Writing the Great American ePub

There's one less excuse for writing your novel, courtesy of Barnes & Noble.

PubIt! another entry into the self publishing ePub world - dares you to write, upload and sell your work. No start up fees (just a good amount of personal data) and voila! Your work is global, baby!

Just make sure you give it a good editorial pass before you upload. QA is nonexistent.

You wonder how B&N will help users sift through the flood of mediocrity to reach the good stuff.

Still, you wonder who will be the first ePub writer to make a name for themselves outside of the traditional channels....

(Via Crave Blog)

Michael Lewis: A No Interest Loan is a Bailout

I'm sure there are a slew of sites talking about the Michael Lewis book, The Big Short - but I just wanted to highlight this marvelous quote of his.

Did they ever explain how they made all this money? If you look at their businesses right now, they’re heavily government dependent. If you were Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, or JPMorgan, you have access to a 0 percent loan in virtually unlimited quantities from the Federal Reserve. You can take that money and re-invest it in Treasury bonds or in government agency securities and you will get a spread. And you can do it over and over. You’re essentially borrowing from the government, lending to the government, and taking a cut.

(Emphasis added by CJR's Ryan Chittum)

When you hear - over and over that the banks have paid us back - there are any number of items that are not included in that remark - and the one Mr. Lewis is talking about is still going on.

Who can't find a way to make money with free funding?

We have bailed out Wall Street and we are still bailing them out.

Read Chittum's whole post - there are other winners in there.

Rooting for Penelope

I've posted before about the trials and tribulations of Ms. Penelope Trunk - this holiday, it sounds like she's on a pace to outdo herself:

Last week, in addition to being lost at work, I was lost trying to cope with the farmer ending our engagement. So I flipped a grilled cheese with my bare hand instead of the hand holding the spatula: Insane pain. I drove myself to the emergency room, and they said I was actually at risk of going into shock behind the wheel. Okay. So it was bad enough that they gave me vicodin.

I don't deny following her blog to shocked and appalled - but I have a great deal of sympathy for this person. Given her background, I doubt I would be anywhere near functional. And she keeps trying. Then she relates her experience with candor that informs without pretense.

Reading her posts you don't get

GUESS what happened??!!

rather, you get-

Here is what happened.

That she not only keeps trying but keeps writing is nothing short of amazing.

You might show up for the trainwreck - but you're going to leave with something more tangible and worthwhile.

Jakob Nielsen vs. Kindle 2

Usability guru and world-class quibbler goes after the Kindle2 with his latest newsletter.

His take:

11 years ago, I wrote that electronic books were a bad idea. Has Kindle 2 changed my mind?

Yes.

The two factors that convinced me were (a) equal-to-print readability and (b) multi-device integration.

It's no rave review, to be sure - but he points out some definite advances as well as avenues for print killing functionality.

Books aren't going to die, but its becoming increasingly likely our grandkids will think of books as another way to read.

Bombshell

The NYT has a fascinating article called Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb, by William J. Broad.

It's about a new book detailing the prolilferation of the atomic bomb.

They have a great graphic:

and this little zinger:

The book says, for instance, that China opened its sprawling desert test site to Pakistan, letting its client test a first bomb there on May 26, 1990

That'd be eight years before they went public.

Funny to think that in a world where sensors can detect any nuclear event - there is still room for an emerging nuclear program to hide: behind the borders of a known nuclear state.

It casts new light on the reign of Benazir Bhutto as prime minister of Pakistan

I'll say. Wow.

The Geisel file

(H/t to E and mental_floss)

Stacy Conradt digs up 10 odd facts about the works of Dr. Seuss.

My favorite bits:

1. The Lorax. In case you haven’t read The Lorax, it’s widely recognized as Dr. Seuss’ take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature. The logging industry was so upset about the book that some groups within the industry sponsored The Truax, a similar book but from the logging point of view. Another interesting fact: the book used to contain the line, “I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie,” but 14 years after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out. Dr. Seuss agreed and said that it wouldn’t be in future editions.

and

3. If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, is the first recorded instance of the word “nerd”.

So, that's who started it...

