Greene Ink
9.2.10: Scribd Pros & Cons for Scribes and Buyers Alike
8.19.10: Podio Books on the Rise
8.13.10: Antitrust Threat for eBooks?
7.30.10: Smartphone > eReader?
7.15.10: A Medley of eBook News
6.24.10: April Sales Bring May Statistics
6.17.10: Book Pirates Loot Indy Writers
6.10.10: To BEA, or Not To BEA…
6.2.10: Knowledge, History & Travel – Vicariously
3.20.10: The Emerging eBook Market
4.30.10: eRules for eAdvertising
4.14.10: Statistical Aftermath
3.4.10: Publisher eBook Model Evolves
2.25.10: Libraries Blossom Amid Bad Economy
Americans seem to feel renewed interest in literature in the presence of want. Libraries across the nation are reporting a 5%-10% rise in individual attendance. Apparently, folks are not only visiting libraries for the Internet connections, DVD, and periodicals; several city library systems are reporting a marked incline in books being checked out and new cards being issued. More than two million books were checked out in 2009 in the Spokane Public Library system in Washington State, for instance–a 5.6% rise over the year previous–according to a January 2010 article in The Spokesman-Review, along with nearly 14,000 new library cards issued. Folks interviewed in the article like the one-stop-shop approach for research and entertainment, all for free.
The presence of Internet terminals seem to be functioning well as a draw. According to 2009 reports available online at www.ca.gov, last year in the Sacramento Public Library system alone, terminals were used 985,755 times, but libraries also lent out 163,822 items, while 87,434 people attended 2,600 programs and librarians answered almost half a million reference questions. In California public libraries statewide, the number of items lent out in 2008 rose nearly 25% over the previous year; the 2009 report also projects that Internet usage in libraries will increase over the next five years by 23%.
Libraries have taken notice of such statistics and are evolving along with their patrons. Many libraries can be followed on Twitter, for up-to-the minute news on new titles, classes, programs and even available jobs. Find your library on Twitter for a comprehensive list:
The Sacramento Public library can be followed at http://twitter.com/saclib
The San Francisco Library can be followed at: http://twitter.com/sfplnews
So, the next time you get a Tweet from your local library, consider picking up a few of the following titles I’ve recently reviewed (and liked very much):
- The Illustrious Dead by Stephen Talty
- Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece by Gail Callahan
- Lincoln For President by Bruce Chadwick
- Return to Antarctica: The Amazing Adventure of Sir Charles Wright on Robert Scott’s Journey to the South Pole by Adrian Raeside
–Meredith Greene
Greene Ink
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2.18.10: Hobbies From Home
For many Americans, the current economy appears to have mandated a temporarily hold be placed on the pricier spring and summer hobbies. Kayaking gives way to picnics, road trips turn into short scenic drives, and fishing trips switch venues, from the Ocean to local rivers and streams. Finding fun things to do closer to home–or at home–appears to be the favored solution, which, to a small degree, stimulates the economy of one’s own neighborhood. A book reviewer has the unique position of being exposed to numerous ideas during the week, depending on how many books one chooses from the publishing cornucopia; besides the favored history pieces and occasional business books, an interesting array of hobbyist tomes have crossed my desk and have taken root in our home.
As an amateur digital photographer, I was especially pleased to read three books on the subject, hoping to better my skills not only in art photography, but also in ‘fiddling’ with them via computer software. Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow Handbook proved to be an initially complicated book, but full of helpful tips for proper image capture, format, and storage tips, as well as an unintended Photo Lingo 101 course for the complete camera novice. If photography’s technological aspects do not inspire, then the gorgeous art in Harald Mante’s Photography Unplugged may just do the trick. The March reviews–coming out in a few weeks—hold two more volumes on the subject; one on using software to enhance the natural quality of your photographs, and the other dedicated to helping one learn the elusive art of portraiture.
If gardening is your forte, then watch for new reviews coming out in the March issue; among them is Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening a huge volume on month-by month gardening help, uniquely addressing plants and garden preparation by micro-climate. Bee-keeping has also become an inexpensive and doubly-rewarding hobby. Depending on state and local government regulations, you may be able to keep bees in your backyard. It is useful type of hobby; honey can be harvested 2-3 times a year and bees wax has several medicinal and craft uses. After reading A Short History of the Honey Bee, we were inspired to get our own bee cabinet and look forward to our first harvest later this year.
