September 2015

Oyster to Exit E-Book Subscription Business

It’s not so easy to offer a Netflix-like experience.

The Oyster e-book subscription service that launched with much fanfare in 2013 has posted a note on its blog stating it will be exiting that business over the next few months and offering refunds to subscribers who request them. The service provides access to more than 1 million e-books on an all-you-can read basis for $9.95 a month.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oyster-to-exit-e-book-subscription-business-1442887235

When It Comes To Book Sales, What Counts As Success Might Surprise You

When It Comes To Book Sales, What Counts As Success Might Surprise You

Whenever you read about book awards you hear they help boost sales. But what you might not know is just how much those sales need boosting. Two prestigious awards announced nominees this week; in the U.K. the Man Booker unveiled its short list and in the U.S. the National Book Awards announced its long lists.

The awards news came on the heels of a survey from the Authors Guild about the sorry state of author incomes. So what happens to writers who never get anywhere near an awards ceremony?

Washington Post critic Ron Charles reviews the kinds of books that get nominated for literary awards. These are not the blockbusters, the books written by the likes of Stephen King and Nora Roberts that make millions.

Full piece:
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/19/441459103/when-it-comes-to-book-sales-what-counts-as-success-might-surprise-you

Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful

The underlying issue has little to do with whether one prefers the “free market” or government. The real question is how government organizes the market, and who has the most influence over its decisions. We are now in a new gilded age similar to the first Gilded Age, when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. As then, those with great power and resources are making the “free market” function on their behalf. Big Tech — along with the drug, insurance, agriculture and financial giants — dominates both our economy and our politics.

From Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful – NYTimes.com

Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all solving the same problems

Between them, Apple, Google, and Microsoft pretty much set the agenda for the entire consumer electronics industry. They employ a great number of the smartest and most creative technologists in the world and produce the most influential innovations. Whether it’s Windows, the iPhone, or Google’s titular search, these three American giants’ contributions have shaped our social and economic milieux as much as our technological one. Their futures promise to be as different as their pasts, however the present products and services on offer from each company show them to be closer than ever. They all seem to be solving the same problems.

From Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all solving the same problems | The Verge

E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

Use of a light-emitting electronic book (LE-eBook) in the hours before bedtime can adversely impact overall health, alertness and the circadian clock, which synchronizes the daily rhythm of sleep to external environmental time cues, according to Harvard Medical School researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. These findings of the study that compared the biological effects of reading an LE-eBook to a printed book are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on December 22, 2014.

From E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep | HMS

History As Big Data: 500 Years Of Book Images And Mapping Millions Of Books

What would it look like to reimagine the book not as pages of text, but as a global distributed gallery of illustrations, drawings, charts, maps, and photographs that together comprise one of the world’s greatest art collections? In Fall 2013 I approached the Internet Archive with the idea of using computer algorithms to extract every image found on all 600 million pages of their digitized book collection, along with the text surrounding each image and the basic metadata about the book. In just over a month I did precisely that, creating a massive gallery that is slowly being uploaded to Flickr.

From History As Big Data: 500 Years Of Book Images And Mapping Millions Of Books – Forbes

“We Own You” – Confessions of an Anonymous Free to Play Producer

Every time you play a free to play game, you just build this giant online database of who you are, who your friends are and what you like and don’t like. This data is sold, bought and traded between large companies I have worked for. You want to put a stop to this? Stop playing free games. Buy a game for 4.99 or 9.99. We don’t want to be making games like this, and we don’t want another meeting about retention, cohorts or churn.

From “We Own You” – Confessions of an Anonymous Free to Play Producer | TouchArcade

Buffalo and The Future of The Book

Speculation on the future of the book changes by the hour (the one that I’m working toward is a blended portfolio of digital, public libraries, and independent bookstores), but there is great opportunity in the midst of all of this chaos. Because of the digital disruption that continues to democratize the publishing industry, it is now entirely possible for independent authors, publishers, and readers to (quite literally) choose their own adventures without any involvement from an agent, a NYC publisher, or a big-box retailer (like Barnes & Noble).

From Buffalo and The Future of The Book | Buffalo Rising