6 Twitter rules for authors, from Twitter (beginner edition)

I admit, I'm a chronic early adopter. When my friend Gwenda Bond (@Gwenda) insisted I try Twitter, I signed up. That was back in 2008. I didn't get it at first -- it seemed like so much chatter -- but now I truly enjoy the bookish conversation that can be found there.

But not everyone is like me (be glad: that means you don't sleep with your iPhone next to the bed). And so for those writers who are just girding themselves to jump in, Twitter has posted a list of six Twitter rules for authors. Who could be more authoritative about how to use Twitter than Twitter? Here's an abridged edition of their list:

1. Be authentic, be yourself. Twitter offers a direct, instant connection between you and your readers — they want to know what you’re up to.

2. Share your process. Twitter is a place where fans get a deeper connection to artists, performers, scholars ... and authors. Your readers are interested in your process. Tweet a bit about how your work. Invite your followers to a local book signing.

3. Engage with your readers. Twitter is also a place where your fans can directly engage with you, however much you want (it doesn’t have to take up a lot of your time). You can see messages from other users in the “Connect” tab on your Twitter homepage. Is there a question in there for you? Answer it.

4. Find influencers. Twitter allows you to send a public message (via the @reply) to anyone else using Twitter. Just use the Search section on Twitter’s homepage to find other users. An idea: Who is your favorite living author? See if they’re on Twitter and tweet a "hello" to them.

5. Search Twitter. Just type what you’re looking for into the search tab to see what people are tweeting about right now. An idea: Is anyone tweeting about a book you wrote? Type the title into Search and find out.

6. Above all, have fun. Twitter is an exceptionally flexible platform that is ripe for creative use. Play around with it. You can live-tweet an event as it happens, or live-tweet a fictional world. You can interview another author or create a completely fictional account based on a character you dream up.

It's true, Twitter can be fun. It's the kind of place where on a lazy summer weekend, people all over might just start altering book titles so they read like drinks. Yesterday #bookdrink titles were so popular that they were a trending topic across the network; some popular fake book titles were "James and the Giant Peach Schnapps," "Tequila Mockingbird" and "Beer and Loathing In Las Vegas."

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LeVar Burton talks Reading Rainbow, the app

"I genuinely believe we have an opportunity to revolutionize how we educate our children," LeVar Burton says. "We just have to marshal the will to get it done."

Burton, of course, is the actor who hosted and produced "Reading Rainbow," the PBS television series geared toward early readers. With a 23-year run, the show was PBS' third-longest series, but it's been off the air since 2006. Now it's coming back as -- what else? -- an iPad app.

The Times' Michelle Maltais talked to Burton about the Reading Rainbow app.

[I]n June, Burton and business partner Mark Wolfe launched the multimedia-infused "reading adventure" app. "Educational technology is what we need to get it done," he said, noting that paper's days as a storytelling medium are likely numbered. "And if we marry educational technology with quality, enriching content, that's a circle of win."...

The app currently offers 150 books, curated to appeal to children ages 3 to 9 -- kids who are "on the cusp of cracking the code and [who] just cracked the code, setting the lifelong pattern for whether they will be a reader or not," Burton said.

As a nostalgic nod to those of us who still harbor an emotional connection to the show, Burton said they spent months producing 16 video field trips, with more to come soon.

Burton has legions of book-loving fans who remember "Reading Rainbow," but that's not his only iconic role. He also played Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge, the blind navigator on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and was Kunta Kinte, the star role in the award-winning 1977 miniseries "Roots." These days, Burton -- who describes himself as actor-director-educator-student -- shares his thoughts on Twitter with 1.7 million followers.

The Reading Rainbow app is free to download and provides limited access to its content. Subscriptions allow kids unlimited access to the books, using a vibrant interface to create engaging storytelling; young readers earn rewards for their progress. A monthly subscription is $9.99, or $29.99 covers six months.

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Image: Screenshot of the iTunes app page for Reading Rainbow.

Rocky Raccoon checked into his room, only to find a Kindle?

When the Beatles released "Rocky Raccoon" in 1968, they sang that Rocky Raccoon "checked into his room / only to find Gideon's Bible." If that same lyrical character were checking into his hotel today, instead of the Bible, he might find an Amazon Kindle.

The Hotel Indigo in Newcastle, England, is replacing the once-ubiquitious Gideon's Bible with Kindles -- in every one of its 148 rooms -- starting July 16. Travelers looking forward to finding the Bible in the hotel's dresser drawer need not worry, however: The Bible is pre-loaded onto the e-readers from Amazon.

