Comic books and graphic novels delve into digital

Comic book visionaries are bringing their favorite characters to the iPad, in a multitude of ways, according to TrendCentral:

DC Comics’ Same Day Digital, now releases digital versions of their comics simultaneously with print editions. Available for iOS devices, Android handsets, and PCs, the comics are initially priced the same as the printed books ($2.99), but drop by $1.00 after four weeks. DC timed its digital launch with The New 52, a reboot of 52 iconic characters with updated stories, costume redesigns and a series reset to issue #1.

Chris Ware’s new work, Touch Sensitive, is a 99-cent comic available within the free McSweeney’s app -- which is great way to connect with a specific audience. Available only on the iPad, the 14 swipe-able pages of art and animation feature Ware’s trademark social commentary, contemporary layout, and annular characters.

And digital comics leader IDW Publishing, who offers several comic storefront apps, now has the largest collection of graphic novels available in the iBooks store to date. Titles include Dead Space, Dragon Age, and G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds, all of which utilize the new fixed-layout ePub format, for $6-$10 a pop.

Do you enjoy digesting comics digitally?

The Art of Writing

The majority of my time at my job is spent working on a computer, typing. Whenever November comes around and I attempt to write holiday cards, it is not uncommon for me to literally get a cramp in my hand. How pathetic!

I wanted to share this awesome project, because many people are in a similar situation to mine-- the art of writing is slowly dying.

Ecriture Infinie is an art project by Bili Bidjocka: eight giant-sized books made of blank, silent pages placed around the world one at a time. Each installation includes a large writing desk, a lamp, a pen. One by one, people approach the pages and leave their mark. They are invited to write as if it were the last time they could write by hand. The focus is not so much on the words, but on the gesture, the flow of the pen on paper, recorded on video. When each book is completed, it is sealed, wrapped, and hidden in a secret place, as in a time capsule. Will the people who will find the books in thousands of years be able to decipher it?

Track the travel of the current eighth book here.

20 re-imagined book covers from Flavorwire

Under the influence of characters, setting, and plot, a number of artists have recreated book covers of some of the most beloved literature. Check out 20 of Flavorwire's top picks inspired by the likes of J.D Salinger, The Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl here.

Borrow Kindle books from your library

File this under "A" for "Amazing" or "Amazon." You can now check out a Kindle book from your local library by grabbing it from their website (already 11,000 libraries are down with the program) and read it on any generation Kindle device or free Kindle reading app. Don't worry, when you borrow a Kindle public library book, you'll still have access to all the unique features of Kindle books. And after it expires, if you check it out again or choose to purchase it from the Kindle store, all of your annotations and bookmarks will be preserved!

Your bed time story just got 100 times cooler

The Infinite Adventure Machine (prototype 01) from David Benqué on Vimeo.

You've got to check out this bedtime story ipad app being funded by Microsoft (called Infinite Adventure Machine). The creators set out to explore the links between imagination and computation. Tales and myths; the core narratives of human culture, have been transmitted for generations through various technologies and media. So they were curious about what new forms might they take through digital formats and artificial intelligence.

This app takes 31 different narrative elements from tons of fairytales to initiate story plots. The user then uses their imagination to fill in the details, or can reload the page for another story plot. Is it really a bedtime story app if you never want to go to sleep?

(Via @brandflakes)

Check out a "living book"

In an effort to combat budget cuts and ebooks, City Centre Library in Surrey, British Columbia, which is scheduled to open next month, has created the first ever "living books" program.

Basically in addition to bound volumes, the library will also provide residents with access to people. The librarian staff will maintain a list of local residents who have volunteered to share their knowledge of any topic, and other library patrons can make appointments for 30-45-minute conversations.

According to Good.is, librarian Ravi Basi told CTV British Columbia that the Surrey library staff initially imagined the living books initiative as a way to break down barriers between people of different races or religions, but people with interesting careers, life experiences, or academic research topics would make good volunteers as well.

The library is connecting local neighbors in a social atmosphere and advocating for open-knowledge sharing. My only question is how long until this hits the US?

A new kind of ink book

McSweeney's brand new children's imprint has a book coming out in December that you'll want to get your hands on- literally. Remember those cool hypercolor tshirts you wore when you were in elementary school that changed color when you touched them? Well, the book equivalent has been created!

Keep Our Secrets by Jordan Crane will be printed with thermally-activated color-changing ink that lets kids discover hidden illustrations as the heat from their fingers rubbing the pages causes some ink layers to become transparent (check out the video below). It's a fun way to encourage children to learn and explore on their own.

