From the monthly archives:

June 2008

I had fully intended to live blog the CCI interational conference Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons. But it turns out the wireless access at the Brisbane Convention Centre, while pervasive, is not exactly inexpensive. So instead I’ll be playing catch up over the weekend and posting my notes and thoughts on the keynotes and panels.

So far it’s an excellent conference. Today I sat in on fantastic keynotes about creative brian development by Baroness Susan Greenfield and developing open access government data by Richard Allan. There’ve also been great papers in the panel sessions. But the big carrot, tomorrow, is Henry Jenkins‘ keynote. I’m very excited. Henry Jenkins is the reason I registered for this conference. I really enjoyed Convergence Cultures and Fans, Blogger and Gamers and have long admired his work. Needless to say, looking forward to his presentation.

{ 2 comments }

Paperback writer reports from the front line

June 26, 2008

Via Justine Larbalestier‘s blog, a neato essayby author Justine Musk on writing and selling books. Musk offers some insightful musings on the economic realities of mass market PB fiction and the venus fly trap of book sales data. Here’s a little taster… Because here’s the thing. In this age of such relentless number-crunching, books don’t [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

The problem of Amazon

June 20, 2008

Amazon has been flexing its muscles in both good and bad ways in recent weeks. A few publishers, namely Hachette Livre, have been making a show of defiance in the face of Amazon’s demands for a bigger discount from publishers. Bookseller.com reported the ongoing dispute had prompted Amazon to remove the “Buy Now” button from several [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Lies, damn lies and statistics

June 20, 2008

More from HarperCollins, this time some sweet data on the results of their recent experiements with “free”. Publishers Weekly reported that at recent panels at BEA and the IDPF Digital Book conference HarperCollins shared the results of digital giveaway campaigns they did with books by Neil Gaiman, Erin Hunter and Robin Hobb. Here’s the skinny: [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

The Amanda Project

June 20, 2008

The other day I was discussing with an agent whether authors should hold back digital rights from publishers until the publishers could demonstrate they had the know-how to fully exploit those rights. Well, HarperCollins US have just taken a big step toward bolstering my confidence. Forbes.com has reported that HarperCollins, together with 4th Story Media, are producing The [...]

5 comments Read the full article →