Linked List – Novelr - Making People Read

MCM has a brilliant post on pitching WebLit at FanExpo:
So I told her about what we do, and how we do it, and never really WHY we do it, but I think that was obvious from the get-go: we’re insane. Not just me, but pretty much all of us in weblit. We make things and do things not just because we like to write, but because we like to talk to the people at the other end, and see what they thought. Even when we don’t integrate things directly (as with livewriting), weblit is more of a conversation than a broadcast. We use our sites and Twitter and Facebook and the rest to have actual correspondence with people, not just pre-packaged sales pitches. We’re actual people, and we talk about actual things.
Thought: so that’s how you sell it to mainstream audiences?! That web fiction – this thing we do – is a conversation?! That’s … that’s brilliant. # (1)

MyStory is location-aware fiction, written by Barry Dickins, Tony Birch, Cate Kennedy and Matt Blackwood. Fascinating idea, and a lot of work to get the places around Melbourne just right. # (0)

William Gibson on Google:
Science fiction never imagined Google, but it certainly imagined computers that would advise us what to do. HAL 9000, in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” will forever come to mind, his advice, we assume, eminently reliable — before his malfunction. But HAL was a discrete entity, a genie in a bottle, something we imagined owning or being assigned. Google is a distributed entity, a two-way membrane, a game-changing tool on the order of the equally handy flint hand ax, with which we chop our way through the very densest thickets of information. Google is all of those things, and a very large and powerful corporation to boot.
Well written, and a fascinating (if detached!) look at the Google we take for granted. # (0)

The Wall Street Journal looks at the Reading Habits of E-Reader Owners. Short version: ebooks aren’t replacing old book habits, but are adding to them. # (0)

David Pogue reviews the new Kindle:
This week, Amazon unveiled what everyone (except Amazon) is calling the Kindle 3. You might call it Amazon’s iPad response. The Kindle 3 is ingeniously designed to be everything the iPad will never be: small, light and inexpensive.
Pogue argues that the Kindle isn’t really competing with the iPad – for one, Amazon’s book catalog is many times larger than that of Apple’s, and the Kindle’s biggest threat are other ebook readers with E Ink technology. The Kindle appears to have a lifeline. # (0)

You Are Not Seth Godin:
So, can every brand be Seth Godin? The answer is “maybe.” We tend to see this one act: “Seth leaves major book publishing behind.” What we forget is the track record (twelve best-selling business books, as many speaking events per year as he would like to do, his own seminars, thousands of Blogs posts, free eBooks and more goodwill thank you can shake a stick at). This amounts to decades of doing tons of things (let’s not forget about Squidoo) that all had him in direct connection with the people who will buy his books from him, talk about it to their peers and evangelize his always-brilliant thinking.
Godin considers this the best article about his move. # (0)

Steve McCurry (he of National Geographic ‘Afghan Girl’ fame) has a lovely photo-essay up on his blog about the relationship between readers and their books. (Part II found here). # (0)