Thinking of having a promotion or a sale on your website to help you sell some books? Now think again, for any attempt to promote your own business might cost you one of your deepest revenue streams.Amazon's latest 'our way or the highway' policy involves independent third-party sellers on their European websites. The same stranglehold Amazon has on publishers is now being placed on independent booksellers. Amazon's New Rule:Any book listed on Amazon must be sold at the same price or cheaper than it appears on any other website including the booksellers' own websites.Any bookseller found in violation is subject...
The Pocket Poet Portraits of Ann Mikolowski
John AsberryJohn Yau takes a look at the work of Ann Mikolowski in his piece To Have and to Hold: Ann Mikolowski's pocket portraits show two ways of looking in a mirror at the Poetry Foundation.In addition to her miniature portraits of artists and writers Mikolowski also painted large landscapes and, along with her husband, founded the Alternative Press, a seminal experimental poetry press that was at the forefront of the mail art scene of the 1960's and 70's. Headquartered in Detroit, they would ship envelopes packed with letterpress printed ephemera, bookmarks, photos, and other paper bric-a-brac to all corners...
‘Take a Seat’ on a Book
In need of a few extra chairs for your next book club meeting? Are you a bookstore looking for some extra seating for your events? See those "books" on the shelf in the background? Thanks to designer Darris Hanroun those "books" transform into nifty little seats.The impetus behind 'Take A Seat' is Hamroun's belief "that objects have to adapt to humans and their habitat."The folding stool rests inside the covers of a book form. It is constructed of solid wood, connected with hinges and cloth. The book "cover" is made of foam covered in cloth and when opened becomes the...
Fingerprints as the new library card
Image viaAn elementary school library in Manchester, England has begun using a new system developed by Microsoft where kids use their thumbprints to check-out and return books.The head of the school, Lesley Isherwood, praises the system for its efficiency and notes that no image of the fingerprints are ever stored. The system is also entirely voluntary. Phil Booth, national coordinator of NO2ID, a privacy campaign group is highly skeptical of the program. “For such a trivial issue as taking out of library books the taking of fingerprints is way over the top and wrong...It conditions children to hand over sensitive personal...
Masahisa Fukase’s ‘Ravens’ chosen Best Photography Book of the last 25 years
The British Journal of Photography asked five experts to pick their top five photography books of the last quarter-century. Masahisa Fukase's Karasu (Ravens), first published in 1986 by Sokyu-sha, was the winner. The photographs for this "obscure masterpiece" were taken during train journeys back to his birthplace in northern Japan following his divorce from his wife. Most were taken through the train's window.Many see the dark, ominous imagery as an "allegorical critique of modern industrialised society" as well as a visual meditation on mourning. The first American edition of Karasu was published by Bedford Arts in 1991, under the title Solitude...