Announcing the 2020 Hugo Award Finalists
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[image: 2020 Hugo Awards finalists]
The finalists for the 2020 Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New
Writer, the Lodestar Award for Best Young Ad...
Piratas sem querer
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Torna-se cada vez mais difícil escrever para este blog, pois a Cultura
parece ter parado, sido suspensa, adiada, cancelada (mesmo que muitos
artistas não...
Distant Stars by P H Lee (audio)
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This episode features "Distant Stars" written by P H Lee. Published in the
April 2020 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text
versi...
Para anotar na Agenda
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Dia 25 de Novembro, pelas 17:00, participarei num painel com a Madalena
Santos (moderadora) e o Luís Filipe Silva, ambos dispensando apresentações,
dedic...
Artificially intelligent security cameras
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*New AI Camera Security Systems*
Geneva Simms and Nathan Lavertue were driving to their country house in
Dutchess County one recent weekend when there ...
2018 Glass Bell Award Shortlist
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Laura Purcell’s horror novel The Silent Companions (Raven) is one of six
titles on the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award shortlist.
The award was establis...
Os livros que fazem feministas
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Autoras como Margaret Atwood, Mary Beard, Naomi Klein ou Jeanette Winterson
dizem que livros as fizeram ser feministas. Depoimentos a reter.
Blimunda #62
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A Blimunda de Julho já pode ser lida no Scribd ou descarregada em PDF,
aqui. Como sempre, há muito para ler. Da minha parte, contribuo com uma
entrevista a...
Amanhã na secção de Livros da revista ‘E’
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– Entrevista com José Maria Vieira Mendes, a propósito da edição simultânea
de Uma Coisa e Uma Coisa Não É Outra Coisa (Cotovia), por Cristina Peres –
Os P...
SciFi Lx 2015
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O SciFi Lx 2015 assumiu-se como sendo o "ano zero", depois de um primeiro
evento organizado no ano passado. Se essa primeira experiência tinha
servido para...
No dossier central da revista, textos de Raquel Ribeiro, Germán Santamaría, Embaixador da Colômbia em Portugal, Pilar del Río e Tomás Eloy Martínez, com a primeira crítica a Cem Anos de Solidão, publicada em 1967, quatro abordagens à vida e obra de Gabriel García Márquez.
A FILBo, Feira Internacional do Livro de Bogotá, que acolheu Portugal como país convidado, e o Festival Literário da Madeira ocupam também lugar de destaque nesta edição, através de textos de Sara Figueiredo Costa. Na secção infantil e juvenil, uma visita à exposição Clarice Lispector – A hora da estrela, que a Fundação Gulbenkian acolheu no último mês. Partindo desta exposição, Andreia Brites, lê os quatro livros infantis da grande autora brasileira, editados pela Relógio d’Água.
A fechar a Blimunda de Maio, a Saramaguiana publica dois documentos documentos fundamentais para um percurso pelo universo literário e intelectual do Prémio Nobel português. Dois textos de autoria de Carlos Reis e Fernando Gómez Aguilera, lidos na apresentação de A Estátua e a Pedra, inédito de José Saramago, agora publicado pela Fundação que leva o seu nome.
Amazon is widely recognized as having ignited the ebook market with the launch of the Kindle Store in 2007, and today I realized that they might be trying to repeat that success with audiobooks.
The new Gatekeepers of the New World of Publishing have just these new levers – Friction and Discoverability and DRM and Social Proof and Perceptions. These levers aren’t half as strong and powerful as the Real Impenetrable Gates the Old Gatekeepers had. Fortunately, for the New Gatekeepers, there is one very powerful lever amongst these. One that, if used correctly, becomes a real barrier.DRM.DRM is, for most readers (who are not technically savvy), a REAL barrier to freedom of movement.
Kobo has ventured into new territory, creating an alternate reality game called The Descent for a three-week contest to help promote the launch of Dan Brown’s new novel Inferno.
Sourcebooks and OverDrive are partnering on a pilot program that will allow library patrons worldwide the opportunity to read New York Times bestselling author Michael Malone’s acclaimed novel “The Four Corners of the Sky” in ebook format. The Big Library Read is a no cost program in which libraries worldwide promote from their lending catalog a single ebook to their patrons. In addition to creating a global “library book club,” it’s designed to generate data about the positive exposure and sales influence library ebook catalogs provide to authors and publishers.
