Me in OZ

A new comic (featuring my very windblown hair) is up at Skidmore Bluffs. The U-Store place, next to 84, definitely has some interesting photo opportunities.

Sony PRS-700 Review: El Segundo

I’ve had my Sony PRS-700 for over a month now, and in that time I’ve downloaded over 40 plus ebooks. In the same time, I’ve bought around eight paper books. Of those paperback books I bought, almost all were mass market and purchased for the following reasons:

• I will want to read them again and again (away from an electronic device that I may not have in the future).
• I will want to loan them to friends.
• The print version was cheaper than the e version. (Never discount the power of a coupon to push a book browser over the edge to become a book buyer, bookstores.)

Of the 40 some-odd books on my Sony, I’ve read about 46. These 46 books range from the free Harlequin downloads (60^th anniversary love,) to excerpts on authors sites (Courtney Milan,) to books that I picked up due to web discussion (Delilah Marvelle,) to authors I’ve just been interested in reading for quite some time (Naomi Novik.) As a reader I’m much more likely to give an author a chance in ebook form because if I don’t like it, well hey, I can just hit delete.

Unlike other readers I really haven’t had any compatibility issues beyond my basic ignorance of the Sony’s formats. This may be because I’ve got a PC and the Mac peeps have been getting the Sony cold shoulder until recently, or it may be because I refused to read the directions. If you don’t know what you are supposed to do, then you can’t misinterpret right?

My test download was the free pdf of Bettie Sharpe’s Ember. Originally posted in a serialized format, Ember was my first taste of Sharpe’s writing and it was why I eventually picked up her first novel from Samhain to read on my laptop oh so long ago. The pdf format transferred to my Sony no problem, but the font was incredibly tiny upon viewing. Unfortunately increasing the size only destroyed the paragraph formation. Still readable, sure, but also still hard on the eyes. It wasn’t until I downloaded a novel in Adobe ePub that I realized that this was a result of the file format, not the Sony. With the fluidity of ePub format, I was able to use the Sony’s ability to increase text size for my poor eyes without losing the formatting that makes it possible to actually read the story.

From the looks of Sony’s latest press release, it seems I’m not the only one who likes ePub. Sony announced that it will default to ePub as the format of choice for the Sony bookstore and the Sony readers. In an effort to increase market awareness they have also partnered with Independent bookstores, Booksonboard, Net Galley, Powells.com and created a program called Library Finder to hook you up with ebooks from your local library.

Of these partnerships, the ones with Library Finder and Net Galley have me the most excited. One of the worst issues I had with writing book reviews was not the actual writing the review itself, but finding the time to review a book from a publisher when I might have had other books I want to read more. With the Sony the “I don’t have it with me” excuse is gone, and I’m (at least) much more likely to flip it open and start reading when the mood strikes. As for the library partnership? Well, what better way to test drive an author before buying. In this economy I like having some idea about the person’s style before I put money down for paper or a file (…and this is why you should have excerpts on your website.)

As I mentioned in my earlier review, I’ve continued to have issues with the contrast, but I’ve compromised by either turning on more lights in my room, or just reading something in print (if I must read) before going to bed. In rare—stubborn—cases I’ve also increased the font size. I hear that the contrast improves in the 600 (and also possibly in the web connected Reader Daily Edition,) but still suffers due to the touch screen technology.

Which brings me to the reason this test drive has taken place: having tried it, would I buy a Sony?

The answer: I still don’t know. I love the convenience. I love always having a library of books with me without adding more to my already overflowing bookshelves. I love all the new and exciting things Sony is doing. That said, in this last week I maybe picked up the Sony once or twice. Since I’m currently not commuting or running a lot of errands where I’ve got sitting around time, the Sony has been relegated to a break-time or home-time device. Also a lot of books that I’ve been waiting for finally hit the bookstore shelves (in many cases, before the ebook was available.) Since I knew that I would read them again and again, I didn’t mind buying those books in paper. It should be noted that not a single book belonged in the new-to-me-author category. All were discovered via previous books and some, like G.A. Aiken, were authors whose previous books were only available online.

With so many changes going on with Sony—three new ereaders and multiple new partnerships—part of me feels like I should sit back and see how it all goes. What if I buy a 600 and next year its obsolete like the 700 is now? What if I get the Daily Edition despite its high price point only to have its price drop (see: the iPhone) or for its internet access to get restricted or costly (a la Amazon?) And despite all of these great updates, the Sony store remains long to load and odd when it comes to navigation. More and more often I’ve just bypassed it completely and bought from BooksonBoard.

That said, we’ll have to see what happens after I send the Sony back to SB Sarah. I’m sure there will be horrible withdrawals because even if I’m not reading something on it, it doesn’t mean that it’s not available. It’s entirely possible that the absence will not only make my heart grow fonder, but also make me take a good, long look at my checking account balance (or at least my Christmas List.)

Friday Night Links

For Art History fans, Christopher Moore has been touring the French Art World and giving his interpretation of famous pieces. That and his other french adventures are being covered on his blog. Check it out.

