This past weekend the Design Research Conference was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Louis Rosenfeld, a leader in the field of information architecture, was one of the speakers and he addressed the role of design in the book world and the challenges that publishers face.It is no secret that the visual component of a book is directly tied to sales. Rosenfeld believes that design affects not only the inside and outside of the book but also the brand of the book and the author. The visual component of a book and its author now extend far...
The Dumbing of the American Bookseller
The image is a tapestry of the words "a novel" that appear on the covers or dust jackets of titles currently on the New York Times bestseller list.It was created by David Friedman for a post at the Ironic Sans blog. "I guess just being a work of fiction isn't enough anymore...You have to emblazen your book with a category on the cover so the book superstore employees know where it belongs." says Friedman.As Ron Hogan of Galleycat suggests "hasn't this tag been semi-ubiquitous for at least a decade?"I wouldn't be surprised to find a direct correlation of the use...
I Guess It Still Beats the LongPen
Steve Weber at the Selling Books blog posted this cartoon.He titled it:Easy way to get rich selling collectible booksthen said:"OK, here's how it works:1. Find out which authors will be visiting your town this week (you can search here).2. Pick the most famous authors, and buy some of their books.3. Everything else you need to know is in this cartoon."Please tell me he's kidding.
Kindle Good, Kindle Bad: Amazon’s New E-Book Reader
Next month Amazon will throw its hat in the e-book reader ring with the release of Kindle.Here is the good part:Kindle is clearly a cut above the existing e-book readers.-Its wireless capabilities allow the user to download content without having to connect to a computer.-It has a keyboard which allows the user to take notes and navigate the web.-It will come loaded with a few freebies like reference books.Now the bad part:With all this great e-book reader 2.0 functionality Amazon shoots itself in the foot by not supporting the open e-book standard that is used by most publishers. Using a...
Act 2: Kansas City Book Pyro Ignites Another Batch
Tom Wayne of Prospero's Books in Kansas City chose Labor Day weekend for the second installment of his 'I'm Going to Burn All the Books I Can't Sell' publicity gimmick.KCTV5 news in KC is giving it prime coverage, with the story and video being the website's most popular, and CNN has picked it up as a home page headline.The first burning back in May resulted in "thousands of e-mails and phone calls with suggestions what to do with the books. But few people offered to take them."With all of the public outcry, I thought more people would step up to...