Leituras Digitais (30 de Outubro a 5 de Novembro)

Rubrica semanal de notícias e artigos relacionados com a edição de livros digitais.

Portugueses estão a comprar menos livros

No primeiro semestre de 2011 os portugueses compraram menos livros do que no mesmo período de 2010. A descida no consumo foi de 3% e é bem menor do que aconteceu em outras áreas como a electrónica de consumo (menos 13%), o entretenimento (menos 13%), ou a informática (menos 8%).

How Freemium Self-published Fiction Is Taking Over China

Web literature or “original fiction” as it’s called in China is a new form of serial literature which theoretically allows anyone to become a best-selling author.

The system works through a growing number of self-publishing websites that host thousands of constantly evolving, free-to-read stories posted on the sites by their authors. These websites are incredibly popular with consumers, attracting over 40% of all China’s internet users every month, who come to read web serials that can be anything from realistic novels to historical epics, comics, sci-fi and fantasy.

Secret of Self-Publishing: Success

Vanity presses have been available for decades. But thanks to digital technology and particularly the emergence of e-books, the number of self-published titles exploded 160% to 133,036 in 2010 from 51,237 in 2006, estimates R. R. Bowker, which tracks the publishing business.

Amazon.com Inc. fueled the growth by offering self-published writers as much as 70% of revenue on digital books, depending on the retail price. By comparison, traditional publishers typically pay their authors 25% of net digital sales and even less on print books.

Survey Says Library Users Are Your Best Customers

The data should prove to be an invaluable resource for all sectors of the publishing ecosystem. “Publishers now have the first really broad, deep look at what library users do with books and e-books, other media, and—perhaps most importantly—what library users do with their wallets outside of libraries,” Miller said. “If they’ve ever doubted the role of libraries in launching an author, this will set them straight. In turn, librarians get new insight into what their patrons want and need. And they are getting many of their hunches confirmed: that library users are avid readers, listeners, and talkers, and that the library is an important part of a rich ecosystem of cultural exchange that is seamlessly connected to the marketplace.”

I Congresso do Livro discutiu alternativas “para que o livro não morra”

"A revolução digital está em nosso redor, é um momento transformador, o equivalente ao momento da revolução de Gutenberg", afirmou Fergal Tobin, presidente da Federação Europeia de Editores e um dos convidados do I Congresso do Livro, organizado pela Associação Portuguesa de Editores e Livreiros (APEL) e que reuniu nos últimos dias editores, livreiros e agentes literários na Praia da Vitória, ilha da Terceira, Açores.

Há a ideia de que a indústria editorial sobreviveu ao aparecimento de outros media durante o último século — rádio, televisão, Internet — e que irá sobreviver a este também. Desenganem-se. "Este momento é diferente. Vamos sobreviver à chegada do digital, mas ele já está a afectar o nosso ambiente tradicional da indústria editorial e com um efeito muito maior do que aconteceu com o aparecimento dos outros media", disse.

Silk Isn’t Enough: Amazon and the Library Book Borrower

Amazon and Facebook and other data-gathering companies are not our friend. They collect this data for multiple reasons, but all those reasons are for their benefit not yours. In Amazon’s case, the obvious, apparent, surface reason is so it can encourage you to buy similar books from it. But what prevents Amazon from turning such information over to a group that wants to identify, say, all those whose reading indicates they are opposed to gun ownership or all those whose reading indicates they favor abortion rights or all those whose reading indicates that they are fans of Glenn Beck? After all, Amazon and Facebook’s ultimate guiding principle is money – How would you know whether the antiabortion or progun or Anti-Glenn Beck for President group that is harassing you day and night got your name and information from Amazon?

The Truth About Amazon Publishing

With the exception of Godin’s books and The Hangman’s Daughter, print sales for Amazon Publishing’s books appear mediocre. That may be due, in part, to Amazon’s historically poor relations with booksellers. Both chain and independent bookstores see Amazon as a competitor (which it is). Amazon didn’t really have to worry about that before it became a publisher. But the fact that it has released nearly all of its titles in print (via offset printing, which means multiple copies of a book are printed at a time and in advance, rather than through print-on-demand) suggests an investment in the format.

It’s easy to say that brick-and-mortar stores are dying and Borders is bankrupt, so who cares about bookstores anyway? But physical bookstores are still the main place book shoppers discover new titles, Kelly Gallagher, VP of publishing services at Bowker, told me. “When you walk into a bookstore, you’ve got about 15,000 choices within eyesight. [But] the most images or books I’ve ever been able to find on a single page on Amazon is about 33 items.” Beyond the bestseller lists, he says, the main way readers find out about new authors and midlist authors (i.e., pretty much all the authors currently published by Amazon) is through impulse purchases, most of which take place in brick-and-mortar bookstores. “About half of all titles sold in a chain bookstore today are impulse purchases,” Gallagher said.

Our relationship with e-books: It’s too complicated

Will we ever be able to download a digital version of the print book we just bought, and then share that book with friends — or even sell it to someone else at a discounted price, as we can with real books — or share our margin notes and highlights with others, regardless of what e-book reader they use? Based on the current state of the market, that seems like an almost unobtainable dream, unless some government agency forces publishers and retailers/e-book reader companies to adopt true open standards (which seems unlikely).

The unfortunate part of all this, of course, is that publishers would likely be able to sell far more books if they made it easier for readers to download, read and share them — or passages from them — with anyone regardless of what device they owned. Until that happens, e-books will continue to be a Balkanized mess of competing standards and sharing silos, and the book-reading public will be the worse for it.

The Book Publishing Industry of the Future: It's All About Content

Even with the challenges that traditional publishers face, it can't be denied that this ever-changing landscape can also be embraced as a time of opportunity to connect directly with readers, cut out middlemen, and disrupt norms that are no longer relevant, so that this illustrious and important industry, which I still love wholeheartedly, can take its rightful position at the forefront of connecting great stories with readers.

B&N launching Nook Tablet for $249 on November 16th, and we've got the dirty details

Sitting down? Good. Come November 16th, Amazon's Kindle Fire will have company. We've wrapped our paws around a stash of documents confirming the impending launch of the first bona fide tablet in the Nook line, and lo and behold, the Nook Tablet will end up being a dead-ringer for the Nook Color that already exists. What we're looking at is a 7-inch VividView IPS color touchpanel with a 1024 x 600 screen resolution (that's 169 pixels per inch), a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP4 processor, 1GB of RAM, dimensions of 8.1- x 5- x 0.48-inches, 16GB of inbuilt storage, a microSD expansion slot, roughly eight hours of battery life with WiFi switched off (that sinks to four hours with videos playing back), 802.11b/g/n WiFi and support for a smorgasbord of file formats including ePUB, PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, Flash, JPG, MP3, MP4 and AAC.

UK publishers call for e-book chart after WSJ first

Hachette head of digital, George Walkley, said the US chart "highlights the need for a digital element to charts [in the UK]." Penguin also backed the demand for more e-book charts. Walkley added: "We need to have a reliable e-book bestseller list that reflects the industry's digital business, supplementing the list for printed books and providing a comprehensive view of the bestselling books in the UK in all formats."

New York Times E-Book Best Sellers

A version of this list appears in the November 13, 2011 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings reflect sales for the week ending October 29, 2011.

E-Book Fiction

1.                      THE LITIGATORS, by John Grisham

2.                      THE BEST OF ME, by Nicholas Sparks

3.                      BONEMAN'S DAUGHTERS, by Ted Dekker

4.                      CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?, by Sophie Kinsella

5.                      THE ABBEY, by Chris Culver

Complete List »

E-Book Nonfiction

1.                      STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson

2.                      KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

3.                      THE END OF NORMAL, by Stephanie Madoff Mack

4.                      UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand

5.                      HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent

Complete List »

