<!– –> Welcome to the juicy goodness that is this week’s TOC newsletter. We are currently somewhat obsessed with e-reading devices, libraries, self-publishing, the Big Six, the five mill, LeVar Burton, and, of course, Star Wars miniatures. In fact, there is so much must-read content bubbling away below that we’re just going to step out of the way and let you at it. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Please email us at toc-newsletter@oreilly.com.
Cheers, Chairs, Tools of Change Watch Books in Browsers Live
LeVar Burton, Eric Ries, and Baratunde Thurston to keynote at TOC New York
We’re gathering some of the brightest minds in publishing and are excited to add LeVar Buron, Eric Ries, and Baratunde Thurston to the TOC New York 2012 keynote lineup. Make sure to join us Feb. 13-15, 2012, in New York as practitioners and executives from publishing and tech come together to navigate publishing’s ongoing transformation. Register by Dec. 20 to save up to $200.
Hot Type Yes, the Kindle Fire shipped a day early, as did Barnes & Noble’s Nook tablet, Kobo came out with a $99 ad-supported Touch, PaidContent ran a great comparison of all the contenders, and Amazon admitted that it fully expects customers to root the Kindle Fire device—but other stuff has recently happened, too.
Reading About Writing
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Too Sexy for Your Nook? Dewily Digitized Decimals
Big One (of Six)
Reposition Statement
Look/See
Publisher’s Corner Actual News from Our Man in the Midwest
As we hope you know, poking fun at O’Reilly publisher and general manager Joe Wikert is something of a part time job. It’s so fun, it’s so easy. But this week, we pull our stare away from his collection of hand-carved Star Wars miniatures to treat him with a skosh of the respect he deserves. To wit: We’re thrilled, stoked, delighted, and more than a little bit pleased to announce that Publishers Weekly has become an event partner with our Tools of Change for Publishing conference. “By bringing together the highly respected Publishers Weekly and Tools of Change [TOC] brands we’re able to provide more content and events for the publishing community than either organization could do on their own,” says Wikert. “Throughout 2011, TOC has ramped up to become much more than simply a once or twice a year in-person event. We offer content in a variety of formats including ebooks, video podcasts, and webcasts. Publishers Weekly will now be an integral part of each of those initiatives, enabling TOC to reach even more publishing professionals. Publishers Weekly‘s team of professionals will also play an important role in helping shape the editorial calendar and content for TOC events going forward. The impact of this relationship will be felt globally through our rapidly growing list of in-person and virtual events.” And, in a nice bit of kismet, turns out Publishers Weekly is pleased too. Did we mention that Joe’s miniatures are hand-carved? Indiana winters can be hard on a man.
Exceptional Excerpts Tantalizers from new and upcoming books Perhaps delusionally, this week author Todd Sattersten kindly allows us to reprint a short excerpt from the first chapter of his work-in-progress, Every Book Is a Startup: Entrepreneurs are delusional. Consider the definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary: Delusion (noun) An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument. Anyone in search of a new business model or launching his latest product needs some amount of delusion. You can be taken advantage of in that state of mind, but delusion also gives you room to create wonderful things that most people thought were impossible. I wonder if, at some point, we’ll accept delusion as necessary rather than mistaken. Probably not. Look at the thesaurus alternatives: misapprehension, misconception, misunderstanding, mistake, error, misinterpretation, misconstruction, misbelief; fallacy, illusion, fantasy. It’s funny because, based on these alternative meanings, delusion is a word you apply after the fact. “That was clearly a mistake; he must have been delusional.” The result leads to the label. Genius if you succeed; fool if you fail. Publishing is based at some level on delusion. The rational argument is that only a small number of books will reach any sort of commercial success. If we accepted reality, no one would waste the time, the effort, or the money. We all have to embrace our delusions.
Audible Knowledge The Latest from our TOC Podcast Series You can also subscribe to the free TOC podcast through iTunes. Not an iTunes fan? No worries. All podcasts live safely here.
Big ‘n’ Broad
Kickstarter for Books
Dept. of Take a Look, <!–
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In this Issue:
New Books & Reports Ebook: $2.99 First to market, this is the book that should have come with the device.
Ebook: $7.99 Ebook: $7.99 The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections Upcoming Events
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