As the name suggests, this is where you’ll find everything I’ve written about books, publishing, authors, book stores and more. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to some renowned novelists and thinkers including Joe Hill, Jared Diamond, David Brin, Naomi Wolf, Kim Stanley Robinson and Matthew Reilly.
But it’s also been a way of exploring some big ideas facing technology, society and the economy, whether it’s the lack of contact from interstellar civilisations, the role of pornography not just in technology but human communication overall or how graphic design is changing in the web age.
I’ve also turned the spotlight back on the book industry itself, looking at everything from the challenge of keeping boys interested in reading to the latest innovations in distribution to fiction sales’ dirty little secret about the genre that keeps it afloat.
Without it we’d have nothing to curl up in bed with, even after all the hard work of publishers. Printing is one of the most important parts of the process, and one you certainly want to get right. … Continue readingThe Bookmakers; Selecting Printers Explained
To allow that much commerce smoothly over data networks, we needed a system that came to be called EDI (electronic data interchange), one that in fact predates the Internet in its current form. … Continue readingRattling the Chain
Look at your business — everything from your customers and the kind you’d like to have to your place in the market — and when you next ask yourself ‘should I sell books online?’ the answer will be clear. … Continue readingYour Bookstore.com
With the information superhighway littered with the roadkill of many such failed prophecies and book lovers still enjoying the last laugh, e-books seem to have had their day. … Continue readingGeneration E
Some radical pundits predicted the end of books, saying we’d download special files to a small handheld computer that displayed the pages of a book and read it like we do on paper. At the time, the technology was in its infancy. … Continue readingA Long Time Coming
