Archive
I’m very pleased to announce that Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, a collaboration between my employer Apt and The Institute for the Future of the Book, is now live. Several months ago we heard that the Institute was setting up in the UK, and we approached Chris Meade with a view to working with if:book London on a joint project. The result of this was the realisation of a long-cherished idea from Bob Stein, the founder of the Institute. Bob had recently reread Doris Lessing’s classic novel The Golden Notebook, and wanted to bring it... Read the rest of this post →
“How do you make a small fortune in publishing?” “Start with a large fortune.” First of all, I must apologise for over a month’s silence here at booktwo.org. I have, as I promised, been working on something, and it’s finally available for inspection. I hope you won’t mind me discussing it here: certain aspects of it are certainly germane. The project is Bookkake, an entirely print-on-demand, and web-oriented, publisher. For those of delicate tastes, be warned that the initial books are all of a somewhat physical nature that is not unrelated to their status as literature, and... Read the rest of this post →
Back in February, I sketched out this idea on the back of an envelope. I’m pleased to say it is now a reality. Bkkeepr allows you to track your reading and make bookmarks via text message and the web. It uses Twitter as it’s source, generating a timeline of everyone’s reading, as well as pages for people, and pages for books. Once added, users can add their books to the LibraryThing account, check library availability, and much more. There are also all the RSS feeds and widgets you’d expect. I particularly like the... Read the rest of this post →
I wanted to post this quickly, before it gets lost in the weekend. Authors and publishers who use Print-On-Demand printers in the US have recently been hearing that Amazon will only continue to carry their works if they switch to Amazon’s own POD property, BookSurge. WritersWeekly has the full story. This is a pretty big deal. Amazon has around 15%-20% of the total book market (in the UK), but the vast majority of the online book market, which is growing all the time. Meanwhile, POD has been turning from a vanity publisher’s niche into a mainstream printing... Read the rest of this post →
So, it’s finally here, and damn, it’s still ugly. Really, really ugly. Go watch the video demos (short one at the top, longer one lower down). But it has some things going for it. There are a lot of touches I really like, like easy ordering of low-price ebooks direct from Amazon without having to be near a computer. Online back-up of your books is very smart – one customer losing their whole library after dropping one of these in the bath would pretty much kill it. The big page-turner paddles on the side will be good for... Read the rest of this post →
The Internet Archive recently released a demo version of its new Open Library project, about which we are very excited. We’re great fans of the IA, due to the wonderful Bookmobile and the all-encompassing awesomeness of their main site, the largest collection of its kind of publicly-available text, images, audio and video, as well as the world’s largest history of the web. So when we heard they were turning their attention to paper books, we were looking forward to seeing what they came up with. Their mission statement is worth reading in full: What if... Read the rest of this post →
Sorry it’s been quiet around here. With London Lit Plus in full swing for the last couple of weeks, and a new job, it’s been a little hectic. However, we do have one important announcement. Lit+ (litplus.com) is a new booktwo.org project: taking the London Lit Plus ethos – an open-access, distributed literary festival – and turning it into a template that anyone can use to set up their own festival. We’ll be using the same kind of tools – the power of the internet and free software – to create a resource for all.... Read the rest of this post →
Despite my repeated entreaties, no one bought me a ticket for O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference, on this week. It looks like a lot of interesting people, talking about important stuff. Pleased to see that Manolis Kelaidis’ bluebook project, which I wrote about last year, has made an impactful appearance, and I suspect there’s a lot of similarly cool stuff being discussed. Places to find out more: there’s the Conference blog, Andrea Laue’s jusTaText seems to be on the ball, as does Jeff Gomez’s Print is Dead, and there’s always Jeremy’s excited... Read the rest of this post →
Of interest to very few, I imagine, but I’m attending the BBC/Yahoo Hack Day at Alexandra Palace this weekend. Probably only the Sunday, as I’m also attending Interesting 2007 on the Saturday. Busy, busy, busy. Very interested in hooking up with booktwo-interested parties at either. Drop me a line if you’re coming… (Also available via the backnetwork as STML). Would love to hack something, but not much of a hacker. Additional tags: interesting2007, hackdaylondon.
