This blog is taking a sabbatical while its founder, Charlotte Harper, focuses her blogging attentions elsewhere. She is resident blogger at Australian ebookstore Booku.com.
You can find her latest posts on books and digital publishing here.
At long last, Australia’s small independent bookstores are set to enter the ebook fray.
ReadCloud’s social reading ebook retail platform for independent bookstores will be launched on Wednesday, November 9, at Pages & Pages bookstore in Mosman, Sydney. Continue Reading »
if:book's Going Digital event was held at the Sydney offices of the Australia Council for the Arts last week.
When the Copyright Agency Limited conducted a digital publishing survey recently, it found that some 26 per cent of Australian book publishers have no digital strategy at all, yet two-thirds of CAL members think digital sales will eventually overtake print for the Australian publishing industry as a whole.
The survey found that authors see access to more readers and international markets as the main benefit of digital publishing (78.4 per cent). The ability to self-publish and sell content directly (54.8 per cent) and the speed at which writing projects could be developed (52.5 per cent) were also seen as pluses.
So it’s no wonder multinational book publishers like Harlequin and Pan Macmillan are starting to develop strategies to appeal to innovative, tech savvy, entrepreneurial writers, and retain their share in these authors’ success. Continue Reading »
If, like me, you’ve read a couple of books on the iPad 2 using the iBooks app, you might’ve noticed the combination throws up a glitch.
A static right thumb, resting in a particular (the most usual in my case) spot on the rim of the screen, can cause a flurry of unwanted page turns. It’s happened to me half a dozen times accidentally, and plenty more intentionally as I put together this YouTube video demonstrating the problem. Continue Reading »
The University of Sydney Press uses Facebook, Twitter and blogs to promote its titles.
Having published an interview with the winner of this year’s Unwin Trust UK-Australia Fellowship, Joel Naoum, and details of my own shortlisted proposal, I’m pleased to now be able run a guest post from the third candidate who made it to the interview stage this year.
2011 Unwin Trust UK-Australian Fellowship winner Joel Naoum plans to investigate digital publishing experiments. Photo: Samantha Bok
#Squeeee! Yes, in what must surely be a first for the Unwin Trust UK-Australia Fellowship, this year’s recipient announced his win using three hashtags.
It was an @joelblacklock tweet that alerted the Twittersphere to Pan Macmillan editor Joel Naoum’s good news: “Just found out I’ve won a fellowship to go to the UK for three months. #squeeee #winning #fb,” he posted.
And here’s to lots more #squeeee-ing in publishing.
After shortlisting three digital publishing research proposals for this year’s Unwin Trust UK-Australia Fellowship, the judges decided to award the research grant to Naoum for his proposal, “Experiments in Digital Publishing”.
The UK-based charitable trust will sponsor Naoum to travel to London for three months to conduct research via placements and interviews, a trip he intends to take in sometime between October this year and April 2012. Continue Reading »
Debate continues into whether children's books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar can be adapted to ebook format.
Interactive children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar can be reworked to work as digital titles. I think so, anyway (my pedantic father would point out that it’s already a very digital book – many of us grew up poking our fingers through those holes, after all). I also think cookbooks will mostly be digital within a few years.
The research proposal component of my shortlisted but unsuccessful 2011 Unwin Trust UK-Australian Fellowship application (which you can read in full below) sets out some of my thoughts and questions on these and other issues related to the future of book publishing.
I plan to continue exploring all of this through ebookish.com.au despite missing out on the research grant to travel to London … and I look forward to following the journey of the winner, Joel Naoum, too, because his research project (and blogging along the way at The Smell of Books) will provide some much-needed answers and analysis in this area.
If you have any thoughts on the questions raised in my proposal, please do drop me a line via email, on Twitter or Facebook, or leave a comment.
The iPad2 will offer rear and front cameras, and ship in black or white from day one.
Apple’s iPad2 is shipping to Australia on March 25 (two weeks after the US), at the same price as its predecessor, and in two colours: black or white. But it will not feature the dazzling retinal display of its smaller cousin, the iPhone4, which will be a disappointment for ebook readers.
The new design is curvy, and looks a little like the iPhone3 around the edges.
The iPad2 will be 33 per cent thinner than the first iPad, at 8.8mm compared to 13.4mm. That makes it slimmer than the iPhone4.
It will weigh just under 600g, which is more than 80g lighter.
Its rear and front cameras will allow users to video call other iGadget users over WiFi using Apple’s Facetime technology, as well as shoot still and video images. Continue Reading »
Boomerang Books has launched a spin-off brand for ebooks, Booku.com
Australia has a new ebook retailer: booku.com, sister site to boomerangbooks.com.au, launched this afternoon.
The site is one of the first in Australia to be powered by international ebook distributor OverDrive (@PnPBookseller tells us EcoReader.com.au affiliate www.readwithoutpaper.com is another), which explains why in an ebook catalogue of some 134,000 titles, there is not yet much in the way of local content. Continue Reading »
