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The Casual Optimist Posts

Published September 25, 2008

BASIC Principles for Online Content

Whether you are an author, editor, publicist or marketer writing for the web is different than writing for print.

The BASIC principles of Online Journalism identified by Paul Bradshaw in a five-part series for his Online Journalism Blog provide useful guidelines. Here’s a summary:

  • BREVITY: Most people struggle to read long documents on a screen so break lengthy articles into ‘chunks’. Keep paragraphs succinct and focused on one idea.
  • ADAPTABILITY: Writers must be adaptable because websites utilize a range of media in addition to text. Information and content must be  adaptable so that they can be easily re-purposed by the reader or another writer.
  • SCANNABILITY: Reading word-for-word is rare online and most web users scan pages looking for headlines, subheadings, and links that help them navigate the text on screen. Scannability also improves your accessibility.
  • INTERACTIVITY: Think about how you can give control to your readers.
  • COMMUNITY: Learn how to join communities and engage in their conversations. Persuade people to join your networks by organizing and informing them.
  • CONVERSATION We’ve moved from lectures to conversations. Moreover, “the distinctions between conversation and publishing in an online medium are being eroded. Everything that we say is recorded, linkable, distributable. Conversation is publishing.“

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Published September 24, 2008

Mamet to Pinter to Beckett

The maverick publisher of Grove Press Barney Rosset is to receive a lifetime achievement award on November 19th, 2008, from the National Book Foundation in honor of his many contributions to American publishing, according to the New York Times:

In its heyday during the 1960s, Grove Press was famous for publishing books nobody else would touch. The Grove list included writers like Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs, Che Guevara and Malcolm X, and the books, with their distinctive black-and-white covers, were reliably ahead of their time and often fascinated by sex.

Also the subject of a new documentary ‘Obscene’ about his life and work, Mr. Rosset said:

“All my life I followed the things that I liked — people, things, books — and when things were offered to me, I published them. I never did anything I really didn’t like. I had no set plan, but on the other hand we sometimes found ourselves on a trail. For example, out of Beckett came Pinter, and Pinter was responsible for Mamet. It was like a baseball team — Mamet to Pinter to Beckett… Should we have had more of a business plan?” he added. “Probably. But then the publishers that did have business plans didn’t do any better.”

Link

UPDATE:

More on Barney Rosset and ‘Obscene’ at New York Magazine

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Published September 23, 2008

Google Expands Book Search

Google has announced that it is launching a new set of free Google Book Search tools “that allow retailers, publishers, and anyone with a web site to embed books from the Google Book Search index.”

Google Book Search, which already partners with publishers and libraries, give users the opportunity to search online and view a preview of a book if it’s out of copyright, or the publisher has given Google permission.

The new tools enable sites to embed books from the Google Book Search index, allowing them to display full-text search results from Book Search, and integrate with social features such as ratings and reviews:

“Ultimately, we believe that these tools and partnerships further our quest to make books more discoverable on the Web, from your Google search results to your favorite bookstores, publisher and author websites, online library catalogues, and social networks.”

Link

 

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Published September 22, 2008

Monday Miscellany

My favourite response to  New York Magazine’s gossipy  hit-job on the current state of publishing ‘The End’ came from author Jeff Gomez: “even though I wrote a book called Print is Dead, even I don’t think that publishing is over.”

Are book jacket designs more conservative in the UK than in the US? The Bookseller takes a look: “UK designers are saying their creativity is being stifled by commercial concerns. Designers can only attempt new, more daring things if they are given the space to do so, but in the current climate this does not appear to be happening.”

Author Jeanette Winterson wishes all bookstores could be like Shakespeare & Company in The Times:  “[B]ookshops have, or should have, a special place in our culture. We need books, and books are best browsed in the energetic peace of a small store where the owner loves reading, just like we do.”

Variety examines the Kindle: “Amazon’s Kindle is the big kid on the block. With a few improvements, the gadget, which Amazon introduced in November, could well be a game-changer.” Or not.

And finally, there’s a lovely line from comedian Ricky Gervais in this interview with the Globe and Mail’s Joanna Schneller published at the weekend: “I always think, ‘Just aim a bit higher.’ Because even if you fail, you’ve still landed a little bit higher. Aiming low and not quite making it… that’s what I couldn’t stand.” A lesson for all of us  there I think…

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Published September 21, 2008

Megalisters

“What fun is there in clicking… compared to the pleasure of handling a fine copy of a rare book?”

Mick Sussman examines used-book selling in the internet age for the New York Times:

[T]he state of the art in used-book selling these days seems to be less about connoisseurship than about database management. With the help of software tools, so-called megalisters stock millions of books and sell tens of thousands a week through Amazon, AbeBooks and other online marketplaces.

But, it’s not all bad news for the small dealer:

“Though the rise of the megalisters has hurt many mom-and-pop operations, the toll has been less than catastrophic. A database maintained by Susan Siegel of Book Hunter Press lists 3,968 “open shops” — as brick-and-mortar outlets are known — across the United States today, down from 4,119 in 2002. A 4 percent drop over six years might not be something to cheer about, but it would seem downright enviable to record or video store owners.”

What are smaller used-book sellers doing to survive? Using their experience, sharing “alchemical trade wisdom” in online forums, focusing on books that are rare–if not exactly collectible–and combining labour-intensive hand-selling with the selective use of e-commerce:

After the great wave of creative destruction set off by e-commerce, the more adaptable breed of used-book seller seems to have survived… Chris Volk, a store owner and the vice president of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, says her colleagues are frustrated but undaunted by the megalisters. “In the long run,” she said, “people who know what they’re doing will win out.”

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