Archive for November, 2006
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
If you’re not sure because you’ve never tried them, now you can! Yesterday’s edition of our local newspaper in Victoria tipped me off to a new recipe collection, the Green Eggs & Ham Cookbook. I recalled my childhood excitement over the silliness of Dr Seuss and such a meal but then I became intrigued – what do green eggs and ham taste like? Would I, could I in a house? I guess I’ll have to get the book and try out the recipe to know for sure!
And lo and behold, while looking up the Green Eggs & Ham Cookbook, I discovered that there is also a recently released Mary Poppins recipe book, Mary Poppins in the Kitchen: A Cookery Book with a Story. This book cleverly presents recipes as a story of a week where Mary Poppins goes beyond a spoonful of sugar and teaches the Banks children how to cook. Â
These two books have piqued my interest to see what other childrens’ books have become inspiration for cookery books!Â
Posted in books, cooking | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 24th, 2006
Tim from LibraryThing is constantly amazing me. I’ve been testing his UnSuggester, which recommends the books you are unlikely to read if you own/have read another. It’s fun to plug in your favourite titles or bestsellers and see what the opposite reads are.
Another great book thing today is My Penguin: classic books with blank covers that the reader can design or decorate personally. If you scan a copy of your cover and send it in to Penguin, they’ll even post it on their website.
I think some great literary jokes could be played by taking the blank covers of the Penguin titles and replacing them with the covers of the UnSuggester’s picks. Readers who picked up Girls in Pants (Sisterhood of Traveling Pants) by Ann Brashares might enjoy Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment after finding it inside the covers, and who knows, maybe readers of Web Standard Solutions by Dan Cederholm would appreciate the romance in Jane Austen’s Emma?
Posted in AbeBooks, design, LibraryThing | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
In the world of the ever fracturing audience and the consolidation of media power, how do smaller, lesser known authors and books get known. Is it enough to rely on the efforts of the publisher? Unlikely.
A couple of recent examples of doing something different surfaced recently:
Do these efforts work? Maybe. The key here seems to be engaging the audience in some way. You’re not just buying a book, you’re hacking the publishing system. Draw the customers into the experience, let it become a conversation (literally).
Any other examples of unusal book promotion?
Posted in books, business | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
Despite all the criticism and media furore, people want to buy If I Did It – the controversial OJ Simpson book personally pulled by Rupert Murdoch. Our daily tracking data shows a significant number of folks are coming to AbeBooks.com and searching for the book – whether it is the finished article, advance copies or galleys. At the time of writing, there are no copies on the site.
Posted in books, collecting, internet, news | 2 Comments »