In an industry ripe for innovation, we're seeing some exciting changes recently. Push Pop Press, acquired earlier this year by Facebook set out to re-imagine books on the iPad. Now we've got a publisher re-inventing the wheel with a hard-cover. How would you change books to enhance the way we interact with them?

A Facebook fanpage that's not putting anyone to sleep

If you're thinking of hopping onto Facebook with your book, to reach the growing audience of over 750 million active users, go for it! But before you build your fanpage, you've got to check out the one for Harpercollins' Before I Go To Sleep. This is a fanpage that has been executed brilliantly, and as a result has garnered over 9,038 fans! Here are a few specifics they rocked, that you should apply to your page:

The landing page they created encourages folks to "Like" the page (making incoming viewers into permanent fans so the author's updates will appear in their home feed) and explains what the benefit will be of doing so. Basically the author is revealing the contents of the book, chapter by chapter, and the next portion is only released after reaching a certain number of fans. Because of this, the viewers gain something of value by liking the page. And this sort of contest is a great way to get people talking about your book, and sharing it with their friends.

Another highly functional feature included on the landing page are the links directing readers to places the book can be purchased. Thus they've made it easy to convert the reader from a passive observer to a buyer. Don't make your customers work to buy your book.

(Feeling overwhelmed already? No worries, you can easily create these types of custom pages for your book. I found a useful tool today, called Pagemodo for creating free custom landing page, that might help. And there are companies like HyperArts that will build one for you.)

In addition Before I Go To Sleep made excellent use of custom tabs that you can add onto your fanpage, including an option to listen to the audio book, check out the book trailer, and get a signed bookplate. As I mentioned earlier last week, giving away content is an excellent way to interest people in a book

And finally the fanpage's wall is filled with entertaining and engaging updates from the author. The content ranges from news about the book, to polls, to personal thank-yous.

So there you have it folks- what are you waiting for? Get busy!

Innovative University Press giving away installments

I read this morning that The University of Michigan Press is hoping to entice Facebook members into purchasing two new releases this summer by posting installments from each novel on the press’s Facebook page over the next eight weeks. Their reason for doing so is that the books are by two authors whom “people might not recognize"- and the giveaway introduces these authors' work to readers who might otherwise not want to take a risk on them.

I've seen a lot of publishing folks worry about giving away content (what if readers copy/paste or modify? where will it end up? which part do we give away? etc), but frankly I think this is a great move.

What better way to interest people in a book, than by offering a sneak peak within the cover. Then you're not just telling people what they're going to get, they can see for themselves. And if they like it, they can easily share it with their friends. Like anything else, I'm sure installment giveaways work best for certain books. It's important to take the time to find the right chapters to promote, and also to track how many people are reading, sharing, and then purchasing.

Keep it free though! "Content has a higher chance of being downloaded and shared with peers if it is free – A study that David Meerman Scott conducted showed that the ratio is 50:1 for free downloads vs form downloads," Wordviewediting.com. Based on that evidence, I'd say publishers should be making the content easily accessible- not requiring registration, or even "liking" the press' fanpage. As Seth Godin has pointed out before 'registration for content’ feels more like a transaction, causing people to expect both sides to be of equal value, so you have a chance of disappointing. However free content is more like a gift.

Readers are already used to this treatment. Amazon lets you preview a chapter or two of most books. If you're not thinking about offering free content, you'd better start thinking!

Penguin audio book ads- well done

I Believe in Advertising is featuring very unique and intriguing poster ads for Penguin Audio today. Beautifully illustrated classics, in an ear canal- simple yet gets the point across.

How many can you name?

A lot of the greats pictured here! So cute!

