New SoftWear

Posted by trav in On the Web      1 comment

Apr
17

Um, so this is obviously one of those things that looks good on paper… but once you see it, you can’t believe it actually exists. It’s billed as being for laptop users in colder climates, but I have to think, I sure could have used this while reading The Terror over the winter months. Reading 700+ pages about being trapped in ice while it’s freezing outside is just too much. This might have come in handy. Nah…

{via O’Grady’s Powerpage} 

Library Book Sale

Posted by trav in Bookstores, Events, News      No comments

Apr
16

The Alabaster Library is having their annual book sale, April 26th and 27th. Paperbacks are 50 cents and hardbacks are $1. They said 50% of the stock is pulled from the shelves and 50% is donated, all sorted by category.

Ghost (Writer) in the machine

Posted by trav in Authors, Book Talk, News      No comments

Apr
14

Philip Parker is the most prolific author in history, according to Amazon. The NY Times ran this article about Philip Parker and his amazing technicolor technical writing machines. Apparently, Parker unleashes his computers on the Internet, which look in every nook and cranny to glean all stats, numbers, data, etc. Then Parker peppers in a few introductions and transition pieces, hits another button to format, create charts and an index and…. bam! You have a collection of 200,000 “published” books (actually they’re sitting in a POD database waiting until someone buys one).

Most are dry niche-technical stuff. The kind of specialist info you might expect from a data miner like the one he is running. But he says that he’s looking to produce works in one area-of fiction… the romance novel.

“I’ve already set it up,” he said. “There are only so many body parts.”

Wow. Writing so formulaic that someone thinks a computer could do it? It will be interesting to see if it ever happens.

Ghost (Writer) in the machine

Posted by trav in Authors, Book Talk, News      No comments

Apr
14

The NY Times ran an article about Philip Parker and his amazing technicolor technical writing computer program. Basically, his machine collects every factoid, statistic and number from the web, Parker then peppers a few introductions and transitional phrases in there, hits another button to format and index… and bam! You have a collection of 200,000 separate books “authored” by one man.

No doubt, the texts are dry and boring. But I bet some neat trends start to appear in what his program finds online. It’s a pretty interesting way to collect data and organize it for a book. Though I imagine, if you ever want anything beyond tables and graphs, you’ll always need that human element.

Of course, there is romance fiction which Parker said he has already targeted with new algorithms…

“I’ve already set it up,” he said. “There are only so many body parts.”

So we’ll have to wait and see if it ever goes any further!

Pilfering a Pilcrow Post

Posted by trav in Type      No comments

Apr
14

I saw this over at fadetheory and had to share. First off, I had forgotten that the “paragraph symbol” is called a pilcrow (which is just a neat word). Second, I had no idea the “backwards P” that begins paragraphs is actually a bastardized ‘C’ for the latin word for ‘chapter’.

Now cool is that? We all learned something today. If you already knew all this, then you get a free lifetime subscription to {head}:sub/head.

New favorite haunt

Posted by trav in Book Talk, Bookstores      No comments

Apr
11

We spent last weekend over in the Peach State, getting lost in Atlanta. Between bouts of “where the !@#$%^&! are we” I managed to squeeze in a few bookstore visits. My goal was to visit only stores I’d never been to… and I hit the jackpot.

read more

Poster Gallery

Posted by trav in Birmingham, On the Web      No comments

Apr
11

This gallery, of Birmingham-area event posters, is pretty cool and some good use of photography. It’s a collection from all of the acts that have played at The Bottletree. How could I have not found this sooner? I love some of the typography.

Alabama Author Expo

Posted by trav in Authors, Birmingham, Book Talk, Events      No comments

Apr
11

The Alabama Author Expo is tomorrow Saturday, April 12th at Vulcan Park. I’m not sure why they scheduled it for the same day as Alabama Bound, but there will be a handful of authors there and a special kids area.

These authors are slated to be there for signings: Jo Kittinger, Jim Lowe, Charles Ghigna, Kathy McCoy, Roger Reid, J.D. Weeks, Aileen Henderson, Anne Weston, Darden North, Edie Hand 

The event is slated to run from 11am-3pm with a Q&A with the authors starting at 2pm.

Clear your calendar

Posted by trav in Book Talk, Events      No comments

Apr
11

Tomorrow, April 12th is Alabama Bound. It’s the tenth year for the author festival and is a little different this year as it is tied in with our local The Big Read push.

Also…

April 19th is just around the corner and that is when the 2008 Alabama Book Festival is taking place. It’s 9am-4pm that Saturday down in Old Alabama Town, in Montgomery.

Here is the most recent list of attending authors and entertainers.

Amazon, again

Posted by trav in Book Talk, Bookstores, News, Publishers      No comments

Apr
10

Wow, if there is any truth to this tid-bit Amazon is getting good at throwing their weight around. On the heels, of the P.O.D. smack-down, publishers in the U.K. now fear an Amazonian backlash over pricing structures.

Basically, the gist is Amazon prices all they offer at a big discount. Some publishers, in order to lure a few customers are offering deeper discounts on their own websites, undercutting Amazon. Evidently, this has upset the Amazon gods and they are sniffing around looking for a fix. Due to some legal-ese in the U.K. contracts, some fear

Amazon may retaliate by regarding a publisher’s online price as the recommended retail price and applying its trading terms to that.

So, if you publish a book and mark it $10, Amazon’s price is $8 at 20% off. Then, you, as the publisher and owner of the book, offer it at $7, on your own site. Amazon says “your offer of $7 is the ‘real market’ value since that’s what you, as the publisher, are offering” so we’ll now sell your book for $5.60 per our 20% off agreement”.

You know, I can appreciate the chance of lower book prices as much as the next starving book hoarder… but there is just something about a retailer having the clout to tell publishers and content developers what they can and cannot do with their products, that gets my all kinds of ticked off. I hope it never happens.
{via Bookninja}