Archive for February, 2009
What does Biblio.com do with all the money it makes?
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Couldn’t resist the eye-grabbing headline. At risk of disappointing the reader, I have to confess that we’re really not talking that much money. While we’re profitable (even despite the economy) I’m afraid our bottom line would look like a rounding error to many big companies. (At least its a black rounding error, though) Its surprising [...]
Rest In Peace Mr. Farmer
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009Philip Jose Farmer passed away in his sleep this morning at the age of 91. Farmer was one of the first authors I found when delving into science fiction for the first time. I remember reading Dayworld during summer break in middle school, leaning against a tree while my mind was filled with vivid images [...]
The Great Google Book Search Settlement
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009I found an interesting bit of news linking the book world to the geek work recently in Timothy Lee’s report over at Ars Technica on remarks by Richard Sarnoff, the chairman of the Association of American Publishers, at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Mr. Sarnoff pointed out that the market for downloadable books is [...]
Brief notes from the San Francisco book fair
Friday, February 20th, 2009This past weekend, Stephen and I had the good fortune to attend the ABAA international book fair in San Francisco. Although a dreary weekend in the bay area (fortunately there was an REI store across from the convention center where I could procure a new pair of SmartWool socks to replace those sacrificed to the [...]
New Author Challenge 2009
Thursday, February 19th, 2009Ok, I’m getting a bit of a late start on this, but I just discovered a very popular online group called The New Author Challenge 2009. The challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2009, so I’ve got some reading to do! The premise is to pick a number of books by authors that [...]
Book Zeitgeist
Friday, February 13th, 2009Its always fun to speculate on how an alien culture would interpret our society, with our McDonald’s arches and reality TV shows. So our search engine isn’t quite alien technology, but we thought we’d ask it what it thinks of society in 2009, by looking at the most trafficked product pages so far this year [...]
Biblio.com gets a new skin for a new year
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009For those who haven’t noticed yet, we’ve quietly rolled out a little 2009 polish on Biblio.com. That image on the side, by the way, is taken from a very cool WPA library poster. The main changes, of course, are cosmetic, but we’ve also made the following improvements: Better page load time – the new look [...]
I Shall Buy Books on Ebay No More Forever
Sunday, February 1st, 2009I don’t understand the bookseller who advertises a book club edition as the first edition, but I’ve fallen for it twice. Too much in a hurry for a deal, twice I’ve found Ebay auctions for one of my favorite modern firsts and believed the description “First Edition.” First edition, for modern book collecting purposes, means [...]