10 awesome literary Tumblrs

Check out:
1.) http://iheartclassics.tumblr.com/
written by Sterling Publishing- They curate the classics so you don’t have to…mixing modern culture and classic lit. The classics are more relevant than you think!
2.) http://irisblasi.tumblr.com/
written by Iris Blasi- Coordinator of Digital Media for literary public relations firm Hilsinger-Mendelson East. Formerly an editor. Forever a reader.
3.) http://literarynerd.tumblr.com/
written by Kylie- Literature. Reading. Writing. Films. Craft. Design. Fashion. Travel. Adventure. Joy. Life.
4.) http://vintageanchor.tumblr.com/
written by Vintage/Anchor (Knopf Doubleday)- From Classic to Contemporary—The Best Books in Paperback.
5.) http://bookmania.tumblr.com/
written by Archie- Book Mania is an inspirational blog celebrating the amazing power of reading. It mainly features books & excerpts of various masterpieces published around the world. Aside from those, it likewise posts images of the world’s most beautiful premiere libraries, bookshelves, bookshops & cool book stuff.
6.) http://prettybooks.tumblr.com/
written by Stacey- The Pretty Books blog mainly involves sharing photos of beautiful books but I also frequently post book reviews, quotations, recommendations, discussions, and articles.
7.) http://bookshelfporn.com/
written by Anthony Dever- Porn for book lovers. A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.
8.) http://cinderellainrubbershoes.tumblr.com/ (Love the background and all the added features- good use of "ask me anything" and she connects her other sites, goodreads, etc to her page) written by just another girl who successfully wriggles out of the rabbit hole of college and is now trekking the Wonderland of literature and journalism.
9.) http://www.somewhereoverthesun.com/ (Good use of tabs at the top linking to places to purchase the book, and includes some customer reviews as posts)
written by Adi Alsaid- Thoughts about writing.
10.) http://betterbooktitles.com/
written by Dan Wilbur- This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic crap, and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!

What's your favorite author, book, or literature related Tumblr?

10 ways authors should use Tumblr

Why use Tumblr as an author?

*Reach a new demographic and interest them with your material: In the U.S. Tumblr's audience tends to be younger — 56% of the service’s 25.2 million monthly visitors are under 34, and users skew slightly more male (52%). If that sounds like your average reader, you may want to give it a go!

*Tumblr has built-in networking elements that lets you tap into its community.

*It is very fast and easy to get short-form content onto your Tumblelog including video, images, quotes, etc. You can use bookmarklets, mobile apps, phone posting, IM submissions and other tools to post content.

*You can use Tumblr as your main blog, or use it to lead traffic to your real blog.

A few pointers for setting up your Tumblr:

*Use detailed description text for your profile information- make it consistent with your other online profiles

*Spend time selecting a "theme" that meshes well with your internet presence (use the same logo across everything / develop a color palette)

*Cross pollinate – list or link to your blog, Twitter, and Facebook profile urls

10 things you should do on Tumblr:

1.) Make sure you use “tags." When you put together a post, type in a few tags in the "tag" box on the right (these are similar to Twitter's hashtags; you're just indicating what topics your post involves so people can more easily find it)

2.) Find and follow topics and other blogs you enjoy by going to “explore tumblr” or typing a word into the search box on the right (from your dashboard). A good channel to follow is: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/lit

3.) Favorite other people’s posts (by clicking on the heart icon on the post). The blogger who made the post will get a notification that you indicated their post as a favorite and may start following your blog.

4.) Reblog other people's posts that are relevant to you and your fans. This will help keep your content exciting and these folks will get a notification that you reblogged their post and may start following your blog.

5.) Post only truncated/short posts, or posts that slightly differ from your main site's content.

6.) Tumblr is a very visual network, try to use attractive images that capture attention and will stand out from other posts.

7.) Keep it fun- share cool bookmarks you've found, book tshirts you like, the latest book you enjoyed reading, an article about publishing you can relate to, etc.

8.) Include the "ask" feature on your page, and engage folks with questions in your posts.

9.) Post a contest, which can easily be reblogged.

10.) Include an "about" page where readers can learn more about you, and your books.

Book "Marks"

Haha check out these great book “Marks” (including Mark Wahlberg, Mark Zukerberg, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, Mark Anthony and Mark Hamill) via The Cheeky

The Kindle Million Club gets a new member

Today, Amazon announced that self-published author John Locke, has sold over 1 million books using Kindle Direct Publishing becoming the first independently published author inducted into the “Kindle Million club.” Current members of the "club" include authors like Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins and Michael Connelly.

Locke, the international best-selling author of seven Donovan Creed novels, all of which have made the Amazon/Kindle Top 20 Best Seller's List, has published nine total works including: “Vegas Moon,” “Wish List,” “A Girl Like You,” and “Saving Rachel.”

Tech Crunch sums up the situation well, "Taking a look at Locke’s works (i.e. Now & Then, which pictures a half-naked woman on the cover), it looks like he may not be in line for a Pulitzer, but the milestone is impressive for an independent author."

Awesome takeover for Bloodmoney

I love these high impact units- they don't obstruct anything on the site from readers' view, yet there's still no way to miss them. W.W.Norton & Company, Inc just ran a really cool skin and banner ads on Powerline for Bloodmoney with us (blogads) on Friday. From the author of the best-selling Body of Lies and The Increment: in a tragedy of revenge, the CIA falls victim to its own daring operation in the Middle East. Check out the book and contact us to learn more about how you can run a skin!

