10-cent books!

Posted by trav in Bookstores      No comments

Mar
28

Greencup Books has a ton of books upstairs all priced at a dime. It’s not a stellar crop to choose from. But if you’re into the serialized mass market paperbacks, this is the Holy Grail. Also, fans of Harlan Coben and Patricia Cornwell should take note, there are hundreds of Hardbacks up there. (I did nab a Simon Winchester paperback and a board-book for our Little Speed Reader, for a total of 20 cents).

It’s one of those masses of books where there are 75 hardback copies of the same book. But, c’mon they’re a dime!! So it’s worth scavenging. Maybe this is my chance to build some sort of furniture made of books. You know, the coffee table/lamp/shelf that requires you to drill through books to put it together, but you never have the cash or heart to destroy that many books. But if you were using 30 copies of a jacketless Danielle Steele novel…. would you be so heartbroken?

I also know that Greencup Books neighbor Barehands Gallery is having a show tonight, so the bookstore is planning to stay open late too. May be worth a stop tonight.

Amazon.com: the big bully

Posted by trav in Bookstores, Media, News      1 comment

Mar
28

Amazon.com has announced that they will no longer allow Print On Demand books to be sold on their site… unless they are printed by Amazon’s own POD service BookSurge. It’s no secret that the big A has been struggling to gain a foothold in the booming POD world. But they haven’t been able to. Many of the other services out there just do it better (something about focusing on your core business…)  and they offer a better community.

So, for once, Amazon can’t walk in the room and sweep away business from its competitor fast enough. What’s the answer? Take away your competitor’s avenues of distribution! Just don’t allow other businesses to play in the same room as you. Way to go Amazon, ya big bully!

All I can hope for is that this sets the stage for some really smart enterprising person to step in and make a strong business out of opening the doors Amazon just shut and locked. Hmmmmmm….

{via Publisher’s Weekly}

Pen and pencil to paper

Posted by trav in Book Design, On the Web      1 comment

Mar
27

Out of the 50+ book covers I was in on last year, only one required the hire of a real-life pencil smudging sketch artist. In these days, everything is done super-quick with a dash of Illustrator, a big stir with PhotoShop (sprinkled with some stock pics) and baked up in InDesign. All that techno-solutions can get dry… and stale feeling… which is why I L-O-V-E cruising through Scamp, every so often.

It’s a blog staffed by professional illustrators over in Ireland. Some of it is weird. But some, like this post from Monday which chronicles the illustration of a book cover, are very cool. If you skim through that post you’ll see that even the pencilers use PS. Enjoy! Let me know if any of you know that free ghost filter he mentions…. I’m looking for it.

Free books!

Posted by trav in Book Talk, Media, On the Web, Publishers      No comments

Mar
25

Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod are now available for free download off of BitTorrent. The publisher No Starch Press calls it an “experiment”, to see what kind of reaction they get and if they can measure it.

“I’ve been in publishing for just over 20 years and my training has not been to give books away,” writes Pollock on the No Starch blog. “But I think there’s something to this and logic tells me that if we increase the visibility of our titles, we’ll sell more books.”

I have checked out the Cult of Mac book, from the library and really enjoyed it. I haven’t flipped though the iPod book yet. Both books are at least a couple of years old.

So go download them if you want them! I do hope someone will share the results of their little experiment here. You can click through to wired.com’s site to get the torrent links.

{via wired.com}

Books in the Balance

Posted by trav in Bookshelf, On the Web      No comments

Mar
20

I’m not sure I could handle this bookshelf in my home. I’m afraid the tilting tomes would cause me to be too anxious to enjoy them. But, I understand the “cool” factor of these shelves with their sliding weights and all. You can check them out over at Yanko Design.

{via Gizmodo}

The Hobbit is a Cash Cow

Posted by trav in News      No comments

Mar
19

This week a 1937 first edition inscribed copy of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit sold at a European auction for £60,000 (or $119,122.61, for those folks who want to gripe about the weakness of the US dollar). All told the BBC says this is double the expected sale.

This is why I go to yard sales… the dream of one day running across an unkown copy…

Hey, it could happen!

{via Bookninja}

Links for Booklovers

Posted by trav in Book Talk, On the Web      No comments

Mar
18

Kevin Bondelli has re-posted his massive 80 Online Resources for Book Lovers listing. It’s one of the best lists, of the sort, that I have come across. Many of the links I’m familiar with, but there’s about a third of them I’ve never heard of.

I’m had some fun with What Should I Read Next. Though, I just entered The Terror by Dan Simmons (which I just finished) and the third recommended title is  Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3. Which is uncanny. I fought Adobe all day today trying to get my PhotoShop transparencies to flatten correctly in InDesign. How did they know I needed the help? Anyway, I think I like LibraryThing’s feature better. It’s turned up many a good read.

If you want to see some b-e-a-utiful books check out the Rare Book Room. Lots of great scans and photographs from books printed in the 1600′s on up.

And I am saving Free Tech Books for later. It can’t be everything I need it to be, so I know I’ll just be disappointed. Though I’ll have to look and see if there are any useful books. Later though.

Anyway, that 80 link list is worth your time to check out and see if there is anything new for you!

What is new is old again

Posted by trav in On the Web      No comments

Mar
17

The folks over at 1000words.com are hosting a new PhotoShop contest. The idea is to work in new gadgets into vintage print ads. So far it’s been fun watching the entries roll in. Lots of cool typography back then. Though very busy.

Helvetica: The Movie

Posted by trav in Media, News      No comments

Mar
12

Today, I saw where PBS’s Independent Lens series has picked up Helvetica. This information is so far in advance that it’s more like torture than news. They won’t know the date of its showing until July.

Amos Kennedy Film + News

Posted by trav in Events, Media, News, On the Web, Type      3 comments

Mar
11

There is a full trailer on YouTube for the upcoming documentary on southern letterpress artist Amos Kennedy. The film, Proceed and Be Bold, will debut at Columbia College in Chicago on May 9, 2008. Here is the older teaser.

He is supposed to be at the Alabama Book Festival on April 19th, down in Montgomery. And if you are a fan, then you need to go see him…

word on the street is that he’s moving to Virginia soon.