A Canadian book blog: Publishing, marketing, books and technology from a Canadian perspective

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Amazon Digital Text Platform

Here’s a little publicized Amazon feature: Amazon Digital Text Platform

Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you upload and format your books for sale in the Kindle Store.

It’s Your Thing. Have a book you want to sell? Sign up with Digital Text Platform and publish your content in the Amazon Kindle Store in minutes.

Do It. If you have an Amazon.com account, you’re already signed up with Digital Text Platform. Start publishing now!

Your Way. Digital Text Platform gives you everything you need to become your own publisher today. See for yourself.

Hello Publishing 2.0.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Harry Potter: Beyond the Book

I met several really cool people this weekend at Portus 2008 who are involved in various Harry Potter fan sites. Here’s a few you might like:

image

Azkatraz, Harry Potter conference next year in San Francisco. July 18-21, 2008. There will be a Wizard Rock show at Alcatraz.

Infinitus 2010 is the next Harry Potter conference AND it’s in Orlando, Florida, which will be the home of the “World of Harry Potter” theme park. I am incredibly excited about this conference.

My loot bag photo includes the links to lots of fun stuff that I discovered at Portus. Click on the photo to view it in Flickr and mouse over areas to see the info.

My Loot

Monday, July 14, 2008

Portus: July 12, Masquerade Ball

Saturday I gave my keynote at the luncheon and that evening was the masquerade ball.  A little wrock (wizard rock for you muggles) and lots of costumes.

I went as a stylized version of Hedwig.

Monique & James

Malfoy

Malfoy

A Sugar Plum Fairy

Cute as a button!

Nearly Headless Nic

Nearly Headless Nic

Hedwig & the Phoenix

Phoenix

Bad guys have great costumes!

Great Costumes

Good thing my Gryffindor buddies are around.

IMG_4026

Hep & Aziza

More costumes

Snape & Dumbledore

Snape & Dumbledore

Narcissa

Narcissa

Poor Winky. Fell off the butterbeer wagon.

Portus 2008: July 12

Albus? Aberforth?

Dumbledore

The Craft of Portus

Lots of fans make incredible art.

Portus 08: Harry Potter dolls

My absolute favourite paintings were by Elizabeth Wu. This one in particular I really, really wanted.

Hermione by Elizabeth Wu

I have to mention my totally cool Snapefest bag. If you’ve never heard the Snapecast podcast, have a listen to the snapey, snarkiness of Snapecast.

Portus 08: Most Precious Gift

The People of Portus

Jim Dale, narrates on the North American audio books. Brilliant.

Portus 08: Masquerade Ball

Henry Jenkins, smarter than Hermione, Director, Comparative Media Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Portus 08: Henry Jenkins

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Portus 08, July 12: Met Dumbledore

Dumbledore & one of the Hallows

Yesterday was about Slytherin. Today was about Gryffindor.

Here’s the burned hand of Dumbledore.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Kindle Sales 12% of Amazon Sales

RyanSpoon.com: Great post on Kindle Sales

Amidst all of the discussion about the iPhone 3G that hits stores tomorrow, another industry changing gadget is getting overlooked. According to Time Magazine:

“On a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles…. At a technology trade conference in May, CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle sales accounted for 6% of book titles sold for the Kindle and in print. So Amazon appears to be selling more e-books.”

Those are big numbers. 12% of sales for books that are available in print AND on the Kindle are purchased for the Kindle

Read the full post ...

Portus 2008: Mudbloods

First wizard spotting is a death eater.

Voldemort

First Wrock (Wizard Rock) concert I attend is The Mudbloods.

The Mudbloods on MySpace. I am LOVING “Wish You’d Be My Witch”. Please listen.

Despite the ominous overtones of these two things, the conference is very cool and awesome.

