Some more interesting links that I came across this week, mostly through Twitter:
#1: Apparently Apple thought it should be censoring what you can read on your iPod/iPhone by rejecting applications that might, possibly, let you read something they find objectionable. The latest instance concerned a book reader application called Eucalyptus, but it’s been going on for a while. After they started getting some bad PR over this, they finally went ahead and approved the application.
#2: Somebody rewrote the Bible to include zombies. I’ve included it because a) it amuses me for some unspecified reason and b) it amazes me that someone would take the time to do this. Click at your own risk.
#3: Publishing continues to not “get” the Internet (okay, admitedly that in and of itself is not news, however new examples surface every day). Editors at Avon Books gave an interview over at All About Romance. The bit that has online reviewers scratching their heads is the bit about Avon’s view on online review sites not being worthwhile unless they can “make” a book.
Once again publishing looks at the Internet as simply the offline world put online, which it is not. If they’re waiting for a single review site to have the clout of Publisher’s Weekly or The New York Times then they are missing what working with online reviewers is all about: buzz, word-of-mouth, trust, etc. The other things they said didn’t particularly impress me much.
#4: And then there is Seth Harwood who gets how to use the Internet to get attention for his books (also a publishing contract from Random House!). I found it interesting that having his work in front of an audience, even for free, has pushed him to produce more.
#5: An interesting take on how the added value in ebooks may actually be the readers who read the book before you. It’s slightly more complex than that, but an interesting take on the value added by reader discussions and annotations in ebook editions.
#6: A big fat *yawn* from me that Scribd.com now allows anyone to sell documents (including ebooks) on their site. They let authors set the price and set download/DRM options. Scribd gets 20%. There’s a lot of hype about this. Sounds good, so why the yawn? The store is US-only. Not an American citizen living in the US? No book selling for you. So much for the “global” Internet.
3 Comments
Wow, that Zombie thing is pretty ridiculous.
Jen – Devourer of Books´s last blog post..Mating Rituals of the North American WASP – Book Review and Blog Tour
Yeah, it amazes me the ideas people come up with. I got that one from following @Dhympna on Twitter.
Interesting links. I’m off to read about Seth Harwood. I agree totally about businesses not always getting that online is very different from offline. Word of mouth is very powerful stuff.
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