Hunter and Lindenbaum unveiled Broadcastr Mediabistro’s eBook summit, and Galleycat has video of their presentation.

On the Broadcastr site, they explain:

Broadcastr is a Social Media platform for location-based stories. It enables the recording, indexing, listening, and sharing of audio content. Just like in human memory, every story is bound to a place.
Whether dishing last night’s details to friends, uncovering local lore, perusing restaurant reviews, listening to travel guides, tuning in to citizen journalism, contemplating oral histories, or sharing hilarious anecdotes, Broadcastr amplifies all our voices. Users can take a GPS-enabled walk as stories about their surroundings stream into their headphones, like a museum tour of the entire world. Users can record their own content, create playlists, follow their friends, and share Facebook [sic].

Oooh, Facebook!

I have a lot of questions about Broadcastr, but I have no doubt that it will seriously change the way we travel and eat/drink.  I like that it’s tied to place, and I think it will give the content a feeling of intimacy and insiderness.  However, I think the content should be searchable and available no matter where the user is.  Instead of only complementing a location, it could/should also let users make decisions about where they want to go before they go somewhere.

Although I’m certain it would violate copyright laws, it would be great if users could access audio versions of relevant short stories, novel excerpts, or even novels, in particular locations. That would be a great backdrop to an adventure.  Maybe users should just start recording them as they go, and see what happens. Writers could also dictate or perform their own work, published or otherwise, so visitors to a certain area, say….Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, could hear what local writers are doing.

Correction: Broadcastr already does all this “and more,” I just didn’t know because no one thought to make me a beta tester…

(via Galleycat)

The story is perfect for a short film, but the trailer (below) left me wanting, and worried.  Cuarón is incredibly talented, but this story has a detached dreaminess that might have been better handled by someone else.  Maybe Sophie Coppola on one of her less-dreamy days. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

It’s unclear  when the “The Second Bakery Attack” will come out, but Anh Hung Tran’s adaptation of Murakami’s Norwegian Wood will be released in Japan in less than two weeks. Sadly, there’s no release date for America.

This proliferation of Murakami movies has io9 wondering if Murakami will replace Philip K. Dick as “Hollywood’s idea spigot.”  There’s certainly plenty of material to work with. I can’t believe David Lynch hasn’t gone after The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, or that the mumblecore crew hasn’t jumped (slumped) on any of his other short stories.  The problem seems to be that Murakami isn’t very interested in having his work adapted.  He should stop resisting, or just start writing screenplays himself. (Via io9)

In her piece, “Smaller Presses, Bigger Authors,” in Publishers Weekly, Rachel Deahl looks at the reasons behind the disappearance of midlist authors and the good and bad things that happen when they must move on.  While most of the news is predictably grim, an upside is that now smaller presses have a chance to work with writers and books that were previously out of their league.

Deahl writes,

“Munro Magruder, publisher of New World Library, believes presses like his have become the beneficiary of this trend. In the past few years, Magruder said he’s seen an influx of midlist authors who had spent years at the big houses. He cited two books NWL published in October—Alice Walker’s poetry collection Hard Times Require Furious Dancing and Michael Krasny’s Spiritual Envy—as books he thought he might not have gotten years back. (Walker wrote the megaseller The Color Purple, and Krasny is the host of KQED’s Forum out of San Francisco.) NWL considers both books to have been successes—Krasny’s title has already sold out its first printing of 8,500 copies, and Walker’s collection sold out its 7,500-copy first run.”

The fact that major houses won’t publish Alice Walker is scary, and it indicates just how high the bar is being set by the industry and how few people will be able to reach it.  This is a problem.  If this trend continues, what does end up being published by the big houses will be safe, predictable and probably redundant.  However, it will also make indie presses even more important.  Publishing established writers might get them more credibility and attention from the average reader and bookseller, which might get them more money, which means they might be able to pick up where the big guys left off. Here’s hoping.

You can watch most of the ceremony, including Smith’s tearful and poetic acceptance speech, here.

While Tavi loves Sassy, she understands she can’t recreate it and doesn’t want to, and neither does Pratt.  Times have changed, and though Sassy is forever awesome, they want to do something that is a little more now, though what that means or will look like is unclear.

The online version will launch this winter and it should be in print by fall.  And you can be a part of it if you send her your stuff and it’s awesome.

Magazine industry: saved.

(Via NYDN)

So apparently the holiday season is here (come on), which means it’s time to start spending your hard-earned unemployment benefits on others.  Not sure what smart and not-fun present to get the kid who clearly just wants an f-ing toy in your life?  Never fear. Out-of-Print, the cool and responsible company that makes t-shirts with vintage book covers on them, recently added a children’s line.  Now your 4-year-old niece/nephew/kid brother/estranged daughter can finally show the world how smart you are and how much you love Moby Dick.

Jokes aside, Out-of-Print is a great company, and a getting a kid a Cather in the Rye t-shirt is way better than getting them that kiddie Guns and Roses shirt you saw on St. Marks.  Seeing as they won’t have heard of Catcher or GnR, why not buy the shirt from the company that, which every shirt purchased, donates a book to a community in need in Africa?  Out-of-Print does just that, and through their charity partner, Books for Africa, they just shipped 20,000 books to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for distribution in schools and libraries.  That’s pretty amazing.  Now you won’t only look smart for getting them the shirt (or at least smarter than if you went with the aforementioned option, or the shirt that says “Boob Man” that you’ve had your eye on), but you’ll feel good.

There are only four designs available for kids at the moment—unfortunately, none of them are actual kids books, though adults can rock a nice Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys.  Hopefully there are more to come.

According to Amazon, the enhancements include:

Video:

• Contextual in-line video footage relating to the storyline
• Interactive maps of Los Angeles featuring locations from The Reversal
• Commentary by Michael Connelly for Enriched Edition readers
• The Reversal Video Reading Group Guide hosted by Michael Connelly

Extras:

• Timeline of Major Events in the Life of Mickey Haller
• Timeline of Major Events in the Life of Harry Bosch
• The Reversal Location Photographs
• Author Q&A
• Linked glossary

This is cool, right? I’m excited, but not so excited that I’m going to do something crazy, like, you know, actually read a book by Michael Connelly.

(Via WSJ)

I think a few things about this.  I want to be able to purchase essays/short stories individually and I’m glad a major publisher is experimenting with that model.  I have no idea if this will be popular, but if it is, it seems like a great way to make money.  Ebooks go for $10 at the most (I don’t have an electronic reading device, but that’s what I’ve heard from the robots who do), and most essay or story collections have more than 10 pieces (of course some have less).  As with everything else, buying in bulk is cheaper, but maybe some people will want or need to go one at a time.

I also think repackaging work for ebooks is a great idea, and I’m assuming it’s way cheaper for the publisher than printing up books that may or may not sell.  But if you don’t have an ereader, will there ever be the option to print on demand, or something?  I don’t want the internet to win – yet.  Of course, repackaging would be really difficult/pointless for a lot of writers because you’d end up with one big book – “Raymond Carver Does Broken Souls” or “Lorrie Moore Does Crazy Ladies” just don’t seem worth the trouble. (Via NYT)