Read more.

The artillery of thought will not be silenced

CJR pointed me to Ezra Klein's discussion/review of the Kindle and its effect on books and reading.

The take away for me - the screen is nice:

One look at the screen, though, and you forget that everything around it seems to have been an afterthought. The Kindle uses a technology known as E Ink, which deploys negatively charged black particles and positively charged white particles to create something that looks, and acts, startlingly like paper. There’s no reflection in the sun and no discernible flicker on the screen. Compared to traditional LCD screens, whose light and flicker force your eyes to constantly strain and refocus, this is a profound advance. It’s almost calming to look at.

-but the book ain't going away any time soon:

Moreover, there’s an added risk to using the Kindle: if you drop a book, it doesn’t break. If you drop your Kindle, your heart catches in your throat till you examine the damage. If you drop it in the bathtub, you’re out $400.

[snip]

At the end of the day, the true advances won’t come in the Kindle, but in the content. Just as the capabilities of the device will shape what authors decide to do with it, so too will the decisions of authors shape the evolution of the device.

Right there are the two most important aspects of all of this.

1) the delivery vehicle must be as durable or as cheap as the book (and preferably both), and;

2) that the success/failure of the Kindle device is only relevant as it stimulates the development of content that takes full advantage of the electronic format.

I'd imagine the breakthrough device would be something that would allow you to access your file wirelessly, search/read/annotate at will - for long periods of time - and is cheap enough to be replaced for less than the cost of a printed book. It would allow me to subscribe to revisions, later editions - annotations from the author or critics I requested. Books would link to their source material, and forums for discussion and questions.

Kindle is none of these things, but is likely to be the first casualty in the struggle to find one. It's a necessary step - and I'm glad that Amazon is taking it - but we're nowhere near the tipping point to move away from printed books.

That's not an insult, just my opinion that replacing something (even supplementing) what is essentially the DNA of civilization is going to take decades if not centuries.

Look at digital cameras. We sell a lot of digital, but we haven't quite managed the transition of how people store their pictures. Sure there's a lot of good software out there, but having pictures on a computer at home is not quite as useful as having them printed out so you can show your family or your office buddies.

These things are still possible, but there's inertia in transitioning between how we expect to see them, and how we can actually access them. Tech is trying to fill the void- and printers are madly trying to make it even simpler than last time - but we're not quite there yet.

I suspect the electronic book will be the same for a very long time. There are many upsides - but they will be the playground of the early adapter- while the bulk of human content sits on shelves - like it always did.

Brazen Careerist

I don't have much use for Penelope Trunk's career advice. Her blog, Brazen Careerist, is chock full of observations that I find vague enough to qualify as horoscopes.

But I subscribe to her RSS feed. Why? Because she also writes stuff like this:

Then, one night, the baby was screaming and our three-year-old wouldn’t go to bed and my husband was telling me that I needed to get the three-year-old some milk and I was saying that he should and I’ll get the baby and he rolled his eyes, and then I took a knife out of the dirty dishes and stabbed my head.

I don’t actually remember doing it. I remember my husband saying, “Oh my god. There’s blood everywhere.”

Here’s how crazy I was: I just put the knife back in the sink and went to get the baby.

Whatever her shortcomings are as a career adviser, it's pretty clear this woman can write.

I'd argue it's also pretty clear that she needs to write.

Her story detailing her 9/11 experience at Ground Zero is one hell of a narrative. She describes being engulfed in the cloud of the collapsing towers, then:

There was complete quiet. No one could talk because no one could breathe. Then I heard cracked glass. I moved toward the noise until I saw a glow coming from a broken window. Somehow, I lifted myself into a broken window that was above my shoulders. I found air. And then I thought only of water. I found my way to a bathroom in that building and inside there were debris-covered men in ties drinking out of a toilet. I drank, too.