The most practical bookmark

New age meets old.

Adorable

book lover shirt available over at Threadless.

10 ways authors should use their Facebook fanpage

1.) Draw your blog's RSS feed into your fanpage with apps like Social RSS

2.) Show off your book trailer videos or live interviews with the Youtube app

3.) Update with tour info, like location and dates by creating an event. After the event, post your photos in an album on the page.

4.) Expand your network by inviting friends to become fans with a note explaining what value the page will provide, and a link to it.

5.) Encourage folks who land on the page to like it, by creating and implementing a specific landing page, asking them to do so, and giving them something (like a free book chapter) in return. Check out Facebook for Business's fanpage for an example.

6.) "Like" other pages to help build your community.

7.) Hold contests and giveaways.

8.) Include links in the "about" box to places where your books can be purchased.

9.) Respond fast to comments folks leave. When fans are engaging you, it's a good sign!

10.) Ask questions, start discussions and create polls (ex. asking your fans to vote on a topic they'll care about).

10 ways authors can treat their Twitter followers well

1.) Give your followers a shout out by recommending them on #followfriday and #writerwednesday (if they too are authors). And retweet their updates any day, if you relate.
2.) Teach your followers something. Explain the best way to start an outline, to query an agent, how to advertise your book, how to price your ebook, etc.
3.) Give away free books or bookmarks.
4.) Make them laugh. People are on Twitter to be entertained. Nothing captures attention, like something humorous.
5.) Hold contests- for example, literature trivia.
6.) Update with information you've not made available elsewhere- like a tour location you just booked.
7.) Connect your followers with each other- make introductions.
8.) Invite your followers to a chat/discussion around a certain topic, with a specific hashtag everyone can follow.
9.) Give your followers control, let them determine where your next reading will be, or what the name of the next chapter should be.
10.) Spice it up, include pictures (maybe use a popular service like Instagram), ask questions, let them know a personal life detail or two.

Crowdsourced funding for books

A new UK start-up is on the publishing scene, called Unbound, and it's a model worth examining. I'm curious to see how many successful books they're able to launch, and if a singular genre ends up taking off.

Basically Unbound is a program for creating new books, where in folks can pledge money towards publishing titles they enjoy; if the goal amount is raised, the book gets made. It's sort of a combination of Threadless (i.e. focuses on only one product type- books, and only the things the crowd likes actually get made) with Kickstarter and IndieGoGo (i.e. individual people pledge funds towards making the writer's dream happen, get rewards in return, and each writer has their own book page, video, etc.).

It looks like the "rewards" for every book are exactly the same though, which is one difference from Kickstarter's platform. The rewards range from a digital copy of the book to a launch lunch party. This makes the pledging based more on individual's desire for that specific writing style/author than their interest in a unique gift offering-- allowing the authors to concentrate on their true craft- writing.

If the books don't receive enough pledges, they don't get made- the most "successful" campaign posted thus far has only reached 3% of its goal but it has 46 days left, so fear not, perhaps. I read on Adpulp that campaigns with videos raise more money, according to IndiegGoGo and so far all the books featured have made videos, a pitch, an excerpt, and bios.

A unique feature to Unbound is the promoter opportunity. Unbound will reward you with 1 credit (£1) for every supporter you have referred when the books target is met. It's their way to encourage you to do their marketing.

I'm curious what % of the total money raised Unbound receives. I think Kickstarter takes a 5% fee.

Currently Unbound is only adding projects for authors with proven track records, but it looks like they hope to expand and increase their diversity of offerings-- taking submissions from "the public at large."

So at a basic level Unbound plucked a category off of Kickstarter and had a go at it. I'd like to see a similar concept executed for records/CDs. Actually speaking of music, I'd also like to see a platform like this that allows you to basically petition your favorite band to come perform in your area. Does something like either of those already exist?

How do you think Unbound will fair?

Find your book campaign

An adorable new print poster campaign is out for Gandhi Bookstores featuring little red riding hood, samsa and alice in wonderland. The campaign encourages you to "Find your book." Everyone has a favorite book they relate to, and this campaign captures that desire-- to put yourself in the shoes of the main character and delve into a new world. Illustrator Ricardo Salamanca really brings the concept to life with his deep detailed images. This is something I could even picture on a child's bedroom wall, which means they've provided real value to the consumer. Beautiful!

Now if I could just look like a book....

Ever awoken wishing you smelled more like a book? No? Me neither. But, the good news is, you can, if you so desire.

