The tech-y bookish bits have been piling up. A few bits that have caught my eye and have worked their way into my thinking about my not-so-secret social reading project:
- Publishers Plan a Joint One-Stop Book Site: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and Hachette Book Group have announced the impending launch of Bookish.com which is intended, it seems, to be a "one-stop book site" though I struggle to understand how it can truly be one-stop if, you know, all the books you'd ever want aren't actually represented on said one-stop shop site.
- Kobo Rides the Shockwave of Interest in E-books: Eoin Purcell directed my attention to this bit on Kobo: "It took us 10 months to get to a million users, and about 90 days to get to 2 million,” CEO Michael Serbinis said in a recent interview. “Getting to 3 million took about 60 days, and we are close to 4 million now.” These figures and this ramp up says as much to me about e-books as it does about so many clients I work with --> how scalability is often getting over that first initial hurdle of customers and then the next thresholds are infinitely easier to achieve. I've seen this in every industry and am somewhat pleased to hear the same growth is happening for Kobo.
- Interesting Problems in Publishing Series: Eli James at Novelr started an excellent series about several much-talked about "problems" in publishing but pulls together disparate information in a way few do when chatting about these problems at cocktail parties and conferences. Well worth your time. I'm not sure I agree with every point or possible conclusion, but there is much to be considered here. The first two posts: Disruption and That 99c eBook Thing & Writers Are the New Publishers.
I've also read some excellent pieces recently that have turned my attention to something of a sore subject for me - the critical analysis of the critical analysis. The takedown of the takedown. I will post about this on Wednesday, but here are two pieces that I've enjoyed reading and that have sparked ideas I'm still struggling to sort out:
- What Criticism Might Be: Darby at Thumb Drives and Oven Clocks succinctly and eloquently says what I've been wondering and unable to clearly state for over a year. Well worth a read and has informed my further thinking on the subject.
- Freedom Revisited: Matthew Specktor and Joshua Hardina at Los Angeles Review of Books not only take another look at Franzen's Freedom (I know, I know) but take a look at why we all got so annoyed with the previous looks.
There are other bits, of course, and I'll share them once I've at least gone a full round one with this lit crit bug so I can begin to sort out why I'm so damned annoyed by the takedown of the takedown these days.