The Social Media for Writers Blog has great advice on how to use Social Media for writers and for publishers (check out the story regarding Chelsea Green and twitter).
Thanks to Midge Raymond for the link.

The Story Siren has a post up regarding Blogging Etiquette. This goes well with the Dear Author column on how to get into book blogging.

Rock Reads, as Flavorwire calls them, were quite popular in our store since we had two booksellers who hand sell the hell out of them. They were all nonfiction though, so it would have been interesting to see how these went over: From Great Jones Street to Garden State: Six Essential Rock Fiction Reads

This makes me smile. I tried taking inventory of what people were reading back when I was on a MAX route, but it mostly consisted of me trying to discern some sort of pattern (a la, the next reading theme will be Asian) or whether or not the books were from my store. This takes it to a whole new (sub) level.

Eric from Pimp My Novel asks "Self-Publishing: Great Idea... or Worst Idea Ever?" I'm not sure I agree with his conclusion because I've seen people who have really made the self publishing model work. It's interesting to note that all of those people have now been picked up by major publishers, but they were also (for the most part) niche books that turned out to have a wider audience than first believed.

Sony PRS-700 Review: The first

Back in June, I got the wonderful chance to test drive a Sony PRS-700 from the lovely ladies of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. By partnering with Sony, SB Sarah was able to put 30 refurbished Sonys (both 700s and 505s) into the hands of people who might not have otherwise dropped E picked up an ebook. You can follow all of the Sony adventures and discussions here, the reviews (and the comics) are worth a read through for anyone considering an ebook reader. Below you can find my first Sony review as well as a picture of my Sony getting the harem treatment (Loretta Chase's Don't Tempt Me deals with a former harem girl, don't you know). My follow up post will be coming next week.

* * *

I was waiting for the bus, reading The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss on my Sony 700—finally HPs and I could once again indulge in our secret love!—when the guy next to me leaned over.

“Hey, is that a Kindle?”

Sadly this was not the first time I’ve been asked this question during the test drive, and it wouldn’t be the last. Oh, Sony marketing fail.

“Nope,” I explained, “it’s a Sony PRS-700 ebook reader.”

I showed him the touch screen with its iPod like icons, and I showed him the catalog function. I even did a little demo to illustrate how the touch screen could be used to flip pages with a swipe of the finger.


“Best of all,” I ended my little sales pitch, “it has the ability to operate outside of Amazon!”

“Nice,” he agreed. “Where do you get one?”

Ah, yes, about that. They’re extinct, and it’s pretty hard to convince someone to go Sony when your model is already obsolete. Even as I write this review the 700 is nowhere to be found on the Sony website and the only 505s remaining are the specialized versions. According to reports, in the next several months we’ll see two new Sony models: the 300 and the 600. Both sound like they have advantages over their predecessors—which is good. Although I like the ability to catalogue my books, shop where I want, and the fact that no one can take my books away from me with a click of a button, there are features I hope they improve.

While I’m a fan of the 700’s touch screen, the e-ink technology being used makes the screen far too dark to read on in anything other than direct light. I find myself using the backlight more often than not, just so I can provide enough contrast between the screen and the text to read.

When I first discovered this issue, I got online to see if there was any quick work around, only to find that the best suggestion involved taking the Sony apart. I’m pretty sure that would void my warranty.

Constant use of the backlight in turn wears down my battery so quickly that I find myself taking the 700 to work in order to charge it daily. Why take it to work, you ask? Because the 700 needs between two to four hours to charge. I’m not on my laptop that long on my off work hours, and the 700 cannot receive a charge from the USB port when the computer is asleep.* If I had actually purchased the Sony, instead of just test driving it, I definitely would have broken down and bought an a/c outlet cable. As it is now, I ration** my weekend reading so that the battery will last until my next work day.

With these issues, along with the store’s slow connectivity issues and the basic evil that is DRM, it’s hard to say if the Sony ebook reader is right for me. I’m glad that I got to try out the 700 instead of just buying it, but there is still a great deal of room for improvement. Hopefully the 600 will go a long way towards addressing those concerns, but until I see some reviews I’m not adding it to my Christmas list.

It’s interesting to note, that right after my talk with bus stop boy, my 75 bus showed up. The bus was full of people reading books—paper books—some definitely from the library, others rereads, and some clearly new. The kid I ended up sitting next to though was reading on his iPhone. While he didn’t even glance my Sony’s way, I was tempted to ask him several times what he was reading, and how he liked it.

And I definitely did not mistake his iPhone for a Kindle.

* If only I had realized that right away on the day it arrived. I could have avoided a lot of “Hey, it’s done!” “Oh wait, no.” “But yes!” “But no?” Yes, the Sony and I enacted our own scene of forced seduction. Come to think of it, the USB thingie is kind of phallic looking.

**Rationing, otherwise known as reading books made of dead trees. When participating in said rationing, I highly suggest printing off one of the many, many Borders coupons going around out there and checking out Meredith Duran’s newest.

