Tag Archives: new york

World’s Most Expensive NEW Book

Cover of FMR MichelangeloNot what you’d call light reading (it weighs 62 lbs.), the World’s Most Expensive newly published book has just been released. It’s a velvet and marble-covered tome worth around $100,000. It was printed, chiseled, sewn, constructed in Italy and now resides at the New York public Library. It’s a portfolio/art study/biography of Michelangelo and took some six months to make.

So far the Renaissance-inspired publisher FMR has sold 20 books. No word yet ifGoogle Books Scan will get to have a go at it…

Typecon 2008

typecon2008.png

If I could be anywhere this week it would be up in Buffalo, New York, at this year’s Typecon. It kicked off yesterday and runs through the 20th. I really need to plan my summer vacations better… maybe next year. I mean surely some of the knowledge and skills of these guys would rub off, right? Well, until then I’ll just have to follow their Twitter feed to get my Typecon fix.

Let me know if you guys find anyplace that has bloggers there or is posting podcasts/video.

Ghost (Writer) in the machine

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.