Friday 2 July 2010

With all the hype around iPad apps for books and publishers racing to simultaneously release their e- and p-books (the latter being short for print books), are we forgetting the a-book?

Earlier this year The Telegraph said audiobook sales were skyrocketing thanks to the iPod and this week Salon praised the ability of audiobooks to make heavyweight classics like War and Peace or Moby Dick more approachable.

A-books' accessibility often finds younger audiences for classics. As school holidays approach rather than using an in-car DVD parents could also reach for their iPhone to quieten littlies. Bolinda books and Vision Australia are two of Australia’s biggest a-book publishers with Audiobooks Australia acting as a portal for other publishing houses. They make for easy bedtime reading and are much better than another round of I-spy.

The Huffington Post asked this week if Twitter sells books and got several emphatic yeses.

Michael Taeckens, Publicity Director of Algonquin Books, offers three simple rules for interacting on Twitter ranging from “engage in conversations” and the old chestnut “display your sense of personality”. For publishers still wondering if they should tweet, Taeckens sees it as an essential branding tool as it offers “the opportunity to convey your personal, unique sense of identity in real time.”

While the the article is slightly skewed because it talks to two publishers already doing well on Twitter including Algonquin Books profiled in their previous article about the top publishers on Twitter, it follows its own advice by allowing you to interact through a poll on the best social network for book promotion.

For aspiring authors on Twitter, a good post was recently written on 40 Twitter Hashtags for Writers, including popular tags such as #amwriting, which some writers use to tell the world how many words they wrote today. Personally we prefer the ever popular #writersblock, a hashtag that’s part therapy session but more procrastination.

Yesterday on 3AW radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch likened the struggle by same sex couples to legally marry to the African American protests for equal rights in the 1960s, despite his previous anti-marriage equality views.

Hinch opened by confessing that in the past he had “followed the ignorant, blinkered, almost homophobic, line without thinking it through” but has since come around to thinking of gay marriage as a question of human rights. After pointing out a number of nations where same-sex marriage was legal including Iceland’s recent prime ministerial wedding Hinch almost chanelled Martin Luther King saying “Equality will prevail. One day.”

Hinch went on to refer to recent Tweets by lesbian TV host Ruby Rose including her comment “its discrimination and I beleive we are above that its [sic] 2010”. Hinch also interviewed our Lunchbox/Soapboxer Rodney Croome.