Newly sprung herbs, lettuces, and spring vegetables will be soon making appearances at the local farmers markets. No longer a mere fad, healthy cooking had solidified into marked changes of eating habits in many kitchens. Environmentally-conscious cookbooks like Cooking Green and the vivacious Mediterranean-styled Ciao Italia will help get you going, while reading Bread Matters will take the winter’s remaining edge off with healthy, digestible breads from your own kitchen.
If the urge to travel yet lingers, one can always pick up a good travel book with breathtaking photographs aplenty for perusal; reading 1000 Ultimate Experiences from Lonely Planet may not be the same as physically going on trip, but at 1/1000th of the cost of a foreign vacation it makes for a worthy substitute.
–Meredith Greene
2.11.10 -A Paper Experiment
Ever since my husband and I began our self-published eBook company in early 2008, we’ve expended the majority of our advertising efforts on the Internet realm; we’ve joined dozens of online writing and literature communities, posted blogs, commentaries, musings and messages, reviewed others’ work, posted answers to literary questions, etc.—all in an attempt to grab consumer attention via non-spamming methods. These efforts have produced fruit; not just the virtual kind either, but that which renders money into the PayPal account.
However, seeking to expand visitor numbers to our website, we’ve decided to try new avenue of advertisement, one once considered a “stand by” in the industry: putting ads in paper publications.
Few of the more well-known publications remain in business; however more and more local entrepreneurs have been busy creating regional literary publications with a smaller—but devoted—circulation and appear to be slowly thriving, despite the floundering economy. Liking the idea of supporting local business, and perhaps gaining some for ourselves, we jumped in to the fray with our rather diminutive ad budget.
We chose February to begin posting paper ads, utilizing a handful of regional publications. Upon checking last week’s website statistics this morning, we noticed a 15% rise in daily unique visitors; we also noticed the number of pages viewed nearly doubled as folks meandered through at each and every page on the site. The number of eBooks sold remains fairly normal, but it is just the first week. We did notice that the new visitors tend to wander the site during business hours; one imagines they are still reading thorough the “sample” chapters that we offer, all the while trying to avoid the hawk-like gaze of the boss.
Once we’ve gone through a solid month of the Paper Experiment, I shall report back with the full results; if the first week hold true, with a bump in eBooks sales, we shall call the trial a success and perhaps dole out more dollars for the experiment’s continuation.
– Meredith Greene
D i d y o u k n o w ?
Six in 10 Consumers Still Use Newspaper Ads
U.S. consumers say they rely on newspaper advertisements more than ads in any other medium when they are planning, shopping and making purchase decisions, according to early results from a study commissioned by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), conducted by MORI Research.
The research found that 59% of adults identify newspapers as the medium they use to help plan shopping or make purchase decisions. Among respondents who say they “took action” as a result of newspaper advertising 61% clipped a coupon, 50% bought something, 27% tried something for the first time. In addition, 73% of adults regularly or occasionally read newspaper inserts, and 82% have been spurred to action by a newspaper insert in the past month. “Newspaper advertising remains the most powerful tool for advertisers who want to motivate consumers to take action,” said NAA President and CEO John Sturm.
2.5.10 – A Plethora of Projects
The last weeks of winter make themselves felt in ways more acute than mere chilly weather; before spring emerges, the continuous days-sans-sunlight compile upon one another in an almost threatening blanket of fog-laden despondency. Unwilling to be beaten by such morose diurnal overtones, like many of my fellow humans I’ve determined to keep busy.
As the garden is off-limits until better weather ensues I have noticed that the closets beckon as I pass by, coyly showing their more un-organized portions for addressing. Having reviewed a few books on organization recently (DIY Organizing for Dummies and A to Z Storage Solutions) I find that the best advice is simply to put down the book, toss out unnecessary items and get some actual work done.
Further down the ‘to keep busy’ list resides several home-improvement projects. Happily, one of these has actually come to fruition; at the end of December, my husband and I embarked on a small master-bathroom remodel, using only our own labor and an appropriately-proportionate budget for the current economy. The local building-products store provided cut-rate deals on a space-saving vanity and mirror combo; buying the floor model saved us 15%. We used a new product on the floors, a recycled-material floating plank floor system–guaranteed to be 100% water-proof–hued to resemble cherry-wood floors. It proved reasonably-priced and was remarkably simple to install. A more spacious, pleasant bathroom was the result, and the entire three-day process furthered the burning of unwanted winter calories.
