We’ve been saying for years that students aren’t ready to embrace e-textbooks (See Students Give E-Textbooks a Failing Grade), and now the prestigious Book Industry Study Group confirms it.  In a survey called Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education, BISG informs us that 75% of college students prefer printed textbooks instead of e-texts. Publishers Weekly cites student preference for print’s “look and feel, as well as its permanence and ability to be resold.”

The other salient finding was that price is the biggest factor textbook buying decisions, with many of those surveyed buying off Amazon, buying used or previous or international editions or renting (11%). Twelve percent said they prefer e-textbooks.  But the eye-opener was this: “More than 40% of survey respondents said they bought a textbook from a pirate Web site, or know others who have (15% said they personnally have bought a textbook from a pirate site and 25% said they knew some one who had). Many reported copying their friends’ textbooks.”

Details in BISG Survey Finds Students Prefer Print

Richard Curtis

We were wondering when the political corrections officers would get around to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and they finally did. NewSouth Books will be releasing Huck (plus Tom Sawyer) under the editorial – or should we day surgical – supervision of one Alan Gribben, a scholar specializing in Mark Twainiana. Gribben’s scalpel excised the word “nigger” from Huck and replace it with “slave”. The story garnered a public outcry usually reserved for sexual predators.

A particularly devastating bombardment was launched by New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani: “Although it’s hard to imagine a theater company today…changing ‘Out, damned spot! Out, I say!’ in ‘Macbeth’ to ‘out, crimson spot!’ — the language police are staging a comeback. Not just with an expurgated ‘Huckleberry Finn’ but with political efforts to clamp down on objectionable language.” She reminds us that “a British theater company in 2002 changed the title of its production of ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ to ‘The Bellringer of Notre Dame;’” that Norman Mailer’s publisher substituted “fug” for its earthier original in The Naked and the Dead; and that “Ballantine Books published an expurgated version of ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ Ray Bradbury’s celebrated sci-fi classic about book banning [!!!], in which words like ‘hell’ and ‘abortion’ were deleted.”

The next thing you know someone will change Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the Narcissus to The N-Word of the Narcissus.

Wait a minute. What’s that you say? Someone did?

That sent us to Amazon.com clicking faster than a Geiger Counter in a uranium mine, and sure enough, there it is: The N-Word of the Narcissus, brought to you by an outfit called WordBridge Publishing.  Here in part is their product description:

“WordBridge Publishing has performed a public service in putting Joseph Conrad’s neglected classic into a form accessible to modern readers. This new version addresses the reason for its neglect: the profusion of the so-called n-word throughout its pages. Hence, the introduction of “n-word” throughout the text, to remove this offence to modern sensibilities…”

One Amazon reviewer exclaimed “When I first heard of this title I thought it was a joke.”

Well, not that many of us have heard of WordBridge, but how about a company called Amazon? If you search its Kindle store for The Nigger of the Narcissus you get two books with identical covers but different titles: the original title, and something called The Children of the Sea. The latter is the title assigned to it when it was first published in America. Those of a WoodBridgian sensibility can choose the N-wordless title.

The N-Word of the Narcissus inspired Amazon reviewer Martin Monreal to heights of inspired silliness:

“We can probably expect from this publisher the following plan:

Apuleius’ The Golden Ass will be published as The Golden Bottom.

Stendhal’s The Red and the Black as The Socialist and the African-American.

In the new version of Lolita by Nabokov, the title character will be fifty-years-old instead of twelve.

Madame Bovary will come out as Emma Rouault, her maiden name. Why should a woman bear her husband’s?

All traces of blood will be erased from The Iliad, and the insult “dog” will be extracted, not to offend animal lovers.

Melville’s Moby Dick will be Moby D-Word…

Every reference to adultery will be removed from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for the sake of all the abandoned husbands…

By the way, Alan Gribben has posted a piece in Publishers Weekly explaining and justifying his actions.  You may read it here.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.

The iPad may be rolling up the educational market, but you can’t actually roll up an iPad.  A few years ago we posted a piece about a remarkable computer suitable for campus use that actually does, literally, roll up.  It’s accompanied by one of our favorite videos.

Here’s a reprint of that blog:

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We predicted that five years from now there’ll be a tablet PC under every student’s arm. We were wrong. It won’t be under their arms. It will be suspended from their shoulders. Or at least it will be if PC manufacturers are smart enough to adopt Orkin Design’s Rolltop, astoundingly “rolled out” and then rolled back up again in the demo video below.

A writeup says, “The device of the flexible display allows a new concept in notebook design growing out of the traditional bookformed laptop into unfurling and convolving portable computer. By virtue of the OLED-Display technology and a multi touch screen the utility of a laptop computer with its weight of a mini-notebook and screen size of 13 inch easily transforms into the graphics tablet, which with its 17-inch flat screen can be also used as a primary monitor. On top of everything else all computer utilities from power supply through the holding belt to an interactive pen are integrated in Rolltop. This is really an all-in-one gadget.”

Richard Curtis

Last May we explored student use of digital textbooks and learned that they were not going over well. “Students around the nation are flunking the format,” we reported. “They want their paper books back. It seems that e-readers are okay for reading, but textbooks are seldom read immersively like novels, and so far the e-books can’t match the functionality of good old paper. And even when it comes to reading for pleasure, gadgets like the Kindle DX tablet did not fetch high grades.”   (See Students Give E-Textbooks a Failing Grade)

That happened BiP – Before iPad. We suspected that once iPad found its way into schools we might have a different tune to sing.  We do. Winnie Hu of the New York Times reports that a number of schools are not merely encouraging the use of iPads but are actually purchasing and distributing them to students.  “As part of a pilot program,” writes Hu, “Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students.”

At $750 a pop, that’s no small investment, but there’s a tradeoff for savings on the cost of paper textbooks and other traditional school materials, plus a less tangible reward in the form of better student performance.  The iPads “allow students to correspond with teachers and turn in papers and homework assignments, and preserve a record of student work in digital portfolios.”

Not everyone is convinced of either the financial or the educational value.  If a school wants to go electronic there are cheaper devices, but they’re not as sexy as the iPad, and besides, “about 5,400 educational applications are available specifically for the iPad, of which nearly 1,000 can be downloaded free,” writes Hu.

As for academic benefits,the jury is still out, as researchers and psychologists report that screens create distractions for students. (See The Medium is The Screen. The Message is Distraction) Focusing attention on the subject at hand, even with colorful, entertaining and interactive applications, is a problem, as is retention of information. “There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines,” Larry Cuban, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, told Hu.

Despite unproven educational benefits, it looks like nothing is going to stop the iPad steamroller. The Times tells us that schools and school systems in New York, Illinois, California and Virginia have invested in iPads.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.

Writer, director, actor, humorist. Woody Allen stands as one of our era’s most celebrated artists. Starting in the 1950s, Allen began crafting a larger-than-life neurotic persona that has since entertained and enlightened millions. In his films, widely thought to be autobiographical explorations of his own comic fears and fixations, Allen carefully controlled the public’s view of him as a loveable scamp. But, that all came crashing down the day Mia Farrow found a Polaroid on her mantle.

What followed was a flurry of sensational headlines and legal battles. His relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, 34 years his junior and the step-daughter of his longtime girlfriend, caused shock waves in the public’s perception of the director. Yet, few biographers and journalists have explored what happened and why.

In The Unruly Life of Woody Allen, the first deep investigation of Allen’s life and the events surrounding his split with Farrow, biographer Marion Meade tracks down dozens of friends, actors, neighbors, and film historians. They open up with insights and details rare in the world of wealth and celebrity. What results is a fascinating portrait of a flawed genius, as adept at constructing his own image as he is at crafting films.

Re-released and updated, this is an unauthorized biography that neither Woody Allen’s fans nor his detractors will be able to put down.

Visit Marion Meade’s author page for news of and links to more provocative biographies and works of fiction.

Constance O’Day-Flannery, the mother of two children, took up writing when her children started school and she had spare time to do what she had wanted to do for a long time. She never took a writing course; her inspiration came from reading romance novels during a period of recovery from a surgery, She let her imagination take over and wrote her first novel in about a year-and-a-half. In the process, she created an entirely new genre of romance novel, the time travel romance, the forerunner of paranormal romance, and quickly became a huge success: more than twenty novels published and every one a national bestseller.

In Here and Now Suzanne McDermott is a strong, modern woman. She’s fully prepared to face the world after her spoiled, philandering husband leaves her. But, as she awaits the arrival of her new baby, Fate brings her another unexpected guest…a guest from the past.

The last thing Charles Garrity remembers was being shot and falling into the ocean off the New Jersey shore. That was in 1926. Now, he’s being dragged into the present day—literally dragged out of the water by Suzanne. How he got here is a mystery. It’s a mystery Charles doesn’t have time for, because right now the beautiful, pregnant woman in front of him is starting labor.

Can Charles overcome the differences between the past he knew and the wonders of the present? Can Suzanne put her life and finances in order in the face of a petty, trust fund husband? And, most importantly, can Charles move past his old-fashioned pride before it gets in the way of the love growing between them?

In Here and Now Constance O’Day-Flannery, queen of time travel romance, crafts a beautiful story of souls reaching across time to find a love everlasting.

Want to be transported to other eras to find romance?  Keep an eye peeled on O’Day-Flannery’s author page for more adventures in time and space.

Somewhere, deep in the vast blackness of space, a wormhole waits to be found. Dorn Voss needs to find it. But, the stakes are high and he isn’t the only one looking.