“Google And The World Brain” is a new documentary about Google’s plan to scan all of the world’s books, which triggered an ongoing lawsuit being heard today. The hair-raising film sees Google import millions of copyrighted works, get sued, lose, but almost get a literature monopoly in the process. It’s scary, informative, and worth watching if you recognize its biased portrayal of Google as evil. The film is getting wider release as Google continues to fight the Author’s Guild in court today. The organization is demanding $3 billion in damages from Google for scanning and reproducing copyrighted books. Google is asking the court to prevent the group from filing a class-action suit.
For the study this year, we analyzed over $12 million in sales for a collection of 120,000 Smashwords ebooks from May 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013. We aggregated our sales data from across our retail distribution network, which includes the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Amazon (only about 200 of our 200,000 titles are at Amazon). As the world's largest indie ebook distributor, I think our study represents the most comprehensive analysis ever of how ebooks from self-published authors and small independent presses are behaving in the marketplace.
A linguagem que está sendo gerada pelos escritores virtuais está longe de alcançar a dimensão e a riqueza do estilo de grandes autores celebrizados por livros impressos.
We are always looking for new technologies we may be able to incorporate into our products over the long term. The Liquavista team shares our passion for invention and is creating exciting new technologies with a lot of potential. It’s still early days, but we’re excited about the possibilities and we look forward to working with Liquavista to develop these displays.
At Publishers Weekly’s May 8 discussion series on trends in consumer book-buying, held at the offices of Random House in New York City, Carl Kulo, U.S. director of Bowker Market Research, highlighted the major shifts that took place in 2012 in such key areas as sales by format and by channel.
The Bookseller Industry awards has just occurred in the United Kingdom and Pottermore came away with a huge victory. The Harry Potter focused digital company beat out some hefty competition by Random House, Harlequin, Kobo, Penguin, and Bloomsbury.The Pottermore strategy as a gateway to sell ebooks has been a bit of a case study on how to start an e-commerce site and maintain control over the entire experience. Normally, books are sold and distributed by the publisher and seldom does the author maintain any control over the companies that send the books to libraries and bookstores, let alone international rights and sales.
They’re calling the new screen tech Mobius. Instead of the glass panel used in many ereaders today, the Mobius screen uses a plastic backplane that is flexible and as a result is more resistant to impact.
Brazilian ebook and education firm Simplissimo has been surveying Brazilian ebooks since 2011, well before the launch of Amazon, Kobo and Google stores. Earlier this week Revolução eBook [eBook Revolution], the Brazilian version of the Digital Book World portal, published the latest Simplissimo survey, which showed that there currently 25,000 Brazilian Portuguese titles in the digital format in Brazil, a jump from 16,000 in August 2012 (before the arrival of big international players in the end of 2013).
Earlier this week, we learned of Sony's plans for a 13.3-inch e-ink slate with stylus support pitched at students, and now Diginfo has caught up with the prototype device at the Educational IT Solutions Expo in Japan. The A4-sized tablet is said to be the first piece of hardware with an E Ink Mobius display that's flexible and light due to its new plastic construction. Co-developed by Sony and E Ink, the display only contributes 60g to the overall weight, which is apparently 50 percent lighter than similar screens built with glass.
New York Times E-Book Best Sellers
A version of this list appears in the May 26, 2013 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings reflect sales for the week ending May 11, 2013.
A Editorial Divergência é uma nova editora que pretende apostar na ficção nacional. De momento a editora procura manuscritos inéditos, dentro dos géneros englobados na dita ficção especulativa, com mais de 50000 palavras.
A cultura portuguesa enfrenta uma época de inúmeros desafios, em especial, no sector da literatura de ficção. Fundar a Editorial Divergência partiu da necessidade de intervir em vários aspectos:
Desde sempre Portugal foi um ponto de encontro de saberes. Muito antes do seu nascimento, viu passar pelas suas terras inúmeros povos e uma infindável riqueza cultural. Essa fonte inesgotável de mitos e ideias faz, ainda hoje, parte deste povo e necessita de ser preservada, sendo a literatura um dos vectores essenciais.
A cultura é considerada por alguns como um sector secundário da nossa sociedade. Ouve-se muitas vezes dizer que não é importante, pois não enche o estômago nem a carteira. É evidente que, para além de uma crise económica e social, atravessamos uma crise de valores.
Durante o último século, avanços tecnológicos e sociais levaram à multiplicação do número de editoras. A redução do preço tornou acessível bons livros, bem como numerosos jornais e revistas, à maioria da população. Todavia, uma grande fatia do actual mercado editorial está assente nos princípios da cultura de massas estandardizada e de fácil digestão, sendo necessário uma mudança de paradigma.
Em Portugal, quando comparado com outras áreas, a quantidade de livros de ficção publicados encontra-se num franco desequilíbrio com a que é escrita. Há uma clara preferência por autores estrangeiros, enquanto a divulgação de novos autores portugueses de ficção especulativa se encontra negligenciada.
