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Hello, Maxine!
Cellular top trumps
It is extremely hard to remain unamazed by life. Today I found out that you can buy a card game called "cell trumps" , based on the Top Trumps game whose permutations (in this house alone) run through Harry Potters 1 to 5, Dr Who, Lord of the Rings 1 to 3, Simpsons, Narnia, Movie Stars, Pop Star...
Although I've never sent anyone an email asking for a link, I get them every single day. It gets to be exhausting, which is the main reason why I don't maintain a blogroll.
On Blogwhoring
I got an email Thursday past complementing me on BLCKDGRD, especially the xxxx, but adding that he loved my "hilarious" and "spot on" political commentary. He then told me of his blog and asked me if I'd blogroll it, claiming he'd already blogrolled me. I waited before looking at his blog, first...
This practice is no secret here in the States, but, oh my, those prices!
Cash for book display scandal?
I'm not sure why this counts as news, but The Times today has a large page 3 story about the "cash for book display" issue. According to a "confidential letter" it claims to have seen, the Times reveals that Waterstone’s has has set the rates that publishers will have to pay to promote their boo...
Agreeing with previous comments, I like standalone blogs the way they are now. Social networks, messaging, and twittering overload my brain circuits. I need down time.
Blogs wanted -- dead or alive
Link: Bloggers Blog: Millions of Dead Blogs Won't Stop Blogging. I have often wondered what happens to all those millions, or even billions, of inactive blogs that we keep reading about. Technorati tracks them all, but we are told that only a very few per cent are "live", which means updated at ...
There are hundreds of memes rolling through the blogs on any given day. It's so silly how this one turned out to be so controversial. Sour grapes, I say.
An Alternate Kettle of Fish
An Alternate Kettle of Fish (don't click on the link if you are a suspicious type, but do if you want to see some sweet little pictures in needle eyes) has just given me the infamous but harmless "thinking blogger award", which last time caused various other bloggers to publicly criticise me for...
I'm not sure I even know how to use MT3 properly, and now I will soon be doing battle with 50 new features? I can't keep up.
Moveable Type 4
Exciting news from Moveable Type/Typepad. "We're pleased to announce the beta release of Movable Type 4—and to provide you with the first look. MT4 has over 50 new features that have been inspired by your comments and suggestions, and will enable you to build, drive, and manage entire blogging w...
Although I can't speak for all publishers, the two houses I worked for had both trade and educational divisions (which is how I know a bit about both markets). Pricing was pretty much standard based on production costs, contract royalties, and format. Sales projections were more tied to initial print run, but, of course, print run also factors into production costs.
Publishing is an extremely complex industry even though it might seem like printing a book is a fairly easy thing to do. In addition, it moves very, very slowly. If you think about it, the book itself hasn't changed much since it was invented by the ancient Romans. The last revolution in publishing happened when Gutenberg invented the printing press. Before the Internet, publishers spent roughly 600 years of doing business the same way so it should be no surprise that they're slow to catch on.
A frank exchange of opinion
Isn't blogging wonderful (sometimes)? On Sunday, Susan Hill protested about the price being charged for Nicola Watson's book The Literary Tourist. After a short review of the book, she wrote: "But in their wisdom the publishers have not only made it look more like a scholarly book than a popular...
Sorry Mr. Charkin, but I don't buy the pricing point argument. Academic books are expensive because they generally cost more to produce (due to things like obtaining reproductive rights to charts and illustrations), require more research and effort on the part of the author, and often have a short selling span before requiring an update to a new edition. Calling them "permanent" and "valuable" is what's known as positioning.
In the educational market, what often happens is that the publisher might realize that a particular work has appeal beyond academia. To get more out of the long tail, they'll reposition a book for the "trade" market. This often is done with a title change and reprinting in another format (trade paperback size, less glossy/cheaper paper, snazzy cover graphic). This may occur at the end of the academic version's lifespan. Sometimes, both the more expensive academic version and cheaper trade version are in print simultaneously. Yet, the two markets rarely meet because publishers control where books are sold and to what kind of customer.
Based on the above, I wouldn't be surprised if The Literary Tourist eventually becomes a candidate for repositioning.
I'm not saying there's anything necessarily wrong with the above since publishers need to make money and pricing is driven by what a consumer is willing to spend based on perceived value. But with the Internet putting so much information at our fingertips, a savvy academic can frequently find better value for their buck in the trade market.