Karl Lagerfeld the eccentric creative director at Chanel and Fendi, has developed a new fragrance called Paper Passion, which will smell like books. He's not the first though, as perfumes like Demeter Fragrance Library Paperback, Opus II Library Collection Eau De Parfum by Amouage, have been around for quite some time. Though at $325 a pop, I'd prefer to spend a day in the library for free, hoping to absorb the fumes, rather than spray them on me.

Be a story-teller on the go

Self-publishing company, Blurb, is launching a free mobile app that lets people tell and share creative stories in new ways, reports Mashable. The app will let users create shareable stories using photos, videos and audio sourced from their devices; they'll be able to rotate, crop, scale, sequence events via drag-and-drop, incorporate geotags and otherwise edit mobile story content as they see fit. Resulting stories can then be shared as digital booklets via email, Facebook or Twitter. Definitely a fun tool if you're stuck in an airport with hours of delays and plenty of content on your phone, but beyond that, I believe creating engaging stories is a fine craft that most people won't be able to master on the move.

Book takeover!

Folks, I can't resist pointing it out-- we've (Blogads) got a beautiful skin running on Wonkette.com today for One Nation Under Sex by Larry Flynt, the legendary publisher of Hustler magazine. I love the way skins effectively grab your attention! If you're interested in the book, it's available for purchase here.

Penguin's Book Country

Looking to support and develop writers of genre fiction, Penguin is launching a public beta of Book Country, a free online writing community and publishing services venture, Publisher's Weekly reports. Book Country, which has been in development for over a year, offers writers a place to upload new works and receive feedback and criticism from a community of writers and readers; a place for agents and editors to look for new talent; and eventually the venture will offer a suite of self-publishing services that will offer e-book and print publication for a fee.

So if you're an author, which do you choose: Harpercollins' Authonomy or Penguin's Book Country?

A few pros to Book Country:

• An emphasis on helping authors get valuable feedback
  
• Former literary agent and popular Twitter personality Colleen Lindsay is a Book Country community manager and a moderater on the boards
• It features a Genre Map, an interactive literary “map” of the known literary world, that uses a variety of landmark titles in various genres (say Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress for Hard Boiled Noir) to point Book Country members to literary stars as well as literary hopefuls working in the genre

A few pros to Authonomy:

• A focus on getting great books published
• A public scoreboard
• Been around longer, so better established and perhaps a larger community
  
• Clear writing tips in addition to discussion
• Lower barriers to entry as you can upload your works right away without critiquing others first
  

Anyone have any experiences with either community, that they'd like to share?

Simon & Schuster's tweetable ad generates 292 tweets!

We (Blogads) recently rolled out a “Tweet this” button for ads, allowing advertisers to recommend a Twitter update directly from an ad. Simon & Schuster was one of the first advertisers to use the tweetable Blogads, while promoting Bethenny Frankel’s new book A Place of Yes and the results have been phenomenal! Simon & Schuster's engaging suggested tweet text included the author's twitter handle, a link to the book, and a reason for viewers to care. In all, the ads generated 292 tweets and over 6,700 clicks.

This is just the latest innovation to our custom units, and it’s proving to be a big win for advertisers who are looking to spark their own Twitter trend. Get started building your own now!

Simple and creative advertising

Cool campaign for Mint Vinetu book store by Love Agency.

Great looking stories

Check out how the book Tree of Codes was made. Visual Editions worked with Die Keure in Belgium to produce the book, after they were turned down by every other printer they approached – with claims of "this book can't be made."

A cheaper Kindle

"We're working hard to make sure that anyone who wants a Kindle can afford one," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a prepared statement, reports CNN Money. The result of those efforts is a new ad-laden Kindle that will sell for $114, which is $25 less than its current ad-free counterpart. The ads will appear on the screensaver and at the bottom of the home screen. An interesting twist is that Amazon plans to mix together advertisements from launch sponsors including Buick, Olay and Visa with daily-deal style discount coupons (like their own $10 for $20 deal featured on Living Social in the past). Is the $25 difference really enough to offset the "annoyance factor" of the ads? I think it might be. There's a chance, judging by the success rate of the Living Social offer, that people will welcome them. According to The NY Times ads have been in physical books for a while, and in one 1972 study, while readers claimed to dislike the idea of advertising in books, after actual exposure their negative feelings declined while brand awareness climbed. At any rate, I'm glad Amazon stayed away from in-text ads, as those would be more disruptive and intrusive-- but if we look at how written content has been supported online, it may not far behind. Perhaps a $89 Kindle is on the way.....