On that note, “bad” diets plague most people I know during these Doldrums Days, but there are glimmers of light on the cooking horizon; more knowledgeable folks are publishing seasonal cookbooks, faceted with healthy eating in mind, such as Stonewall Kitchen Winter Celebrations from Stonewall Kitchens, a book which made the idea of winter salads more tangible.
The realms of crafts and arts cannot be ignored; Knitting and Sewing step out of their respective nooks and silently display their modern usefulness, along with centuries of supporting evidence. After reading The Alchemy of Color Knitting and Hat Heads, my daughters and I began learning to knit via free You Tube lessons with resounding success; the long, dark evening hours are a bit more charming with the subtle clicking of knitting needles and little faces scowling in concentration. I got a useable (and half-way decent-looking) pair of wool socks out of my labors, which on colder mornings I am quite glad to wear.
Reading and writing become close companions during these weeks, whereas in spring or summer, the outside plants have more claim to my attention; besides the weekly column and monthly reviews my husband and I are working on our eighth novel and have been doggedly re-formatting our books for paper self-publication. Not to ignore the simple pastime of reading, of the recent books reviewed, my most favorite proved to be the highly-informative A Splintered History of Wood: Belt-Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers, and Baseball Bats, which not only gave me some excellent ideas for future home projects, but displayed well to our children all the ways that wood cultivates art.
While waiting for springtime and solar-driven actives, one finds that merely existing does not suffice; winter doldrums are indeed quickly dispelled by a plethora of projects.
–Meredith Greene
1.28.10 – Literary Comfort
The words ‘tough times’ have been bandied about quite a bit lately in the news, though the recession we currently endure seems to pale in comparison to other notably depressed times in our nation’s history. Once thing remains the same, however… in needing both comfort and the occasional bit of entertainment, Americans “re-discover” books. Whether paper or digital, hardbound or Kindle, Literature remains the cheapest and easiest method by which one’s spirits can be lifted from the doldrums of a tragic loss, the clutches of loneliness… or the tedium of a bad economy.
Robert Louis Stevenson gets things going by stirring the blood with survival adventures, along with a sort of commoner’s self-reliance and a smattering of useful facts. Depending on one’s mood, the paths branch from more intellectual, darker action with Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, or upwards with light-hearted bursts of laughter in Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals. On to more thought-provoking prose with Henry the Fifth, a hefty dose of patriotic nobility. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice sashays in, now tossing out pithy platitudes, now curtseying and giving out the largesse of charming smiles for the sole benefit of the reader. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle rounds things off with keen interest, saturnine sayings and the thrills of fictional gray-cell-enhanced detective work.
All in all an excellent way to spend an afternoon… for one is in the company of great writers. Unlike the electric lure of television, books require little energy other than page-turning, and provoke the mind to action verses inaction. Literature remains the universal method by which humans not only communicate who they are through various characters but also how millions unwind and are otherwise comforted to distraction from life’s toil and turmoil. It crosses languages, cultures and colors… often extending a hand over oceans and vast tracts of land to unite minds in at least a few, small ways.
May a good book (or digital reader) soon find its way into your hands.
–Meredith Greene
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1.21.10 – A Look at eBooks
eBooks–while still gaining public acceptance–have many advantages over books manufactured from cellulose products; besides the obvious difference of not requiring paper, eBooks neither need printing services nor trucks to distribute them; eBooks can be sampled and purchased with the click of a button without requiring the consumer to get in the car and drive to a store.
Cost also seems to play a big part in eBook’s increasing popularity. Digital books are often marketed at one quarter the price–or lower–of buying equivalent paper books at a retail-chain. Whether due to the downturn in the economy or merely looking to latch on to the next “it” thing, book-buyers worldwide are seeking out eBooks online in droves.
According to the AAP website (American Association of Publishers), eBook sales were up in 2008–20% over the previous year in the US alone, while audio book sales fell. In 2009–citing only wholesale numbers for eBook sales in the US–the revenue rose sharply to more than $46.5 million; the AAP website even included this sentence alongside the figures: Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures, due to industry wholesale discounts.
