Academics from a few southern universities have compiled a short-list of “the greatest in Southern Literature” and will discuss/announce the “winner” this Wednesday night on South Carolina Education TV. There is also an “online poll” tab to click on so you can vote for your favorite.
The list of 20 titles that they compiled is:
then you’ve probably read the three books highlighted in this graphic that appeared in Wired and on Chris Anderson’s site. I needed this today (as do many editorial AQ folks). Too funny!
In this day of self-publishing services partnering with, ebook vendors and vending machines that print books, it is not hard to envision a day when machines would control it all. But then you run across a site like Lulu.com’s new service and realize that day is a long long way off.
They have a new Title Scorer where wannabe best-selling authors can thow their titles up and “to the scientific test and find out whether it has what it takes for bestseller success.”
I thought it a cool idea. Then I typed in “Of Mice and Men”, which in it’s infinite wisdom cranked out the following result:
Oh well. Humans (1) Machines (0)
So tonight, I raise my glass to all you editors, AQ folks and authors who actually think about these things while discerning what will resonate with your readers.
I am not enjoying today and have given up listening to NPR and reading blog/tweets until April 2nd. It’s just too much!!!! Ahhhh!!!! NPR got me this morning with the whole 2 minute piece on STEAM. And I haven’t been happy since.
And now over on the most excellent harperstudio blog, they have announced a new ebook pricing/marketing plan. Which seems really forward thinking as it engages the Twitter crowd, but then you can read the comments and every other person is “This has to be April Fools”. So what’s the point? If it’s legit, then they missed the boat cause their plans are being second guessed and if it’s a joke then it’s just wasted time. But, I guess it did spawn a blog post here…
So I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow, to see what’s really real in the real world.