Wall Street Journal E-Book Best Sellers

Nonfiction E-Books

TITLE AUTHOR / PUBLISHER	THIS WEEK	LAST WEEK
Steve Jobs	1	New
Walter Isaacson/Simon & Schuster
Killing Lincoln	2	1
Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard/Henry Holt & Co.
The End of Normal	3	6
Stephanie Madoff Mack/Penguin Group
Unbroken	4	3
Laura Hillenbrand/Random House
Heaven Is For Real	5	4
Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent/Thomas Nelson Publishers
A Field Guide to Demons, Vampires, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits	6	—
Carol K. Mack, Dinah Mack/Skyhorse Publishing
Thinking, Fast and Slow	7	New
Daniel Kahneman/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Boomerang	8	5
Michael Lewis/W.W. Norton & Co.
Seriously...I'm Kidding	9	7
Ellen Degeneres/Grand Central Publishing
A Stolen Life	10	8
Jaycee Dugard/Simon & Schuster

Fiction E-Books

TITLE AUTHOR / PUBLISHER	THIS WEEK	LAST WEEK
The Litigators	1	New
John Grisham/Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Destined	2	New
P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast/St. Martin's Press
The Best of Me	3	2
Nicholas Sparks/Grand Central Publishing
Can You Keep a Secret?	4	4
Sophie Kinsella/Random House
BoneMan's Daughters	5	—
Ted Dekker/Center Street
Last Breath	6	8
Michael Prescott/Michael Prescott
The Mill River Recluse	7	5
Darcie Chan/Darcie Chan
The Abbey	8	6
Chris Culver/Chris Culver
Crossing Oceans	9	—
Gina Holmes/Tyndale House Publishers
Unfinished Business	10	—
Nora Roberts/Silhouette Special Releases

2.ª Sessão do Ciclo "Fernando Pessoa: Filosofia, Religião e Ciências do Psiquismo Humano"

Ciclo de Conferências – Fernando Pessoa: Filosofia, Religião e Ciências do Psiquismo Humano

Comissão Organizadora: Paulo Borges, Nuno Ribeiro e Cláudia Souza

Data: 9 de Novembro de 2011, pelas 18h30

Local: Casa Fernando Pessoa

Visando o avanço dos estudos pessoanos em Portugal e no Brasil o ciclo de conferências «Fernando Pessoa: Filosofia, Religião e Ciências do Psiquismo Humano» ocorrerá na Casa Fernando Pessoa, entre Outubro de 2011 e Junho de 2012, com uma periodicidade mensal. Este ciclo de conferências pretende abrir um espaço de diálogo que premeie o debate sobre a relação entre a criação estética de Pessoa e a reflexão presente nos campos da filosofia, da religião e de ciências do psiquismo como a psiquiatria e a psicanálise. Este ciclo de conferências pretende igualmente dar a conhecer, através da participação de especialistas do âmbito universitário, alguns dos textos inéditos de Pessoa. Com efeito, muitos dos textos do espólio de Pessoa relativos à filosofia, religião, psiquiatria e psicanálise aguardam ainda publicação. Pretende-se, deste modo, convidar estudiosos pessoanos, assim como professores e investigadores das áreas da filosofia e psicanálise à discussão de um Pessoa ainda por conhecer.

A 2.ª conferência do ciclo centra-se no tema «Pessoa "nacionalista místico" e cidadão do seu tempo», contando com a presença de Teresa Rita Lopes e José Blanco. 

Fórum Fantástico 2011

O Fórum Fantástico regressa à Biblioteca Municipal Orlando Ribeiro entre 18 e 20 de Novembro, com organização de Safaa Dib e Rogério Ribeiro. Já são conhecidos alguns pormenores relativamente à programação deste ano:

18 de Novembro

Para o primeiro dia do evento está previsto um painel de discussão sobre o ensino da Ficção Científica, contando com a presença de Maria do Rosário Pedreira (A Simbólica do Espaço em O Senhor dos Anéis de J.R.R. Tolkien), Jorge Martins Rosa e João Lin Yun (Vida no Universo), estando a moderação a cargo de Rogério Ribeiro.