From an album into a book

Christophe Gowans, a graphic designer who lives in London, imagined albums as book covers-- a pretty cool idea! His collection includes everything from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Michael Jackson as something you might find in a library or a book store. For example, check out Arcade Fire's The Suburbs pictured to the left-- looks like an old school book of the month. You can view the well-thumbed covers here.

Share your notes

Readum from Travis Alber on Vimeo.

Times are a changin! But not really-- remember the way you used to seek out a copy of the required book for your college class with the most comments and highlighting already done in it, by another (presumably smart) student? Well it's something we're all still doing-- taking notes as we digest what we read, and trying to connect with other folks' opinions. Now there's an easier (digital) way to annotate and share parts of books-- Readum integrates Google books and Facebook, allowing you to select passages and comment on them-- both within the book and on your social wall/group. Could allow for some lively banter, pre-book club meeting. Pretty cool!

Party's on Twitter!

Hey ya'll! This morning I found an amazing list of book industry folks on Twitter and thought I'd share with you-- so you can get involved in the conversation!

Sections you might be most interested in:
Book Publisher Company Accounts
Book Publisher Individual Accounts
Literary Agents Accounts

There are 355 comments under the list, so it's worth trolling through there for additional influential folks-- like my good friends @juliabaxter @mjrose @mitzpa and @liternista.

Using a tool like Twiangulate to see shared friends/followers is extremely effective as well.

Poetry: spread the word

Writer, Greg Pincus, wants to spread poetry from online to the classroom. So far he's raise $1,940 towards his $5,000 goal. If Poetry: Spread the Word is funded, over the course of the next year (roughly May, 2011 through April, 2012), he will put 100 original poems up on his blog and out into the world for free and do 40 school visits (via Skype or, if it works out, in person) at no cost to the schools. He'll also create a collection that will celebrate and document the visits and the poetry--and you could get it! What are you waiting for, check out his Kickstarter project and pledge now!

When it comes to self-publishing

Over the weekend Derek Murphy, author of Jesus Potter Harry Christ, wrote a detailed post discussing ways to promote a self-published book. He's got a plan and he's willing to share! He recommends:
1.) Getting reviews
2.) Getting your kindle page set up
3.) Advertising with Blogads to spread the word (now you know why it's a great plan:))
4.) Choosing a peak time (i.e. when do people give a darn about the topic you wrote about?)
So far, only one other author has weighed in. What would you add to the recipe for success?

HarperCollins crowdsourcing community

Stumbled upon this gem via @brainpicker's article on Crowdfunding for Creativity. authonomy^TM is a writing community for writers, readers and publishers, conceived and developed by book editors at HarperCollins. Their goal is to flush out the brightest, freshest new literature around. Basically they want the crowd to spot the next big bestseller. At the end of every month the top 5 ranked books are delivered to the desks of HarperCollins editors. The board reads them and delivers feedback to the author’s authonomy profile. Each book only has one chance at this. In addition, you can submit your own manuscript, get advice, or write reviews of others. This is a fun idea-- there's no way any one editor can interact with all the content available on any given day or read all the thousands of potential books out there. Tapping the crowd for their collective curation seems like a good way to address the problem-- as long as the crowd is educated. Any other publishing companies doing something similar?

Literature Action Dolls

The Brontë-Sisters (and their supersize mustaches?!) have been correctly cast as power dolls!

Books by hand

Sounds daunting right? A ton of craftsmanship involved in an old handmade book (check out the video). It seems that this attention to detail has been lost over the years. You'd think mostly because no one is willing to pay for it. We're a society that at the moment is demanding 1/2 off coupons (Groupon and all its clones), not better quality.

And then Sci Fi was born

Apparently it wasn't quite as simple as popping out of a belly. Check out artist Ward Shelley's beautifully detailed diagram of the history of Sci Fi.

Plunge into your book

Check out the clever Baleine bookmark by Atypyk.

Be me for a day

I couldn't resist spreading the word about this. Writer and director Clay Weiner is out with a book (Try-Ons) that chronicles his attempt to "Be Somebody." Basically Clay tests out the old "try walking a mile in their shoes" by living the lives of an eccentric array of real and imaginary characters. “Growing up, I was always told to be somebody,” says Weiner. “In an attempt to find myself, I tried 85 personas. I’m still confused.” I love the idea behind this. We spend our whole lives trying to figure ourselves out-- why not make at least make it fun.

File this under WHOAAAA Amazing!

