The Equalization Effect of Digital Publishing

Established mainstream authors like John Updike are furious with Google for scanning books into the public domain and they're angry with publishers that choose to sell electronic editions of books -- any book.

We argue authors like Updike are angry because their specialness in publication is being ravaged by the equanimity and the equality of the digital publishing, print-on-demand, business model creeping into the book world.

Where once these "Big Name" authors were King Makers with power and influence -- everyone can now play on the same ground as them as the playing field is leveled and leavened in favor of the everyday and the accessible.

You create power and wield it when you can narrow access to minds and to the control of thoughts.

If everyone in the room with you -- and even those out in the world at large -- can go toe-to-toe with you to compete for the hearts and ideas of an ever-widening readership, your star shines less, your book advances dwindle, and your awards and certificates are diminished as the power is equalized.

Be wary of anyone claiming electronic publishing is bad for reading -- and when you see that sort of strange protest -- look for the threat to the backend profit the protestor is making behind your back.

Google and Fair Use

If you buy a book, do you own that book or have you only rented the content in that book?

Under the current Copyright law, you may loan that book and share that book, but you may not copy the book and give those copies to your friends or sell those copies to your enemies.

The current Google project to digitize university libraries is a concern in that many of the works Google are scanning are still in the public domain. This is not only a violation of Copyright, but we believe it is also re-publication of a pre-existing, protected, work.

We are concerned how some university libraries are giving their books to Google to be scanned using the Fair Use doctrine as their excuse for not breaking the book's inherent Copyright.

That thinking stretches much too far the idea of Fair Use -- you can't copy and index and "serve" the contents of an entire book to the world and not infringe upon the original, incorruptible, Copyright.

Reading the Universal Digital Library

As online teaching grows, we are always looking for good ideas and project partners to help foment the acquisition of knowledge and memes on the internet and in the virtual classroom.

The Universal Digital Library is an ambitious project we fully support:

Up until now, the transmission of our cultural heritage has depended on limited numbers of copies in fragile media. The fires of Alexandria irrevocably severed our access to any of the works of the ancients. In a thousand years, only a few of the paper documents we have today will survive the ravages of deterioration, loss, and outright destruction.

With no more than 10 million unique book and document editions before the year 1900, and perhaps 100 million since the beginning of recorded history, the task of preservation is much larger. With new digital technology, though, this task is within the reach of a single concerted effort for the public good, and this effort can be distributed to libraries, museums, and other groups in all countries.

This is an ambitious project that is slowly winning its goal of indexing every printed page in the world and we cannot wait to read every word!

Helping One Million

Our sister site, Urban Semiotic, is in the middle of a campaign to reach ONE MILLION READERS by the end of the year.

We ask you to join that effort.

Currently Urban Semiotic has 863,000 readers and to reach the million mark they need around 3,000 readers a day.

Please be one of the 3,000 to help them make their own history.

Writing Four New Boles Books

It is a great honor and pleasure to announce we are writing the following four books for Thomson/Cengage Learning:

Picture Yourself Learning Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Picture Yourself Learning Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1 (includes Bonus DVD!)

Google Apps Administrator Guide

The writing schedule is hectic but we will get it done.

Three of the four books will be published before the end of 2007.

We will keep you updated on the status of our onward progress in bringing these semiotic books to life. We love and honor the power of the image on the page and these full-color books will prove that devotion in spades.

When Tech Editors Go Bad

If you write a book that deals with computers or the Internet you will likely have an important cog in your editorial process in the form of a Technical Editor.

Your Tech Editor watches your back and checks your steps, facts and work process.

A Tech Editor is your guarantee of excellence -- but if that editor drops the ball in the review process and begins missing deadlines -- the entire book project is plunged into jeopardy.

Delays of even a few days in replacing a misbegotten Tech Editor quickly translates into thousands of lost dollars because the book is late to the marketplace.

The lesson is this: Pick your Tech Editors wisely and those you know may not be any better than those you have yet to meet.

Money, deadlines and responsibility can wound even the best informal relationship so choose wisely and carry a big blue pencil.

Publishing Kills the Weak and Weakens the Strong

Writing is hard work. Hurtful work. Deadly work.

Putting together a book is a long and painful process of recognition, writing and ongoing negotiation.

Binding a book on deadline kills the weak and weakens the strong because the book waits for no one and when crunch time hits you better be prepared to give and take some harsh strikes.

Because the publishing process is so brutal, few companies or people are able to do it on a regular basis. You're dealing with geographic constraints, human aesthetic, and a changing target audience.

Bringing a book to readers is the process of a miracle realized.

Boles Books Writing and Publishing

It is a great delight for us to tell you about a new book from Boles Books Writing and Publishing -- one of our premier content partners.

Google Apps for Your Domain is a new book in process written by David W. Boles and published by Thomson under their Course PTR imprint.

You may read this blog entry for more information and also visit the official website for the book.

Electronic Books

We love the idea of using electronic books for online teaching.

We know textbooks, and the ideas that create the text, can change and be updated to The Now in an ongoing basis while paper is always embedded -- stuck even -- in history.

If you want to hold paper with print in your hand -- you can always print your eBook for the traditional reading experience!

Boles Books GIS

We are pleased to share with you the great good news that Boles Books Writing & Publishing and Dramatic Medicine -- our official bookstore partner and our program in Public Health -- sealed a deal this week to provide GIS (Geographic Information Systems) material to Glencoe/McGraw-Hill for use in three new textbooks due out in 2008.

You can read more about the project here and be sure to keep an eye out for the books:

World Geography and Cultures
Glencoe World History
The American Vision

Boles Books is Our Bookstore!

We are pleased to announce Boles Books Writing and Publishing are our new one-stop online Bookstore!

We will be creating course texts for purchase and instant download in addition to the outstanding material already available for purchase.

If you are taking American Sign Language, we will continue to use Hand Jive: American Sign Language for Real Life as our main textbook until the interactive online courses come online.