MediaWeek (Vol 6, No 16): Neil Gaiman at London BookFair, Amazon shorts, Libraries +More

Author Neil Gaiman addressed the crowds at London Book Fair last week and it may not have gone well.  "All I remember from the musicians union was that I got these yellow stickers" (YouTube)



From the New York Times on Amazon singles.

Besides luring luminaries like Ms. Orlean, Mr. Blum has tried to maintain the brand’s prestige by tightly limiting the number of offerings. Although the digital bookshelf is infinite, Kindle has posted only 345 Singles since its inception in January 2011, according to the company’s figures. (As of March 20, the company says, about 28 percent of the works have sold more than 10,000 copies, and nearly 8 percent have sold over 50,000 copies.)

Evan Ratliff, chief executive and co-founder of Atavist, said one thing his company likes about Singles is that it doesn’t accept every submission. “They actually make a concerted effort to find something great,” he added. “While we might disagree on the specifics of what that is, our overall sensibilities are aligned.”

But while remaining choosy, Mr. Blum takes a special pride in nurturing undiscovered authors. A favorite is Mishka Shubaly, a musician and recovered alcoholic who under Mr. Blum’s tutelage has written three best-selling memoirs on Kindle Singles.

Interesting short article on how a small libary consortia is battling declining budgets and circulation: (NJ)

The township library has launched a smart-phone and tablet application that enables users to get into the electronic catalog, renew borrowed books and place holds on other books. It also connects them to New Jersey’s digital library, where they borrow e-books and scan bookstore ISBN codes to see if Wayne’s collection carries the book before they decide to buy it. The Bergen County Cooperative Library System plans to release a similar app this summer.
"The number of smart-phone users is constantly going up," said Robert White, director of the consortium of 73 local libraries in Bergen and Hudson counties. "We have to do something to meet their needs."

 From twitter:
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