2011 Typographic Calendars

These are two of my favorites this year… and they’re cheap! First up is one sporting a series of wood cards printed in such a manner that they resemble old type-specimen cards. Pretty cool. It’s only $24 for the whole 2011 series.

But this one has to be my favorite so far. It’s almost a work of art. This wall calendar is only $10 and displays the entire year on the front, thanks to the cool circular type design. Sure this isn’t one that you could log appointments on, but it sure would look nice on the wall.

Did I miss any other cool calendars this year?

I don’t understand Seth Godin

I admit – I don’t really follow Seth Godin, but it’s hard not to bump into someone re-tweeting, re-posting or waving the Godin flag online. I can understand why so many latch onto an author that speaks with such clarity.

But I honestly am beginning to think that he has amassed such a following simply because he supports both sides of any idea. Granted, Godin always presents a clearly defined side each time… but here’s the latest that I saw, just the other day:

February 9, 2011 Godin posted Autarky is dead. A very concise post that states:

All our productivity, leverage and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it. The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less.

Just two months earlier on December 8, 2010 he posted about his Domino Project, where very logically he outlines eight reasons why he’s going solo in publishing his next book, cutting out publishers, bookstores, “middle men”, etc. It seems all that community was getting in his way.

Isn’t that hundreds-of-years-old ecosystem the kind of community he’s plugging this month? Or to Godin is a community simply a streamlined process between his customers and himself?

I fail to see the communal in one man cranking out a series of books to his flock of followers. That seems to be more of an echo chamber than a community. It seems that if the goal is to build a better product, then you need the expertise every step of the way.

Now, having said all of that, I totally get what he’s doing with the Domino Project. If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I have no problems with new platforms, leveraging new technology and adding effiencies to the publishing system.

This is really just about Godin’s ping-pong of a message and how it often leaves me confused. Am I being unfair?

Q&A on eBook Pricing

The EBookNewser has a short Q&A with SmashWords founder Mark Coker. The whole print book pricing versus eBook pricing discussion is finally boiling down to some concrete ideas. I found it interesting that Coker can see a value divide between fiction and non-fiction:

I think non-fiction can support a higher price than fiction because people read non-fiction usually to solve a problem that has value to them, whereas people read fiction for entertainment and escapism.  There are multiple other opportunities for that, many of which are free.

Though the rest of that paragraph, where I took the above quote was a little too fuzzy for me. Surely more goes into the value/price of an ebook than 1. is it fiction or non-fiction? and 2. do we want to make lots of money or just have a bunch of people buy it?

I was surprised to hear that most of the titles on SmashWords are pushing the $5 mark. It’s been a while since I’ve bought something from SmashWords, I’m going to have to go check them out again.

Recycling print as sneakers

I have to admit, out of all the options I’ve seen available for recycling magazines, newspapers and books… I never saw this one coming. Nike is stitching together sneakers that place the paper’s features section on your feet. These shoes are made from recycled print pieces. Not sure how comfortable they are, but they are pretty cool.

I haven’t seen a price yet, but it seems that the limited premium print run/edition run will be available overseas, in January and will include just three women’s styles.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham