The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
You’re a reasonable reader. You like the aesthetics of an old-fashioned paper-and-glue book, but you’re not averse to turning the virtual pages of an e-reader either.
If that description sounds like you, here’s a DIY project you might like: making an old book into a Kindle case.
...moreIf you left your favorite religious text at home on your next business trip to Newcastle, don’t sweat it. The Hotel Indigo Newcastle is swapping all their bed stand Gideon’s Bibles for Kindles, allowing guests to purchase other “preferred religious books” for only £5.
...moreThe whole system of American outsourcing has rendered our industry incapable of producing the next technological innovation, which unfortunately is the key to reconstructing our economy.
One example of this is the Kindle. Amazon doesn’t have the means for the next generation of their techy product to be produced on domestic soil.
...moreEver heard of this guy?
Chances are you haven’t, but one peek at that link will show you just how much you’re missing out on. Manuel Ortiz Braschi is one of the most prolific self-publishers on Amazon’s Kindle site and, as author of more than 3,000 e-books on topics ranging from herb gardens to potty training, seems a veritable 21st century renaissance man.
...more“One e-reader requires the extraction of 33 pounds of minerals. That includes trace amounts of exotic metals like columbite-tantalite, often mined in war-torn regions of Africa. But it’s mostly sand and gravel to build landfills; they hold all the waste from manufacturing wafer boards for the integrated circuits.
...moreAt Maud, how much should philosophy and fiction have anything to do with each other?
If you liked Julie Klausner’s interview here at The Rumpus and want more, she has another interview over at The New Yorker Book Bench.
...moreGreetings, Rumpusers. You might have been relieved to see me go for a bit, but you had to know you couldn’t get rid of me forever. I’m back from a life-alteringly excellent trip to Los Angeles, where I finished school, and a less awesome though somewhat relaxing trip to Orange County, the result of which won’t be discussed here (good things rarely happen in Orange County, for the record).
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I think we’re really at a place where it’s hard to predict the future, where governments haven’t fully realized just how much power is falling into their laps, nor have people realized how much power they stand to lose.
Author and ex-soldier for the publishing world, former Executive Editor-in-Chief of Random House and fiction editor of The New Yorker Daniel Menaker attempts to break down the industry’s struggle into variables of audience, cost, risk, and heart in his recent essay, “Redactor Agonistes.”
...moreGreat piece by Anthony Gottlieb over at The Economist on one potentially big upside for e-readers over books–the ability to correct errors in real time, without the expense of pushing out a new set of copies. From a purely fiscal perspective, that’s a huge deal.
...moreIt’s Saturday morning. Get the sleep out your eyes and start clicking.
Farhad Manjoo has some solid ideas on how to beat the Kindle. Now, if only Amazon’s competitors will listen.
There is great sadness in Sequoia National Park, at least for someone.
...moreThis week, the book blogs got technology, and it turns out they’re not so sure whether they like it. Below, see them wrestle with television invading their books, the Kindle, and crappy book trailers — also, Virginia Woolf uses one of those new voice recording contraptions.
...moreIn San Francisco there’s a great little indie bookstore called Borderlands Books, which sells science fiction, fantasy, and horror titles. In a recent newsletter, store founder Alan Beatts offered his perspective on the Kindle and Amazon’s power to unpublish titles on the devices.
...moreRumors of a new device supposedly being prepared by Apple for a release sometime in the next five months are flying this morning after an FT.com story which describes about a flat, rectangular device with which users would interact by way of a touch screen.
...moreThis week, the book blogs are scaring the ever-loving Jesus out of me.
Sure, there have been a few fun, interesting updates and interviews, but most of what they’ve been saying makes me want to build a series of tunnels in and around my house so that I can start planning the first push of the resistance.
...more“Books ought to be so cheap that we can throw them away if we do not like them, or give them away if we do. Moreover, it is absurd to print every book as if it were fated to last a hundred years.
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“The electronic book, on the other hand, represents—and furthers—a circuitry of instant access, which giveth (information) as it taketh away (the great clarifying context, the order)… Right now the Kindle still lives within the context of print. But what would happen if, through growing market share and broad generational adoption, the Kindle were to supplant the bound book?
From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: kin·dle
Pronunciation: \ˈkin-dəl\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, probably modification of Old Norse kynda; akin to Old High German cuntesal fire
Date: 13th century
Definition (1): transitive verb: to start (a fire) burning : light
The temperature at which books kindle: Fahrenheit 451
Definition (2): noun: Amazon.com’s Wireless Reading Device
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“There will be increasing recognition that “retailing” (having, selling, collecting, fulfilling) the file doesn’t entitle a vendor to nearly the same margin that “retailing” a physical product does. The days of retailers getting a pbook-like discount for ebook transactions are not going to last much longer.” Has Amazon already reached their high-water mark for ebook sales?
“Late one night, I was reading on my ten-day-old Kindle while brushing my teeth. I was midway through a crucial point in a story when, just as Bezos had said, I got wrapped up in the world created on the screen.
Since purchasing a Kindle a few months ago Susie Bright has bought, and read, more books than she has all year.
I suppose all it really means is that they didn’t make enough of them, but Kindles are sold out until the new year and going for as much as twice the market price on eBay. via Maud