A frank exchange of opinion
Isn't blogging wonderful (sometimes)? On Sunday, Susan Hill protested about the price being charged for Nicola Watson's book The Literary Tourist. After a short review of the book, she wrote: "But in their wisdom the publishers have not only made it look more like a scholarly book than a popular...
Susan, thank you so much for putting it exactly the right way. I completely see why she's so disliked now. It's a shame how assertiveness is respected in a man but looked down on in a woman.
Maxine, I also have to admit to finding Bill hunky. He is a heck of a smooth talker. And playfully smart. I'm about halfway through the crossword puzzle he wrote for The New York Times Magazine, and I'm stuck because I don't know enough about oldies music or Baby Boomers.
Hillary Clinton in the Economist
Link: The candidates: Hillary Clinton | Her latest incarnation: presidential front-runner | Economist.com. I'm not getting into politics on Petrona -- politics is one of those subjects where the heat of the opinion is inversely related to the knowledge of the person expressing it, but I do like ...
I'm not sure why so many hate her so much. On a political news show last night, I saw a criticism of her as thinking she is above the law. Huh? Does this go back to a shady land deal from years ago that no one was able to prove against her and her husband? Considering what's been going on at the top of the other party (Libby, Wolfowitz, Gonzales), it's like a dark as pitch pot calling a semi-rusty kettle black.
I haven't made up my mind yet since the campaign season has just started, but I am looking forward to when the field gets narrowed after the two primaries. 2008 will be an interesting election year for us.
For you, though, 2007 has turned out to be an interesting non-election year, hasn't it? I can't help but feel a bit of guilt that our international embarrassment of a leader has had something to do with it.
Hillary Clinton in the Economist
Link: The candidates: Hillary Clinton | Her latest incarnation: presidential front-runner | Economist.com. I'm not getting into politics on Petrona -- politics is one of those subjects where the heat of the opinion is inversely related to the knowledge of the person expressing it, but I do like ...
I'm not so sure how actually unloved Hillary is because here the minority tends to shout loudest. Although I'm not a huge fan of her politics, I have to admit that she appears to be the most intelligent and savvy of all the candidates (among both parties). Plus, her husband is a huge asset. Despite the incident with the intern, he is beloved by his party.
Hillary Clinton in the Economist
Link: The candidates: Hillary Clinton | Her latest incarnation: presidential front-runner | Economist.com. I'm not getting into politics on Petrona -- politics is one of those subjects where the heat of the opinion is inversely related to the knowledge of the person expressing it, but I do like ...
Hi, Debra. Although I totally understand if you're still sore at me, I have tagged you for the "8 Things" meme:
http://bookblog.net/bbarchives/2007/05/8_things_meme.php
Daily Puzzles: May 16
Here are my results for the various daily puzzles. Feel free to post your results in the comments section. (View my Set score history here.) SET PUZZLE: 1:50. SECRET WORD: 5 guesses. SCRAMBLED WORD: 11 clicks (avg.: 26.4 clicks). Tags: puzzles, Set puzzle
Tag...You're it:
http://bookblog.net/bbarchives/2007/05/8_things_meme.php
Assignment Zero
Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, has been working on ways to involve the public in journalism creation for more than a decade. Now his Assignment Zero has captured attention - and the interest of journalism companies. Assignment Zero is the first project of Rosen's ne...
When I first read the three examples, I thought they all were about the Bible. I'm glad I was right at least once.
Brian Sibley's winners
BRIAN SIBLEY : my blog: BOOKED UP posts the hilarious winners to his competition to blurb the plot of a well-known book in less than 12 words. The winner is very clever, though the book described is not the most famous in the world: Orphans! Abortions! War! Incest! It's all about apples and pair...
This is one of the best posts I've read about the Genie. Most people are content to stuff some writing into it and declare it wrong because, "I'm a man and it said my writing is female," or "I'm a woman and it said my writing is male."
Although the two computational linguists (who worked with me on the scoring algorithm for the website) claim to be able to predict a writer's gender from text, I have always believed that they had it backwards. Rather than working up from text to gender, using text to determine writing trends by gender is a much more useful study.
Thank you for actually getting it.
Communicating: do I blog like a boy?
I came across this gender-writing analyzer this week in Grokdotcom. So decided to run a few posts through the analyzer. Personalization Trend: design your own credit card -- female score 550, male score 887 -- MALE! So You Want Innovative Thinking -- female score 1777, male score 1353 -- F...