Hotel general manager Adam Munday tells the Telegraph:

“In the 18th Century, Newcastle was one of the largest print centres in Britain and we’re in Grainger Town, close to the Literary and Philosophical Society,” he said. “We wanted to reflect this literary history in a very contemporary way, so are offering guests the use of cutting-edge Kindles pre-loaded with The Bible, instead of the more traditional hardcopy Gideon’s Bible that they would expect to find in a hotel.”

During their Hotel Indigo stays, guests can download other religious texts to the Kindle on the house, provided they cost $7.80 or less (in England, that's 5 pounds).

They can also  download commercial books of any type: mystery, history, poetry, classic, science fiction, comedy, biography, memoir, vampire spoof, bondage-laden romance. Not that they'll convey the same lessons as the Bible might. And the cost of those nonreligious books will be added to guests' bills. And they should hope they read fast -- the e-book will stay behind when they check out.

That is, as long as they don't take the Kindles with them. The e-readers are a bit harder to come by than a Gideon Bible. Gizmodo writes, "Currently there's no word on how the devices are secured, though it's a fair bet to assume that the cost would simply be added to the guest's credit card if the Kindle went missing."

If the Kindles stay, they could present an interesting narrative of who stayed in what room, like one person after another leaving books behind on a shelf. And if the experiment works, the chain plans to expand its in-room Kindles to its 44 hotels around the world.

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Photo: Amazon Kindle. Credit: Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg

Microsoft announces its Surface tablet: a good writing device?

On Monday, Microsoft entered the world of tablets with Surface, announced in Los Angeles. It's Microsoft hardware designed for Microsoft software, with two models, the consumer-friendly Surface RT and the Surface Pro, meant for professionals. The prices were not announced.

That's partly because the Surface isn't available yet -- the Surface RT will debut in tandem with Windows 8. But Windows 8's release date, which has been the subject of much speculation, has not been announced. The Surface Pro is expected to arrive three months later. If I were guessing, I'd say they're aiming for a pre-holiday consumer release, and a professional release in early 2013. But I really have no idea.

Indeed, other than a lot of detail about the tablet's physical prorperties, we didn't learn much about what'll be happening inside Surface. We can assume it will be able to run Microsoft's suite of programs -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. -- and they showed (after a demo hiccup) that it can stream Netflix.

But bookish people will be curious (at least I am) about whether the Surface tablet, like Apple's iPad and the Kindle Fire, can serve as an e-reader. Maybe -- if an e-reader is built into Windows 8, which is of course a really big if. Because like so much else connected to Monday's event, the details of Windows 8 have not been announced.

If its capacity as a reading device was left unexplained, the Surface does seem to present great potential as a writing device. It comes with one of two kinds of covers, one flat and one deeper, both of which fold out as full-sized keyboards. For anyone who's tried and failed to adapt well to the compressed iPad onscreen keyboard, the idea of writing on a full-sized keyboard that's integrated into the tablet's functioning sounds fantastic. And it can be used with a stylus, which writes freehand on the screen -- if it's fully integrated with how the software works, that's a second way to write and edit.

Yes, writing on Microsoft's Surface will probably mean you'll have to use Word. So there's also a downside.

There was one strange bone thrown to books. Microsoft's Panos Panay, who designed the products, told the assembled journalists: "This spine feels like a book. You'll hold it like a book. It will feel like it's another book when you carry it with books." So books remain in the mix -- at least as a design reference.

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Photo: Screenshot from Microsoft's Surface website.

Not writing? There's an app for that: Write or Die

For writers, procrastination is an eternal enemy. It has classically waited in the pauses between words, in that argument outside the window, in being thirsty and needing a glass of water, in having to run to the bathroom. Now, with the Internet, it's also lurking there on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram and Path, and wait, did the London Review of Books just post a new issue online?

In other words, procrastination is everywhere.

Avoiding the procrastination temptation can be too much to ask. But hey, there's an app for that.

Write or Die is made specifically to keep writers on task. It comes with the tag line, "Putting the 'prod' in productivity."

How the app works: Writers begin typing in the app's window. When the typing slows to a stop, there are consequences. The writer can set how severe those consequences will be. In "gentle" mode, a notice pops up with a kind reminder that it's time to start writing. In "normal" mode, the app begins to emit an unpleasant sound, which only stops once the typing begins again. In "kamikaze" mode, the app is set to destroy: when the writing has stopped for too long, the words begin to erase themselves. There is also a "nyan cat" mode, turning an Internet meme into a destructive force.

The message is clear: Keep writing, or else.

Write or Die started out in a desktop version, created by a "Dr. Wicked," and became available as an app for the iPad last fall. Why pay attention now? Turns out, its system of possibly disastrous punishments actually works.