It's clear that she's pretty messed up - and I'm sure the causes of that go deeper than any blog post would tell you. You read some of the posts that flirt with those causes - and you want to root for her.

At a minimum, you want her to write more. Pour some demons out onto a page until she's done with them.

At least I do.

So, I keep checking the feed.

Call me a misery hound if you want - but there's a little inspiration there, too.

Chilling effect

A while back, I got in trouble at my job for making a parody website spoofing where I worked.
I'd put together a set of articles that shamed no one, but were basically distopian views of office work.

The reaction by management was not good. Rather than stick to my guns, I folded the website. A man's gotta eat.

In one of the discussions I had with the higher ups, this point was made:

Whatever my intent, the true meaning of what I'd done resided in the audience.

In other words - the audience's reaction is what my words meant.

After careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that this point of view is total crap.

What got me going strolling down this memory late was this post on CNet:

Bloggers beware: You're liable to commit libel by Steve Tobak

...As for me, I'm planning to play it safe. I mean, how hard can it be to say nice things about people?

It would be an oversimplification of what Mr. Tobak is arguing to say that he wants people to stop posting things that are not so nice, but I can't help but have a belligerent reaction to his article:

What do you mean I can't post whatever the hell I want on my blog? It's a blog! Opinion, posted! Deal with it!

I am sure that the everyone-is-published reality brings more people under the rules of publishing, but surely there is a place to distinguish a private blogger's opinion from the claptrap of nationally published blowhards like Robert Novak.

If jerks like Novak can out our spies and publish hearsay innuendo without prosecution, I would think the blogosphere needn't restrain themselves too much.

Culture from the cheap seats

Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.
-Clive James

Lately, I’ve been reading Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia. It’s what I’ve been reading while I wait for baby E to cry it out and go to sleep. The fact that I can maintain any connection with its subject while my daughter is howling less than five feet away tells you something about what kind of a book it is.

Unfortunately, that’s about as much as I can tell you about what the book is about. Clive admits as much in the introduction; the book is neither easy to follow, nor well-organized. Given his choice of subject matter – quotations from cultural icons that have interested him over the course of his life – it’s pretty clear that the book’s hopscotch format was unavoidable. You cannot organize content that is truly chaotic. At least, you can’t without altering the content.

His book has established beyond any doubt that I will never be cultured or well read. It has also made me doubt my use of words. Reading his turns of phrase, it is easy to believe that you are discovering a new and better way to use English. Clive James dishes out the barbs (e.g. his comment that a particular French philosopher drew followers away from Sartre, “when people realized there was an alternative to getting absolutely everything wrong.”) and heaps praise on clever turns of phrase (the woman accusing her lover that their relationship was “only sex,” and he replies “What’s so only?”) - wherever he happens to find them.

It’s easy to get caught up in his admiration for this and that, but the inescapable result of reading his book is to be shown an entire universe of things that I haven’t heard even a whisper about. This is no real surprise, of course there are countless things I don’t know. The jolt is seeing them paraded in front of you in page after page. One page had a series of cultural and political references that I didn’t have the first idea what they were or even when they were. They could have been WWII era, or they could have happened last week. Hadn’t the foggiest, and since Clive can read nine languages he will make references using them that only serve to send you back into the page to sift out some meaning in the context.

With other writers, this would be pretentious – but this is Clive James and he’s just being who he is.

I don’t have a lot of use for the café bound philosopher/writer, and I while I enjoyed what little philosophy I did study- there’s no way I would ever persevere to be a truly “deep” thinker. Many of the people James discusses in this book were, and had all the vices and weaknesses common to their species. They did not have happy lives, were riddled with insecurities, and several even committed suicide. People like Anna Akhmatova, Egon Friedell, and Paul Celan.

Were I to meet any of these people, there would be instant and mutual distain. Somehow James manages to present these people in their element. He proudly shows you their moment of greatness – no matter how brief – or damns them for their failings, no matter their reputation.

