Category Archives: Events

Book Talk, Events

Alabama Book Festival 2009

2 Comments

The weather could not have been any better down in Montgomery for the Alabama Book Festival this year. There was even a small 2 minute light rain, just to make sure no one overheated. There was plenty to do, as usual and some of the old favorites were there. APTV sponsored the children’s area, so there were lots of costumed characters, stickers and free books making making the rounds. I mean FREE books! It’s worth the trip right there.

My only regret is not getting to make my way to the New South Books open house. I hope they do it again for next year’s festival. There are a few (I was a photo slacker this year) more pics (including Rick Bragg and Frank Stitt) after the jump.

Continue reading Alabama Book Festival 2009 →

Authors, Book Talk, Events

2009 Alabama Book Festival

Leave a comment

The Alabama Book Festival is today down in Old Alabama Town, Montgonmery, AL. We’re loading the kiddos up and headed down there. Looks to be a good weather day.

Robyn Litchfield just had something post to the Montgomery Advertiser site though, and it sounds like it’ll at least be as good as last year’s!

Here is a list of authors and venue schedule for today.

Birmingham, Events, library

Get $5 Erased from your overdue fines

Leave a comment

It’s National Library Week and the Birmingham Public Library is celebrating by printing up coupons for $5 off of your overdue fines. They can be found online and in the most recent The Reader. Offer expires when Library Week does, on April 18th.

Book Talk, Events, New Releases, Publishers, Upcoming Titles

The 5% Sweet Spot

Leave a comment

Chris Anderson says his new book Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business will be unleashed – free- upon the world on July 6th. As popular as his first book The Long Tail was, I’m sure I’m not the only anxious to read his latest thoughts.

In the interview he had with Guy Kawaski, Anderson does say that he expects the free version of his book to spur print sales. Something many in the industry are watching, I know. How does a publisher make money at giving their products away for free? While I’m sure the book will contain nothing as useful or solid as the formula filled The Art and Science of Book Publishing, Anderson says

“If you can convert 5 percent of users to paid, you can cover your costs. Anything above that, and it becomes extremely popular.”

I haven’t started crunching the numbers yet, but that seems to assume a very slim overhead. But it gives us a starting point. Something for the industry to aim for or pass. We’ll see. Five percent it is.

One of these days I am going to have to make it to SXSW…. but until then, thank the internet gods for blogs and twitter.