This link is for all of our Australian friends: just click on it. You won’t be sorry. Also, have we mentioned how much we love you lately? And that we have like… five different kinds of m&m’s over here? Maybe even six. Just sayin’.
In related news, we’d just like to mention to our friends in L.A. and NYC that we are all very tidy houseguests, and that July is a great month for hosting visitors.
In related news, we’d just like to mention to our friends in L.A. and NYC that we are all very tidy houseguests, and that July is a great month for hosting visitors.
Now that that’s out of the way, we can proceed to the most underwhelming news of the week – the cover reveal for J.K. Rowling’s forthcoming book, A Casual Vacancy. I know you want to distance yourself from that wildly popular children’s series, but really? What do you guys think about it? Is it refreshingly different or just boring?
I was both fascinated and terrified by this article – “Your Ebook is Reading You”, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal and was picked up by a few other publishing news outlets. In this new age of ereaders and ebooks, publishers and ebook retailers are gaining more information than ever before on the reading habits of their customers. Massive amounts of data, including the amount of time it takes readers to get through a certain number of pages, which passages they’ve highlighted, and whether they immediately purchased the sequel or not can all be mined from ereaders and ereading apps. From the article:
“Barnes & Noble, which accounts for 25% to 30% of the e-book market through its Nook e-reader, has recently started studying customers' digital reading behavior. Data collected from Nooks reveals, for example, how far readers get in particular books, how quickly they read and how readers of particular genres engage with books. Jim Hilt, the company's vice president of e-books, says the company is starting to share their insights with publishers to help them create books that better hold people's attention.”
Of course, Google, Amazon, Kobo, and many other publishers/retailers are also getting in on this game. Coliloquy, a small publishing company, has even released interactive ebooks where readers can choose which aspects they enjoy the most (for example, which love interest they’d like the hero/heroine to be with). That data is then sent to an author, who uses it to inform the rest of the series.
John Green also writes, in an interview with USA Today this week:
“There is a lot of talk in publishing these days that we need to become more like the Internet: We need to make books for short attention spans with bells and whistles — books, in short, that are as much like Angry Birds as possible. But I think that's a terrible idea.”
Creepy stuff, and I have to admit that there’s a part of me that feels that same “death of literature” outcry rising up – you know, the one that I openly mocked the last time I wrote an Odds & Ends post (payback is a bitch, Catie!).
I was both fascinated and terrified by this article – “Your Ebook is Reading You”, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal and was picked up by a few other publishing news outlets. In this new age of ereaders and ebooks, publishers and ebook retailers are gaining more information than ever before on the reading habits of their customers. Massive amounts of data, including the amount of time it takes readers to get through a certain number of pages, which passages they’ve highlighted, and whether they immediately purchased the sequel or not can all be mined from ereaders and ereading apps. From the article:
“Barnes & Noble, which accounts for 25% to 30% of the e-book market through its Nook e-reader, has recently started studying customers' digital reading behavior. Data collected from Nooks reveals, for example, how far readers get in particular books, how quickly they read and how readers of particular genres engage with books. Jim Hilt, the company's vice president of e-books, says the company is starting to share their insights with publishers to help them create books that better hold people's attention.”
Of course, Google, Amazon, Kobo, and many other publishers/retailers are also getting in on this game. Coliloquy, a small publishing company, has even released interactive ebooks where readers can choose which aspects they enjoy the most (for example, which love interest they’d like the hero/heroine to be with). That data is then sent to an author, who uses it to inform the rest of the series.
John Green also writes, in an interview with USA Today this week:
“There is a lot of talk in publishing these days that we need to become more like the Internet: We need to make books for short attention spans with bells and whistles — books, in short, that are as much like Angry Birds as possible. But I think that's a terrible idea.”
Creepy stuff, and I have to admit that there’s a part of me that feels that same “death of literature” outcry rising up – you know, the one that I openly mocked the last time I wrote an Odds & Ends post (payback is a bitch, Catie!).
Badass.
However, I’m pretty sure that publishers have been putting out clichéd, repetitive books in the attempt to hook readers for decades and I doubt that adding in a few “like” buttons will change that very much. And it turns out that even Charles Dickens responded to market research, of a sort. Margaret Atwood, who recently joined the online writing community Wattpad, “to encourage young writers” (as if we needed any more evidence that she’s a complete badass), writes in an interview with The Guardian:
"This is nothing new. [It's] simply being reinvented by the internet... The Pickwick Papers was published serially and people would respond to the chapters by letter. That's why Sam Weller became such a big part of the book."
Great literature will always be produced, but I do wonder if this (among other things) will further encourage authors to self-publish or go with smaller publishers. It will be exciting to see how this massive shift in publishing plays out over the next decade.
Angry Robot will also soon be experimenting with a new business plan to help support indie book sellers: customers who purchase a print copy of an Angry Robot book from an indie seller will be able to download the ebook for free.
And some other examples that creativity and great literature are not dead:
Kristin Cashore gives a wonderful interview over at The New York Times – I personally loved how many questions she refused to answer (but what’s up with that crazy illustration of her face?!).
Tamora Pierce loves and reviews Seraphina by Rachel Hartman over at omnivoracious.
And just because it’s awesome, here’s a very comprehensive list of non-European fantasy written by women from The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review.
Have a great weekend!
"This is nothing new. [It's] simply being reinvented by the internet... The Pickwick Papers was published serially and people would respond to the chapters by letter. That's why Sam Weller became such a big part of the book."
Great literature will always be produced, but I do wonder if this (among other things) will further encourage authors to self-publish or go with smaller publishers. It will be exciting to see how this massive shift in publishing plays out over the next decade.
Angry Robot will also soon be experimenting with a new business plan to help support indie book sellers: customers who purchase a print copy of an Angry Robot book from an indie seller will be able to download the ebook for free.
And some other examples that creativity and great literature are not dead:
Kristin Cashore gives a wonderful interview over at The New York Times – I personally loved how many questions she refused to answer (but what’s up with that crazy illustration of her face?!).
Tamora Pierce loves and reviews Seraphina by Rachel Hartman over at omnivoracious.
And just because it’s awesome, here’s a very comprehensive list of non-European fantasy written by women from The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review.
Have a great weekend!
