Design submitted by Colt 45. Click to enlarge for best viewThe Chronicle of Higher Education asked readers to submit there designs for the future George W. Bush Presidential Library. The only stipulation: The design must fit on the back of an envelope.The response:"About 120 people sent in sketches that were good, bad, serious, humorous, abstract, or really angry. Their designs took the form of toilets, bunkers, crosses, and W's, some crudely drawn and some very elegant."The Chronicle Review has just posted a sampling of the designs and a video:The actual library will be built at Southern Methodist University, in a...
The Rise of the Bookshelf in the Internet Age
Neverending Luca Nichetto & Andreoli, 2007One aspect of book culture that seems to be flourishing is bookcase design. Hardly a week goes by without me seeing an image of a newly designed bookcase; the designs and creativity seem endless."If you've still got an Ikea "Billy" holding up the wall in your apartment, maybe it's time you freshened up," is how Rain Noe puts it in his post over at Core77, "If the Kindle Wins, Bookshelf Designers Lose." Freshome has posted a gallery of their favorite 30 contemporary bookshelf designs of the last year and a blog called Bookshelf has recently...
Alphabet Book Party at the Internet Archive
The folks who make up the Collections Team at the Internet Archive have put together a nice survey of 100 years of Alphabet Books.12 books are featured beginning with The Royal Alphabet (1808) and ending with Oliver Herford's A Peter Pan Alphabet (1907). For over 200 years the alphabet book has been used as an educational tool but as you can see in this survey the form has become much more adult friendly over the years.The Alphabet Book at Wikipedia
Beautiful Children for Free
***********************************************Update 3/4: According to Random House during the 72 hours that the book was available to download for free they received:- just under 30,000 pageviews,-20,000 unique visitors-just under 15,000 copies of the book were downloaded.Download results from Amazon and the other publishing partners who participated are not yet available.***********************************************Just days after throwing open their digital doors and committing to DRM-free audiobooks Random House has announced that they will be opening the digital door for printed books as well. The newly released and heavily hyped debut novel by Charles Bock, "Beautiful Children," will be available for free via a PDF download.The...
Dear Bookseller. Marketing the Self-Published Book
This was found in a recently acquired book of poetry by Bill Knott. It was printed on a standard sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper, folded and laid in.With the glacial shift underway in the world of publishing one can easily see a wave of similar messages accompanying self-published books. The "review material", the publicity component of the book that is inserted in copies going to reviewers and booksellers, can become a great source of creativity for the self-published author and just might make the difference as to whether or not your book gets read.Knott, an ardent self publisher for...