Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:
Amazon has announced plans to release a "mass market" Kindle starting at $139 next month. CEO Jeff Bezos also had this to say about the company's committment to making a single-purpose e-reader: "For the vast majority of books, adding video and animation is not going to be helpful. It is distracting rather than enhancing. You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets." (Wall Street Journal)
Some apparently disagree with Bezos. According to the New York Times, the next generation of e-books—referred to variously as "enhanced," "enriched," or "amplified" e-books—though still largely experimental, have begun to push into "the vast possibilities" opened up by mulitmedia tablet devices like the iPad.
A new dating site is geared towards "connecting book lovers according to their particular tastes in reading material." (Star) Check out Alikewise.com for all the details.
The CEO of the American Booksellers Assocation has come out against the Amazon-Wylie deal, saying, "That the Wylie agency has sought to distribute these works through a
single retailer is bad for the book industry and bad for consumers."
Kennedy Book Store in Lexington, Kentucky, is celebrating sixty-five years as an indie bookseller this year. (Business Lexington)
The Fairview branch of the Camden Public Library in New Jersey is set to close its doors in September due to budget cuts. (Courier-Post)
Comments
andrewb replied on Permalink
Hi.
This is a test. :)
acbuckeye replied on Permalink
"Enhanced" e-books
I have loved books and reading for a long time, as I have written for a long time. Initially, I was very resistant to the electronic book 'revolution' as it were. Recently I received an e-reader as a gift, and have enjoyed it's versatility so far. But, even though I am finding uses for the electronic medium, there still cannot be an absolute replacement for print literature. In regards to "enhanced" literature, I do agree that exploiting video and audio in electronic books could be distracting and make books harder to navigate; instead of simply turning the page to get to next part, you'll have to wait to play a video and integrate that into the story you've been reading?