You might have a list of books piling up that you’d like to read from your local library. Especially given these times of stay-at-home, your list might be growing longer. How do you keep track of these books? Sure, a simple written list would work. Or maybe a digital note saved on your computer. I …
How to keep track of books you’d like to borrow from your local library Read More »
Funny, I just went to do a search for a book in my local library. But instead of pulling up the library’s website, I accidentally just googled the name of my town, “Glen Ellyn” and pulled up the village’s website. My first thought was, “huh, they did a site redesign.” Without even thinking, I used …
Imagine every two weeks always having a new book to read. Sounds great, right? You could accomplish this with a subscription to Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Or you could accomplish this with… your local library. I love physical books. I love shelves filled with physical books. I love places with people who love books. Libraries. I …
Harvard is cutting spines off books to digitize them (per an article from goodreader.com). Your first reaction might be, ‘OH NO! NOT THE SPINES! OUR BELOVED BOOKS!” But hey, if the spines of books prevent information from being shared, then so be it. Cut off the spines. What is the function of book spine? To …
(Read the rest of the infographic at goodreads.com) Merge social media with books and you get the fantastic site Goodreads.com. If you love books and you aren’t on goodreads yet, what are you waiting for? With 25 million members, Goodreads is THE place online to discover and review books. Every day I love reading my …
2013 was the year of lists. Will 2014 continue the heavy use of lists? Yes, 2014 will bring more lists. Specifically for the masses, there will be more lists in 2014. However, for the more attuned reader, lists will become less popular. Perhaps instead we will see more interdisciplinary articles. Topics that merge various fields …
It’s ironic that the introduction in the book “How to Write Short” is too long. The table of contents is not viewable in the Amazon preview, because the introduction goes beyond the word limit. Regardless, I love Roy Peter Clark’s “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.” In my quest to become a better …
Books and shopping baskets. They really quite similar. While shopping with my girlfriend yesterday, I held the basket while she picked them items and handed them to me. I asked her if it felt weird passing off the groceries and not carrying them into a basket or cart. She said that it did feel abstract. …
Grocery shopping can be a simile for reading books Read More »
This is the most hilarious thing all month! I think it might take the cake for funniest thing I’ve seen so far all of 2013! The 80s-style story of two gangs fighting it out also provides such a great backdrop to this gag. This is sorta like the music video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I …
Joel Mathis makes these three great points in: “Three features we’d want in an Amazon used ebooks marketplace” 1) All ebooks should retain their marginalia 2) Unlimited lending/giving 3) Let a real used marketplace develop Please consider reading his points in detail on his blog post. Here’s my commentary on each point: 1) All ebooks …
ebook marginalia, ebook lending, and used ebook lending Read More »
Barnes and Noble should abandon the device market in favor of innovating in other areas of ebooks. states O’Reilly’s Joe Wikert. He’s right on with that. He’s also right on with that Barnes and Noble needs to innovate their reading app for smartphones and tablets. Yeah! Totally. But Wikert is off the mark when he …
When B&N abandons hardware, what should they do next? Read More »
The best explanation of why the ePub format for ebooks is seriously flawed: “The publishing industry has a problem, and EPUB is not the solution” by Jani Patokallio. I have to say most of it is right on. This article makes me ask many questions. If epubs are geared for publishers and not readers, what …
Amazon buys the popular social book reading website Goodreads. Is that good or bad news for Goodreads? Possible good news Book exchange system through Goodreads. From Kevin Eagan: “I could see Amazon’s used ebook store platform (now just a credible rumor) integrated with the Goodreads platform. Goodreads already gives away ebooks on their site, so this is possible.” …
Good news and bad news from Amazon buying Goodreads Read More »
The comments on “Losing the book as a symbol” are very interesting, touching on points of symbols vs. experiences. These two are frames that I will use to look up on how I perceive things. The author François Joseph de Kermadec argues how “Publishing needs to build new symbols for the digital age” and our current …
People still are not discovering books online, according to by Laura Hazard Owen’s article, “Why online book discovery is broken (and how to fix it).” Most people are discovering books in real stores and then purchasing them on Amazon. It goes to show that books are real and people like looking through real books. (Me …
The Library of the future is coming and it has no books! San Antonio has plans for a bookless library. The rendering is quite curious. iMac-o-rama I love me some iMacs, but is the future of libraries really all the same computers? For some reason, I’d like to see a diversity of computers. I like …
Would you like to be able to download all your notes and highlights from your Kindle books? Amazon doesn’t make it easy, but here’s the workaround way to get your notes and highlights. 1) Sign into your online kindle account. Go to: https://kindle.amazon.com and sign in. 2) Find the book you want to copy your …
How to archive all your Kindle notes and highlights Read More »
Do you remember when Amazon used to rank books by their popularity in various cities? I enjoyed seeing which books were topselling in Chicago. Or at my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University. But Amazon no longer has those rankings listed with the books. What gives? To find the answer, I tweeted this question and my …
What happened to Amazon’s book rankings by city? Read More »
What size should you make your ebook cover? There are many devices with different size screens. One size fits all Many people recommend a generic 600×800 size. But that’s for older e-ink screens. Three experts online each have a different recommendation for a catch-all size. Kindle Expert recommends 1876×2500 (7/12/2012). Cinda Fernando likes 1600×2400 (9/27/2012). …
Do you like the “B” capitalized in eBook? I don’t. ebook looks more normal. eBook looks like it’s trying to do something. Like it should be eBook™ We don’t spell email to be eMail. That would be dumb. Just look at that. eMail. That’s silly, isn’t it? I’m gonna spell it ebook from now on. …