Somehow, in James’ hands, these people are always interesting.

…

Oh – and anyone who thinks that James is just another snob should read more of his writings.

Like this one:

Windows Is Shutting Down

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.

Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

Self Defense

No spoilers.

Finished book 7 last night. Not so much out of a fanaticism for the material - but only because of the perfect storm of being six books into an enjoyable series that is omnipresent in the current media.
Odds were good that some TV/Internet wag will "push the envelope" and reveal the plot.

My track record in avoiding spoilers has been abysmal. I have a good memory and I cross-index well. With movies, I'm the guy that replays the trailer while I'm watching the movie - to check to see if all the scenes have happened yet.
"Hey, [actor X's] character can't be gone - they haven't said that line from the trailer yet!"

Roger Ebert famously revealed the secret of the Crying Game on TV, and he was a total jerkwad for doing so, but frankly it was only one more step worse that what the rest of the media were doing.
How many times did we hear about the "big shocker" of that movie? A person like me hears that and ends up spending the entire moving looking for the surprise, instead of just watching the damn movie.

It's a distraction. The best stories I've ever experience were total surprises, ones I happened onto.

With Harry Potter - there was no chance you could just happen onto it, and there is no possibility of avoiding all the coverage.

So I went flat out and read it. Because I can't stand a spoiled story.

Big media? Do your worst, you're too late.

Tag, I'm it.

Miss No-H threw down the gauntlet, and said I wouldn't respond. Like the dutiful belligerent she knows me to be, I'll fall for the reverse psychology.

With a catch - My circle of blogs is pretty small, and I think she's tagged most of the ones I know. So I'll do a tag for each reason, but no way I'll have five.

I'll tag the Oracle before someone else does. That's one.

And Cracked. That's two.

Two's all I got - and all I need - I guess.

Top two reasons why I blog:

1) The obvious reason. Dad.

In the weeks after his death, I was short on clarity and the time to say much of anything. Oh, I'd thought about saying something on many occasions. I just never did. Given my history - I'd plotted out a story arc of me retreating further and further into my own head until one day I'd blow up at somebody for not passing the goddamn salt.

In the years prior to 2005, I had written a few essays for nobody in particular and this blog began as just another collection of words sitting on my hard drive.

It was a few weeks after the accident, and I was a mess. Some time after the boy was asleep, I went downstairs, fired up MS word and started typing. The first word that came out of my head was 'Autopilot.' I was going to type a eulogy, at least that's what I think I was going to do. A few hours later, I realized that I was never going to finish. So I made it into a blog.

I still work on the eulogy some days - most times when I'm in the car on the way home - listening to music I should avoid. I envision myself at the service all over again, only this time I'd step up to the podium and say all the things I should have. I write and rewrite paragraphs in my head until they are hopelessly overwrought or until some traffic mishap jolts me back to the present.

I have a few paragraphs I've burnished almost to the point of posting - a virulent defense of my associating dad's death with Katrina, rather than the freak accident that it could easily be classified as. I say them to myself at least once a week - imagining some hapless critic withering under my words as I drive them home with a pile driver.

-and then I think, "never gonna happen." and then I post something about the government.

2) My only other reason is the same as most, I expect. I like to say what's on my mind, and I'm not sure most people enjoy hearing it. Here, I can scream into the void and people can take or leave it. Given the potential audience of a blog like this, and my infrequent update schedule, I have no illusions about what kind of exposure my thoughts will get - but every once in awhile you get a comment or a tag - and that's pretty cool.

Cheers.

What the hell are 'Deathly Hallows?'

Beats me, but J.K. Rowling is apparently going to tell us.

Spoiler alert: the article discusses a big aspect of box 6. A retroactive sorry.

Embarrassment of riches

Been awhile since I've come up for air – between trying to stay above water at work, doing the same at home, and just being unconscious - there hasn't been a lot of time for much else.

Putting together a decent meal is a time crunch most days – I doubt we’ve managed it on our own since baby E showed up. First, my mom was in town and she helped us out. Then we were on leftovers.