That's according to Helen Oyeyemi, a British writer whose novel "Mr. Fox" just came out in paperback in the U.K. When asked for writing advice this week by The Guardian, Oyeyemi recommended Write or Die, saying, "Because, sometimes, fear is the only motivator."

The app version of Write or Die includes some rewards to go with its punishments, such as stats that tally progress toward writing goals. But the tone can still be intimidating: There is also a deadline countdown, keeping the hammer of doom looming.

The Write or Die app is $9.99. Such is the price of writing progress.

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Image: Screenshot of the website for Write or Die

Harry Potter 'Book of Spells' by J.K. Rowling launches Wonderbook

As the publishing business is gathered in New York's Javits Center for Book Expo America, some of the most exciting book news of the week was being announced 3,000 miles away. It was at the E3 electronics conference in Los Angeles, and the company with the news was Sony.

The Harry Potter universe just got bigger, and more interactive, with an impressive new game-slash-ebook for Playstation. The tool is called the Wonderbook; its first book is "Book of Spells," written by JK Rowling herself.

Rowling has been trying to forge a unique path for bringing her Harry Potter books to life. Of course, there was the movie series. Then in 2011, she launched Pottermore, an interactive website designed to allow fans to do their own Harry Potter-inspired storytelling. If that was a bit of a disappointment to some, "Book of Spells" may pick up the slack. It does seem to be a leap forward.

"Book of Spells" for Wonderbook lets readers -- or is it players? -- use a wand and an interactive book to make things happen on the screen. In the demonstration Monday, players released a video dragon, which lighted  the book on fire, and players patted  the book with their hands and put the fire out. Apparently, after reading more of the book, a player could learn spells to put the fire out.

The demonstration is pretty impressive. And it's interesing that as e-books continue to evolve, the place to find the most innovative new books may not be in the hands of publishers, but the industries that put the "e" in "e-books."

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Photo: Two players demonstrate "Book of Spells" and the Wonderbook. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images.

See a video of the demonstration after the jump.

Waterstones makes deal to sell the Amazon Kindle, dismaying many

British bookstore chain Waterstones announced Monday that it would soon sell Amazon's Kindles in its stores. The news was met with dismay from almost all quarters of the publishing industry.

That's partly because Waterstones' chief executive, James Daunt, had been a vocal critic of Amazon and its tactics. In December, Daunt called the company "a ruthless, money-making devil." In the announcement, he said, "It is a truly exciting prospect to harness also the respective strengths of Waterstones and Amazon to provide a dramatically better digital reading experience for our customers. The best digital readers, the Kindle family, will be married to the singular pleasures of browsing a curated bookshop." That's quite a turnaround.

Reactions were swift and strong. At the Guardian, Richard Lea wrote that what Daunt had done was "welcome a ravening tiger into his living room." "[T]his shot at the e-book market seems to be aimed directly at Waterstone's own foot," wrote Martha Gill at the New Statesman. The Bookseller's Philip Downer pointed out that "the opportunity to create an independent online business, benefitting from HMV firepower and leading one day to an ebook solution, was lost." The headline at the English Gizmodo site read, "Waterstones Surrenders to the Amazon Ebook Behemoth and Agrees to Stock Kindles."

Many American observers, including GigaOm's Laura Hazard Owen, recalled a hauntingly similar deal between Amazon and Borders. Back in 2001, when Borders was a major brick-and-mortar bookseller on par with Barnes & Noble (remember that?), it cut a deal with Amazon, letting Jeff Bezos' company handle Borders' online book sales. That six-year deal left Borders tragically behind when it came to the Internet, and was part of the bookseller's decline and eventual bankruptcy.

Although most see Waterstone's choice to sell Amazon's Kindle as a bad idea, a few think it may have some merit. "Some commentators have likened the deal to Neville Chamberlain's infamous pact with Nazi Germany," writes Philip Jones at Futurebook, "but it feels more like Dunkirk. A strategic retreat: allowing the business to refocus its efforts on those fronts where it can continue to fight on."

At the Verge, Tim Carmody takes a moment to look at the deal from Amazon's point of view: "For Amazon, the long-term strategy is much clearer. This is about eliminating real and potential e-book competitors by sucking out all the oxygen in the room." And that, for those who would like Amazon to have a little e-book competition, is the rub.

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Every writer's nightmare: the wordless Web

Just imagine if you could go on the World Wide Web and see no words. No words at all.

You can.

Designer Ji Lee and programmer Cory Forsyth have created a browser plug-in that erases all text from Web pages. It's called the Wordless Web.

