You were wondering what happened this week?
Jeffrey Trachtenberg reported this week in the Wall Street Journal that some of the major publishers are planning to delay the e-book release of some of their major titles. Depending on your perspective, the moves are elitist, short-sighted, perceptive, necessary, stupid, arrogant, practical, or some combination of those.
For some of the more nuanced discussions (and really, read through the comment sections), check out posts from HarperStudio, Miriam Goderich, James McQuivey (two links because both comment feeds are worth reading, especially this one from Jack McKeown), Kassia Krozser (two different posts this time), Rose Fox, Phil Simon, Mike Shatzkin, and Todd Sattersten.
Phew. I think it's time for a fluff break. How about an interview with @HalfPintIngalls, otherwise known as Wendy McClure? ("I don't know why you future people like "wire-less" things so much! It makes you harder to find when you're buried in a snowdrift!")
Conveniently, Digital Book World's "Indie Booksellers and the Digital Transition" webinar was already scheduled for this week, and the slides are up.
Back to fluff: Josie and Elizabeth share some of their favorite book rejection stories (and, in case I haven't repeated myself enough this week, read the comments for more).
Mark Bertils weighs in on the bookstore user experience (with some help from Ann Kingman). I'm going to jump in with a tidbit from my usability days: You can't evaluate your own stuff. You're too familiar with it. If you want real user experience data, you need representative users - or in this case, customers. (Shameless plug: We're offering a session on conducting customer surveys at Winter Institute, so if you're thinking about it...)
(Related: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez on indies and community.)
And one more fun thing to end on: the Chronicle of Higher Education's profile of a rare book specialist who's opinionated and cranky - but not in the way you might expect.
Posted at 04:58PM Dec 11, 2009 by Sarah Rettger in General |
