Video trailers are becoming part of the standard marketing plan for many publishers but this is the first time I have seen one created for a bookshop that's closing its doors!To promote their going out of business sale Loome Antiquarian Booksellers in Stillwater, Minnesota has created this trailer featuring vignettes of books acting "out their favorite literary death scenes."The background music is a bit devilish and there is a little too much book violence for my taste but it is a pretty clever piece. Watching it a couple times I couldn't help but think that it seemed too happy, too...
Amazon is the "secret buyer" of J.K. Rowlings "The Tales of Beedle and the Bard"
Amazon.com paid a record £1,950,000 at Sotheby's yesterday for one of the seven copies in existence of J.K. Rowling's hand-written and illustrated book of fairy-tales "The Tales of Beedle and the Bard."The Times of London originally reported that the "An anonymous collector, bidding through a dealer who usually specialises in Old Masters" was the high bidder. How that ends up being Amazon is a story of for another day.Amazon boasts that the purchase was a simple thank you to Rowling who recently concluded the record-breaking Harry Potter series. The series was a publishing hi-spot and Amazon sold millions upon millions...
The E-Reader Design Invitational
The folks at the industrial design site Core77 asked its users to submit design prototypes for e-readers.The challenge:"Love it or hate it, Amazon’s Kindle Reader has people talking about digital reading devices. No matter what side of the fence you are on, here’s your chance to show the world your vision of the perfect Digital eBook. We want you to take an hour out of your day to design the perfect Digital eBook."The results are pretty impressive. Here two examples of the over 50 entries received. The winner will receive a $125 NIKE gift certificate. I suspect the opportunities for...
Thomas Wharton’s ‘Logogryph: A Bibliography of Imaginary Books’
The book is "a sequence of variations on the experience of reading and on the book [as] a physical and imaginative object," and is packed with little gems like this one where Wharton humanizes the lingo usually reserved for a book's description."Corners bumped. Spine still straight, front part of head slightly faded and creased, with negligible hair. Endpapers missing. Minor damage to knees and ankles, stiff and inflexible in damp weather. Sporadic scribbling in margins throughout. Two-inch scar on stomach, some alterations to subtext. Several memories carefully excised, others foxed and unreliable. Otherwise fine."There is also this timely nugget on...
The Guinness Book
Guinness is running a great new ad that ends in a hail of books. The huge domino sequence "culminates with the pages of 10,000 books flipping open to create a giant pint of Guinness."Bravo.Nicole Martin has the scoop on the making of the commercial in her piece in the Telegraph UK.Thanks to Lee Kottner for the lead