September 2012

Neato nifty series of posts from RWW entitled Social Books. Over five posts, I’m going to explore how book readers and writers use social networking tools. Three of the posts will be from the point of view of readers, starting with this one today about the leading social network for bookworms: Goodreads. In the remaining posts, I’ll be checking out a brand new social network for writers and investigating how book publishers are using social media. So let’s get started with far and away the most popular social network for book lovers in the world, Goodreads. Its user base has almost doubled in 2012, which made me wonder whether Goodreads has any real competition now…

http://shareyourshelf.tumblr.com

You have bookshelves. People want to see them. That’s what happens here.

Please check out this amazing tumblr and ADD YOUR SHELVES (at work, at home, at school…whatever). They’ve gotten so many respondents that they’re a bit behind in posting, but have patience says creator and fellow Brooklynite Peter Knox (@peterknox and @ShareYrShelf at twitter).

Here’s an article from The Guardian UK about the project.

Do it…share your shelf!

***News Flash*** now on Facebook too!

Two titles that were embargoed prior to release are curently dueling for headlines. The attention has propelled each title into top spots on Amazon’s sale rankings, even topping the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

Story at EarlyWord

John H. Locke has installed homemade, fully stocked and short-lived bookcases in four sidewalk kiosks this year and hopes others will undertake similar projects.

Full article in the NYT

By building warehouses across the country, the retailer hopes to cut as much as a day off its two-day shipping times.

Booksellers concede that Amazon, which offers a flat annual rate for fast shipping to encourage frequent orders, is still likely to be cheaper even when it collects taxes. The most Mr. Barnard can hope is that Amazon’s notoriously low margins — it makes little more than a penny for every dollar in sales — will eventually catch up with it. “Same-day delivery is very, very expensive,” he said.

States began aggressively asserting that Amazon should collect taxes in 2008, when New York passed a law compelling the company to do so. Amazon is challenging the law in court but is collecting the tax for now.

Full article

Google launched an open source course building web application for the growing list of K-12 and big-name universities developing online classes. The barebones website is a lightweight way to bring course material online, track student engagement (with web traffic and surveys), and evaluate performance. “We want to use this launch to show that Google believes it can contribute to technology in education,” says Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig.

Over the next few years, marketers will begin to target QR codes more effectively, but without simpler client tools and much better awareness, it’s likely that texting, speech-based searches and alternative scanning technologies will win out. It won’t be long until QR Codes return to their industrial roots where their comparatively low cost make them more appealing than RFID chips.

from the Gates Foundation

McQueen looked at his recreational vehicle and decided to make into a roving bill board in support of Ballot Questions 3A and 3B in Jefferson County, which would raise property taxes to generate money for Jeffco Schools.

If both measures pass, property taxes for a $300,000 home would go up by about $44 for the year.

See text and video here.

When the story of how Amazon came to dominate the consumer book business is written ten years from now, there will need to be a chapter entitled “September 6, 2012?.

Commentary by publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin.