virtualDavis

Ira Glass: This American Life

A week ago Bob Davidson (@bob_davidson) asked, “What makes good story?” on my new favorite blog, rednow. Davidson is the creative producer for Rule29 and co-founder of rednow, where the art of wonder is practiced, romanced and encouraged.

Wonder makes good story. And, like Davidson, I’m happy to reward storytelling MVP status to Ira Glass and This American Life. Though I’m not certain I could have teased out the reason(s) why… Not so simply. Nor so elegantly.

Here’s Davidson:

I decided to… listen to the entire collection of This American Life… [So far I] have listened to over 250 episodes. I’ve subsequently determined the TAL team are arguably the best storytellers in the business today. Primarily, because they get this:

Great storytellers are made by great listeners. Great listeners understand how to ask and identify the right question. The right questions beckons the story.

And while this is the basic framework of all great storytelling, the real brilliance of the TAL team and what arguably sets them apart is their ability to unpack a narrative in its purest form – a focus on the sequence of actions, or the “anecdote”, as Ira Glass deems it… the audience has no other choice but to begin visualizing the narrative… a space for wonder is created. (rednow)

Over the next few days I’ll be talking to two different groups about Storytelling in the Digital Age, a familiar (and favorite) topic explored with memoir writers on Friday and artists on Saturday. I have high hopes for both workshops, especially now that I can cite Davidson’s post to help incubate reflection on what makes good storytelling.

Ira Glass (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I couldn’t agree more with his first assertion that great storytellers are first and foremost great listeners, but I think it’s even more fundamental than identifying the right question. Before you can identify the right question, you have to quiet your own voices enough to hear the singing underneath. Instead of imposing your story/ies, you need to open up, to become receptive and unjudging. To listen, I mean really listen, you have to be curious. To listen deeply, you have to suspend your own assumptions and convictions.

Questions help, and I agree that they’ll help beckon the stories, but even before you start to identify and ask questions you need to listen with patience and curiosity.

Above all, I tip my hat to Davidson for this: unpack a narrative in its purest form. Period. If only it were as easily executed as repeated!

Related articles

• Through the Ira Glass: Advice on Storytelling From the Host of This American Life (enotes.com)
• Ira Glass on Storytelling (Part 1/4) (whimsicallyours.com)
• The Fundamentals of Social Listening and Storytelling (spiral16.com)
• Ira Glass on Storytelling (Part 3/4) (whimsicallyours.com)

With five days to go, Addison Mehr is soooo close to meeting his $15k goal to direct and produce Fort Apache. This is a thrilling opportunity to support an Adirondack artist with smarts, vision and follow-through. And did I mention he’s one heck of a swell guy? Show him you’re rooting for him, and he’ll dazzle you with cinematographic magic!

“Addison is an emerging filmmaker born and raised in the Adirondacks. His short film “FIRECRACKER!” was selected for NYU’s Showcase and screened at the Lake Placid Film Festival. Addison has worked on music videos for MGMT, Devendra Banhart, Norah Jones, and Wyclef Jean as well as working for Martin Scorsese. Currently, Addison is a senior at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is dedicated to developing films that are unique, challenging, and promote change in our world.” (Kickstarter)

Fort Apache Preview

Here’s Addison’s Kickstarter video for Fort Apache:

Fort Apache Director’s Statement

I grew up in a really small town where the nearest movie theatre was over an hour away. For me, film has always been an escape- a way out, a way to transport myself into another world, and ultimately a way for me to reflect back on myself and make sense of the world around me.

While Fort Apache is a coming of age story, it’s also a story about injustice, social inequality, and the universal struggle to find your place. To me, the story is about pushing against boundaries and dealing with the frustrations, bitter disappointments, and ultimate realizations of growing up. It’s about escape and the deep desire to transcend ones place and time. By shooting in the places I grew up in I hope to bring the highest level of authenticity to the story while visualizing it to its full potential. ~ Addison Mehr (Kickstarter)

Help Fund Fort Apache

Addison Mehr is a personal friend, so I am biased, but he’s also a gifted and insanely focused/disciplined young artist. I am 100% confident that he will help shape the next chapter of movie making. This is your opportunity to propel Meh’s career forward, but it’s also a chance to connect before he’s out of reach! Please consider supporting Fort Apache. Thank you.

Fort Apache Update

Fort Apache is funded! They’ve sailed past their $15k goal with $17,115 pledged. Thank you for your support, and good luck, Addison.

Sony WM-FX421 Walkman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Technology creates our needs faster than it satisfies them. (Kevin Kelly)

My Monday morning muse for your ruminating pleasure is actually not mine at all. It’s a quotation from Kevin Kelly’s 1998  New Rules for the New Economy. No longer new, of course, but if you missed out before you’ll find that it’s still relevant and eerily prescient. And did I mention that the blog version lives on his website? And that it’s free?

According to Kelly, we’re hurtling forward, inventing technologies to satisfy our desires and — in the process —  discovering new desires.

Our wants are compounding exponentially… technology creates ever new opportunities for those desires to find outlets and form. (Kevin Kelly

Although the illustrative example, a $50 Sony Walkman (remember cassette tapes?), seems practically ancient, I can’t help but transpose an iPad or even a Kindle Fire.

When a merchant sells a consumer a new Sony Walkman for $50, he is in fact creating far more demand than he is satisfying–in this case a continuing and potentially unlimited need for tape cassettes and batteries. (Paul Pilzer)

Transposed for the digital age:

When a merchant sells a consumer an iPad, he is in fact creating far more demand than he is satisfying–in this case a continuing and potentially unlimited need for digital products (ebooks, videos, games, apps, etc.), physical accessories (from practical screen protectors and card readers to fashion carrying cases), non-physical accessories (warranty extensions, maintenance contracts, customer support, etc.), software updates/upgrades, and–let’s be totally honest–hardware upgrades because sexy new models with more memory, faster processors, longer lasting batteries and retina displays are the MSG that keeps consumers coming back for more!

With writers, publishers, editors, agents and booksellers wandering the Wild West known as the Post-Gutenberg Paradigm, it’s more evident than ever that technology creates more demand than it satisfies. Increasingly tech-centric publishing and storytelling is catalyzing an avalanche of new non-book formats to satisfy consumer demands. New options are invented daily, and yet we’re only beginning to glimpse the world of storytelling possibilities around the corner. Technology is simultaneously sating and creating new demand, seeding storytelling innovation and inventing new consumer desires… Suppose I’m bullish on storytelling in the digital age?!?!

Related articles

• SONY and Apple Instructive Example for Publishing Industry (digitalbookworld.com)
• Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (virtualdavis.com)

After three days back at home in the Adirondacks I’m ready to wrap up my Abiquiu series about my month apart in a remote New Mexico desert canyon. A month of writing, revising and listening. This post is a freestyle retrospective in images, sounds and words. A digital scrapbook of sorts. If you’re interested, here are the previous posts:

• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu
• Productivity, Publishing & Apex Predators
• Rosslyn in the Desert

The video/slide show above was shot on my iPhone. Excuse the blurry images and the bumpy footage. The audio was not recorded among the Benedictines, though Gregorian chants were a part of my days at the abbey. All credit for this beautiful music goes to Medwyn Goodall, a musician and producer from Yorkshire, England.

Daily Scrape (listen to audio)

I’m shaving and all of the sudden a bearded fellow in black robes and hood is at my bathroom window. It’s Brother Hidalgo (name changed) from Monterey, Mexico. I’d met him on my second day at the abbey when he explained that he would pass by my hermitage a couple of times each week to pick up the garbage.

So I knock on the glass and wave. He recognizes me and waves back, then flushes crimson and turns away. He returns to the trash and recycling. I look into the mirror and continue shaving. I realize that – despite the towel around my waist – I must have looked naked to Brother Hidalgo. No wonder he was embarrassed.

Magpies (listen to audio)

When the weather is warm I sit outside and watch magpies, so many magpies gathering twigs and bits of fiber hanging in the sagebrush, gathering the ingredients for a cozy nest, I surmise, though I haven’t a clue if I’m right or wrong.

According to the 1961 edition of Roger Tory Peterson‘s A Field Guide to Western Birds, Magpies, Pica pica, are “the only large black and white land birds in N. America with long wedge-shaped tails. In flight, the iridescent greenish-black tail streams behind; large white patches flash in the wings.” Long iridescent tails that vibrate in the unfiltered sunlight that intoxicated Georgia O’Keefe once upon a time. The black billed magpies natural habitat includes this high desert canyon along the shores of the Chama River in Northern New Mexico, especially the foothills, Peterson says, and “ranches, sagebrush, river thickets,…”

Story Threads and Knots (listen to audio)

I’m in bed, almost asleep despite concerns on the first day when I arrived and saw the futon on a raised tatami mat floor.

That will be my bed for the month of March? Will my finicky back let me sleep on that? For almost four weeks?

But, like camping on an even thinner mat in the wilderness after a hike, I sleep restfully. Briefly, but restfully, though I usually awaken after four hours and think, How will I ever make it through the day with so little rest?

And then I do. Without yawning. Untangling then braiding my stories. Or twisting them into a rope. With knots. That I try to cut out when they become too tight to unknot. I discard the knots outside the hermitage door where they collect in a pile next to a cow patty the size of a Thanksgiving turkey which was still shiny, moist and brown-black on my first day but each day grows flatter, drier, paler and more wrinkled.

When I first arrived there were cattle wandering around the abbey grounds, especially between the Chama and the dirt road from the hermitage to the church. Sleepy eyed cows ruminating and nursing new calves among the sagebrush.

On the second or third day – when the winds were starting but before it snowed – a rancher on horseback passed through with a skinny black dog. I haven’t seen the cattle or the rancher since, but the dog comes back to visit every few days and I give him a piece of dried salmon jerky. He likes the jerky and he begs for more, but settles for a scratch behind the ears.

The pile of knots grows bigger each day. Twice buried in snow that melted within a few hours of sun-up, the knots that were too tight to unknot have been loosed by the wind, not all of them, not yet, but threads blow around the yard and hang in the sagebrush like desert tinsel. Sometimes I see one that I like, and I bring it back inside to braid or splice or just to wrap around my finger as a reminder.

Coyotes (listen to audio)

A lone coyote yips then wails then barks at the base of the canyon across the Chama, a river too lazy to reflect the moon which is full and high overhead. Soon others join in. The coyotes are all around the canyon, surrounding the hermitage, yipping and wailing outside my windows, perhaps hoping for salmon jerky handouts.

Coyote. Canis latrans mearnsi.

In Southwestern tribal legends the coyote is often portrayed as a clever trickster. According to a Native American twist on the Prometheus myth, coyote stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans, a welcome gift that made winters more tolerable and raw food more enjoyable. Perhaps the coyotes outside my window are singing about fire. Or outwitting the gods. Or salmon jerky. Perhaps they’re untangling and braiding stories. I hope they can find something salvageable in my pile of knots or among the threads fluttering in the sagebrush.

At this liminal frontier of waking and sleeping my own story – naked, iridescent and wrinkled – emerges among the moonlit thickets. At last!

Related articles

• Rosslyn in the Desert (virtualdavis.com)
• Productivity, Publishing & Apex Predators (virtualdavis.com)
• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu (virtualdavis.com)
• New Mexico Skies (natureofphotography.wordpress.com)
• Georgia O’keeffe & Maria Chabot | “Women Who Rode Way” (theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com)

About a month and a half ago I received a wonderful gift from my friend and research/editorial/blogging assistant, Katie Shepard. Before the hubbub of the 84th Academy Awards; before this fourteen minute long cartoon about the enchanting power of stories, reading and books won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film; before I would have comfortably volunteered that I loved watching an animated film, Katie sent me a microscopic email.

I think you would like this video… http://vimeo.com/35404908

Since then the video has become password protected at Vimeo, but The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is viewable on YouTube and you can download the short film at Moonbot Studios website.

If you’re a “book cynic”, then I join Bookigee in challenging you not to be inspired by Morris Lessmore. This bibliophiles fantasy was co-directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg in Shreveport, Louisiana. Here’s what they have to say about this tidy little masterpiece.

Inspired in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. (MorrisLessmore.com)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a timely reminder wrapped up in a “poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story.” Thanks, Katie, for bringing it to my attention (and for scooping the Academy Awards!) Everyone else, please accept my apologies for failing to share Mr. Lessmore sooner.

Related articles

• Oscar Winning Animated Short: The Fantastic… (geektyrant.com)
• Indie Culture: The Fantastic Flying Books… (debaird.net)
• Oscar-nominated animated short: The Fantastic… (dandyville.com)
• Oscar-Nominated Film Available To Watch Online (huffingtonpost.com)
• The World Was His for the Reading (thedarkglobe.wordpress.com)

Frosty Morning in Abiquiu, New Mexico (Photo credit: Princess Stand in the Rain)

As of tomorrow I’m at the halfway point for my desert retreat in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Eleven days in; eleven days to go. That’s 12+ hours/day, six days a week editing, revising, shuffling and rewriting. In silence. Without interruptions or distractions. Without internet access. Without excuses!

It’s been a productive stretch despite the fact that my manuscript is still bloated and desperate for a liposuction/stomach staple two-for-one… But I’ve discovered the heart and soul of my story, and the next two weeks I’ll perform ruthless, unsentimental surgery, cutting away all nonessential narrative. With luck and endurance I’ll return from the desert at month’s end with a svelte memoir.

I spent the first week focusing on the most enjoyable sections, and last week I dug into the darker sections. Death, depression, failures, violations. It was a tough week. A proverbial roller coaster ride. More like a bucking bronco ride. I’m feeling whiplashed and bruised today, but licking my wounds in Santa Fe.

Each Saturday I’ve driven two hours from the Chama canyonlands to the city where I lived from 1996-9. I re-provision, de-soil my laundry and pig out on delicious New Mexican food. And after a week without telephone or internet access, I spend hours on the phone with my amazing bride. My generous, understanding bride who’s tolerating my time at the hermitage. I offer my deepest gratitude to this woman who transformed my world over a decade ago, the woman who’s allowing me to share our sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing and always intimate story.

Thanks also to the Benedictines for use of their handsome hermitage and to my colleagues at The Depot Theatre and Champlain Area Trails for letting me vanish for sooooo long. The last couple of weeks have reminded how much I love Scrivener, so thanks to the good folks at Literature and Latte for simplifying my work on Rosslyn Redux. And thanks to all of you who’ve encouraged and pushed me. Now it’s time to jump in my jalopy and head back to the desert for another productive week. Cheers!

Related articles

• Antigua, AWP and Abiquiu (virtualdavis.com)
• Remembering and Recounting (rosslynredux.com)
• Redacting Rosslyn v1.0 (rosslynredux.com)

Curtain Bluff from aboard Sentio.

Ready for a reentry rumination? After nine sublime days in the Caribbean, I’m swapping swim trunks and sunscreen for conference kit and desert camo. Here’s a sneak peak at the exciting adventure behind and ahead.

West Indies

Each winter I join my bride and in-laws for a pilgrimage to warmer climes, gentler rhythms and an extended opportunity to catch up. This year we escaped to Curtain Bluff, an intimate resort in Antigua that felt familiar from the moment we arrived. In fact, we were so smitten with the welcoming staff, the gracious guests, the understated decadence and the endless-but-effortless opportunities for recreation that we unanimously voted to return next year, locking in our reservations before departing yesterday afternoon.

The character of Curtain Bluff is truly unique among luxury Caribbean resorts. Its boutique scale and dramatic real estate (two magnificent beaches divided by an elevated promontory permitting accommodations and spa sensational ocean views) provide two important ingredients for their magic formula, but by far the most critical is the people. Simply put, the staff and guests at Curtain Bluff create the most compelling marriage of any resort I’ve ever known in the Caribbean.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/Curtain_Bluff/status/174168960839860225″]

It’s not a stretch to talk about Curtain Bluff as a “family”, and not just in the varnished, Technicolor brochure way either. I made new friends virtually every day, friends who work at Curtain Bluff and friends who vacation at Curtain Bluff, friends who have already been in touch and with whom I’ll keep in touch, friends who I look forward to seeing again. Fortunately we’ll see many of them again next winter on vacation. And some we’ll see even sooner. Two different members of the staff have already made arrangements to visit us in the Adirondacks this summer! Watch e-Marginalia for a more contemplative reflection soon…

Windy City

After trickle charging my batteries in Antigua, it’s now time to sharpen my pencil and get back to write write writing. To jump start my creative editing and revising juices I’m heading off to Chicago for The Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference which takes place from February 29 to March 3 and which boasted over 9,000 attendees last year. I’m hoping for a slightly tidier affair this year as it is my first AWP foray, but even if the ranks are once again swollen I am encouraged by the insights of friend and fellow scrivener Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson):

However Borgia-like academic politics in general can become at times, the AWP universe is genteel, tame, even sleepy by comparison to the sharp-edged high-stakes market-banging battles being waged right now between bricks-and-mortar bookstores and the rise of the biggest digital retailer-publisher in history; between traditional publishing and digitally enabled self-publishing; even between centuries-old paper media for reading and the burgeoning popularity of e-readers and tablets. (We Grow Media)

The literary orientation of the AWP Conference & Bookfair will be refreshing after the recent Writer’s Digest Conference, and an appropriate springboard for my monastic month in the desert.

Abiquiu, New Mexico

Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert (Wikipedia)

Remember St. George and the dragon? I won’t pretend saintliness, but I am heading off to the desert Southwest with my vorpal sword in hand to slay the manuscript dragon.

I’ve been honored with an opportunity to sequester myself for a month at the Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert, originally architected by another George, George Nakashima, the Japanese-American woodworker who inspires my brother’s furniture making creativity between diplomatic postings. Tucked into the rugged canyon lands that enchanted Georgia O’Keefe, surrounded by high desert wilderness in all directions, along the banks of the Chama River, in the company of web-savvy, self sustaining, solar power harvesting, beer brewing monks, I will dedicate myself to revising and editing Rosslyn Redux. One month of quiet. Of solitude. Of focus. I can’t wait!

Thanks for your patience during my Curtain Bluff hiatus. More of the same in March, I’m afraid, but I’ve scheduled some interesting posts to appear during my cenobitic Southwestern sojourn. Although I won’t have web access during the week, I’ll venture in to Santa Fe for a few hours each weekend for provisions, I-miss-you-telephone-calls to my bride, and a short wifi fix.

Related articles

• The Artist’s Road Leads to Chicago (artistsroad.wordpress.com)
• AWP Chicago: Call for Bloggers (brevity.wordpress.com)

With the increasing popularity of electronic readers and e-books, the future use of hard-bound books also comes under question… French Canadian artist Guy Laramée tackles it from a decidedly philosophical — and creative — perspective, carving intricate, three-dimensional landscapes that look amazingly real up close. (TreeHugger)

Based in Montréal (only an hour and a half north of me), French Canadian artist Guy Laramée tickles the already ticklish debate over the destiny of printed books. Fusing art and anthropology Laramée carves books into sculptures which arrest the viewer not only with their intricate three dimensional beauty, but with the cascade of questions each piece compels. Why books? Why vintage books? What are the implications of destroying words and ideas in order to create romantic, usually natural scenes? Read the rest of this entry »

Image via VatorNews

When Amazon launched Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, their free e-book lending library back in November it was a concept, a gamble, a challenge.

Amazon unveiled a long-rumored “Netflix-for-books” digital lending library Wednesday. Via yet another enhancement for Amazon Prime, subscribers who also own Kindles can borrow one (and only one) book per month from about 5,000 available titles. (Wired.com)

Less than three months later it’s taken off, and its potential is just beginning to take shape.

According to the company, customers borrowed nearly 300,000 (295,000 to be exact) KDP Select titles in December alone, and KDP Select has helped grow the total library selection. With the $500,000 December fund, KDP authors have earned $1.70 per borrow. In response to strong customer adoption of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, Amazon says it has added a $200,000 bonus to the January KDP Select fund, raising the total pool from $500,000 to $700,000 for authors. (TechCrunch)

Who knew libraries would profit indie authors in the digital age? Another encouraging indicator for storytelling buskers… Sure Amazon’s free e-books (like their free videos) are incentives to sell Kindles and Amazon Prime, but the numbers are encouraging at a time when writers are gushing content virtually uncompensated.

Am I gushing? Yes. Am I habitually, unabashedly pollyanna-ish? Yes! But I can’t help getting excited (and optimistic) about what this means for indie authors. I understand that Amazon’s motives are market dominance and an eventual payday, but there’s a fascinating shift afoot, and from the vantage of a latter day storyteller, it opens up exciting new opportunities fellow narrative crafters. KDP Select is starting to look a lot more inviting, right?

Amazon this morning announced that it has set up a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers. Dubbed KDP Select, the fund aims to let indie authors and publishers “make money in a whole new way”… [When] a KDP author or publisher chooses to make any of their books exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of the KDP Select fund. (TechCrunch)

Of course, not everyone’s happy, and I suspect that it may be a couple of years before we can accurately evaluate the impact this will have on traditional publishers and authors. Plenty of cynics and skeptics are offering doomsday prophecies, but this warning in particular gives me pause, reminding me not to leap before I know how high the tide.

The Author’s Guild attacked Amazon after the Kindle Lending Library was announced, claiming that the program (in which Amazon actually purchases a copy of the book at cost to itself) “appears to be boldly breaching its contracts with these publishers. This is an exercise of brute economic power.” (HotHardware)

Brute economic power for sure, and risks abound, but at this early way station it looks like at least some authors are profiting.

Rachel Yu, a 16 year-old high school student, earned $6,200 in December from e-books she wrote and published via a related Amazon initiative called KDP Select… her children’s books, including titles such as “The Magical Dragon’s Three Gifts,” were among the most borrowed through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. (MediaFile)

Although this prodigy is still too young to enroll directly in the program, her parents fronted her success, suggesting that the KDP Select must be family-friendly and tolerant of round pegs in square holes. Not necessarily a common description for traditional publishing…

Carolyn McCray, a writer of paranormal romance novels, historical thrillers and mysteries, earned $8,250 from the KDP Select fund in December. “KDP Select truly is a career altering program,” said McCray. “I couldn’t be happier with the tools, support and exposure it has given me. To say the trade-off of exclusivity on Amazon for the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library has been a profitable one would be a gross understatement. Participating in KDP Select has quadrupled my royalties.” (TechJournal South)

Amber Scott is a romance writer and earned $7,650 from the KDP Select fund in December. “Enrolling in KDP Select utterly transformed my career,” said Scott. “I’ve experienced not only a surge in royalties but a surge in readership thanks to the increased exposure. I love the chance to earn new readers through the innovation of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. What an exciting time to be an author.” (TechJournal South)

Three inspiring stories don’t define a rule, but the picture is promising. Where from here? I suspect the numbers from January will be exciting too, especially considering how many Kindles allegedly sold in the holiday fervor. Vice President of Kindle Content, Russ Grandinetti, touched on the proven marketing potential of offering free e-books through the Kindle library.

“We knew customers would love having KDP Select titles in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. But we’ve been surprised by how much paid sales of those same titles increased, even relative to the rest of KDP.” (eBookNewser)

Perhaps the digital age will see a return to busking and libraries. I hope so. And our first glimpse of Kindle Owners’ Lending Library invites optimism.

Related articles

• Amazon Juices Kindle Lending Library Payout for KDP Select Authors (digitalbookworld.com)
• Amazon Kindle Owners Are “Borrowing” Nearly 300,000 Electronic Books A Month (techcrunch.com)
• Amazon lending up to 300k e-books per month (vator.tv)
• Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library now boasts 75,000 books, borrowed 295,000 times last month (thenextweb.com)
• Top 10 Self-Published Writers Make 449% More Money Through Amazon Lending Library (mashable.com)
• Amazon Kindle Users ‘Borrowing’ 300,000 E-Books Per Month (inquisitr.com)

Alice in Wonderland

Delightful dinner at the Essex Inn last night with writer friends ruminating on the future of publishing, book bundling, book/app convergence and other exciting changes in the realm of reading, writing, listening, watching and storytelling. An apt prologue to Chris Stevens’ lament this morning.

“I’m desperate for the book industry to produce some work that blows me away, but for now there’s a few Alice clones and not much else. I can see exactly why this is happening. The major publishers have completely abdicated responsibility for producing the digital versions of their catalogues: it’s all handed over to amateurs. You see it throughout the industry. From the typographical horror of most eBooks, through to the lacklustre iPad titles being produced.” ~ Chris Stevens (via eBookNewser)

A public domain book, (read free from copyright, royalties, etc.) Alice in Wonderland was revitalized by Stevens and a friend after they lost their jobs and had time on their hands. As a writer (The Times, CNET) and graphic designer Stevens was an obvious creator this this app which has already been installed on half a million iPads, but why didn’t the publishing industry beat him to the punch?

“The big problem is that most publishers don’t care about the iPad or eBooks very much, whether this is an aesthetic rejection based on the publisher’s historical reverence for the printed page, or a reflection of the relatively small profits to be made on the iPad so far, it’s hard to know.” ~ Chris Stevens (via Toronto Review of Books)

I suspect that traditional publishing wouldn’t sneer at 5,000,000 installs of a public domain property retailing at $8.99! And just in case you assume it’s all luck (Stevens admits that much of their success is luck), take a look at these reviews from iTunes’ Alice in Wonderland download page.

“The cleverest iPad book yet … For the first time in my life I am blown away by an interactive book design.” ~ Gizmodo.com

“Alice app for iPad points the way toward a new generation of pop-up books.” ~ Independent.com

“Alice in wonderland iPad app reinvents reading.” ~ TheHuffingtonPost.com

“A glimpse of the future of digital reading.” ~ BBC.co.uk

What are you creating?

Update: Friend and perenial inspiration Linda Hollier (@lindahollier) invites us on a plunge down the rabbit hole a century and a half after Lewis Carrol initiated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice found herself in a room with a little table. On it lay a tablet. To examine it she picked it up, swiped its screen and squealed with delight at what she found. There were stories with pictures that were interactive when she touched them. There were conversations going on in real time! There were maps and dictionaries, newspapers and magazines. She could play games and even draw using her finger.

She noticed a camera and a special app and before long was taking pictures of herself which transformed her at once into someone tall, someone short, someone with a huge funny face and then someone all squashed up. She squealed with delight. (here2here)

Linda’s playful exercise transports us ultimately into an example of the wonders available to us in this brave new world, wonders more abundant and accessible than ever before if we only stop (or even slow down) long enough to see and appreciate them.

Related articles

• The same old Wonderland? (engl329b.wordpress.com)
• A Sneak Peek at Alice in Wonderland Makeup (bellasugar.com)
• iPad App Lets Children Create & Publish Their Own Hard-Cover Books (psfk.com)