Monthly Archives: September 2007

rBooks just doesn’t do the business

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Eoin Purcell

I don’t normally complain
But this really got me thinking today:

MakingMoney

I opened an account at rBooks just to see what it was like. I have mentioned the service before. I inidcated that I was a huge Terry Pratchett fan and when my home-page opened I was offered a massive discount on Making Money his latest book.

However there was a snag. The release date was listed as Monday 24th September so I was pre-ordering not ordering, the discount was only 20% (£15.19) and judging from the site I would have had to pay a delivery fee anyway. I would have been very disappointed had I not already bought the book in WH Smiths in Stansted airport for only £13.99 on Thursday evening on my way back to Cork!

Why hobble yourself?
Now far be it from me to tell rBooks and Random House how to sell (they do fairly well without my help) but the question does pop almost instantly into the brain, why on earth would you hobble yourself like this? If retailers are selling the book and for considerably less (in truth I nearly bought it landside, full price but in a rush to get through security left it till airside and thus saved a £5!) why wait for the official launch date to sell the book? is it some internal system thing?

Part of me likes to think that there is a reason I simply do not fathom but I suspect that there is not!


Befuddled
Eoin

PS: Had I been smart enough to wait I could have gotten it from The Book Depository @ £12.23 Delivered but it would have cost £14.47 Delivered on Amazon.co.uk.

Borders UK & Ireland Sold

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Eoin Purcell

Big news
From The Bookseller:

Borders UK and Ireland has been sold to Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson’s Risk Capital Partners for a £10m up front cash payment plus an additional deferred £10m cash consideration. Borders Group will retain an equity interest of around 17% in the business

In time for the Christmas rush!
Eoin

Clever LibraryThing

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Eoin Purcell

Robert Jordan RIP

This is remarkably clever
LibraryThing have responded to Google’s My Library effort with this:

Google Book Search Search is a bookmarklet that searches Google Book Search for the titles in your LibraryThing library. It works not unlike the famous SETI@Home project. You set it up and searches Google Book Search slowly in the background.* You can watch, do something in another window or go out for coffee.

When it’s done you can link to and search all the books in your library that Google has scanned. You’ll find a “search this book” link on work pages, and a Google Book Search field to add to the list view in your catalog.

What it does is simply co-opt Google’s ability to display text with very little effort. It also sheds some light on what Google Book Search actually has on file already. Although many of my books are non -preview ones, a few are full access and more snippet access.

In doing this it makes the two sites partners in data sharing and books on the web. It adds value to LibraryThing and to the work Google is doing. It is a great step towards breaking down the silos of information that seem tpo be building up around books on the web.

Really pleased by the LibraryThing news, saddened by the Jordan news!
Eoin

Clé’s Author Editor Library Tour

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Eoin Purcell

*

Thurles library is amazing
It sits just over the bridge and has the most incredible look, feel and atmosphere. A fountain throws shoots of water into the air midstream, there is a riverside walkway and the concrete and steel build looks so european and yet seems to belong in a town that has changed little in style since the GAA was founded in its famous Hayes hotel way back in 1884. You can read more about it here.

Thurles Library

Buildings like this make me begin to think that Ireland really has come a long way since the 1980s. But the reason I am blogging about it has less to do with the fantastic building and much more to do with Clé’s Author Editor Library Tour.

I was least accomplished part of a trio of Mercier representatives there last night for one of two Thurles based events. Joe Ambrose has the misfortune to arrive on time (a slight mix up in times between Clé and ourselves) and the pleasure of speaking for 40 minutes solo before myself and Gabriel Fitzmaurice made an appearance.

Joe is the author of two books for Mercier, Dan Breen and the IRA and Seán Treacy and the Tan War (which has just been released and for some reason that has not fed through to our website!). Both are great stories as well as being passionately written and brilliantly researched. Dan Breen was one of our top selling books last year and I think Seán Treacy looks set to match it.

Gabriel is a poet of note and hails from the village of Moyvane near Listowel, the home town of the late and great John B. Keane and Writers Week (a point he made explicitly clear last night was that he was from the Listowel area but not from Listowel!!).

His most recent work for Mercier was Really Rotten Rhymes a book of poetry for children and one that I think will become a classic. it would be unfair not to mention that his poetry and writing goes far beyond children and he has been publish by over 10 publishers in his time.

It was a great evening and while before the event I was skeptical as to the value of such an evening, I thought that I would definitely do another one if a new season of events is planned for next year.

Special thanks are due to Anne-Marie Brophy and everyone at Thurles Library who put up with one wayward editor and made everyone feel exceptionally welcome there.

Still hearing the poems in my head today
Eoin

* Forgive the twee music please, its good music just not well matched I think, to the video.