Kindles, iPads and Nooks “are the ultimate brown paper wrapper,” says Brenda Knight, associate publisher at Cleis Press, of Berkeley, Calif., a publisher of erotica since 1980.
Mainstream publishers are launching digital-only erotic labels to feed demand. At the end of the month, HarperCollins UK will launch Mischief Books, with the tag line “private pleasures with a hand-held device.”
via How Kindle, Nook and iPad Fuel Sales of Erotica for Women – WSJ.com.
Mike Shatzkin proposes publishers experiment selling ebooks to libraries and seeing what happens to sales.
I accept the major premise. If it were just as easy to get ebooks from libraries as it is from retailers, over time more and more customers would migrate to the libraries. But, the more I think about it, the less I accept the notion that total withdrawal from the library market is necessary to create a clear advantage for the retailer as a destination for ebook readers. In fact, it is possible that putting ebooks into libraries, in the right ways, could increase sales at retail. And the only way for publishers to find that out is to do some controlled experimentation in that marketplace. To my knowledge, that’s not taking place.
via Thinking more about ebooks and libraries and what big publishers should do – The Shatzkin Files.
A couple of weeks ago I spent some time away at Phillip Island with my bike and some books. I didn’t end up reading much but got some nice rides in. Full set of pictures is on Flickr.
Just like it says on the tin.
I may have sounded a bit dismissive of Brittancia the other day so I thought I’d add something:
We had a set of encyclopedias in our house when I was young, along with the odd dictionary or two. If any of us kids asked Dad what something was or what a word meant, his standard response was, “Look it up!” It’s one of the best things he did for me.
But the encyclopedia format was always going turn fully digital ahead of most other printed items.
The London Library refers to the people that use it as members. Nice. Its a private library so the mechanism of joining is a bit more explicitly membership-like than how public library patrons (at least in the United States) get library cards.
My experience, in Australia, is the majority of library staff refer to “users”. But when people come in to join the library, they either ask to get a library card or to become a member.
EDIT: Of course, a lot of people use our library without ever becoming members, which is how we end up with slightly awkward terms like users and patrons.
ANOTHER EDIT: I wonder if we could just call them, um, “people”.