now your reading choices are somewhat limited (though I’m sure, if the Kindle is popular, this will change). And they’re all lumped together under “children’s chapter books.” That’s a mistake, Amazon. What teen reader wants to click on “children’s chapter books”? Still, those things can be easily rectified.
• There’s not enough storage. If you use the Kindle as an MP3 player as well, you will quickly use all the space; just a few albums or audiobooks and many ebooks, and it will be full.
• It probably doesn’t work in Canada, yet, at least not to purchase and download the ebooks directly onto the Kindle (though I suppose you could via your regular internet connection), and it also isn’t yet shipping to Canada or anywhere else except the US. Don’t like in the US? You’re out of luck.

Amazon.com and other ebook reader companies want to replace books. It isn’t going to happen, at least not for me. I usually read and purchase ebooks that I already have in actual book form, and if I find an ebook that I love that I don’t have as a book, I run out and buy the book. I love holding a book, how easy it is to turn the pages, to flip back and forth to any page i want, etc. I love the feel and smell of the pages. The way you don’t have to fiddle with any technology, or recharge a battery, or turn it on. Yet I also love gadgets, and being able to carry many books around with me at once, and if the Kindle is as readable as reviews say, it will be on my wishlist–as an adjunct to my regular books.

Interested in reading more? You can read ZDNet’s review here and Amazon.com’s info here.

By divine orders, all lit-bloggers are now contractually obligated to have an opinion about the new Amazon e-reader, a fancy device called Kindle.

You can watch the video for more information on how it works, and you can check in with MediaBistro for a report on what the early-responder bloggers are saying. I only have one thing to add. Kindle ain't a computer!

While it comes bundled with downloading powers and a high-tech internet connection, this e-book reader lacks the power to go online like a real computer.

In my opinion, the e-book reader that succeeds will let you look up your author on Wikipedia, download the author's readings from YouTube, and visit the author's blog for free. I don't think people will give up books until a machine can offer them all that functionality in a book-sized package.

For my money, Ed Champion has the best Kindle reporting, writing about arrangements between bloggers and Amazon:

"Here is a list of Kindle blogs. This blog does not appear to be listed, but Galleycat, Overheard in New York, Jossip and Boing Boing are. It appears quite likely that arrangements have been made with these respective outfits ... Jason Kottke has additional links, including the revelation of bloggers getting 'a revenue share with Amazon, since it costs money to get those publications.'"

By Evan Schnittman

You have heard rumors of it for nearly a year now – Amazon has an ebook reader that will run on a new ebook platform powered by Mobipocket. Well, after many stops and starts, today Amazon released Kindle, or, what I call the “readers’ iPod.” This device, coupled with the awesome power of the Amazon web sales machine, represents perhaps the most significant moment in the history of eBooks.

I have always maintained that the iPod coupled with iTunes model is the key to a compelling ebook business. The iPod, perhaps the most fantastic device any of us own, would have been just another cool device sitting in our junk drawer if Apple hadn’t been prescient about the duality in digital content; Device + Network = Adoption. (more…)

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I've compiled what I've learned on my journey working with my Angels and Spirit Helpers in an ebook, the first in the series of color diaries. This is the Black Diary, offered on my site. Do check it out and buy a copy for support on YOUR journey.

Since returning from holiday I've been involved with probably a dozen conversations about ebooks - about the hardware, Digital Rights Management, suppliers and technology partners, e-ink, about whether the era of the ebook is finally dawning. We've been publishing a small line of ebooks since 2001, but press speculation, fueled by the blogosphere, is that Amazon will join Sony in releasing an ebook reader in the near future, with digitised texts also viewable via Google Booksearch and perhaps on the iPhone and iPod Touch also.

I've long been a big believer in onscreen reading - in the approaching age of always on broadband connectivity the idea that all the world's texts can be accessible, searchable and portable is, I believe, a very compelling scenario. While the book as an object will not become redundant technology for a while, I cannot see why the book industry should be immune from the disruptive changes transforming the music, film, newspaper and TV business, where everyday more and more people access content online.

