Beautiful books – are the aesthetics of books becoming more important than the contents?

I wrote a long time ago about the changes in the publishing industry around how physical books would become luxury items of desire.

While out in Cheltenham, UK, today, as well as a book shop full of board games and pretty stationary, I saw this display which I took a photo of to share.

Sets of popular out of copyright novels, bound in hardback in beautiful designs. They look absolutely fabulous. But they are objects of desire – coffee table books if you will – and priced accordingly, I saw £15 or more price tags.

If you really want to read some of these works – they are out of copyright, which means public domain, which means this content is free (when you buy them in physical printed form you are only paying for the cost of making, shipping and storing the physical media, the publisher has no obligation to pay any money to the author, their heirs or estate, so the rest is pure profit for the publishing house) – then Project Gutenberg is the place to read them. In digital format for free.

If you prefer a physical book, there are cheaper options. Back when I was a student in the early 1990s I would purchase classics in paperback editions from Wordsworth for £1. They are still publishing and a quarter of a century later only £2.50, which is much more reasonable than the beautiful hardbacks I saw on display today.

Or you can scour what we call charity shops in the UK and from memory what are thrift stores in the USA. These often carry books at significant reductions on retail. Or eBay.

• For the record I am not being paid to endorse anyone here, I would recommend Gutenberg which is free, but I would also suggest if you must have a physical book when you buy out of copyright, go with the cheapest option, whether that is second-hand or a reasonably priced publisher.

Cover art: a familiar problem to many authors

An article here about the issues authors have with publishers over what the book cover should be like.

Having sat on both sides of this debate – as an author and as someone who has worked with author’s on brining their books to publication, I feel the author should have their say and the publisher should listen – but the final say should go with the publisher as they have the experience of doing more book covers than the authors have (and te cover is one of the top items of advertising for any book, and needs to work on a physical object and as an Amazon thumbnail) – and crucially are not as close to the book as the author’s inevitably will be.

The same is also true of the editing process, but that may need to be another blog post!

Television Killed Advertising

Advertising guru Paul Ashby has written an interesting book about how the rise and rise of television has killed off the art of advertising. The book also explores the two-way forms of communication Paul advocated during his many years in the advertising industry.

You can get hold of a copy here.

The back page blurb says:

“Why does big business continue to rely on the 30-second advertising spot so much? In the 1950s and 60s when there were only a few channels they could be sure every ad would reach the biggest possible audience. Now with channel fragmentation, streamed content, DVD box sets and PVRs – is anyone still watching the ads? Television Killed Advertising is the first giant step in a thousand mile march, it tells us what is wrong with the current model of marketing whilst at the same time it defines a new more effective model of advertising which places the consumer at the heart of the communication process.”

About the Author

Paul Ashby pioneered interactive marketing communication 25 years ago. He has written and produced interactive events in Australia, Japan, Singapore, USA and the UK. He wrote and produced the world s first regularly scheduled interactive television show, Su opinion est muy importante (Your opinion is very important) broadcast on Channel 7, Manila, Philippines, sponsored by Proctor & Gamble. He is interested in reading, travel, photography, music (especially jazz) and movies. Currently residing in Somerset, England, having also lived and worked in Sydney, Australia, Los Angeles, USA and Johannesburg, South Africa. Would you like to discover the incredible results to be attained by using interactive communication? Paul is currently offering his techniques as a partner in Renaissance Marketing, based in the UK. To read more of Paul s thoughts on the advertising industry, check out his blog at: http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com

Book trailers

What a genius idea – having a trailer for a book.

You could call them adverts, which is really what film trailers always have been. But since I always associate video adverts with TV, you can get away with the fluffy term.

Of course, with films you just cut a sequence of the best bits and get a voiceover artist. But with books you actually have to go through the creative process as you would do when making a soap power advert.

As you’d expect, some of the trailers are pretty good. Others, not so good.

If you see any good trailers let me know.

Big Women – 4OD

4OD is probably one of my fav things in the entire world.

Everything Channel 4 (in the UK) has ever made is stored here and is accessible to stream to your PC.

Which is great, as the channel is owned by the government and therefore the citizens of the UK and we can watch what we have already paid for (and paid for again, as unlike the BBC, this channel sells advertising space as well) whenever we like.

As opposed to the BBC iPlayer system which only allows you to view things shown on one of its channels in the last week (or broadcast on its national radio networks). Which is fine for catch up, but not good for discovering hidden gems.

Something I found, watched and enjoyed the other day was Big Women, a four-part series about a woman’s publishing house, set up to promote feminist issues in the 1970s.

Great drama, great cast (including Daniela Nardini – who originally came to my attention in the BBCs amazing This Life series, which I loved watching while living in London while at uni) and a great service from Channel 4.

I found it interesting as drama and as a historical piece about the publishing industry.