Em seguida realizar-se-á outro painel de discussão, desta feita em torno da literatura fantástica, com Daniel Cardoso, Inês Rolo, Madalena Santos (Terras de Corza), Bruno Martins Soares (Alex 9) e Pedro Ventura (O Regresso dos Deuses).

Ainda dentro da literatura fantástica, Octávio Santos (A República Nunca Existiu!) vai moderar um painel sobre a evolução do género na literatura portuguesa.

A fechar a programação do primeiro dia, Pedro Marques, designer e autor do cartaz do evento, será responsável por uma apresentação sobre Design e Ficção Científica.

19 de Novembro

O segundo dia é dedicado em parte às antologias, com a apresentação de Os Anos de Ouro da Pulp Fiction Portuguesa, o anúncio dos vencedores cujos trabalhos irão integrar a antologia de contos de Ficção Científica do Fantasporto 2012 e, finalmente, algumas novidades sobre o projecto Lisboa Electropunk, coordenado por João Barreiros.

Estão também previstos dois debates, um deles com o título “Conspirações e Apocalipses” e outro em acerca de questões de identidade e metaliteratura.

20 de Novembro

No terceiro e último dia serão apresentadas várias obras de banda desenhada, entre as quais As Extraordinárias Aventuras de Dog Mendonça e Pizzaboy II, Voyager, Asteroid Fighters, É de Noite que Faço as Perguntas e O Pequeno Deus Cego.

Na categoria de cinema, João Monteiro (organizador do Motelx) irá falar de um projecto relacionado com António de Macedo, sendo o fórum encerrado com a apresentação da curta-metragem Banana Motherfucker.

De notar que esta informação não é ainda definitiva, pelo que a programação detalhada só será conhecida após anúncio oficial por parte da organização através do blog do evento e da página oficial no Facebook.


Esta informação foi parcialmente retirada da edição n.º 104 da revista Os Meus Livros.

Revista Bang! n.º 10 disponível para download

A Saída de Emergência acaba de disponibilizar a Bang! n.º 10 em formato digital. Como já aqui foi anunciado, o próximo número será distribuído gratuitamente a partir de amanhã nas lojas Fnac.

Desenhos inéditos de Tolkien

No ano em que se comemora o 75.º aniversário da publicação de O Hobbit, a HarperCollins acaba de lançar The Art of the Hobbit, livro constituído por mais de uma centena de ilustrações de J. R. R. Tolkien, algumas delas inéditas. A editora prepara também novas edições de O Hobbit, cuja adaptação cinematográfica deverá chegar aos cinemas durante 2012.

"[…]The Lord of the Rings has always been the focus since it was published in 1954 – it's a much more grown-up, significant book. It has overshadowed The Hobbit as a more old-fashioned, children's book, which has become known in the context of The Lord of the Rings. The anniversary allows us to move the spotlight back on to the book which started it all."

Weird Fiction Review

WeirdFictionReview.com is an ongo­ing explo­ration into all facets of the weird, from the clas­sics to the next gen­er­a­tion of weird writ­ers and inter­na­tional weird. Reviews, inter­views, short essays, comics, and occa­sional fiction.

O novo website de Ann VanderMeer e Jeff VanderMeer, anunciado quando Ann deixou o cargo de editora da Weird Tales, já se encontra online desde ontem. Para além do website, os VanderMeer lançaram também a antologia The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, cuja tabela de conteúdos pode ser consultada abaixo:

• Alfred Kubin, “The Other Side” (excerpt), 1908 (trans­la­tion, Austria)
• F. Mar­ion Craw­ford, “The Scream­ing Skull,” 1908
• Alger­non Black­wood, “The Wil­lows,” 1907
• Saki, “Sredni Vashtar,” 1910
• M.R. James, “Cast­ing the Runes,” 1911
• Lord Dun­sany, “How Nuth Would Have Prac­ticed his Art,” 1912
• Gus­tav Meyrink, “The Man in the Bot­tle,” 1912 (trans­la­tion, Austria)
• Georg Heym, “The Dis­sec­tion,” 1913 (new trans­la­tion by Gio Clair­val, Germany)
• Hanns Heinz Ewers, “The Spi­der,” 1915 (trans­la­tion, Germany)
• Rabindranath Tagore, “The Hun­gry Stones,” 1916 (India)
• Luigi Ugolini, “The Veg­etable Man,” 1917 (new trans­la­tion by Anna and Bren­dan Con­nell, Italy; first-ever trans­la­tion into English)
• Mer­ritt, “The Peo­ple of the Pit,” 1918
• Ryuno­suke Aku­ta­gawa, “The Hell Screen,” 1918 (new trans­la­tion, Japan)
• Fran­cis Stevens (Gertrude Bar­rows Ben­nett), “Unseen — Unfeared,” 1919
• Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony,” 1919 (trans­la­tion, German/Czech)
• Ste­fan Gra­bin­ski, “The White Weyrak,” 1921 (trans­la­tion, Poland)
• H.F. Arnold, “The Night Wire,” 1926
• H.P. Love­craft, “The Dun­wich Hor­ror,” 1929
• Mar­garet Irwin, “The Book,” 1930
• Jean Ray, “The Mainz Psalter,” 1930 (trans­la­tion, Belgium)
• Jean Ray, “The Shad­owy Street,” 1931 (trans­la­tion, Belgium)
• Clark Ash­ton Smith, “Genius Loci,” 1933
• Hagi­wara Saku­taro, “The Town of Cats,” 1935 (trans­la­tion, Japan)
• Hugh Wal­pole, “The Tarn,” 1936
• Bruno Schulz, “Sana­to­rium at the Sign of the Hour­glass,” 1937 (trans­la­tion, Poland)
• Robert Bar­bour John­son, “Far Below,” 1939
• Fritz Leiber, “Smoke Ghost,” 1941
• Leonora Car­ring­ton, “White Rab­bits,” 1941
• Don­ald Woll­heim, “Mimic,” 1942
• Ray Brad­bury, “The Crowd,” 1943
• William San­som, “The Long Sheet,” 1944
• Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph,” 1945 (trans­la­tion, Argentina)
• Olympe Bhely-Quenum, “A Child in the Bush of Ghosts,” 1949 (Benin)
• Shirley Jack­son, “The Sum­mer Peo­ple,” 1950
• Mar­garet St. Clair, “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles,” 1951
• Robert Bloch, “The Hun­gry House,” 1951
• Augusto Mon­ter­roso, “Mis­ter Tay­lor,” 1952 (new trans­la­tion by Larry Nolen, Guatemala)
• Amos Tutuola, “The Com­plete Gen­tle­man,” 1952 (Nigeria)
• Jerome Bixby, “It’s a Good Life,” 1953
• Julio Cor­tazar, “Axolotl,” 1956 (new trans­la­tion by Gio Clair­val, Argentina)
• William San­som, “A Woman Sel­dom Found,” 1956
• Charles Beau­mont, “The Howl­ing Man,” 1959
• Mervyn Peake, “Same Time, Same Place,” 1963
• Dino Buz­zati, “The Colomber,” 1966 (new trans­la­tion by Gio Clair­val, Italy)
• Michel Bernanos, “The Other Side of the Moun­tain,” 1967 (new trans­la­tion by Gio Clair­val, France)
• Merce Rodor­eda, “The Sala­man­der,” 1967 (trans­la­tion, Catalan)
• Claude Seignolle, “The Ghoul­bird,” 1967 (new trans­la­tion by Gio Clair­val, France)
• Gahan Wil­son, “The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be,” 1967