The US is actually a little behind in this trend; as early as 2006 Japanese cell phone users were downloading novels to their phone to the tune of $58 million dollars annually, a 331% increase over the previous year’s figures, according to the Digital Content Association of Japan. Initially, a large portion of these were manga books, but writers everywhere took notice of the startling number of young people willing to read books on the tiny screens.
More and more consumers spend increasing amounts of time surfing the Web; it only makes sense that the computer/smart phone is where folks begin to do the majority of their reading. Though a number of traditional publishing houses have recently begun to offer digital books on their websites, they seem to be running to catch up with the soaring potential of this market. Over the last two years especially, self-published authors–like my husband and I–have been more than willing to fill the gap. eBook writers worldwide created websites, soaked in free feedback and editing advice, and wrote more digital content than ever, unconsciously creating a revolution in the book-publishing industry.
The main impediment to eBooks gaining mass popularity was not the content itself, but with the rather awkward methods of reading said content; the initial eBooks could be bought and downloaded to a stationary PC, or even transferred to a laptop, but reading them required using a mouse or keypad in order to turn pages or scroll down. Even to modern consumers, paper books held more appeal as they could be taken anywhere and required no batteries.
Advances in e-reader technology have addressed the majority of the initial concerns consumers had with reading digital books. No longer limited to static Desktop computer screens, eBooks can be downloaded to laptops, smart phones, and, more recently, the handheld reading device.
Amazon’s Kindle took center stage in 2008 as the first viably user-friendly hand-held reading device; it sold out before it was even available for mass distribution. Even more impressive was the Kindle Store, a vast collection of eBooks that could be downloaded to any Kindle, in which any writer–published or not–could upload their own material to the store to be presented and sold. Not to be left out, Apple began offering iPhone apps like Stanza and Iceberg for the burgeoning number of eBook consumers; these apps utilize ePUBs, an alternative format to the nearly-obsolete PDF. Iceberg, in particular, provides the reader with the more book-like experience using virtual page-turning motions and easy ?touch control, verses using a button, tool, or mouse.
Folks in the public eye are also jumping on the eBook bandwagon. Last year, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column comparing the Kindle reader and the iPhone using Iceberg, among other readers and apps; while he liked the Kindle as a independent reading device, he admitted it was more convenient to read the eBooks on the iPhone as he already was carrying it as a cell phone and managed to knock off a chapter while waiting in line, without having to reach for a second device.
Besides being more environment-friendly than paper books–not to mention more convenient to purchase–eBooks have the advantage of being sent world-wide attached to an email, compared to a paper book, which must be weighed, paid and then delivered using fossil fuels. eBooks can also be stored by the thousands on a chip smaller than a postage stamp.
Amid the swirl of questions and controversy on how the average person can strive to be greener, it seems the consumer, once again, leads the way in turning to eBooks, especially in combining digital literature with existing business/communication tools.
–Meredith Greene
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1.15.10 – Garden Plans Amid Winter’s Throes
Winter’s chilly conversation seems to invoke a keen longing for warmer days, along with aggressive and abundant plans for spring. The colder the weather, the more grandiose these plans become. In our home, this inclination means mapping out new configurations for our small backyard garden and establishing which plants will reside therein. Our children even have a say in the process, which—we flatter ourselves–cultivates a lifelong interest in backyard gardening.
Over the last few months, I’ve reviewed a slew of gardening-related books, mainly on choosing the proper plants for individual places, both edible and ornamental. Garden Anywhere, for instance, focuses on folks living in tight spaces, low-budget gardening with realistic advice; The Book of Weeds allows avid gardeners to stock up on information to preempt troublesome intruders before they have a chance to take hold; Right Rose, Right Place harbors succinct and informative advice on one of the most popular and gratifying ornamental plants in the US; A Short History of the Honey Bee inspired our family to make plans to purchase a bee cabinet, which will sit in the corner of our garden during the upcoming spring, right by the honeysuckle vine.
Future reviews in this category are forthcoming over the next two months; I am in the midst of reading a highly-informative book for the planners among us, titled The Well-Designed Garden, the review of which is due out in SBR’s upcoming February issue. When the biting wind imbues you with despair, take heart; soon your hands will be kissed with sunlight and digging contentedly in the heady, moist earth once again.
–Meredith Greene
