Author: Monique (Page 77 of 130)

5 Star Rating: Is it a Recommendation or an Advertisement in Disguise

January 24, 2008 / Monique

Slate.com has an interesting piece on Amazon’s top reviewers. (Reviewers are the regular joes who post customer reviews on Amazon.) It seems that the top reviewers, who do get a certain amount of perks (in particular free books), are perhaps more influenced by those perks than by the actual value or literary merit of what they are reading.

There are two ways to spin this story.

1) The top reviewers are all hard working, random people, who love to read books and have figured out how to make the system work for them. Who doesn’t want more free stuff?

2) The top reviewers are all hard working, random people, who propel themselves to the top using any means possible so that they can gain fame, small fortune (in the form of free stuff) and Amazon status.

Brilliant or dodgey?

Quote: From Slate: This is not to say that a Top 10 ranking doesn’t come with some sub rosa incentives for the reviewer. Free books, first and foremost; in an e-mail, Grady Harp told me he was “inundated with books from new writers and from publishers who know I love to read first works.” This fall, when it invited select Top Reviewers to join its Vine program, an initiative, still in beta-testing, to generate content about new and prerelease products, Amazon extended the range of perks. “Vine Voices” like Mitchell and Harp can elect to receive items ranging from electronics to appliances to laundry soap. As long as they keep reviewing the products, Amazon’s suppliers will keep sending them.

Why does any of this matter? Because this breaks the illusion that the reviewers are impartial customers who review a book because they liked/disliked it.

This is the thing: books on tables in a store; book at the end of an aisle; books reviewed in newspapers, magazines and blogs; books tagged in Shelfari; books “recommended” in any form are open to placement (i.e., someone has paid or done something in exchange for that book to be there).

I’m a top 500 reviewer on Amazon.ca and I review books on my site. But I only review books that I have actually read. I only review books that I think are worth talking about. And apparently, I’ve only reviewed 24 books on Amazon.ca. I’ve certainly read and reviewed more than 24 books here so I could add some type of review to Amazon, bump up my rank and perhaps establish greater credibility for myself, thereby gaining the interest of more publishers and more reviewers so that I could get more speaking engagements and more books and maybe more business helping publishers promote their books.

So where’s the line between building your credibility as a reviewer and saying “this space is for sale”?

What do you think?

(Source: Thanks to Darren Barefoot for sending this over the Slate article.)

Prediction 1: Poetry Will Rise Again

January 24, 2008 / Monique

The Year 2008 is going to be one of predictions.

My first public prediction is that poetry is making a resurgence.

I’ve just returned from Alexis Kienlen’s poetry reading for She Dreams in Red and I’m most certain that poetry is on the rise.

Here’s the thing: Poetry needs to be read aloud. People miss out on poetry because they try to read it silently to themselves. There’s no poetry in that method. Find your voice.

Here’s the next thing I re-discovered tonight: Poetry can be made by 3 year olds. By the time we’re 18, we forget that we can use words to do more than order fries.

My follow up thought was that publishers are going out of business. Poetry has never sold well, unless you count 500-1000 copies as spectacular. BUT, micropresses are coming back into fashion.

I received a Miranda July book as a birthday present. It’s spectacular. I love it. A friend showed me Actualities by Monica Kidd from Gaspereau Press. This is a beautifully crafted book.

Book as objet really works with poetry.

I’m in the middle of reading Alison Cader’s book of poetry Wolf Tree from Coteau Books. It’s brilliant.

John Maxwell at SFU told me 2008 is his year for rediscovering poetry.

Something is happening.

Poetry is on the rise.

She Dreams in Red is published by Frontenac House, which has a great, new website (fairly new, last year). David Scollard, publisher of Frontenac House, gave Alexis an incredible introduction. I wish he’d publish it. He said something about why they publish poetry and that it is the pursuit of higher intelligence driving them. He seems like a man entirely clear on why he’s publishing books.

Pixton: Create a Cartoon

January 21, 2008 / Monique

I am digging Pixton.

Create cartoons on Pixton. Cool interface, fun to play with. Give it a try. I’m going to do a series on Sam.

