It’s finally possible–although still hardly likely–to skip the traditional publishers altogether, publishing yourself (via Amazon, for example), and get discovered by fans directly.
Reflecting on the release of Apple’s iPad, David Weinberger suggests that it is a device focused on consuming content and not producing it, and argues that the true future of reading is to become more social. Jim Milles questions scholars’ desire for this vision of the future.
Purchasing books on the Kindle has always struck me as a bit of a Faustian bargain: once you enter the Kindle ecosystem and purchase some books, those books are forever locked to Amazon’s e-reader. Now Amazon has made it easier for small-scale publishers and authors to opt-out.
Why are historians so obsessed with writing books?
Now that I’m on my second quarter of a PhD program in the History of Science, I am continuing to think about why I am doing this and what history (and History) has to offer, both to me and to the world at large. One concern I already have is with the apparent obsession with the book as the primary mechanism of disseminating the work of historians.
The NIH requires free, public access to research they fund. Now the Office of Science and Technology Policy is considering extending the policy to other federal agencies that fund academic research.
Dec 202009
I’ve been giving a lot of thought over the weekend to the problem of finding good content buried amidst all the noise on the Internet, especially when it comes to blog articles from lesser-known sources. (This is true for readers looking for quality content, but it’s also true for authors seeking readers.)
Techdirt discusses why you shouldn’t be concerned if someone “steals” your work and sells it, noting that “it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Dec 152009
As I noted a few days ago, there has been increasing attention to the idea of authors moving away from traditional publishers when it comes to e-books. Here’s more from the New York Times about one author doing just that:
Ever since electronic books emerged as a major growth market, New York’s largest publishing houses have [...]
Worth reading and considering is a new draft article by Professor Steven Shavell that proposes abolishing copyright on academic works.
Jul 012009
Ed Kohler points us to a long, but fascinating blog post, by Stuart Shieber, a CS professor at Harvard, discussing the somewhat ridiculous copyright situation that many academics deal with in trying to promote their own works. I’ve heard similar stories from other professors I know, but this one is worth reading. Shieber points out [...]
Jun 292009
Michael Nielsen wrote a stellar piece dealing with disruptive changes that doom old business models: newspapers and science publishers, to mention his examples. He does a particularly good job at explaining how this could happen even without anyone doing anything wrong or stupid.
Follow me on Twitter 