I’ll be posting photos on my Flickr stream.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Portus 2008: Saturday Keynote

image

Bibb Lettuce with Cucumbers and Tomatoes, Oil and Vinegar Dressing

Pecan-Crusted Chicken Breast with Roasted Corn Sauce, Garlic Mashed
Potatoes, Seasonal Fresh Vegetables
or
Vegetable Lasagna

Banana Cream Pie in Almond Crust

And then the phenomenon of podcasting in the Harry Potter community, according to Monique. 

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Refuting the Long Tail

The Long Tail theory, as explained by its creator, Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, holds that society is “increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of ‘hits’ (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.”

Anita Elberse, a marketing professor at Harvard’s business school, argues that the hits are still holding true online. See the full article here. The most popular YouTube items tend to concentrate on a few. The hits and blockbusters are still how we operate as a society.

This may be true but one of the things Anderson argues in the Long Tail, which business are definitely seeing, is that the hits are becoming smaller because the audiences are more fragmented. So although the hits are still working, the question for me is “for how long?”

The other part of the Long Tail is that businesses need to stop thinking about marketing only in the mindset of the hits. For example, the tv ad, the Grand Central print ad placement, the NYTimes ad. Less and less effective.

I’m glad these discussions are still going on. To me it shows that there’s something great opportunity to fix the way marketing works today.

Source: Thanks to Dan Wagstaff

WSJ.com
TheLongTail.com
Harvard Business Review

Monday, July 07, 2008

Zoomii: A Zoomable, Searchable, Virtual Bookshelf

Hey Darren Barefoot just pointed me in the direction of Zoomii.com.

Zoomii bookstore shelves are pulled from Amazon data and you can zoom in, scan the shelves and click for book details. This is a cool idea: browse 22,060 books, search 156,580 books.

Got feedback? Pop over to the forum.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

June Round-Up

Wow, it’s July. What happened to June?

June 7: Scott’s Birthday

30 years old. Still a kid.
Family

Out with the Lads
Scotty's Birthday

Racing Cars, Paint Ball and Batman
Scotty's Birthday
Babies and birthdays
Family

Visiting Bob & Joan
Visiting Bob & Joan

Lots of Green in Winnipeg
Walking Winnipeg

June 10-14: Book Expo Canada in Toronto

Kissing Hands and Shaking Babies
Yay Beck!

Books are like babies. See the “holding pattern”.
Linda Holeman

Dot: Rep of the Year
Dot: Rep of the Year

Cocktail Party After Cocktail Party
SoMisguided & TigerTea

Robert J Wiersema and Sandy Cooper: Two Publishing Folks with Whom I’m Always Happy to Share a Drink
Sandy & Author Robert J Wiersema

Looking for Greenery in Toronto
IMG_2886

June 21, 2008: Chad & Gillian Got Married

The Grand Exit

Turner-Riggs Babyspace made it out.
Turner-Riggs

June 23: Calgary

Visiting a client and another little dude
Little Dude Shoes

June 23: Where the Hell Is Matt? Video Released

I was there. Here’s Matt Harding and I on film day, September 5, 2007.

Where the Hell Is Matt?

June 27: Milkshakes at Modern Burger
Modern Burger Re-opens

June 28: Making My First Perfume

Making my 1st perfume

June 29: Strawberries

You Pick. You Pay. ($45 chiropractor visit + strawberries by volume picked)
Strawberry Eating

Much more sensible. (1 flat, $27)
Strawberry Eating

Who doesn’t like that.
Strawberry Eating

Plus there were strawberry milkshakes.
Strawberry Eating

Welcome to July ...

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Track Your Amazon Ranking Via Twitter

The Amazon ranking for your title gives you an idea of how popular your book is in the past hour. A rank of 1 = the best, hottest selling book. The challenge with tracking your rank is that it changes over the day and doesn’t really tell you overall how you’re doing, just how you’re doing that hour.

Admittedly you can make assumptions about how well your book is doing by looking at different ranges, 1-1000 being damn good.

You can track your Amazon ranking by RSS or Twitter:
Booklert from MCQN.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Quillpill: A Twitter for Cellphone Novelists

Quillpill is a micro-blogging site, which is currently in private beta. The service lets users write and read content on mobile devices. Yes, it’s another version of Twitter, but Techcrunch had an interesting article about how Quillpill takes a totally different approach by wanting to know what stories you would like to tell. The site is primarily aimed at aspiring authors and readers of fiction.

