25 ways e-readers can’t beat books

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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A friend just posted this link on Facebook, and I thought it particularly relevant to our class:  25 ways e-readers can’t beat books.

The read is more fun than anything, as the arguments most of the points make are based on nostalgia, on the perception of books that a culture raised on books have.  For example, number 9: “The book can be autographed by its author.”  It isn’t necessary for books to exist just so we can have them autographed.  It’s awesome, and who doesn’t love owning autographed books, but it isn’t functional.

There are some valid points such as number 14: “The book’s printed editions are traceably distinct, a defense against manipulations of fact or history.”

Then again, some points are just silly or vain: “The book complements your mantelpiece.”  *facepalm*

It is a fun read though, and for the traditional book lovers among us, it brings up some good stuff.  I understand that e-readers will become much more commonplace, but I doubt that the book-book will ever die out (maybe that’s wishful thinking, but then again maybe people like me will keep the book-book going for as long as possible).

Oh, and the comment posted on the website makes some good points in opposition to the author’s statements.  Not all the arguments are great, but worth a read.

Another afterthought: I noticed the article used the word “ephemera.”  Ever since the man from Ephemera (sorry, I can’t remember his name) visited our class, I’ve been seeing the word EVERYWHERE.  One of those things.

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Tim Maleeny on Jump

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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Here is a clip from my Ashland Mystery interview with author Tim Maleeny from May 2010. Among other things, we were talking about his book Jump, which the Boston Globe described this way: “If you threw in the air the pages of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty, and then invited Monty Python to stitch them back together, you might end up with something like Jump, Tim Maleeny’s hilarious novel.”

By day Tim Maleeny is the head of Strategic Planning at the New York ad firm Ogilvy & Mather. He has a degree in computer science from Dartmouth and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Watch for more Maleeny clips later this year.

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Cassandra Carper interviews Devin Mahoney

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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Here is Cassandra Carper’s interview with Devin Mahoney, the Operations Manager at Blackstone Audio. Enjoy!
CC: Tell me a little about yourself.
DM: I grew up in Ashland and graduated from Ashland high. I then did a year at SOU and 2 years at Lane Community College, while also taking some classes at the U of O. I was planning on finishing college and getting my degree but instead I started working at Blackstone about 10 years ago, starting at the bottom and slowly working my way up. Along the way I had the opportunity to work in several different departments which has given me a great perspective. I originally worked at Blackstone right after high school because one of my good friends got me the job. A few years later when I came back it just happened to be a good fit and also good timing as the company was on the verge of really expanding.

CC: Do you have a favorite book/audiobook?
DM: It is very hard to pick a favorite but it seems I always come back to Zodiac by Robert Graysmith and read by Stefan Rudnicki. It is the only audiobook to ever really scare me. The story is creepy but the reading by Stefan just enhanced the overall feel.

CC: What does your job entail?
DM: I do a little bit of everything. I handle all HR matters such as hiring, firing, reviews, raises, resolving issues between staff, etc… I also do a lot of contract negotiations with our special projects. Most of the remainder of my time is overseeing operations, which can be as simple as arranging to have a plumber come in to fix a leaky faucet or as complicated as planning and managing our annual book sale event (food, bands, product sales, volunteers, etc…).

CC: What is your favorite part of your job and the least favorite part of your job?
DM: One of my favorite parts of this job are the relationships with coworkers and being in the position to help solve problems. The least favorite part of my job is having to let someone go for whatever the reason, it is always very hard to do especially in today’s economy.

CC: Who is the primary audience for Blackstone Audio?
DM: The primary audience is 40 and up, but with downloads always increasing the younger market is expanding.

CC: How long does it take to make one audiobook?
DM:It all depends on the narrator and the complexity of the book. From recording through to shipping, one ten-hour book could take 30 to 50 hours, while another ten-hour book could take a couple hundred hours.

CC: What types of audiobooks does Blackstone make? Fiction, non-fiction?
DM: We try to do a little bit of everything. The more options we can offer our customers, the better.