My school was in an inner city neighborhood and each classroom was outfitted with an ancient pair of Macs. I never used them for teaching because I continually ran into problems with the netnanny software. Someone, somewhere blocked a whole range of "naughty" words so nearly every web site was a blank page. The Powers That Be also blocked certain search phrases, including "sports." Sports!
The irony was that I constantly heard talk of getting teachers to integrate technology into the classroom. Netnanny rendered the Internet useless. In my last year, I had 33 students and 2 nearly unusable computers. The school's computer lab only had 30 computers in it and, often, several of them were broken. And I always found it funny that technology talk usually came up when I'd be sitting in a room with ancient teachers, many having begun their careers before touch tone telephones were the standard.
Has the web helped our public awareness?
From a post on Content Matters: Despite Web and Cable, Americans Remain Oblivious to Public Affairs...."or so say the findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center.The study, entitled "What Americans Know: 1989-2007" assesses public knowledge of leaders and news events, as compared to 1989....
When I taught, I was a model teacher, which meant I was sent to lots of workshops for training to eventually pass on to other teachers at my school. The subject of kids being "smarter" today always came up because of the need to figure out new ways to teach them. Technology, media, and the Internet were generally cited as reasons behind the new "smartness."
Personally, I never thought the kids were any "smarter" than we were because I always found it easy to run intellectual circles around them. (One favorite teaching method of mine was creating confusion by using the Socratic method, forcing students to form logical order out of chaos.) Rather, I believe today's kids are "savvier." They are more aware of the wide world than I was as a child, and I am sure the Internet has a lot to do with it.
Has the web helped our public awareness?
From a post on Content Matters: Despite Web and Cable, Americans Remain Oblivious to Public Affairs...."or so say the findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center.The study, entitled "What Americans Know: 1989-2007" assesses public knowledge of leaders and news events, as compared to 1989....
I've actually been to DePauw because I went to university in the US Midwest. It's a liberal arts school founded by Methodists.
In my experience, quite a few SF types do think it's much more than entertainment. Considering its influence on technological innovations and geekery, you can't really fault them for it.
Peer review for science fiction
I've been a bit distracted tonight by Revish and a group I started there for crime/detective fiction readers: please feel free to stop by. But, I must share a strange, even weird, concept I discovered today -- a peer reviewed science fiction journal. Can you imagine it? I can't. But it exists. S...
The most interesting sound byte I heard yesterday was from Tucker on MSNBC. He brought up the reporters who have descended on Blacksburg and said he understood why the media gets criticized for how they swarm. His self-aware comment took me by surprise because I hadn't been expecting to hear anything like it so soon.
Horrible, Obscenely
"Massacre at Virginia Tech" NBC's graphics read, while swirling violins melodramatically background the bumpers in and out of sets. Every major and all minor news networks have parachuted into Blacksburg and established their beachheads. Executives at headquarters speed-dialed their hysterics, o...
Starbucks here in the US has hit on something with putting books in their shops. In my experience, it's usually a long wait for anything other than an already-brewed coffee, so browsing through a selection of books is a natural thing to do while standing in line.
Some comparative figures
According to Saturday's Times, Starbucks is set to start selling books, or rather a book, in the UK from next month. The first title is A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah's memoir of life as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. In the USA, Starbucks quickly sold 62,ooo copies of this book. (Two-thirds of...
It looks as though the second parenthesis interfered with the link. Here it is again:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/top25-books.htm
Defining the 20th century
The Guardian will run an eight-page supplement on 21 April to feature the "50 most groundbreaking books of the 20th century". Apparently, last year's "50 best film adaptations" was considered a great success, so the Guardian is now following up with titles that "defined specific decades of the 2...
It should be quite a list, and I'm looking forward to finding out what's on it.
Have you seen USA Today's list of most memorable books of the last 25 years? (http://www.usatoday.com/life/top25-books.htm) Although I wouldn't call the majority of the titles "quality" reading, it's one of the few book lists I've ever come across on which I've heard of every title.
Defining the 20th century
The Guardian will run an eight-page supplement on 21 April to feature the "50 most groundbreaking books of the 20th century". Apparently, last year's "50 best film adaptations" was considered a great success, so the Guardian is now following up with titles that "defined specific decades of the 2...
Great interview, Maxine!
Petrona on the normblog
I think I can retire now and go to heaven. Can blogging get any better than this? I've had book reviews published in the Philadelphia Inquirer (thanks to Sir Galahad of the Blogosphere, aka Frank Wilson) and on Eurocrime; I've made some wonderful friends; and now I have been profiled by Norman ...
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