But repeatedly perusing these images of some of the world's most beautiful libraries has given me a little pause for thought (do check out the whole set of images here - and tell us why Portugal has such a collection of amazing libraries!). The experience of reading in one of these is surely in a different league from booting up an ereading device and waiting for the page to refresh, even if the etexts are fully searchable. Is convenience enough to cause a massive shift in reading habits and perhaps encourage greater use of traditional book content? Do the extra things that ebooks could and should do (annotation, bookmarking, search, customization, integrated multimedia) make up for the fact that the aesthetic experience is different from (and less than?) that of cracking open the spine of a new book.

In his provocative article, Scan This Book, Kevin Kelly says

Yet the common vision of the library's future (even the e-book future) assumes that books will remain isolated items, independent from one another, just as they are on shelves in your public library. There, each book is pretty much unaware of the ones next to it. When an author completes a work, it is fixed and finished. Its only movement comes when a reader picks it up to animate it with his or her imagination. In this vision, the main advantage of the coming digital library is portability — the nifty translation of a book's full text into bits, which permits it to be read on a screen anywhere. But this vision misses the chief revolution birthed by scanning books: in the universal library, no book will be an island.

Kelly imagines a future where texts are 'liquid' - taggable, mashable, hyperlinked and above all searchable and findable. This 'universal library' he posits, will once again make books central to the culture (as they were when most of the libraries here were built) and provide value for readers, writers and the publishers who get it.

I think that Kelly's idea of 'Books: The Liquid Version' is beyond the imagination of most publishers at this point in time (though there are those actively exploring the possibilities). We're still working out how to make ebooks work, how much content should be available online for free and who the players are in this brave new world. So happily, despite the buzz around electronic books it seems that the printed book, the ebook and the beautiful temples to reading shown in the photographs will coexist for some time yet.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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There’s a Spider in my Sink!
By Bill Kirk
Illustrated by Suzy Brown
http://www.ebooks4tots.com/
Copyright 2005
Ebook
Ages 2-6



"There’s a spider in my sink!
Did he drop in from the brink?
Does he want a little drink?
There’s a spider in my sink!"

Thus begins this very cute picture ebook young children will love listening to and early readers will enjoy reading on their own.

The little boy in the story has a problem… a spider has suddenly taken possession of his sink! What is he to do? How to get rid of it without hurting it? After all, the only thing the spider wants is a safe home. But he has to do something! How will he be able to brush his teeth and comb his hair, when the sink is covered with cobwebs?

The story is written in iambic beat and has a smooth, fun rhythm that both children and adults will enjoy.

The colorful illustrations are appealing and possess the right touch of wackiness that well suit the story. I also found the ebook itself a pleasure to use. The book appears on the screen and all you have to do is click on the page for it to turn, giving the feeling of a real book. Even toddlers will be able to turn the pages on their own. In sum, this is a delightful little book that teaches children the good side of spiders, while at the same time developing children’s language and computer skills.

At least, if you get them from CafeScribe.

Apparently they plan to issue scratch-n-sniff stickers with their eBooks?
Read all about it in Wired Campus.

Also in today's NYT. If you think library fund-raising is bad, at least we're not cleaning bleachers. (At least, I hope you're not having to clean bleachers to keep the doors open!)

And good news for Jackson Conty, OR: looks like the may get to re-open after all. With shorter hours and less qualified staff. Hmm. What I didn't realize, was that Jackson County would be joining a group of libraries already under management by LSSI:

CafeScribe Gives Ebook Readers Musty Smell of the Real Thing

“…ebook content provider CafeScribe is going pretty low-tech to give your laptop screen the same scent as a textbook: the company is shipping “musty-smelling” scratch-and-sniff stickers with every ebook order. The promotion comes in response to a survey showing that 43 percent of students identified smell as the thing they most liked about their favorite books….” [Engadget]

I don't have an iPhone yet, although it's way cool they want to hear from me about it if I did have one. I would love to have one, but so far the price is too high for my budget.

I'm sure there will be library users in your area--yes, even your small, rural public library--who have them and are intensely devoted to them.

Here's another reason to love them: now the phones enable eBook excerpt-browsing. Called HarperCollins Browse Inside, you'll be able to see it at the Frankfurt Book Fair Oct. 10-14.

In the meantime, it might be worth checking out the LibreDigital Web site to check titles and see if you have the full title available--whether in e or p form.

Related note: I did see, in the July/Aug 07 print issue of Information Today, that eBooks are making a comeback. New technology like the iPhone and Sony's Reader is credited with some of the renaissance...of course, libraries have been there, all along!