A Canadian book blog: Publishing, marketing, books and technology from a Canadian perspective
Handmade Nation: Sneak Peak of a d.i.y. craft documentary being released in 2009. I like the Craft Mafia mentioned and the jewellery made from bike parts. So cool.
Director: Faythe Levine
Director of Photography: Micaela O’Herlihy
Additional Camera work: Drew Rosas
Editor: Cris Siqueira
Assistant Editor: Joe Wong
Music: Wooden Robot
Video and book: Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY Art, Craft & Design.
Visit www.indiecraftdocumentary for more information.
Another plug because I’m getting excited ... I’m organizing an event called ExpressionEngine Roadshow on September 26 in Vancouver.
Are you interested?
http://www.eeroadshow.com/
ExpressionEngine is a CMS that I use for web design. I love it. SoMisguided runs on EE, as does BoxcarMarketing.com.
The event is for designers, developers, project managers and EE users who want to learn more about the tool, how to use it and design in it, what’s coming in the next release, how it performs with modules, extension and SEO capabilities, and there will be drinking and nibbling on tasty Havana treats.
Why Havana? Because it’s at Havana restaurant in the theatre there. $50 for the afternoon (1-5 pm) and then the party (5-7pm).
Registration is filling up so here’s a link if you’re keen.
http://eeroadshow.eventbrite.com/
Hope to see you there!
Posted by Monique at 04:48 PM. Filed under: Blogging • Marketing • Party Tricks • Technology •
I’m looking for a copy of the poem The Idea of Beauty (Spoke Itself), published in Sledgehammer and Other Poems by John Mackenzie.
“... The Idea of Beauty (Spoke Itself) I have been waiting here for you since the stars first leapt into the ...”
Anyone?
Bit of a lazy Friday round up of things on that caught my attention this week.
Print Liberation has a new book out: Print Liberation, the Screen Printing Primer. It has future publicists for the company shaking in their boots (kidding).
Penguin UK has launched a dating site, “where book lovers meet”.
Alan at the Penguin blog makes jokes about penguins dating. Definitely worth a read.
Plus:
* Needled: A community that loves tattoos has a cool navigation style that really works with what the site is about.
* I got nice presents from Campaign Monitor.
* Social Actions has a cool widget for promoting social action.
Posted by Monique at 09:02 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • News • Personal •
POD: Peace One Day
September 21
Posted by Monique at 07:38 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Personal •
James Glave, author of Almost Green (now in stores), has some new trailers up for his book.
I like James and his enthusiasm.
ALMOST GREEN is a quirky look at one man’s quest to build an eco shed, a sustainably designed writing studio. This “green” house was one work of wonder in terms of battling opinions, neighbours, suppliers and the land itself.
Posted by Monique at 08:15 PM. Filed under: Book Publisher • Douglas & McIntyre • Books • Marketing •
The Weakerthans played with Feist at Deer Lake Park a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome.
... or at least more empathetic.
According to researchers at the University of Toronto, reading fiction elevates your “social intelligence.”
“For the first time in history there is now scientific evidence that reading fiction has psychological benefits,” writes Keith Oatley in New Scientist. Oatley is a professor of psychology and the leader of the Toronto team. He is also an award-winning novelist (The Case of Emily V.). On the phone from the University of Toronto, he explains that reading fiction appears to stimulate parts of the brain that govern empathy. “What you’re doing when you’re reading fiction is you’re allowing yourself to become another person for a short period of time ... It loosens up your personality, your rigidities.”—from TheStar.com
Petite Anglaise is the pseudonym of Catherine Sanderson, English blogger living in Paris and the author of a new book Petite Anglaise (published by Random House).
Catherine/Petite has an engaging and hilarious writing style, which appears perfectly fine-tuned in her book. You can appreciate my fandom here when I say that publishers often make the mistake of publishing bloggers and thinking that what’s compelling in a couple of paragraphs can be morphed into a full-length book. Such trepidation is not required when reading Petite Anglaise (book or blog). From blog to book really works for Petite Anglaise—a blog that sits on that fine line between reality and embellishment that is often prevalent in autobiography.
