abalidoth:

outerheavenuprising:

outerheavenuprising:

do you think like 600 years ago book nerds got real mad when the printing press was invented because filthy casuals could get books without having to copy them out themselves

i keep getting reblogs from the exact people i’m mocking with this post

nerds really have no self awareness

“Truly, I am vexed with yon Fake Reader Girls. Forsooth, they doth pretend to like books to gain husbands and consort with the Devil.”

“Forsooth, they wilt undermine the book as an art form! For what use is the book without the scribe?”

(Source: team-stannis)

Not gonna lie: If they made this, I’d buy one.

A true story about short stories.

scribnerbooks:

In Toronto, a vending machine that sells random books for $2 apiece.

What Readers Need vs. What Devices Can Do →

Rethinking how to pick ebook enhancements

Most ebook experiments do a better job of showing off our devices rather than solving specific reader problems. We get video extras, web links, piped in Twitter feeds. Problem is, these “enhancements” often answer the wrong question: what can we add? In an age of Information Overload, readers don’t need more; they need help. A video of battle footage may be fun to watch, and a simple way to add what’s not possible in print. But what students of World War Two often struggle with is much more mundane: remembering key events for that upcoming test or prepping for an essay they’re writing.

Rather than starting from what the iPad or EPUB 3 makes possible, we should instead think about where print fails to solve readers’ needs. By keeping a simple question in mind regarding any enhancement — what’s it for? — I think we can create digital books that are superior to print in some really tangible ways.

Here are five different areas that offer some reader-friendly opportunities.

"If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print."

Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop (via prettybooks)

"I do feel at home in the world. I have genuinely felt throughout my life a sense that any acceptance of what I write is a bonus, a gift from other people. It’s not something that’s due me. When any editor has a place for some of my work, that’s fine, but I always send that stamped return envelope. I’m genuinely ready for those rejections. I’ve always felt that an editor’s role is to get the best possible material for the readers of the publication, not to serve the writer, not at all. If they don’t want it, I don’t want them to have it. So I never have felt that I needed to push this stuff into the world. If it’s invited in, then it will come in. If it’s not invited in, fine, it will live at home."

William Stafford, The Paris Review (via litverve)

Against Reviews →

A historical look at the author-audience and poet-patron relationships, and the role reviews actually play.

As rates of literacy increased in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, so did the demand for and production of books. Lending libraries flourished, and fiction became the focus. In the 1600s, approximately half of the books produced in Paris were religious texts. By 1790, the figure had dropped to 10 percent.

Simultaneous with the rise of books—and of novels in particular—was the rise of book reviews. Earlier publications had short lives and small audiences, but as the number of readers went up and the cost of printing went down, reviews began to wield enormous influence.