***********************************************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...
Book Lunacy
The unassuming-by-all-appearances softcover, Lunacy and Arrangement of Books as cleverly written by Terry Belanger brightened a dark, dismal, and chilly winter morning fairly recently and evoked a smile of sheer delight. (I usually glower rather fiercely and silently.) Although very modest and slender in appearance, it managed to cover quite nicely many strange and peculiar treatments of volumes -- from Samuel Pepys risers to make all the books level along the top edge to architectural failures in a reading room where large books couldn't be opened due to the low lighting fixtures.The writing is direct and contents presented without preamble...
Bookseller Killed by Falling Books
Law Chi Wah, owner of the "Green Text Book Store" in Hong Kong was killed when a shelf of approximately 20 boxes of books collapsed on top of him. The tragic accident occurred at a small wharehouse. He was found two weeks later buried under the fallen books.Thanks to Oiwan Lam for the lead. She also alerts us that: "Douban (zh) has set up a special page for this book martyr. His friends and acquaintances set up a blog (zh) in memory of him and his book store."The links above are the Google translated versions, both are originally in Chinese.
Book Art Gets a Room of Its Own
The exhibition is titled Sitting Room and is curated by Tom Sowden and Lucy May Schofield.The goal of the exhibit is to let the artists books "become the tactile and interactive objects that they are usually conceived as being. Take them out of glass cases, out of libraries and away from the artist’s book fairs, resituating them in an environment that was conducive to reading and engaging with the books."They attempt to re-create a "sitting room from a time when books were read rather than TV being watched...A space to relax, ignore work and absorb the books"The inaugural exhibition in...