I just found out that tonight’s planned reception, celebrating The Birmingham Arts Journal‘s five years of publishing, has been moved to February 29th at Urban Standard (2320 2nd Ave. N). So we’ll all have to wait until then to meet the staff and some of the journal’s more recent contributors. The latest issue is in stores now and also available to view via pdf online, along with all the back issues. Which is pretty darn cool!
And here’s a little haiku for you to help welcome the weekend, which hopeful holds plenty of quiet time for you to read!
I wish I had seen this bookish game pre-holidays, but I’m just now discovering it {via kimbooktu}. This one comes with a mini-bookshelf to place all your many mini-books, library card, you get your own bookstore… what could be more fun?
Nick Basbanes’ latest ‘book about books’ is out today. It’s titled Editions & Impressions: My Twenty Years on the Book Beat and is a collection of essays written by Basbanes over the past 20 years. There is a hb trade edition available. But you can also get the Deluxe or Limited editions straight from the folks at Fine Books, if you have the cash!
According to the press, most of the articles here have been expanded upon and updated since they first ran. This one seems to have a pretty large global scope too. Could be a good one.
The NY Times ran an article on blogs/sites moving into printed products. Pretty interesting though nothing really new is mentioned. They don’t even mention the word “blook“. Which is a book mainly consisting of blog posts (and one word I hope never makes it into the dictionary). Basically some marketing folks look at a blog’s traffic stats and see dollar signs, but over the last two years, publishers have realized that a high number of unique visitors does not always translate into dollars.
Though it seems that comics and illustrations do seem to do better than fiction and narratives.
Basically, Frank Warren (of Post Secret fame) summed-up the whole business model when he is quoted in the article saying “I don’t think there is a formula,” Mr. Warren said. “There is a bit of magic there that can’t be replicated.”
