2) Andrew Wheeler’s syllabus for his non-existent sf course. I think it would be better served to address some of what happened in the 19th century, even if it was just an overview in the first week.
If you haven’t seen an in-store book printing machine in action, you’re in “luck.” I ordered a book from the Espresso Book Machine at the UW Bookstore in Seattle and took a really mediocre video of the process. Watch it here.
Handy with a camera, ain’t I?
The whole thing took about seven minutes, so I don’t think we’re at the place yet where book stores stocked their shelves with cover flats readers can carry to the register/print station. Not without 20 more machines running full time. And that doesn’t include the 15 minutes it needed to warm up the glue before the process could even start.
Also, there had to be a store employee operating the machines terminal for almost the whole time; I’ve done my best to edit her out, per her request.
Honestly, the most difficult part of the whole thing was taking my laptop out of the store to find a wifi signal, searching the specialized web site for the book I wanted to buy, and copying down the info I needed to take back into the store. Plus, the books were kinda spendy.
It’s early days yet.
I shot this over a year ago (Procrastinate? Me?) but ask questions if you have them. I’ll answer as best I can.
I know authors are already doing this with titles that have reverted to them. The interesting thing here is that it’s the publisher who’s pricing a backlist title like an app and surprising the hell out of themselves by hitting the NYT Bestseller list.
Obviously, this is not going to work as well as the practice becomes more common, but a surprise like this (and I’m certain that it is a surprise to everyone involved) will almost certainly cement teh idea of windowed ebook pricing: Full(ish) price when it’s a new release and a heavy discount (mumble mumble) months later.
2) Teacher tries to reach students via a book she writes, in which they are characters. School board objects to drug and sex references, not to mention the “Mr. Gay UK” stuff. You already guessed the rest.
5) Childhood pictures re-enacted. I have to admit, I love these, but I don’t think I could do it. One picture may be NSFW because it shows a woman’s breast.
