SAVE OUR SCOTTISH PAPERBACKS

April 1 2014

STOP PRESS

SCOTLAND TO BAN PAPERBACK BOOKS

Do you live in Scotland? Do you, like me, have  a huge collection of paperback books?  Then buy while you can because from September 2014 Scottish  residents will only be able to download new e-books : the printed versions will banned.

In the capital  today crowds gathered in front of Edinburgh Castle where the Minister for Reading, Mr Carnt Wright gave a long, drawn out speech.

'The only way to make Scottish Independence work,' he declared, 'is to limit our spending.   
 I therefore have no choice but to ban the printed word..'

Thousands have already signed a petition calling for the ban to be reversed.  Please download your copy and vote NOW (before lunchtime if possible.)
 

Could YOU write a bestseller every month?



 

 Every author dreams of  writing  a best seller, but Craig Osso, a retired property developer living in Mexico, produces twelve a year, according to  the Times newspaper this week. Mr Osso has sold more than 450,000 e-books in thirty months by releasing a book every five weeks.  He is currently in sixth place on Amazon's chart of thriller authors behind Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy and Dan Brown.

So how does he do it? 'He frequently works from 8am until midnight using 'a desk attached to a treadmill' and always publishes  his own books. Writing as Russell Blake, he believes that  being an author in the digital age is like being a shark. 'You keep swimming or you die.'

So are e-books the way to instant success? Last year self-published books accounted for about a third of the 100 best-selling-books on amazon.com leading many traditional booksellers to argue that Amazon is killing their industry.

Take the second-hand bookseller who wrote about his dwindling profits on Facebook in a 'last-ditch attempt to keep his business afloat.'

David Ford was making only £14 a day at his West Yorkshire book shop when he decided to publish the figures online. The response was amazing.  A few days later he achieved forty times that amount from customers who sympathised with his plight.

'There is something wonderful and unique about books,' he told the Daily Mail. 'I am certain they will never go away. We want people to get into books, but this won't happen without book shops.'

This is backed by Lisa Campbell from trade magazine The Bookseller who believes that the independents are starting to fight back. She said. 'Holding events such as author signings, book group sessions and poetry readings are key to their sustainability in their local community as is offering expert knowledge on books and recommendations. They rely on customer loyalty to thrive and many do buck the trend when they get this right.'

Will we go back to our traditional reading habits, or will e-book writers and readers take over the market? The debate goes on.

http://www.thebookseller.com/

Want to borrow a book? Take a pew!

With thanks to the Reader's Nook

How would you feel about going to church to borrow a library book?

The idea came to me when I saw this wonderful photo of a disused church in the Netherlands, built in 1294 and converted into a library in 2007.   I'm not suggesting we convert our churches, of course,  just make use of them on the days they are empty.

All over Great Britain we have beautiful old churches of all denominations with dwindling congregations and dwindling revenue to match. Meanwhile, local authorities are struggling to keep open our local libraries, many of which are often the central point of the community. Churches need funding and libraries need a place to go - so why couldn't the two work together to their mutual benefit? Before anyone suggests I'm being sacrilegious, I assure you I am not. Quite the opposite in fact.  Isn't it time more people got to see the inside of some of our country's historic buildings before they are closed forever?  Isn't there a correlation between great architecture and great literature?

The idea would work particularly well in rural areas where community services are constantly being pruned or stopped altogether.  An area of the church could be dedicated to books at certain times of the week with the provision, maybe, of coffee and a warm place to chat.  Methodist churches regularly invite the congregation to coffee and cakes after  the morning service - so perhaps it's a short step to include books too?

The once-popular Borders book chain  went into administration in 2009, partly due to competition from the internet. Today the sales of e-books are, in some cases, overtaking their paper counterparts. I am all for progress and regularly use my kindle, but the truth is that we will always have a place for 'real' books, even if only as a  reminder of our glorious heritage.

Kindle - Dream or Disaster?

Seen a new novel you like the sound of?  Want  to read it now? Wait no longer - with Kindle you can.

That's the sort of copy I turned out regularly in the eighties when I worked for a small advertising agency. All of it was glib and no-one, I suspect, believed a word of it. So for some time now I  have remained unmoved by all the publicity generated by the Amazon Kindle.  Worse still, I  have treated the  e-book phenomenon with scorn, believing nothing could take the place of the trusty old book: the smell of new paper as you scan the pages, the lure of the cover as you hold it in your hands, the sight of your book shelves bulging with literary talent from every corner of the world... (sorry I'm back in advertising  land again)  How could this compare with the lowly Kindle?

But then, blog reader, (with apologies to Jane Eyre) I  bought one. (Or more accurately was given one as a present by my daughter.)

And now, I simply take a different view. I can read the latest books wherever I go and edit my own work at the same time. I can browse through great literature as if  I were in a library,  without  even moving from my chair.  And best of all, I can buy a book at the touch of a button.

I remember the first time I had a feature published in a mainstream magazine; I rushed into the newsagent and bought four copies, one of which I have to this day. It was real, tangible, something I could keep to hand on to the next generation.  These days my house is full of vintage books which reveal so much through their  smell,  feel, and texture. They are full of photographs -a mysterious sepia print or a delicate tapestry-passed down to us from another age.  How dull life would be without them.

So I still don't believe that e-books will ever entirely replace the real thing , but  I hope for now that the two can sit side by side in a rapidly changing world.