Then we were out of leftovers, and we’re dreading what we have in the cupboard – and trips to the grocery store have turned into quite the logistical feat.

So, I’m coming out of the garage, and who is coming up my driveway buy Ms. No-H, and she’s carrying pizza. Lots of pizza.

And not your schlock pizza, either – but the yummy kind. I’m way sick, so I munch and flop down somewhere outta the way, while E socializes.

It’s a great night. Some days, crossing off a seemingly simple thing like dinner is just the best thing in the world. So, thanks, Ms. No-H. Perfect timing. What a marvelous thing to do.

---

Rewind to the day after baby E is born.

A friend of ours, KB, asks if we like lasagna. “I’d make you some if you do.”

In my head, this triggers a brief, internal Q & A session:

Do I like lasagna?

I think so.

You think?

Okay, I’ll check its ranking…Got it! It was in the “Love more than life itself” folder, right next to sauerkraut pizza.

Y'know, I should eat more lasagna...

Damn right.

So, I say, “Um, yes.” and forget all about the discussion.

A few days later, I’m getting lunch at an Italian deli when-

Hey! I should eat more lasagna.

So, I go to the freezer and buy a massive pan of ready-to-bake lasagna. A pan I need to set down because my arm starts hurting while I’m getting out my cash at the register.

Fast forward to that night. Zagne’s in the fridge, cued up for tomorrow and then KB calls to tell us she’s coming over with lasagna tomorrow.

Hey! I should eat more lasagna.

Sure, we’re game – the deli 'zagne goes in the freezer, and we get ready for homemade Italian goodness.

Poof. It’s tomorrow night, and KB and family drop off the yummy. We bake, we scarf, we scarf some more.

That part of my brain that had been nagging me is now gloating:

Ya see, I told you…

Despite our best efforts, there’s half a pan left – which we’ll kill off tomorrow.

Next day, our neighbor, MG comes over with bread, salad and – lasagna!

Hey! I should eat more lasagna.

So, we’ve got two in the fridge, one in the freezer – that part of me that has been craving zagne will finally be sated.

---

And then, next day-

Mr. and Ms. U send us a box of cookies – and not your ho-hum sugar cookies with sprinkles, but exotic cookies you see on the food channel. The kind where every ingredient doesn’t have a brand name in front of it.

Bags and bags of them – and they are yummy. And I vacillate between hiding the box for myself, and setting them out for the family. As a compromise measure – I eat all the chocolate chip cookies.

Yum

---

Which brings us to yesterday.

I walk in and there in the middle of the floor is a large box with Styrofoam lining and plastic pouring out of it.

E’s sitting on the couch, big smile on her face. “G and T sent us some sausage.”

I look at the box. It dwarfs her statement. “Some…?”

“That’s just the box I left out so you could see it. The other one was just as big.”

My mind performs some rapid calculations. “Is there room in the fridge?”

“Not really, but we’ve got plenty to eat!”

---

So, thanks to everyone for everything – our cholesterol count is sure to spike this month – but it’s the holidays and it was headed that way anyway. The stuff we’ve munched already was way yummy – and the stuff we’ve got in the queue looks at least as good.

You people are great.

Mental note

I complain about my memory. Forgetting where I put stuff, forgetting to do things...

picture this: not being able to forget anything.

-----------------------------------

Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine writer of the 20th century, wrote of the Uruguayan Funes the Memorious, whose perception and memory became infallible after falling from a horse in the mid 1880s:

We, in a glance, perceive three wine glasses on the table; Funes saw all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebracho. These recollections were not simple; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his fancies. Two or three times he had reconstructed an entire day.

And thus Ireneo Funes lived like no other before or since, remembering all that had happened to him. And remembering that he remembered. This vicious cycle led not to the incalculable awakening of genius that one might expect. Instead, it led to the opposite: a painful sagacity of everything he wished to forget.

(From bokardo.com)