E-book Netflix; Digital in Libraries and Schools; Six Word Twitterfest

E-book Netflix

There's something new coming for people who can't get enough e-books that's going to be like Netflix is for movies. Those who are honest and don't pirate books and movies will love this. With the leveling off of e-book sales, people who read e-books are now being called "heavy readers" compared to those who still read print books. According to this piece, the average person who reads e-books reads 24 books a year in comparison to the average person who reads print books, which is around 15 books a year.

So it makes sense that these readers might welcome new ways to feed their habits. The notion of “a Netflix for books” has been kicked around for a while. Oyster.com, a ballyhooed new venture backed by such digital glitterati as Sean Parker and Peter Thiel, just launched its beta version, but it’s not the only promising option out there.

You can read more here. The article goes on to mention a few more differences between readers. I still think some of this information is off, because I see more people reading on tablets and devices than ever before. I just don't think they are buying as many books as they did in the past, and that's partly because the price of e-books is still way to high for most people. If I were to decide on e-book prices they would range from 1.99 - 6.99, and not a penny higher. There's this feature I've seen on my Verizon On Demand movie rental section where they pre-release movies. You can't rent those for 4.99 or 5.99. You can only buy them for prices that range from 16.99 - 19.99. I pass every single time. I know I'll be able to see it for less eventually. Consumers aren't stupid.

Digital in Libraries and Schools

For those who think e-books are only a trend like the hoola hoop was, you might want to reconsider. I don't know a single kid in my circles who isn't reading e-books, who doesn't have a tablet or e-reading device of some kind, and doesn't know how to use technology as if it came to them as part of their birthright. And I'm talking about kids who come from various income backgrounds. Some are from privilege and others are not. College students are now looking to download books for free because they can't get the digital versions yet and they don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for a book they will only use for a few months of their lives.

In this article it talks about Youtube veteran, Lee C. Milstein, joining Overdrive and heading up a new department that will focus on distributing e-books to libraries and schools.

Milstein, who has also held leadership roles at AOL and DivX, will lead OverDrive’s emerging digital media businesses. This includes expanding the company’s push into streaming video and education content and services. Milstein will also guide the organization’s overall strategy and strategic partnerships. Milstein will also lead a market development team that will be based in New York City, a first time the company has had a presence in the city.

My sister is a school teacher at a charter school in Allentown, PA, and all I hear from her is how she has to learn something new almost each week that's related to all things digital.

Six Word Twitterfest

This actually reminds me of a short shot story contest that used to (and may still be) held by Writers' Digest Magazine. Writers had to write a short story in 1,500 words or less in order to qualify. The only difference now with the twitterfest deal is that you can only write six words.

From the press release, and you can read more here.

Six-Word Memoir began as a contest in collaboration with Twitter in 2006, asking people to tweet their response to a simple challenge: ‘Can you tell the story of your life in six words?’ Seven books and more than 700,000 Six-Word stories later, Six Words have become an easy and inspired form of engagement to get to the essence of anything.” What do you think?

I think it's fun, and I love word economy. That's was editing is all about, not fixing punctuation and grammar. That's called copyediting.