I love it when a plan comes together. A Sunday evening chat on Brick Lane about ways of opening up/gatecrashing/subverting the upcoming London Literature Festival has led very quickly to the creation of London Lit Plus, an open-access festival to showcase the best of London’s literary scenes: London Lit Plus (LL+) is an open festival, which means anyone can participate, and anyone can hold an event. All you have to do to be included is to submit your event, and we’ll add it to the list on this website. We want to showcase all the wonderful... Read the rest of this post →
3:AM Magazine, of which I am a co-editor as well as designer and site developer, today launched a new, Portuguese-language edition dedicated to writing, music and culture from Brazil: 3:AM Brasil. I meant to write about 3:AM when we launched the redesigned site back in January, but didn’t get round to it. It’s a great example of a new kind of literary magazine, fully distributed (editors are based in the UK, France, the Czech Republic, the US, Canada and elsewhere), constantly updated and updatable, a Myspace sensation (with 3:AM Brasil hot on its heels), publishing new... Read the rest of this post →
I just received some rather wonderful news. As a direct result of my recent talk at the British Council, one of the international publishers who was present, Anuradha Roy of Permanent Black in India, has set up a blog to talk to the world about their books. http://permanent-black.blogspot.com/ Publishers of the finest work on South Asia’s history, politics, culture, and ecology. Run by Rukun Advani and Anuradha Roy. Located in Delhi and Ranikhet, India. View our full catalogue at www.orientlongman.com. You’ll find lots more. According to the Internet & Mobile Association of India (whose physical address is... Read the rest of this post →
Something Twitterered, something new… Lots of interesting things come my way via other peoples’ Twitter streams, and this afternoon, via Tom Coates, I heard about Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger’s new book about “Digital Disorder” and “how we’re pulling ourselves together now that we’ve blown ourselves to bits.” Looks fascinating, and I’ll try and get my hands on a copy. From the EIM blog, I imagine there will be some book-related stuff in there, not least that based on conversations about libraries and education and media literacy. From a publisher’s point of view, the... Read the rest of this post →
As regular readers have probably noticed, I’ve been bothered for some time about the general lack of zing in publishing get-togethers, and the massive disparity between the hunger, excitement and inspiration generated at events like FOWA and SXSW and the drab reality of book fairs and similar events. Moreover, I believe this situation is bad for publishing, bad for books, and bad for literature in general. As I’ve argued many times, if we don’t talk to each other, and talk about the future, the massive changes that are coming are going to damage us, and prevent us... Read the rest of this post →
I’ve just agreed to give a fifteen-minute presentation on ‘publishing in the digital age’ at the British Council on Friday, as part of their International Young Publisher programme (which, incidentally, I wrote about last year). Frankly, help me. The other speakers are from the Oxford Brookes Institute of Publishing and the London College of Communications so I will be in excellent company. Topics that spring immediately to mind are: Production: print on demand, phasing gently into ebooks Content: microformats, microchunking, ephemerality of literature Distribution: ebook readers, mobile phones, ipod for books Creation: collaboration, wikis, networked... Read the rest of this post →
A quick note. As I mentioned vaguely before, I’ll be attending all three days of the London Book Fair next week. I’ll be working, but if there’s anyone who’d like to meet up for a drink at the end of the day, please get in touch. I’ll obviously be reporting on any booktwo-related events, on the general techness of this year’s Fair, and of the state of the industry as a whole, so stay tuned.
Hello. Sorry. I’m very busy at the moment and booktwo isn’t getting the attention it deserves, although I hope you’re enjoying the regular Stop Press – it’s all stuff I’d like to write more about if I had more time – also about this, and particularly this, hopefully soon. In the mean time, a heads-up for Londoners about this (ta, Max): Margaret Atwood, Andrew O’Hagan, Stephen Page & Erica Wagner Digitise or Die: What is the Future of the Book? Tuesday 17 April 2007, 7:30 P.M, Queen Elizabeth Hall. What... Read the rest of this post →
In a great example of books+technology improving the world, Mike Anderson of Troubled Diva has persuaded 100 bloggers to provide a humourous short piece of writing for a book to be sold in aid of Comic Relief. The whole project was pulled together in seven days flat and published via Lulu, where you can now buy the book. Including contributions from such luminaries as comedians Richard Herring and Emma Kennedy, BBC 6Music presenter Andrew Collins, James Henry, scriptwriter from Channel Four’s ‘The Green Wing’, and my tipster Siobhan, you can find... Read the rest of this post →
In what should be the last of the round-ups of the Google Unbound conference, but probably won’t be, some more commentators: Why don’t people care enough about literature to steal it? by Stephen Leavitt at the Freakonomics blog Quit Marketing By the Book – a comprehensive write-up by Rebecca Lieb at Clickz.com How to be Cory Doctorow – Seth Godin’s notes from the conference ZDNet’s Report “Interesting bit of media industry theater” – if:book’s Ben Vershbow at the conference I’ll stop now.
Today’s Guardian has a short piece with more Google follow-upping: The iPod has done it with music, Flickr has done it with photos, MySpace has done it with bands and Saatchi is doing it with paintings. The question is: can Google do the same thing with books by creating an international online market place for them enabling readers to download volumes in their entirety – at a price of course – to their iPods, Blackberrys or smartphones? Luckily, the Guardian’s Vic Keegan is more clued-up than Bryan Appleyard – for example, he’s been trying out
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Booktwo.org is the blog of James Bridle, a book and technology specialist with specific expertise in planning and producing web and new media projects for clients in publishing and the arts. If you'd like to hire me, have a look at my CV and portfolio, and feel free to get in touch.
I am also a member of the Really Interesting Group.
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Speaking Engagements:
I am available for conferences and other events. For examples, see my talks at Interesting, Playful, South by Southwest, dConstruct and Tools of Change Frankfurt.
A complete list of talks, with links, is available.