To make it work, drag the icon into your bookmark bar. When on a Web page, click it and all the text disappears. It doesn't erase text that has been saved as an image, like some text-based logos, but all the html text goes away.

We tried it on Jacket Copy, and there was beloved children's book author Maurice Sendak without the news that he died Tuesday at the age of 83. Which, come to think of it, is sort of nice.

“Looking at sites without words makes the entire experience on the Web a little calmer, as if all the noise is gone,” Lee told Wired.

Using the Wordless Web is a reminder of how text-driven the entire Internet is. There are exceptions, I'm sure, brilliantly-designed image-oriented websites. But even things like Pinterest and Tumblr -- look at them with the words stripped out. They're pretty, but what do they mean?

If the Wordless Web is every writer's nightmare, we can't be angry at Ji Lee. The former creative director at Google Creative Labs has also tried to generate words in places where there were none, by pasting 50,000 blank word-bubble stickers on advertisements in New York.

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Photo: Screenshot of Jacket Copy after getting the Wordless Web treatment

 

 

Catch poet laureate Philip Levine at noon via live video stream

Poet Laureate Philip Levine is doing a live reading and conversation today in a webcast originating from the Library of Congress in Washington. Schools and libraries nationwide have been set up to watch and participate -- and anyone on the Web can listen in. The webcast begins at noon Pacific time.

After reading and discussing three of his poems, Levine will participate in an extended question-and-answer session, which will be included in the webcast.

Levine was announced as U.S. poet laureate in August 2011; his tenure began in October. Now based in Fresno, Levine was born in Detroit. His first jobs were working the line in the auto industry in factories for Cadillac and Chevrolet. His poetry has often focused on the issues faced by the working class.

Levine, who has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry, was a longtime professor -- so he'll probably enjoy fielding students' questions.

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Photo: Philip Levine. Credit: Frances Levine

Curating short fiction: Recommended Reading

This post has been updated. See below.

Electric Literature, which started out publishing a quarterly journal simultaneously in print, ebook, iPhone and Kindle form, is always up for trying something new. It regularly invites animators to create short videos of single sentences from its stories, like the one above. And way back in 2009, it published a short story in tweets by Rick Moody on Twitter, an experiment that was only partially creatively successful but that earned it an important literary place in the Twittersphere. What does a quarterly do with 150,000 followers in the long months between publication? Editor Benjamin Samuel decided curation is the thing.

Hence, Recommended Reading. It's a project that will publish one fiction story per week, with selections being made by a variety of readers who are in the know: an independent press, a writer, the kind folks at Electric Literature, and another literary journal. That's one month, then the cycle starts again.

The project went up on Kickstarter in April and swiftly reached its $10,000 goal (aided in part by a donor perk of a really cool flask). The organizers now hope to raise double that goal, and have about $3,500 and less than a week to go. Samuel explained what to expect from Recommended Reading, via email.

Jacket Copy: How many recommends will Recommended Reading make each week?

Benjamin Samuel: We'll publish one piece of fiction each week. It’s an ideal rate for readers who are already overwhelmed with options, and will help them focus on fiction that's worth spending time with.

The magazine runs on a four-week cycle of curators: the first week is a story chosen by Electric Literature, then an indie press like New Directions excerpts a collection or novel, then a guest editor like Jim Shepard picks a story, and then another journal like A Public Space re-releases work from their archives.

JC: Is Recommended Reading sort of like Longreads for fiction?

BS: I love Longreads and appreciate the comparison. While we have curation in common, the nature of Recommended Reading's model makes us somewhere between a salon, magazine and a digest. We want Recommended Reading to be a true community that’s passionate about literature, and we’ll do this in part by introducing readers to independent publishers as well as new and emerging writers. Each issue will feature a note from the editor, written by that week's partner, i.e., when we publish fiction from Melville House, Dennis Johnson will introduce that week's issue. We hope that this will increase awareness of the diversity of the indie publishing community, and hopefully translate into sales and subscriptions for our partners.

JC: Is there a pool of literary magazines and journals from which you'll be pulling stories?

BS: The first pool was Brooklyn based: A Public Space, Armchair/Shotgun, The Coffin Factory, and One Story. But we're not a Brooklyn-centric publication. My co-editor, Halimah Marcus, and I  spent most of the mayhem of this year's AWP meeting other editors and learning about the great magazines they’re creating. The indie publishing is diverse and flourishing, and we want to share our discoveries with our audience.

JC: Do you have plans to expand that pool?

BS: Absolutely. We're on the lookout for indie publishers with strong mission statements and who are committed to keeping literature a vibrant part of our culture. We’re also looking overseas to bring in international partners, as well as work in translation.