The Magic of Music

If you wrote Bobby McFerrin off for "Don't Worry, Be Happy," here's something to change your mind:





And by the by, how cool would it have been to go to this?

Links for Later

Because god forbid I actually post links when I come across them:


Oh so long ago Flavorwire posted links to book trailers of the artsy variety. Flavorwire is fast becoming one of my favorite daily reads with offbeat reviews. I still need to check out Britten & Brülightly (samples of the illustrations can be found here).

As a follow up to the BSU Tweet Camp, check out these examples of Publishing Professionals using Twitter.

The Greenlight Bookstore is almost on its way, and they're looking for a few good volunteers. If you're in the greater Brooklyn area, you should check them out.

Tales from Tweet Camp

I believe that Kirk Biglione may well be the Bob Ross of Twitter.* Not only does he have a soothing voice and easy-to-follow style that would make him perfectly suited to Scott Brick’s Share the Experience audiobook contest, but in just an hour’s worth of sessions (spread conveniently over five days) he manages to explain the ins and outs of the Twitter experience in a way that even the newest online member could follow. A good thing, too, because before participating in the beta version Booksquare University’s Tweet camp the only thing I knew about Twitter was that it had a character limit.

Oh, and that people who Twitter were not called twits (apparently some even actually find that insulting).

Broken out into short videos (averaging ten minutes), the BSU Tweet camp explains how to set up your Twitter account, the vocabulary of twitter (hashtags, retweets, and followers), and how to use your Twitter account to promote yourself. Each video, narrated by Kirk, is accompanied by various articles (often written by Booksquare herself, Kassia Krozser) with links to other helpful Twitter related sites. Despite the short length, the videos do everything but tell you when to breathe and the articles follow-up and enlarge upon the concepts related in the videos.

After completing the course, you should be a perfectly proficient tweeter, capable of following conversations and enticing followers of your own. Use it to promote you next book, your website or your business. Use it just to join the conversation. Hell, you’ll use it just to follow the conversation (although that has gotten easier now that Twitter has hyperlinked the hashtags—try #sbtd #sbtd#amazonfail).

Additionally, upon completion, you might learn that tweeting is not your thing; something that I think is just as important. It was after BSU Tweet camp I realized something that has been plaguing me for a long time—I’ve been suffering from computer fatigue. I get home from work and I don’t want to type. I don’t spend as much time on the computer as I used to, and when I am on, it’s usually to read a book. This fatigue transfers to Twitter as well, despite its short character requirements, which is not surprising as I also don’t text. I’m following some very interesting people, and I’ve definitely used my page to follow lit flair ups (Alice Hoffman et al), but beyond posting a few links I don’t have much to add at the moment. That may change now that I’ve started my Sony adventure as part of the Smart Bitches Sony test drive #sbtd

*I believe this to be a compliment, by the way, as I have very pleasant memories from my childhood of Bob teaching me to paint happy little trees.

For you Zombie Vamp lovers: The Strain (book trailer)

I knew that The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan had come out, but I hadn't seen the book trailer.




Nice.

I expect this will transition well to the big screen when they get around to it.

Please (sort of) Steal This Book

Every time I run across commentary on DRM and ebooks I'm reminded of the xkcd comic on DRM and music. This time it was Smart Bitches column DRM-free publishers that triggered my quick search of the xkcd archives. The idea that readers would want to read something on whatever device the own? Absurd!

Everyone knows those computer thingies will never catch on!

The quote from Elizabeth of Dreamspinner press as it gets to heart of books and readers:

Ultimately happy customers buy more books and the type of reader that seeks out free pirated titles isn’t going to buy them in the first place.

So true. Although the key words here are "free pirated titles." As the SB column goes on to drive home (in both the column and the comments) it's that a lot of people stripping DRM from ebooks are doing so because they've already bought the content but want/have to--for whatever reason--switch it to another device. It's not because they want to send it to everyone in their family or give it to the population of China, they just want to put it on their Sony reader from their Kindle.

Or download it onto their new laptop.

God forbid we would want to reread the book.

It lives...at the library

Since the move I've been visiting the library a great deal more than I used to and I've been reminded of what a great catalog we have here in Portland. My reasons for library-ing it instead of buying are many-- the proximity, the economy, the fact that I no longer receive free books--but the result is the same:

I'm wait-listed, like everyone else.

It seems the world has rediscovered free:

Check out all the coolness of the most wonderful library comic of all at Unshelved.com.

Too bad a crappy economy means that while circulation is up, the money for library budgets is probably in the tank.

Happy Holidays

Merry Holidays everyone. We've been in the new house a few weeks, but we just got the kitchen up and there are still no bookshelves (so it feels really, really naked). I'll be back after New Years!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

I've been in the process of moving for the last few days so I apologize for the belated Thanksgiving (to all those in the United States, a very, very belated Thanksgiving to all you Canadians, and to everyone else, happy weekend). Between getting the house ready to move into and trying to weed through four years of accumulated stuff, blogging has been the last thing I've had energy for. Once we get internet at the new place though we should be back up and running.