Buzz
by John Wolf
A new decade begins and Mayan calendar freaks start to check out. Here in California, you can check out, but never leave. I'm sticking around to wait for some smart-assed anthropologist to find the Mayan's other calendar or since it is circular, discover the cycle is infinite. This receding year in the rearview mirror has been a flashy one. I mean Flashy like in Adobe Flash. Everything has gone video and pushed into an iPhone and YouTube. The independent writer is reaching adolescence and is now becoming Author, Inc. It's the next right of passage.
One has to be wired for the rest of the millennium. Learning Internet processes, apps, and protocols are becoming as common as knowing how to use a knife and fork. Stop eating with your hands, man. Think tech.
We made the transition from quill to typewriter, now the laptop computer and desktop publishing has be enhance by website presence and video branding of the writer's product. Wow, we build product now, not write books.
It's like the rock star that makes all the money on paraphernalia not CD sales. Every supermodel is constructed out of Photoshop layers, contrast thresholds, and tone textures. Reality is dull. The eye of the beholder is bionic.
Will you embrace the new technology or be hit by the stungun reality of being forced to jump on the bandwagon or be left in the dust? We are beyond stylizing a book copy in Word. Now we do lay-up for book design in Adobe InDesign. And for some new and interesting reasons why.
The last barb sticking out to snare you and pull you into the whirling machinery is a curious and mysterious file format called .epub supported by a consortium at http://www.openebook.org/. So, what does that mean to the indie author?
What we are seeing is a jelling of technologies that make it possible for authors to sell ebooks to online customers directly. Or, if you are a magazine publisher, you now can distribute directly to the public via their computer screen, your magazine, newspaper, or a book. Still haven't grasped the implications?
If you layout a book in InDesign (CS4 version), you can export your book copy directly into the .ebup format. In that format, the book can be sold to anyone in the world over the Internet from your website to be read on their computer screen. You don't need to buy a reader like the Kindle, saving $350 right up front. Adobe has a free reader for .epub called Digital Edition. Many more are becoming available.
Yes, this is big. Publishers that aren't selling ebooks now are missing out on a huge worldwide market. The rate of change in ebook sales is exponential. Amazon is sweating with zillions invested in the Kindle. Barnes&Noble and the Sony readers saw the light and switched to the .epub format. Okay, you just bought a reader and defend it by saying it's portable. Fine, so are laptops, notebooks, iPhones and all can read this new format.
If you have stock in a paper pulp company - sell it. Even ink companies are going to be feeling it. Behold, the mighty electron.
We will be seeing in the near future Infinity Pulishing offering their authors in ebook format to download directly from the BuyBooksOnTheWeb.com site. You heard it here first. It's a tsunami of good stuff and saves trees to boot.
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Book Reviews
I'm in the process of reading a series of books by David J. Valley, a local author also noted for writing a column in the poker newspaper you see at the casinos called Poker Player.
The basis for most of David's books is the life of General Douglas MacArthur. The foundation work is called "Gaijin Shogun" and for those not versed in the Japanese language, that means foreign military leader, but implies much stronger relevance to the Japanese people living through the occupation of allied forces after WWII. Much of the book is a quote taken directly from MacArthur's memoir called "Reminiscences." David was part of the Honor Guard in the early 50s and stayed on in Japan for some 18 years after leaving the military. The Honor Guard was a select group of American soldiers that protected MacArthur and his family that lived in the American Embassy compound in Tokyo. MacArthur was the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, which says it all, but this remarkable man was more than a military executer of policy, he became the stepfather of postwar Japan.
David's book is the only one I've read about MacArthur, so I'm not well versed on how it stacks up. But from a casual reader's perspective, I found the story very fascinating. I found it to be a good read.
The second book is called "Bright Life" and is a fictionalized account of events that led up to the signing of the new constitution that imposed sweeping changes to life in Japan from the emancipation of women and dropping a feudal way of living to life after the sham Shinto religion was exposed that the Emperor was not a deity. The plot centers on a love story between a Japanese girl, who interprets her father's thoughts for the allies and an American soldier sent to measure the attitude of the high ranking Japanese diplomats on how the constitution was going to be constructed.
I found the love story fun to read, but yearned to know more about what was implied in the old Meiji Constitution and how the people felt about the sweeping changes MacArthur was obliged to accomplish from the Potsdam Agreements.
The third book is called "The General's Women" and exploits the private letters, poem, and diaries found at the MacArthur foundation in Norfolk, Virginia. The book takes the form of fictional interviews with MacArthur and the various women he pursued conducted by a Barbara Walters type of interviewer. I think the most revealing sense of amazement for me, was the Victorian dramatic poetry the General was prone to use to woo women. He had a real classical approach. These trysts were all before he married his wife that was with him to the end and most of them were just brief encounters. What makes the book interesting is the way it is presented. The reference letters, etc. are in the back of the book are amazing to read.
What makes David's books fun to read is he had a close perspective and spent so much time in Japan himself, that the stories feel real and well constructed. You can contact David at dvalley1@san.rr.com to obtain copies.
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John keeps the kennels clean at the Fox&Quill Hunting Club. Move along. There nothing to see here. |
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John Wolf |
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