The book has stayed pretty much the same for over 500 years: a bunch of paper pages between covers. It’s been both finite and easily grasped. But our digitally-connected world is forcing us to re-imagine what books could be.

You can listen to the audio here [mp3], and visit the CBC page here.

Interview with me about books in Contents Magazine:

In the field of book futurism, Hugh McGuire is both maker and commentator. He runs PressBooks, which offers a digital workflow for ebook creation built on top of WordPress, and LibriVox, a massive collection of free, public domain audiobooks. We spoke with him about the book in the present and the very near future. [more…]

And:
More talking about books at CBC Radio: Spark, with Nora Young, specifically books and the internet. I’m batting clean-up, segment starts at 45mins. Listen here.

Happy August to you all. Here are some quick announcements from PressBooks Worldwide Headquarters, including the following:

1. New front page
2. New webbook / readview designs
3. Pricing announced
4. Distribution (to Kindle, Nook, iBooks etc)
5. Import from WordPress
6. Improved CSS
7. Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto Part 3 – unofficial launch

[more …]

Here is the link.

And here is the audio [mp3].

Here is the link.

And here is the audio [mp3].

We launched

Iambik’s a bit different though: we’re partnering with publishers to make audio versions of in-copyright books, we’re much more picky about sound quality, and … we want your cold hard cash!

You can visit the site here, read more about it on our blog here, and listen to samples here, here, here and here.

Oh and here are some beautiful covers (there are even more on iambik.com):

Thanks to the many people who helped make this happen.

Access to Public Sector Information : Law, Technology and Policy: Volume 1 , , Sydney University Press

On the back of the growing capacity of networked digital information technologies to process and visualise large amounts of information in a timely, efficient and user-driven manner we have seen an increasing demand for better access to and re-use of public sector information (PSI). The story is not a new one. Share knowledge and together we can do great things; limit access and we reduce the potential for opportunity.

The two volumes of this book seek to explain and analyse this global shift in the way we manage public sector information. In doing so they collect and present papers, reports and submissions on the topic by the leading authors and institutions from across the world. These in turn provide people tasked with mapping out and implementing information policy with reference material and practical guidance.

A free online version should be accessible shortly.

LibriVox is a hope, an experiment, and a question: can the net harness a bunch of volunteers to help bring books in the public domain to life through podcasting?

LibriVox is an open source audio-literary attempt to harness the power of the many to record and disseminate, in podcast form, books from the public domain. It works like this: a book is chosen, then *you*, the volunteers, read and record one or more chapters. We liberate the audio files through this webblog/podcast every week (?).

Five years later, it seems as if the answer is: yes. [more…]

Here are my ten thoughts:

1.
Marketing isnâ€t convincing people to buy your stuff.
Marketing is making sure that the people who want your stuff will find it.

2.
Social media is not a tool.
Itâ€s a strategy.

3.
If you are using social media for business or marketing you have to know:
a. who you want to connect with
b. why you want to connect with them …
…then you have to figure out what you can do to give them value.

4.
Donâ€t blog to be known.
Blog to be knowable.

5.
Figure out who the influencers are.
And who they are influenced by.
Interact with them.

6.
Donâ€t be a social media douchebag.

7.
Blogging effectively requires discipline.

8.
When other people talk about you, Google hears them.
And Google smiles upon those who are talked about.

9.
Spread the love.
Link out, retweet, show appreciation.

10.
Social media works when you give value to others, so:
a. publish good content
b. show appreciation for others
c. point to great stuff on the web
d. interact with your readers
c. care about your readers