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December 17, 2010 • 12:24 am 0

LitNet NI Literature Forum, Belfast

On Wednesday I spoke at an inspiring event, the LitNet NI Literature Forum in Belfast. It was hosted by the Arts Council Of Northern Ireland and organised by Catherine McInerney of LitNet NI.

It brings together an amazing range of voices and opinions from the literary and publishing sectors in Northern Ireland, from agents to writers, arts officers to librarians, with a good sprinkling of organisers, poets, publishers and academics.

There was a great energy in the room and while the forum is ony a few months old, it seems to have a real head of steam. My read on the future was that it was secure. It seems ready to grow beyond its original founding and beyond indeed the LitNet NI beginnings into a truly inclusive voice for the literary & commercial publishing and reading sector in Norther Ireland.

So you can see why I found it inspiring, but there’s more.

The same day and the same event was the venue for the sectoral launch of PublishingNI a new company dedicated to promoting and growing Northern Irish publishing and writing.

There’s a real energy and passion at work in Northern Irish publishing sector right now and I was excited and pleased to be part of it.

As for what I spoke about, well I started off with a dispassionate overview of how digital publishing and distribution were fundamentally reshaping the world of books and literature, changing models we have come to see as ‘the right way’ of doing things. I got a little carried away towards the end of the talk and discussed the need for a concerted response from the entire reading and writing sector to the encroachment of technology firms intent and leading the sector in a direction of their choosing. Maybe it was in the air.

But then again, maybe it was a bit intemperate, but it’s not untrue.
Eoin

Filed under: Irish Publishing, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 4, 2010 • 4:53 pm 0

Announcement: The Irish Story & Collca Agree Co-Publishing Deal For Five Apps

I’m really pleased to be able to share this news, it means that at least one (and probably more) of the “Story Of Series” will be available as apps for iOS devices by Christmas.

Press Release
04/11/2010
For Immediate Release

The Irish Story & Collca to Co-publish 5 Titles as Apps
The Irish Story and Collca are delighted to announce that they’ve agreed to develop and co-publish iPhone apps for the first five books in The Story Of series of Irish histories.

The partnership will use Collca’s Condor software and data framework to bring the apps to market in rapid succession starting with John Dorney’s The Story Of The Easter Rising, 1916. The Irish Story and Collca will both actively market the apps which will be available from the Apple iTunes app store as soon they’re published.

The Irish Story publisher, Eoin Purcell, said “I’m very pleased with the deal we have reached. It allows The Irish Story to move beyond ebook formats and into the world of apps, something I’ve been keen to do since day one.”

Mike Hyman, managing director of Collca, added “these books provide a very good overview of key events in Irish history. This deal will help consolidate our position as an electronic publisher of shorter concise texts covering a variety of topics – not just history. I believe that this type of publication lends itself far better to electronic publication than to print.”

Notes to Editors
The Irish Story is the Irish History imprint of Green Lamp Media and is a digital first publisher. Green Lamp Media provides publishing and publishing services consultancy as well as operating a number of content imprints: Irish Publishing News and, of course, The Irish Story.

Collca, the co-publishers of the acclaimed History In An Hour series, was founded specifically as an ePublisher. It currently publishes book-derived and other educational and reference mobile apps primarily for the Apple iOS platform (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). Collca is also actively planning to adopt the ePUB ebook standard as an additional platform for some new titles.

Further information from:
The Irish Story:
eoin@greenlampmedia.com
+353 87 2955 131 | +353 1 6637 667

Collca:
mike.hyman@collca.com
+44 7980 821222

Filed under: News, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 4, 2010 • 7:24 pm 0

Things I Like | Liffey Ships and Shipbuilding – Pat Sweeney | The Irish Catholic

Nice review in The Irish Catholic for Pat Sweeney’s Liffey Ships & Ship Building, one of my commissions while at Mercier Press.

The book is not only the result of very detailed archive research, it shows too the benefit of Pat Sweeney’s skills as a professional photographer in recording so many of the ships while they were still sea-going.

Attractively produced, this is not just a book for the enthusiast, but for anyone at all interested, not just in Dublin’s past, but in a much neglected aspect of our national history.

Over the last few months I have heard three different Government ministers, including Mr Cowen, extolling the importance of ”heritage” to tourism and the creation of those all important ”bed-nights” around which our economy seems to spins.

The ship builders chronicled in these pages are part of that heritage, part of the heritage which the Maritime Institute of Ireland museum was set up to foster, but which central funding has neglected. Let us hope that Pat Sweeny’s excellent book will be a foundation on which a new future for Ireland’s total maritime heritage may be built.

via Books: Liffey Ships and Shipbuilding – Pat Sweeney | The Irish Catholic – Ireland’s biggest and best-selling Catholic newspaper since 1888.

Filed under: Commissioning, , , , , , , , ,

August 25, 2010 • 1:37 pm 0

Things I Like | The cabbage plot rebels | Irish Examiner

What a week for books I’ve commissioned it is turning out to be! Laurence Fenton’s The Young Ireland Rebellion and Limerick was featured in the Irish Examiner at the weekend. I’m delighted, it’s a fine book on a fascinating topic:

LAURENCE FENTON has written a tantalising introduction to the events leading to the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848.

The author’s goal was to “explore the manner in which the men and women of Limerick reacted to the tumultuous year of revolutions”.

via The cabbage plot rebels | Irish Examiner.

Filed under: Commissioning, , , , , ,

August 23, 2010 • 9:58 am 0

Things I Like | Tales of the Burren, and other places – The Irish Times

Delighted to see two of my Commissions in the Irish Times at the weekend:

Burren Villages: Tales Of History And Imagination
by Sarah Poyntz

This sense of something beyond the everyday pervades the book, which is a collection of essays about the area and its people. There is a concise, well-put-together account of the history of the area by Poyntz and Jim Hyland, a lyrical description of the personal effect of the beauty of the Burren by Tony Hartnett (“There is something here that pulls at you inside”) and a deeply personal piece by Lelia Doolan, who spent her childhood summers in the Burren.

And

Bygone Limerick: The City And County In Days Gone By
by Hugh Oram

a lavishly illustrated portrait of the city and county, charting the changes in the historical areas, such as the Georgian Quarter and St John’s Castle, as well as towns and villages such as Adare, Bruree, Kilmallock and Newcastlewest. One of the more fascinating sections is about the building of the Shannon scheme at Ardnacrusha, which put Ireland on the map internationally and helped to raise the profile of the infant Irish Free State abroad.

via Tales of the Burren, and other places – The Irish Times – Sat, Aug 21, 2010.

Filed under: Commissioning, , , , , , , , , , ,



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