Day: April 8, 2006

More thoughts on e-readers & digital publishing

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

I was thinking over the new services which allow movie watchers to buy and download feature films. These services have taken to sending DVD’s alongside the order for reasons I cannot quite understand. So long as the download can be used on another device or burned to a DVD (there’s the catch) then why send a DVD, surely so long as you can view it you don’t need the hardcopy.

Books on the other hand might well be suited to such a service. Most readers prefer to read a novel or non-fiction title in the paper copy but searching the same book would be so much easier in electronic or digital format. Is there room for a model that sells you both, one to read and one to search and research with?

And then I did some searching and found this. Looks like Amazon have been there for some time now. I recalled reading about this feature some time ago in Publishers Lunch but had not seen the value of the product until now. I wonder what the progress has been in this field.

Some more useful ideas for publishing job seekers

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

This blog is becoming more and more about publishing, books and business. That was not my intention but I seem to be writing mostly about the industry so why fight it. I hope to throw some history into the mix too but we will see how that works.

I had another revelation too and that was that most people looking to get into publishing would benefit from two books mostly aimed at Authors and Writers. The Writers Handbook and The Writers & Artists Yearbook (Any recent edition; both are revised annually). These books are great jump off points for learning about the industry.

The specialities of publishers are important for most people. I enjoy history so working in Local History is clearly a good match but how well would I do in a Science Technical and Medical publishing house? Probably I would be well able for the work but find it not nearly as enjoyable.

Remember to check addresses though if you have an old copy and make sure you check on the ownership structure of the company. Some of the larger groups have centralised application systems (I’m thinking of Bertelsmann) so be conscious of who you need to apply to when searching or applying for positions.

Jobs in the UK

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

So I listed some ideas for job hunters in the US and I talked about the prospects in the industry but I sure as hell forgot to mention sources in the UK.

One of the most agreeable groups I dealt with in the UK was Inspired Selection who were helpful in preparing me even though my application was from Ireland and lined up some very good interviews for me. They also have a huge number of positions available so they really should be checked out.

Also not to be ignore is The Guardian. they publish a media section every Monday which is worth reading and also maintain a jobs site which can be used to pull down an RSS feed of a job search (A very useful feature for any job site, it certainly beats the socks off an e-mail service to my mind.

Finally both The Bookseller and Publishing News offer job search services and are worth searching regularly.