Natural wormholes are the sole means of intergalactic travel in the universe. Whoever controls them gains riches and power unimaginable. The coordinates of one such wormhole, the Mescalaro Gap, are lost, hidden behind conspiracy and murder. With a prize so great, many a man or alien would do anything to find those coordinates and control the universe.

In Where the Ships Die William C. Dietz creates a dense adventure filled with complex characters and multiple story lines all crashing headlong towards one final confrontation.

E-Reads is the proud publisher of over a dozen great works of science fiction by William C. Dietz. Visit his E-Reads author page for a full selection.

Every month we eagerly await the e-book sales report issued by the Association of American Publishers and International Digital Publishing Forum. But we’ll be biting our fingernails until mid-February and mid-March when the respective stats for December and January are issued.  We’re dying to see whether predictions of the tidal wave of sales predicted for January come true.

For instance, USA Today trumpeted “Millions of gift-wrapped iPads, Kindles, Nooks and other digital reading devices resulted in an unprecedented surge in sales of e-books last week.”

How big a surge?  We can only speculate but the dimensions can be inferred from USA Today‘s bestseller list: a week after Christmas e-editions of the top six books outsold print editions.  Furthermore, say reporters Bob Minzesheimer and Carol Memmott, “Of the top 50, 19 had higher e-book than print sales. It’s the first time the top-50 list has had more than two titles in which the e-version outsold print.”

Not convinced?  That same week, 165,000 Stieg Larsson e-books were sold, exceeding by 10,000 the number of Larsson p-books.

Still not convinced?  Barnes & Noble says it sold 1 million e-books on Christmas Day.

Details in Week after holidays, e-book sales outdo print

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by USA Today.

Until recently, Guardian columnist John Naughton was so dedicated to his subscription to The Economist magazine that every weekend he made an “appointment” to immerse himself in his cherished publication.

But lately? “Every Friday, the postman delivers the print edition of The Economist. But the envelopes now sit unopened, gathering dust on the hall table.”

What happened?  The Apple iPad happened. The magazine’s management launched it as an app, accessible on a pay-wall basis for subscribers only. “It’s easier and more pleasant to read than its printed counterpart,” Naughton writes, “and much nicer than the Kindle edition of the magazine. The iPad has delivered a genuinely ‘immersive’ reading experience. In part, this is a reflection on the device’s screen technology and interface. But it’s mainly down to the quality of the app’s design.”

From a magazine it’s just a hop, skip and jump to books, says Norton. “The concept of a ‘book’,” he writes, “will change under the pressure of iPad-type devices, just as concepts of what constitutes a magazine or a newspaper are already changing. This doesn’t mean that paper publications will go away. But it does mean that print publishers who wish to thrive in the new environment will not just have to learn new tricks but will also have to tool up. In particular, they will have to add serious in-house technological competencies to their publishing skills.

“If they don’t do it, then someone else will. There will always be ‘books’. The question now is: will there always be publishers?”

The full story in Publishers take note: the iPad is altering the very concept of a ‘book’

Richard Curtis

When we broached the idea of replacing physical book conferences with virtual ones (See A Book Conference You Can Attend in Your Bathrobe), a number of readers observed that there was one big problem: how do you autograph virtual books?

A team of enterprising businessmen, T. J. Waters and Robert Barrett, know how, and they’ve launched a service for publishers and authors called Autography.

Waters’ entrepreneurial tale is a fascinating one “I wrote an ebook entitled Prior To The Snap as a companion guide to my Wiley-published business book Hyperformance.” he explained in a recent email to me. “The eBook became wildly popular with troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Next thing I knew I was invited to join a USO tour going overseas. I asked a grad school friend (and high end IT geek) about developing a method to autograph the ebook like I would a hard cover book. The rest, as they say, is history, though still very much in the making.”

We visited his website (www.autography.us.com) and though the service is still, as Waters says, “in the making,” in theory at least he seems to have thought of every question that might be raised by author, publisher or customer. For example:

• “Our vision is live streaming video over the Internet coupled with autographed eBooks. We can even let the author create a scheduled of which cities he’ll be ‘visiting’ during his ‘tour’. We are now having our software upgraded so that readers can export the signature page (with a thumbnail of the book’s cover) out to their social media (Facebook, etc) to further promote the book/author to their friends.”
• “Personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards, including after secondary (used) sales.”
• “Authors can give away signed sample chapters to introduce themselves to new readers who later purchase the full volume at their convenience. The now full copy ebook retains the author’s salutation (replacing the sample chapters) without the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.”

Waters points out that “Autography’s patent-pending technology doesn’t just cover eBooks. We’re redefinining the digital media experience for a wide range of entertainment. Digital comic books, movie and music cover art, video games, and athlete or celebrity promotional cards are quickly and easily personalized for consumers.”

For further information contact the company’s representative Bob Diforio at bob@d4eo.com

With Autography the road to Virtual has taken another big step. Look for more and more applications in the coming years.

Richard Curtis