Here’s my first one:
“Sam Goes on Holiday”

700 Hobo Names

January 16, 2008 / Monique

I kid you not.

Listen to Hobo_Names.mp3

John Hodgson, PC in the Mac and PC ads. Lists 700 hobo names.
Listen to Hobo_Names.mp3

His website is equally hilarious:
http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/

(Source: James Sherrett)

Apple Unveils New Laptop: How Thin Is Your Laptop?

January 15, 2008 / Monique

Just this morning I was complaining to James. “How heavy do you think my laptop is?”

He said, “About 6 pounds.”

Six pounds doesn’t sound like a lot, but after you’ve lugged it around on business trips and several blocks, 6 pounds feels like 60.

Then this morning Kiley send me this email with the quip: Can you handle it? This is going to push you two over the top …

TECHNOLOGY | January 15, 2008
Jobs Reveals Tiny New Laptop
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs took the wraps off a super-slim new laptop, unveiling a personal computer less than an inch thick that turns on the moment it’s opened.

It’s 3 pounds, man!

Quote: From the Apple site:
MacBook Air is ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything else. But you don’t lose inches and pounds overnight. It’s the result of rethinking conventions. Of multiple wireless innovations. And of breakthrough design. With MacBook Air, mobile computing suddenly has a new standard.

Here are the features. It recognizes movements like the swish used on the iPhone.

Salivating …

New Book Blog: Tea Time at Annick Press

January 15, 2008 / Monique

The Annick Press house is a very cute house in Toronto. And in that house are two very smart women named Lisa and Alicia. In fact, there are many smart people in that house. And every day around 3:30 in the afternoon they get together and have tea and talk about their books and the interesting things that are going on with their authors, friends and other animals in the publishing world.

On what was surely a bright and sunny day in December, Lisa and Alicia launched a blog.

A blog!

It’s true. A very fine blog indeed.

The end.

(But not really the end because you can keep up with the story on the Tea Time at Annick Press blog.)

annickpressblog.blogspot.com

Online Marketing from Publishers — works for you or no?

January 10, 2008 / Monique

If you’re a book blogger or someone who is on the receiving end of publishers’ online marketing campaigns, this survey is for you.

GalleyCat posted yesterday that Publishing Trends is conducting the survey to find out more about how people are approached by publishers, if it is something that people enjoy and whether publishers should keep competing for attention this way or not.

I’m skeptical about how they are going to assess this but I haven’t taken the survey yet.

Give them more data. Take the survey.

Raincoast Books Closes Its Publishing Program

January 8, 2008 / Monique

I heard very sad news yesterday. Raincoast Books, a Canadian publisher here in Vancouver, has closed its publishing department and laid off several staff members. Raincoast is continuing its distribution and wholesale services.

For a small industry, it is really disappointing to lose a Canadian-owned and operated program and my heart goes out to the staff laid off and to those still working in the company.

I wish Raincoast better finances for 2008, and I wish personal happiness and good fortunes to those incredible people let go.

W00t Is the Number 1 Word for 2007

January 5, 2008 / Monique

According to Merriam-Webster’s online audience, w00t is the top word of 2007.

1. w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay”

Facebook is in at #2.

See what else made the list.

(Blog was the #1 word for 2004.)

E-book Readers at a Glance

January 3, 2008 / Monique

Wired magazine did an interesting round-up of e-book readers (old crappy ones not included).

Wired blog: e-book readers

The list includes:
Amazon Kindle
HanLin eReader V3
Sony Reader PRS-505
iRex Iliad
Bookeen Cybook Gen3
Seiko-Epson
Fujitsu
NUUT NP-601

Sony Reader apparently looks the nicest. iRex is powerful and practically an e-ink Tablet PC ($700). Bookeen, which I’d never heard of but was recently introduced to by Bruce Batchelor (thanks Bruce), is noted as the lightest and thinnest. Watch the Bookeen video to see how lithe it is. And the Seiko-Epson, Fujitsu and NUUT are not currently available in North America.

I predict that 2008 or early 2009, I’ll be using some device that lets me read ebooks and more. Maybe iPhone will come to Canada. Maybe there will be a fab new device developed that does everything I want. Maybe I’m crazy.