Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley February 6, 2012 Deadline March 2012 Issue The Publishing Revolution: Create Your Own E-Book Publish your book this year! Only a few years ago, “vanity presses” used such pitches to appeal to aspiring writers. For a fee, the vanity publishers would convert your manuscript into a reasonably nice book. Vanity publishers are nothing more than print brokers. Using a vanity publisher was expensive, but for some aspiring writers it was their last option. Many writers ended up with boxes of books in their garages and attics. Yet, I am writing this column to tell you that it is time to publish your book. Forget the vanity publishers and the small publishers that pass along many of the costs to writers. Publish your book as an e-book. It will cost you little (or nothing) and if you discover the book is popular, then you can consider an old-fashioned paper and ink book. Even writers with proven track records are leaving the traditional New York publ...

Brier Dudley's Blog | Kindle so-so for students, UW study concludes | Seattle Times Newspaper Seven months into the study, more than 60 percent of the students had stopped using their Kindle regularly for academic reading -- and these were computer science students, who are presumably more sympathetic to an electronic book. I'm not surprised that an eReader doesn't replace books. Taking notes and highlighting are part of the reading process that a Kindle or other eReader doesn't easily replicate. I recall what a page looks like, from the graphics to the pattern of paragraphs. On an eReader, I can't always locate where a bit of information is. You can't say it is on "Page X" because the pagination changes with font size and other choices a user can change. Many of us would like to imagine eReaders catching on with universities because textbooks are so expensive. The prices of textbooks are outrageous: my last course text was $100 for students and co...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley March 2010 Issue January 23, 2010 Will Textbooks Go Digital… and Free? California schools spend nearly $500 million each year on textbooks, according to state reports. That is up $250 million over the last decade. As any parent or teacher knows, a significant portion of this expense goes to replacing lost or damaged books. We also have a growing student population. In many schools, there aren’t enough books for complete class sets. Students end up sharing books or working in small groups. Every few years, the California State Board of Education adopts new standards, known as frameworks, for our public schools (http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/). When standards undergo major revisions, textbooks need to be updated and replaced. The adoption of a new standard is a lengthy and expensive process, with textbook publishers eager to pitch their books to the state for approval. School districts must adopted texts that meet state criteria. California, T...