See the full TechCrunch article ...

Friday, June 13, 2008

Book News Round-Up

Quick post of links I want to share and remember for later…

Borders is finally free of Amazon and has launched its own ecommerce site.

US Bookstores are looking for ways to pull people into the store: tvs, music and other digital bits. The US publishing industry is worth $37-billion according to this LA Times article. Good info about online marketing activities of publishers and who’s doing what.

E-books still unnerving publishers. “Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, spent much of a packed session on Friday evangelizing about the Kindle, which he said already accounts for 6 percent of his company’s unit sales of books that are available in both paper and electronic formats.”

Carolyn K. Reidy, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster, said “electronic book sales last year totaled about $1 million, a sliver of its annual sales of roughly $1 billion.”

And here’s something ironic. Despite the fears of e-books, “Electronic readers have nevertheless gained many fans in the publishing industry. Random House and Penguin, among others, have equipped their entire sales force with electronic-book readers, allowing them to avoid having to lug around as many preview editions of books. Editors at many of the larger publishing houses also use the devices to read manuscripts submitted by agents and authors.”

The National Book Critics Circle’s Campaign to Save Book Reviews is meant to thwart the disappearance of book review sections in newspapers and magazines.

More stats and facts about the declining coverage for books in the Columbia Journal Review. Interesting reader comments follow.

Wall St Journal on how the scarcity of ad revenue endangers newspaper book review sections.

New York Times on “Are Book Reviewers Out of Print?”

Fascinating look at Pan MacMillan’s publishing manifesto. Also interesting reader comments.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Quillr Multimedia Book

I was speaking to Nicola Furlong the other day about her new mystery novel which is newly published as a Quillr. A Quillr is a multimedia version of a book that uses actors to portray certain scenes, audio effects, text and images.

Then I saw mention of it in the Globe & Mail yesterday. Nice coincidence!

Nicola and I were talking about other works that experiment with multimedia, in particular two of my favourites:

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
WorldWithoutUs.com/multimedia.html

This book is a study in what what world would look like without humans. The book is one of James’ favorites. It stimulates a lot of thoughts and questions about the world. The website is a multimedia experience that extends your ability to explore the ideas in the book. There are podcasts, interactive google maps (which are pretty cool--and my favourite part of the site), flash-based book trailer, an interactive slideshow, and audio clips.

Hot Springs by Steve Zio
HotSpringsNovel.com

Zio calls his work an iNovel. The physical book references the website and you can move back and forth between the two to listen to the music referenced in the book or other elements.

Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman, produced by DNA Media
This is the closest I’ve seen to what Nicola is doing and unfortunately DNA has gone bankrupt and you can no longer access the site. There was a website, DVD and book. The website moved you through the novel in a fascinating way, it was all done in Flash I believe and it was a really integrated story experience. You were able to “choose your own adventure” which was part of reading and understanding the work. I loved the music in it and am very sad that it’s lost.

Now about Nicola ...

Here Ends the Beginning by Nicola Furlong
HereEndsTheBeginning.com
Nicola’s latest novel, a supernatural thriller entitled Here Ends the Beginning, is available online in a multi-media storytelling format that she calls a Quillr.

Nicola says:

Much more than a conventional e-book, a Quillr is an innovative and interactive fusion of book, movie and soundtrack. The text of Here Ends the Beginning is punctuated throughout with video clips and photographs of actors recreating the characters and scenes. Music and sound effects further enhance this novel experience ...

Here Ends the Beginning is a dramatic, compelling story about the devastating consequences of manipulating science and desecrating the laws of God and nature.

The first five sensory-enhanced chapters are offered for free online at http://www.hereendsthebeginning.com, with the full 43-chapter entertainment package available for $12.95 Canadian.

What do you think of the site? Feedback for Nicola?

Post your comments here.