…The “Will Be Read” side seriously needs an extension. One about twenty feet long…
Final two days of the Birthday Ebook Sale
Friday and Saturday are the last two days for the 60th-birthday ebook sale at Ebooks Direct. 60% off everything until tomorrow night!
http://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/dds-birthday-sale-60-off-everything
So if you had your eye on anything, now’s the time…
“Yes, I know most of you just grab the book and open the cover, but this is about respect, people! Follow protocol, and your reading experience will be technically enjoyable.”
Lol.I just loved this. We must care for the things we cherish. :)
words by caroline la rousse on Flickr.
Books.
And not just the look of them: the scent. Try smelling a Kindle and see where it gets you.
It’s Extra Bonus Happy Leap Year Day
In response to this stirring call to action from the noble and excellent Neil Gaiman (whom everybody should run straight off and hug*), you too have a chance today to Feed A Writer.
The Ebooks Direct store is offering 29% off all orders today. Just use the discount code HAPPYLEAPDAY when you make your purchase. (Info on how to use our discount codes is here if you need it.)
And now we’re going off to recite that great ode The Book Of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered. Bwahahahahaha.
*Seriously, why are you still here? Go do it.
I think we do still need publishers, and I’m certain they will survive the great ‘digital-divide’.
… and so does author Anthony Horowitz.
It’s been almost 600 years since Johannes Gutenberg produced the first printed books, and although Ars Minor, the excellent Latin primer by Aelius Donatus, has now dropped out of the bestseller lists, I like being part of that tradition.
I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment.
Over the past ten or so years, publishing technology has come to insist upon referring to writers and authors as content providers.
A recent description of a cloud-based publishing system led off with; ‘Our platform provides the framework to encapsulate and format the content providers….’
Needless say, I failed to read much past that for fear of a sudden urgency of need for a very stiff drink.
Mr. Horowitz makes the point clearly.
I don’t like being what Apple calls “talent”. I’m an author. And I write books, not “content”.
He goes on to quote one of his, and my own favourite authors, George Orwell, who said:
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon which one can neither resist nor understand…
And concludes;
I think that’s very true, but I think it’s also true of publishers.
Are we in intensive care? I don’t know. But if we are, I’m strangely relieved that we’re there together.
Amen.
…and please, Dear Reader, I urge you to follow the link and read the whole of the quoted authors opinion.
The Orwell quote is particularly to the point.
