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18 November 2013 - What's new

18 November 2013
  • 'Indeed, what is a ‘book life'? Author Jeff VanderMeer sees the ‘book' as any creative project requiring text, be it a traditional print book, an e-book or a podcast. The aim is to do things that support that book life in a positive way rather than undermining it. And the point of Booklife is to provide a strategic and tactical guide to being a writer in contemporary times. It is not a how-to guide to creating a blog or website, nor is it an instructional manual about writing. Instead, Booklife is a more subtle examination of the business of being a writer, intended to help the reader to create a modus operandi that works for them' Our reviewer looks at Jeff VanderMeer's Booklife.
  • After eight years of litigation over Google's scanning of more than 20 million books in libraries, Judge Denny Chin has come down in their favour: ‘Google's use of the copyrighted works is highly transformative. Google Books digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index that helps readers, scholars, researchers, and others find books...' News Review
  • This week's links are an interesting mix: Is the Western Publishing Industry Institutionally Racist? | PP Wong, Why we love loooong novels - Salon.com, BookBrunch - Vanitas vanitatum... or how I learnt to love self-publishing and two links to stories on the Google story in this week's News Review, Google Books ruling is a huge victory for online innovation and Why Google's Fair Use Victory In Google Books Suit Is A Big Deal--And Why It Isn't - Forbes.
  • This week's Comment is from Philip Jones, the editor of the Bookseller: 'Contrary to what some media outlets reported last week e-books haven't killed off any publishers: in fact in the main they have led to increased profit margins. E-book growth has largely sustained trade publishers during the latter years of the big recession, and even if they do now, as some say, 'plateau', profit margins may continue to grow as publishers learn to better manage their inventories and working capital across the rest of their business.'
  • Our Health Hazards series is well worth exploring if you've ever had problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all that time spent at the keyboard, or any of the other hazards of a writer's life.
  • We are all mourning the death of the wonderful Doris Lessing, the Nobel prizewinner who really understood women's lives. This Margaret Atwood article from the Guardian sums up her life and work.
  • 'Of the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful and worthy are the things we call Books!' Thomas Carlyle in our Writers' Quotes.