• Daphne Du Mau­rier, “Don’t Look Now,” 1971
• Robert Aick­man, “The Hos­pice,” 1975
• Den­nis Etchi­son, “It Only Comes Out at Night,” 1976
• James Tip­tree Jr. (Alice Shel­don), “The Psy­chol­o­gist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things to Rats,” 1976
• Eric Basso, “The Beak Doc­tor,” 1977
• Jamaica Kin­caid, “Mother,” 1978 (Antigua and Barbuda/US)
• George R.R. Mar­tin, “Sand­kings,” 1979
• Bob Leman, “Win­dow,” 1980
• Ram­sey Camp­bell, “The Brood,” 1980
• Michael Shea, “The Autopsy,” 1980
• William Gibson/John Shirley, “The Belong­ing Kind,” 1981
• M. John Har­ri­son, “Egnaro,” 1981
• Joanna Russ, “The Lit­tle Dirty Girl,” 1982
• M. John Har­ri­son, “The New Rays,” 1982
• Pre­men­dra Mitra, “The Dis­cov­ery of Tele­napota,” 1984 (trans­la­tion, India)
• F. Paul Wil­son, “Soft,” 1984
• Octavia But­ler, “Blood­child,” 1984
• Clive Barker, “In the Hills, the Cities,” 1984
• Leena Krohn, “Tainaron,” 1985 (trans­la­tion, Finland)
• Garry Kil­worth, “Hog­foot Right and Bird-hands,” 1987
• Lucius Shep­ard, “Shades,” 1987
• Har­lan Elli­son, “The Func­tion of Dream Sleep,” 1988
• Ben Okri, “Worlds That Flour­ish,” 1988 (Nigeria)
• Eliz­a­beth Hand, “The Boy in the Tree,” 1989
• Joyce Carol Oates, “Fam­ily,” 1989
• Poppy Z Brite, “His Mouth Will Taste of Worm­wood,” 1990
• Michal Ajvaz, “The End of the Gar­den,” 1991 (trans­la­tion, Czech)
• Karen Joy Fowler, “The Dark,” 1991
• Kathe Koja, “Angels in Love,” 1991
• Haruki Murakami, “The Ice Man,” 1991 (trans­la­tion, Japan)
• Lisa Tut­tle, “Replace­ments,” 1992
• Marc Laid­law, “The Diane Arbus Sui­cide Port­fo­lio,” 1993
• Steven Utley, “The Coun­try Doc­tor,” 1993
• William Brown­ing Spenser, “The Ocean and All Its Devices,” 1994
• Jef­frey Ford, “The Del­i­cate,” 1994
• Mar­tin Simp­son, “Last Rites and Res­ur­rec­tions,” 1994
• Stephen King, “The Man in the Black Suit,” 1994
• Angela Carter, “The Snow Pavil­ion,” 1995
• Craig Padawer, “The Meat Gar­den,” 1996
• Stepan Chap­man, “The Stiff and the Stile,” 1997
• Tanith Lee, “Yel­low and Red,” 1998
• Kelly Link, “The Specialist’s Hat,” 1998
• Caitlin R. Kier­nan, “A Redress for Androm­eda,” 2000
• Michael Chabon, “The God of Dark Laugh­ter,” 2001
• China Mieville, “Details,” 2002
• Michael Cisco, “The Genius of Assas­sins,” 2002
• Neil Gaiman, “Feed­ers and Eaters,” 2002
• Jeff Van­der­Meer, “The Cage,” 2002
• Jef­frey Ford, “The Beau­ti­ful Gel­reesh,” 2003
• Thomas Lig­otti, “The Town Man­ager,” 2003
• Brian Even­son, “The Broth­er­hood of Muti­la­tion,” 2003
• Mark Samuels, “The White Hands,” 2003
• Daniel Abra­ham, “Flat Diana,” 2004
• Margo Lana­gan, “Singing My Sis­ter Down,” 2005 (Australia)
• T.M. Wright, “The Peo­ple on the Island,” 2005
• Laird Bar­ron, “The For­est,” 2007
• Liz Williams, “The Hide,” 2007
• Reza Negarestani, “The Dust Enforcer,” 2008 (Iran)
• Micaela Mor­ris­sette, “The Famil­iars,” 2009
• Steve Duffy, “In the Lion’s Den,” 2009
• Stephen Gra­ham Jones, “Lit­tle Lambs,” 2009
• K.J. Bishop, “Sav­ing the Glee­ful Horse,” 2010 (Australia)