Artist Brian Dettmer explores the richness of the physical book, in an effort to preserve history by constructing amazing visual pieces out of original novels. In his own words, "In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories. My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception." How cool is that!? Head on over and check out his collection of amazing pieces. His online image gallery goes back as far as 2005.

Have you heard of Push Pop Press?

Push Pop Press is creating a new breed of digital books by bringing together great content and beautiful software. These books let you explore photos, videos, music, maps, and interactive graphics, all through a new physics-based multi-touch user interface.

They recently shared a sneak peek at their app, with co-founder and former Apple designer Mike Matas showing off an interactive iOS version of Al Gore’s book Our Choice. Confused about what their app could bring to the book? Here are a few examples: there’s about an hour and a half of video content, 20 interactive infographics, and all photos can be plotted on a map so the reader knows precisely where it was taken, and Gore narrates parts of the book.

Mashable states that, "The interface goes far beyond what one would find with Kindle or iBooks. The entire screen is occupied by content, and multimedia items can literally be lifted off the page using finger gestures. You can also pinch and zoom on just about any piece of content, and you can move through the book’s various chapters using your finger to scroll."

Crochet Sock Monkey Bookmark

Skip to my Lou has a great list of handmade bookmark ideas including fabric bookmarks, a beautiful wood bookmark, paint chip bookmarks, and the crochet sock monkey one pictured to the left.

Shaking the Publishing Industry Up

26-year old Amanda Hocking is the best-selling "indie" writer on the Kindle store and is making millions cutting out traditional publishers. Hocking keeps 70% of her ebook sales -- and she sells around 100,000 copies per month, each for $3, and some $.99. But that's the point: by lowering the prices, she can make more on volume, especially impulse buys. Hocking's fan base stems from her blog, not having had a contract with a traditional publisher in the past-- truly a self-made author. This is why Amazon may dominate. Read more.

Crowdsourcing a Game into a Novel

The Black Helix is an Alternate Reality Game in which players will become part of an unwritten story, as once it's complete it will be published as the first crowd sourced ARG fiction novel. Basically as the players take actions in the game, they're recorded into the story. The game just went live today, and there's a live component kicking in on March 14th. Is this the future of novels? Play a game and you're a writer? It's interactive and social-- but who's going to read it? I wonder if serious ARG gamers spend that much time reading; will the people who "wrote" it even buy it? (Hat tip Brand Flakes for Breakfast for the lead.)

Cute Bookmark Set

Here's a fun freebie bookmark set for bookworm in your life, created by Inomi.

Map of Borders in North America

Publishers Weekly has an interactive map that shows users which Borders are closing, and which are staying open-- as of now. Check it out here. The most interesting thing the summary map shows is that the majority of Borders stores are located in the North Eastern part of the country. (Due to the number and density of stores, the map shows many of them clustered in the red (largest number of stores) yellow (medium number of stores) and blue (smaller number of stores) circles you see to the left.)

Hey Lady, there's a cat stuck in your book

Check out the handmade peeking cat bookmarks by blacklilypie.

The Writing is on the Wall

Have no fear, this is not a tribute to Destiny's Child. Instead I'm referring to the Novel Poster Kickstarter project that aims to help you decorate your walls with scenes depicting great novels using only words from the books or illustrations of profound tweeps, only using their tweets. I'm not really understanding the leap from Charles Dickens to Kanye. I know there is already a company out there, Poster Text, doing the book to poster thing. Seems it would be more interesting for Novel Poster to stick to new journalism- beyond Twitter, what about tumblr streams or blog posts? I'm also curious how far back the tweets end up going in order to have enough to create the image. Are you planning on purchasing a poster?

Barnes & Noble Brand Refresh

Bookseller Barnes & Noble has hired Mullen, Boston, as its creative agency to work on refreshing its brand. Barnes & Noble is expected to make a $40 million investment in marketing, including a new look for stores. The effort is coming none to soon, as they're fighting tooth and nail (to enhance the Nook to compete with Amazon's Kindle) to stay relevant. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of creative ideas Mullen is able to cook up! What would you recommend? Full story on AdAge.

And the Huck Finn controversy continues

While Publisher NewSouth Books is attempting to get "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" back on library shelves and in classrooms by publishing a new version that removes the controversial "n-word" and replaces it with the word "slave," Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine believe it should be replaced with the word "robot"-- so they've set out to make their own. Why robots? They're "in" right now and statistically, people prefer robots to the word "n-word." But don't take my word for it, read more about their Kickstarter project that's already raised over $13,000 of their $6,000 goal.

Anyone else catch Seth Godin's latest move?

