Links for 2009-1-14

I want one! Er, but I’m on the wrong continent. “Orion will give away 3,700 USB memory sticks tomorrow (14 January) to promote the paperback launch of Harlan Coben’s thriller Hold Tight. The branded USBs contain a creepy animation, which ties in with the thriller’s plot plus directions to a competition to win an iPhone on Orion’s website.” (via @sarahw)

“Jean MacLeod has been working for the publisher of romantic fiction since 1938 when it brought out her first novel, Life For Two.” (via @sarahw)

I’ll be doing this on my Twitter. Oh yes. “When you wake up on the 27th, instead of writing about your usual work and school and politics and friends and news and stuff, experience life down the Rabbit Hole and write about the work, the school, the politics, the friends, the news, the stuff that you find there instead. Travel through time. Turn into an animal. Flee from assassins. Talk to your goldfish. Conquer Greenland. Sprout some extra limbs. Learn how to walk on water. Marry an insect.” (via Warren Ellis)

More lol. “I meant to post my Top Ten Things a Publisher Can Do to Help Readers Spend Money this week but over the weekend, an author began to engage readers over at Amazon in a fairly combative manner over a three star, or average, review. I think it serves as a good illustration of just what not to do. I give you the Top Ten Things Authors Should NOT Do at Amazon, the short version:”

“When is the best time to write less than 140 characters about your favorite book? According to Twist, the addictive website that monitors Twitter keywords, the word “book” is most frequently typed on Twitter every weekday between 10 pm and 1 am in the morning.”

Book porn. (via @bookoven)

“Poe’s heart belong elsewhere? Nevermore! Three cities who claim the writer will scrap tonight at the Free Library. But the Philadelphian who started this fight has no doubts.”

Follow to your heart’s content, people. (via @softskull via @chelseagreen via @GraywolfPress, who all weren’t er, included in the list.)

Huh. “What’s a fair price for a digital book? Following GalleyCat’s ongoing discussion of that million-dollar question, one e-book insider wrote in with a few theories about why these new books cost so much.”

“But what kind of artist thrives on the Internet? Those who can establish a personal relationship with their readers — something science fiction has been doing for as long as pros have been hanging out in the con suite instead of the green room. These conversational artists come from all fields, and they combine the best aspects of charisma and virtuosity with charm — the ability to conduct their online selves as part of a friendly salon that establishes a non-substitutable relationship with their audiences. You might find a film, a game, and a book to be equally useful diversions on a slow afternoon, but if the novel’s author is a pal of yours, that’s the one you’ll pick. It’s a competitive advantage that can’t be beat.”

“On December 23 ScrollMotion released the first batch of its widely anticipated e-book apps for the iPhone, starting with titles such as Twilight and Eragon. Within 24 hours the company had pulled them from the iTunes store due to security issues.” (via @sarahw)

“Mostly, we can read just enough of a free e-book to decide whether to buy it in hardcopy — but not enough to substitute the e-book for the hardcopy. Like practically everything in marketing and promotion, the trick is to find the form of the work that serves as enticement, not replacement.”

“The single worst piece of writing advice I ever got was to stay away from the Internet because it would only waste my time and wouldn’t help my writing. This advice was wrong creatively, professionally, artistically, and personally, but I know where the writer who doled it out was coming from. Every now and again, when I see a new website, game, or service, I sense the tug of an attention black hole: a time-sink that is just waiting to fill my every discretionary moment with distraction.” (via @bookoven)

“The Printed Blog, a startup founded and funded by former business productivity software entrepreneur Joshua Karp, is launching a twice-daily free print newspaper in cities across the country aggregating localized blog posts.” (via @sarahw) I don’t entirely see the point of printing blog posts except as some form of archive. Part of the fun of blogs is the ability to respond to bloggers; with posts in print you can’t do that without some effort. But then, maybe people who want blogs in print are the kind of people that don’t comment.

Warren Ellis, if you don’t already know, brought us such fine comics like Transmetropolitan and Fell.