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There’s a new blog in town…

Posted in Publishing

The Macmillan blog has arrived, and CEO John Sargent has posted on the agency model, availability and price:
After the events of the past several weeks, I have been in touch with many of you. It has become clear to me that there is far too little accurate information available in this time of unprecedented change. [...]

revolutionary

Posted in General

I’m coming around to iPad now, two days on. I’m having my mind gradually changed by some of the analysis and reaction out there. A particularly helpful piece from Mac Slocum is on the O’Reilly Radar.
My reactions to the iBooks application stand, but I think the device is possibly more of a potential ‘replacement’ device [...]

Putting the ‘ding’ into ‘ereading’

Posted in General

After a bit of discussion with friends and colleagues, and more absorption of iPad news, I feel it’s only honest to say that the iPad seems ever so slightly disappointing. It’s convergence, Steve, but not as we’d hoped it might be. I’m aware though, with Stephen Fry’s words ringing in my ears, that I’ve not [...]

Apple iPad

Posted in General

@stephenfry says: Nothing you can say about the iPad matches the experience of using it. So much more than a large iPhone or small laptop. Stunning feel.
The long-awaited convergence device is here. General chatter about the web seems to be that perhaps the reality doesn’t live up to the iDream (sorry, no more iPuns, I [...]

#lazyweb

Posted in General

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Twitter convention of hash tags, and the popular #lazyweb tag used when you are too lazy to find the answer to a question that you’re pretty sure someone out there on the world wide web will know. So you tweet the question and add #lazyweb.
What I [...]

Peter James iPhone app

Posted in General

We’re very pleased to announce the release of a landmark iPhone app – the Peter James app, featuring the DS Roy Grace series of crime novels.
Download the press release:
Press release: Peter James iPhone app

Hitchhiker homepage takeover

Posted in General

On 12 October 1979 the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor (and Earth) was made available to humanity – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Pan Macmillan is celebrating thirty years of planet-hopping comic genius with the publication of special editions of Douglas Adams’ iconic books.
In [...]

@rnmorris – a good read

Posted in General

One-time Macmillan New Writing author, Roger Morris, and now hugely successful crime fiction writer, R.N. Morris is twitterizing his novel A Gentle Axe. Reading it in my twitter feed each day is a fantastic experience, and of course one can go back into the archive at twitter.com/rnmorris to read the story from the beginning.
Roger writes [...]

Shatzkin shizzle

Posted in eBooks, mobile

Mike Shatzkin posted a piece yesterday that seemed to me to have the ring of truth about it.
Asking the question, ‘Will Amazon’s current domination of the US ebook market persist?’, Shatzkin answers firmly, ‘No.’
He goes on to explicate the lack of a genuine compatibility between Amazon’s strengths in physical product supply, handling and selling and [...]

lament

Posted in Publishing, eBooks

… the dizzying range of easily accessible material on the internet conspires with a lack of editorial guidance to make web reading a disjointed experience that works against the sustained concentration required for serious reading.
There is an interesting piece in the London Review of Books from Colin Robinson about the impact of global economic woes [...]