Seth Godin tries a clever variation on Groupon to gather signups for his newsletter. The more people that sign up, the lower his product's price. He'll lower the ebook price by $1 for every 5,000 people who sign up for his free online newsletter. So far it's down from $9.99 to $7.99. Are you signing up? Details here.

Have a spine

While there's a huge fuss over book covers, often book spines get neglected. That's where Fixabook comes in. They claim to offer a few pointers on how to get your spine in shape, amidst critique dedicated to creating eye-catching jackets. Check out their scoop on spines, copycat covers, or covers. Nice guest post featured there today by Seth Godin, of the Domino Project.

The Ice Book

Davy and Kristin McGuire created a magical pop-up book by projecting video recorded with a Canon 5D Mark II onto its pages, creating a 3D effect and placing miniature people into the scenes. Their website is down for the moment, but more about the project can be found there.

The Ice Book (HD) from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.

Simon & Schuster is on Foursquare

Foursquare users can now check in at locations mentioned in some Simon & Schuster books and get information from those books. On Tuesday, the publisher celebrated the program by giving a free copy of Howard Gordon's Gideon’s War to anyone checking in on Foursquare at the publisher’s offices.

eBookNewser has more about the program: “The presence includes tips and trivia on places in the real world from authors. For example, Suzanne Corso, author of Brooklyn Story, tells fans where they can find the best cannoli in her neighborhood."<-- super fun

All this following the news a few months ago that Simon & Schuster, among other publishers, jumped aboard the GetGlue train offering stickers like these for check-ins.

Students Prefer Printed Books

According to a DISG Press Release, despite their fondness for social networking and cell phones, most college students say they prefer textbooks in printed rather than e-text form. Nearly 75% of students said they opt for printed texts, citing a fondness for print's look and feel, as well as its permanence and ability to be resold.

Books For Decoration

Did you catch the NY Times article about people who hire someone to fill their home libraries, so that it looks nice? Turns out many books are being used for decoration, rather than reading material; they're wrapped or placed in designed boxes on shelves, to stage areas. I guess the good news is we'll never see e-books used in this fashion.

"For the spa in Philippe Starck’s Icon Brickell, the icy glass condo tower in Miami, Thatcher Wine was asked to wrap about 2,000 books in blank white paper, without titles, to provide a “textural accent” to the space. He chose mass-market hardcovers that flood the used book outlets — titles by John Grisham and Danielle Steel, or biographies of Michael Jackson, he said — because they are cheap, clean and a nice, generous size. "

Multi-window Executions

Check out Intel's multi-window execution: The Chase above. Created by San Francisco agency Venables Bell & Partners and directed by Smith & Foulkes, it stages a 105-second chase across a wide variety of program windows on a computer desktop including iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft Office and the Adobe Creative Suite. But since it's a film that simulates a multi-window environment rather than the real thing and it lacks the engagement provided by including the user's own data that The Wilderness Downtown had.

Which book publisher will be first to promote a campaign with a multi-window execution? I could see this working well for an adventure title like Dan Brown's Angels & Demons.

Cleansed Huck Finn

The new "cleansed" version of Huck Finn has stirred a lot of feathers. Check out the "trending topics" on Twitter and you'll see "Huckleberry Finn." The new edition, to be published by NewSouth, combines both the Huck and Tom books into one volume, but, more significantly, reflects its editor’s controversial decision to eliminate the “N” word from the text. What's your take?

Holiday 2010 Book Sales Trends

• The 2 biggest titles of the season were The Autobiography of Mark Twain and Cleopatra
• Fiction, which lagged behind nonfiction throughout the year, picked up steam
• Picture books outsold YA
• Bookstores are not only cutting expenses but increasing sidelines

Read more here.

Ebook Lending Club

Hey, they read books, this is an intelligent breed- what did you expect? Folks have already started a “Kindle Lending Club” through a Facebook page, which has been liked by 982 people at this point.

In order to lend a book to someone, all you need is their email address. Amazon’s lending period lasts 14 days, and during that period the lender will be unable to access the book, with rights restored to the purchaser once the two weeks are up.

Get the full story here.

Wonder if Amazon can or will stop it?

Kick Off The New Year

Catch The Millions 2011 Great Book Preview. While 2010 was given over to the headliners, 2011 may be a year of new discoveries. Here are some of the books they’re looking forward to — 8,000 words strong and encompassing 76 titles, it's the only 2011 book preview you will ever need.

Penguin Books: Pause Button

Smartly combining our digital cultural with our old analog one.