Charlotte Gill | author site & blog

May 23, 2008

Milkin' it

"Eating Dirt" picked up a nomination for a Western Magazine Award in the Human Experience category. For all the finalists, clickety here.

May 12, 2008

Book weeds

You may watch me eat these words, but I think Kindle is a stupid invention. A plastic tablet illuminated with blinky lights and scrolling text so that it looks like a book, but when you drop it in the tub, ain't no hairdryer in the world going to save your Jane Eyre. That aside, I've been devouring all the debate recently on digitizing books, and what it means for us content providers.

I just love the internets. Despite all the blingin' visuals, it's made for text. And it's basically free. Naked boobs aside, of course. I've never understood why people plaster their websites with copyright notices and all kinds of legal signage. I thought wholesale rip-off was the entire point of the internet. Cory Doctorow has an awesome little piece on why it pays to let your stuff float around on the tides. And also why you should never, ever give your books away online. Unless you're Jewel and can afford the pro bono sharing.

Internet users have short attention spans. The moment of consummation--the moment when a reader discovers your book online, starts to read it, and thinks, huh, I should buy a copy of this book--is very brief. That's because "I should buy a copy of this book" is inevitably followed by, "Woah, a youtube of a man putting a lemon in his nose!" and the moment, as they say, is gone.

I'm curious about downloadable audio books and if the same wisdom applies.