CC: What is the basic process for making an audiobook?
DM: The process starts with acquiring the rights to the audio. Then the book is researched so we can make sure we record with the correct intentions and cultural nuances. The next step is recording the audio and then proofing the audio. Once the audio is finished being proofed and any and all corrections have been made our audio engineers will put on the final touches and cut the book up into several different formats ( ie. cassette, cd, mp3, digital downloads). When our hard good formats are ready we then duplicate the discs, tapes, or mp3’s and then package and ship them. When the download versions are ready we upload the content to our download partners so they can downloaded off any one of their sites.

CC: Where can people purchase Blackstone audiobooks?
DM: Our audiobooks can be purchased in our lobby here in town or online as digital downloads through any one of our many digital partners including Audible.com. You can purchase some of our titles as iPhone apps through iTunes, with our Android app as well as others to be released soon. You can also purchase our tiles at many retail chains such as Barnes and Nobles. The other place you may find our books is in your local library.

CC: Does Blackstone sell more audiobooks online or in stores?
DM: In the last couple of years the download market has surpassed the hard goods sales and we only expect that trend to continue.

CC: Will the change from paper books to electronic books change the market for audiobooks?
DM: Most definitely, we see that change as an opportunity for us to grow our business even more. We believe there is a way to combine both audio and ebook in one digital product that appeals to both markets. Coming soon….

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Kind of An Interview With Gary Kliewer

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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Due to technical difficulties and my inability to work a tape recorder, my interview with Gary Kliewer, the co-owner and editor at White Cloud Press, was not recorded and therefore is not here for you guys to read. Oops! Instead I’m going to write a little bit about the internship I’ve been doing at White Cloud this year and hopefully be able to incorporate what I remember from my interview with Gary.

I started my internship with White Cloud fall term of this year and even though I wasn’t able to get enough hours in to get credit the past two terms, I have stayed with them doing little odds and ends jobs when and where I can. I’ve had a great experience working with the people there and it made me want to work in the publishing business even more than I already did.

We’ve all been very interested in e-books this term and right now White Cloud is working on converting all of their publications to be able to release them as e-books. A couple weeks ago, I got to be a part of that process. It was a pretty boring job, but really interesting. The first five books White Cloud published back in the early 90’s were, of course, never stored digitally in the format an e-book requires. Recently, the rights to files (or something, I’m not quite sure) were sold to a company in India. Again, I’m not really sure of all the logistics but the bottom line was that White Cloud wanted to have those five publications available as e-books and they needed to turn the hard copy books in to computer files. That’s what I got to do. I first cut all the pages out of the books (that was weird) and then I used a scanner to scan them into the computer. The cool thing, which I’d never heard of before, was that the program I was using to scan the pages was actually reading the words and converting them not only into an image but into an actual word document. It took a really long time to do each book and it was very tedious. But in the end, they are now able to reformat those word documents into e-books.

I asked Gary about his opinion of the e-book during our interview and he gave me the answer we’ve been getting from all of our professionals this term: it’s here to stay but no one knows how to do it well yet and the classic hard-cover book will never leave us. During one part of Gary’s career he worked as a textbook editor. His job was to basically compile an entire science textbook including everything from what writers and articles would go in it to its overall design and layout. He brought up a good point about having textbooks available as e-books and why we haven’t seen that happen yet. He said that the price of textbooks, especially the science ones, is so high because of the magnitude of the effort that goes into putting them together. They cost a fortune to make and produce and that is why we pay so much for them every term. It’s going to be hard for textbook companies to release a cheaper e-version for students simply because of the high cost of the initial compilation on he books.

The biggest thing that sticks out in my mind from Gary’s interview was a piece of advice that I think is really useful to all of us who are just starting out in the business. He said to pick a field of expertise and stick to it. Whether you want to write, edit, publish, freelance, whatever, choose a field that you are knowledgeable in and can market. Gary said that if he were to go back and do his career over again, he would have definitely not jumped around from one random job to another because it took him a long time to get into a stable job that he could be successful with. I, of course, had to ask him what happens if you get bored of your field and you want to switch it up. He said it is always good to have more than one thing you can do and if you can find a few really solid fields to juggle then you should be good.

 

 

 

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