Eyeballs as Portals to the Soul, not Sellable Objects
As you might imagine if you read my last post, this week has been the week of The Holocene. Holy smokes, what an incredible week so far. And I just read an article that is the perfect complement to my week. Writer Rebecca Skloot tweeted a link to an interview the Guardian did with Maria Popova, the editor of Brain Pickings. Many of the points Maria made are related to my reasons for wanting to create The Holocene with Corey and Brett. Like her response to a question about why she doesn’t run ads on her wildly popular website: There’s a really beautiful letter that a newspaper...
Read MoreWe’re making a new digital magazine. (Help!)
Remember back when the Taco Hat Indiegogo campaign failed and I said it was about the best thing ever? And I implied that I’d lighted on a better way to approach delivering outstanding content about building skills and know-how related to making stuff? Yeah, today I’m going to tell you all about it. The short story is that I’m falling over excited to be returning to my favourite kind of work – magazine editing. To boot, I’m part of a team that’s launching the magazine I’ll edit. And further, this magazine isn’t the kind of magazine we’ve...
Read MoreWhy I Strip the DRM from All My Ebooks
I just read this post about the publisher Hachette saying that DRM is “working very well” for them. How nice for them. Here’s another in my recurring theme of rants about why DRM is awful, and why I think that even though I’m an author and authors are, apparently, supposed to want to limit how readers can enjoy their work. Short Answer I strip the DRM from all my ebooks because I’m a reader. Medium Answer The answer above PLUS: Because I’m a passionate reader and I’m picky about how and where I read. I want to use the app I like best, and I want to be...
Read MoreWill piracy ever die?
In this video, Chris Pirillo says EVERYTHING. Everything that needs to be said about piracy, why people pirate, how industry and companies and artists are fuelling people’s desire to pirate by not making it easy to get and share their content, how people can make piracy sustainable (hint, by giving back to the system we take from), and why Moxy Fruvous is an awesome band. EVERYTHING. Watching this is worth more than eight minutes of your time. [via @jianghomeshi] FacebookTwitterPinterestGoogle +1MoreLinkedInEmailRedditDiggTumblrStumbleUponIn this video, Chris Pirillo says...
Read MoreMy Authorly Thoughts on Ebooks and Piracy
Publishing-industry thinker Sean Cranbury linked to this article in the Globe and Mail: The rise of the e-book lending library (and the death of e-book pirating). The voice of the article, along with some of the people quoted within it, struck me as… naïve. To say the least. But enough about that. As an author, here’s what I think about digital publishing, ebook lending and piracy. In reverse order. My books have been pirated. To be clear – my only-released-in-print books have been pirated. I know, right? Makes me feel special that someone, or some people, took the time to...
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I write here about creativity, business, crafts, publishing and books.