Here’s a quote from a recent blog post titled “Fraud”
I fully intended for this post to be a witty open letter to the person who stole my identity and used my bank card for an extravagant online shopping spree (total cost: €3.285,17). Or perhaps a song, in the style of Brassens, who in Stances à un Cambrioleur so eloquently thanked the burglar who had the good taste to pay his house a visit.
It would have described my joy at receiving a letter from the Caisse d’Epargne, heavy with menace, which informed me, in typically verbose (but not particularly comprehensible) French, that having noticed repeated dysfonctionnements consécutifs à l’utilisation de ma carte bleue, I was invited to “regularise” the resulting overdraft. If not my card would be cancelled, my bank account immobilised, the Banque de France notified, and helicopters would be dispatched to hover outside my apartment window so that men in uniforms could shout at me over their loud hailers and/or airbourne snipers could get me in their sights.
The book chronicles the birth of the blog Petite Anglaise and the subsequent consequences. Catherine, a young Englishwoman in Paris, in love with all things French, is feeling a little less than loved by Mr. Frog (her husband) and less than in love with her job. The discontent and the discovery of blogging results in an anonymous blog Petite Anglaise. Catherine shares the intimate details of her life in what she hopes will be read by Mr. Frog but instead captures the attention of many bloggers and blog readers. Apparently 100,000 visitors per month.
And like all anonymous and wildly popular bloggers, Catherine eventually reveals herself at a blogger meetup. She develops some very well-formed relationships with her readers, one of which is a little too well formed and it rattles her family substantially and tempts her to abandon the real life she’s created. But I’m not going to tell you what happens to Mr. Frog and Tadpole (her daughter).
Petite Anglaise (on Amazon.ca) by Catherine Sanderson.
Posted by Monique at 08:10 AM. Filed under: Book Publisher • Random House Canada • Book Reviews • Books •
A small business group that I participate in has pulled together a panel for SXSW. It’s about how to create your own small biz mafia to rule the world (or at the least to rule your niche and get support from peers).
For our session to be selected we need some votes. If you’re so inclined, please go vote for us.
You create a free login, it’s quick and ease.
Voting closes Aug 29.
Vote Here: Micromafia: Building a Local Small Business Support Network
Click on the stars beside the title to vote. If you’re not logged in, you’ll be prompted to do so.
Many thanks!
About SXSW
The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. It’s a festival/conference for digital creatives, technology entrepreneurs, hard-core geeks, content creators, and other bright lights. I wanna go!
Spiritual pollution is also a concern at the Olympic Games.
First: Julie Wilson is awesome. Check out her blog Seen Reading. There’s a little SoMisguided banner there this month. And that’s not the only reason why she rocks. In addition to the Seen Reading posts (these are short stories of people Julie sees on her commute and an excerpt from the books they are reading), there are now audio clips.
Second: (Number 1 in my heart) is James Sherrett and AdHack Are you coming to the party on Friday?
AdHack Beta Launch Party!
Anza Club, kicking off at 7 pm with some true DIY spirit.
Details:
* 3 W. 8th Ave (at Ontario) Vancouver
Entry is free, just tell us if you’re coming.
Drink beer, gossip, talk about advertising and the better stuff you could make. It will be joyous. I will be drinking. Sometimes these things are related.
PutPlace.com is one of my Boxcar Marketing/Capulet Communications clients and on July 3 we announced the Pull a Face for PutPlace contest. Remember my little photo story?
Well the 5 finalists have been selected and I think they are all awesome so you should vote on the one you like.
Got to putplace.com/pullaface to vote.
And, if you want to avoid pulling a face because of lost data. Do the Back Up!
PutPlace is one option and you can get 2 GB of free storage in their limited time offer.
Amazon Press Release on BusinessWire
Amazon.com announced today that it is acquiring AbeBooks of Victoria, BC.
“AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books, with over 110 million primarily used, rare and out-of-print books listed for sale by thousands of independent booksellers from around the world.”
Very interesting.
Plain Words, Uncommon Sense
A blog on books, writing, tap dancing, technology, and the other amusements of Monique Sherrett
(or Monique Trottier in unmarried form).
Monique Sherrett lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada and is a litblogger, among other things. Find out more ...
"So misguided." A comment often uttered in my eclectic salon.
Send me book galleys, ARCs or review copies. Contact me at
monique at somisguided dot com
Contact me at Boxcar Marketing
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What I read, what I recommend: Amazon Listmania