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India’s Plans to Join U.S. in Unmonitored Surveillance

With all the recent stink in the news about the United States performing less-than-legal surveillance on its citizens, it seems only natural that other countries would want to get in on a good thing, right?  India is one of those countries and, as it turns out, has been for a few years now.  A plan has been underway for a while that allows many Indian government agencies to monitor citizens free of any outside influence or regulation.

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What Google Glass for publishing could do...

Have you seen the video for Google Glass? They have a pretty slick site here that tells you how "How it feels" and "What it does." And when you watch the demo videos, you get the sense that it is the most amazing toy ever that will solve all of your problems. The marketing is great. We still don't know what it will be like to use them in real day to day life, and that's also not what I'm going to speculate on here.

What about Google Glass for books?

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The battle for eBook retail supremacy

Amazon is the undisputed king of the hill in the ebook market right now. They sell more ebooks than anybody else, and their Kindle ereader is dangerously close to becoming a synonym for ereader the way Kleenex did for facial tissue. Then there is this little company out of Toronto that you may have heard of once or twice. Kobo. I think they could take Amazon down, or at least give them a run for their money (which is considerable!). More on why further down.

Ebook Retail Marketshare

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Exploring contemporary poetry: Poetry journals

If you are interested in getting into contemporary poetry but you want something a little more fresh and spontaneous than a poetry anthology, picking up some poetry journals is a great way to go.

The best way to explore the world of poetry journals is to find your nearest bookstore, one large enough to have a decent selection of magazines and periodicals. Ideally an independent bookstore, but big chain stores like Barnes & Noble usually have a very respectable poetry section in the magazine racks.

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The rise of hybrid publishing

A hybrid publisher? What's that?

That's the most common question I hear when I start talking about hybrid publishing to anyone who isn't in the publishing industry. It's a good question, and the fact that so many people are still talking about trying to define the very term that describes it says a lot about the nebulous nature of publishing's future right now.

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Summer trends in publishing

Can you believe we're almost halfway through 2013? Summer crept up on me, and I couldn't believe it when I realized it was June 3 today. This weekend I was thinking about Book Expo America, my own future as an author and a marketing coach, and where the publishing industry is headed, both in the immediate future and over the next few years. I continue to think it's the most exciting time to be in publishing since we first figured out how to mass-produce books on a press, and things are showing no signs of slowing down.

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The growing presence of independent authors in the publishing industry

We all hear stories about the breakout success that a few authors have. And there is plenty written, including by me on this blog, about how this kind of independent or self-publihsed success is challenging the traditional publishing model. But for the most part, a success story is about a single author- I usually picture as someone from a suburb in Nebraska going from PTA meetings one day into a NY city star in the VIP section overnight, even though I know it's not even remotely like that.

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