I checked a book out of my local library the other day, and when I went to read it I discovered that someone had been there before me, littering the words and sentences with sharp lines and emphatic scrawls. Not a rare occurrence in my life, to be sure, but one that always makes me think the vandal (or vandals in this case, if the three different colors of emboldened ink are indeed evidence of serial abuse) is revealing something deeply disturbing about themselves in this simple, narcissistic, and completely self-absorbed anti-social act. [ Read more ]
Amazon and Irony
Speaking of Amazon’s outrage regarding Google’s class-action settlement, isn’t there a wee bit of irony in all this? I mean, Amazon’s core business — before it became the go-to site for spatulas and throw rugs — used to be…wait for it!…books.
Yes kids, that’s really true. Way back at the dawn of time (1995), Amazon’s great idea was to be an online bookstore, making pretty much every in-print book and many out-of-print books available nationwide. And it was a huge, huge success. So much so, that Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, decided to sell every product known to mankind in much the same way. [ Read more ]
Site Seeing: e-Fiction Book Club
The e-Fiction Book Club is a small site that’s only been up for a couple of months, but I found it quite useful. Its mission is much like the WFG: trying to help find and filter examples of e-Fiction on the web:
We review novels, novellas, blog-fics, series and short story collections in all genres except erotica. Our definition of e-fiction is fiction published in its entirety on the internet, whether by a registered e-publisher or by an individual.
Beyond the offerings on the site itself, check out the links page, which includes sites grouped by interest for both readers and writers.
(As if social networking needs any sanctioning by me, I found the e-Fiction Book Club because someone at the site linked to me via Twitter. The interconnectedness of the web still impresses me, but the speed at which useful connections can be and are being made seems to only be accelerating. Good news for a nascent movement like internet fiction.)
Update: e-Fiction Book Club closed in mid-January of 2010. The farewell note read, in part:
The e-Fiction Book Club has closed. Sadly my technical skills are not up to the task of running the site, and I don’t have the time or the cash to resurrect it.
I would like to thank you for your support in the past. I still believe there is a niche out there for a community site dedicated to promoting e-fiction works and authors, to encourage small publishers who are branching out into the medium of the electronic book and the many variations.
Even the right idea at the right time is no guarantee of success. The transition from analog to digital publishing is going to be long and difficult, and I can only hope others will fill this void.
— Mark Barrett