Pelos motivos acima enunciados, a Editorial Divergência pretende destacar-se no mercado editorial português pela publicação e promoção de novos talentos de ficção especulativa portuguesa. Consideramos que tanto o autor como o leitor devem ser valorizados, que o universo editorial não se deve reger pelos grilhões do interesse económico e que a publicação de livros deve causar o mínimo de impacto ambiental. Como tal iremos basear a editora nas seguintes éticas:
Cuidar do planeta: queremos criar edições amigas do ambiente, diminuindo os desperdícios e os transportes desnecessários.
Cuidar dos autores e leitores: os autores recebem o apoio na publicação e divulgação das suas obras, assim como um pagamento justo (10% do preço de capa) pelo seu trabalho, sem que para tal tenham de investir um único cêntimo; os leitores terão acesso a edições de qualidade a um preço acessível.
Partilha dos lucros: os lucros serão usados na editora de modo a poder investir num número crescente de novos autores, publicando e divulgando as suas obras.
Escolhemos o rebento como logótipo, pois representa o novo autor, que precisa de apoio para poder desenvolver os seus trabalhos. Cada uma das folhas representa tanto uma das vertentes da ficção especulativa como uma das éticas da editora.
Era extraordinário como ela conhecia assim a indivisível soma do tempo, que encontramos em nós confundido com a vida; o que passa não é o tempo, somos nós – a presença do homem é o tempo, a sua consciência, sua formação e sentidos são o tempo, e não podemos dizer que há dias e noites, anos e séculos, sem nós próprios os vivermos na fracção de tempo que nos é dado para entender e consumar em nós o que existiu, durou, aconteceu e teve participação humana. A terra nua e gelada só começa a ter idade depois que o sentimento do homem a povoa, a encontra e, por assim dizer, a gera. O tempo é uma razão pura, o princípio da comunicação.
Under legal pressure in Europe and in an attempt to clean up after the Random House merger, Penguin has offered to change its pricing strategy and abandon the agency model. This move preempts a European Commission inquiry into anti-trust and anti-competition allegations, which if it had found Penguin at fault, would have resulted in fines and sanctions.
Used ebooks are a hot topic right now, with Apple and Amazon each pursuing a patent over reselling digital content and as a result sparking a debate on the legality, ethics, and morality of a second-hand marketplace for products that don’t decay.This is a hot topic across the pond as well, only it has gone in a slightly different direction. A German court has ruled this week that ebooks cannot be resold.
Enhanced ebooks have never quite been as successful as some publishers would like, but I think HarperCollins wants to change that. They’ve just launched a new webpage on the official HarperCollins website that is focused on promoting enhanced ebooks.
Kobo launched a new e-reader at last week's London Book Fair: the Aura HD. Clearly taking aim at Amazon's ever-expanding Kindle lineup, the Aura comes with the highest definition screen of any e-ink device yet, and the fastest processor, meaning it can turn pages quickly and browse the web with ease. Coupled with Kobo's UK focus and its partnership with WH Smith, the lovable old stalwart of the high street, it's no surprise that it was warmly welcomed.
China Miéville called the decision “a game changer” and long-time anti-DRM author and blogger Cory Doctorow praised the decision on both theGuardian Technology Blog and boing boing, the blog he co-edits: “I think that this might be the watershed for ebook DRM, the turning point that marks the moment at which all ebooks end up DRM-free. It’s a good day.”
Digital book distribution is available to anyone who wants it. What in the paper world requires trucks, warehouses, a sales force, and longstanding relationships with buyers at dozens of retail operations, in digital is a push-button à la carte service offered by companies like Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Kobo, and Smashwords. An author so inclined can buy digital distribution for 30% of the list price of the book she's publishing – the same digital distribution a legacy publisher offers – and outsource all other publishing functions, all for significantly less than legacy publishers charge for their packaged service.
Ebook production on a much larger scale as well as a massive cutback in the production of bound books will make a huge difference in our collective carbon footprint. The production and distribution of ebooks has so many positive benefits for the planet while also greatly reducing costs. Just a cursory listing of these benefits: decrease in removal of old forest growth, decrease in fuel consumption for transport, and decrease in land and water used in the storage and creation of physical books. Start there and begin to look at this picture in terms of dollars as well as taking that leap into the new technologies we now possess and/or are creating for ebooks and this challenge proves most exciting.
New York Times E-Book Best Sellers
A version of this list appears in the May 12, 2013 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings reflect sales for the week ending April 27, 2013.
