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I love my Nook Color -- mostly I end up playing Sudoku while falling asleep, but it supports Pandora and web browsing too. I've read a bunch on it, and it's a very good experience; I especially like it when reading at night or on the couch. The e-ink screen is neat on the older Nook, but I can't read in the dark with it.

If you were choosing a Nook now, the Color is a very powerful cheaper option. If you're after the best toy, the newer Tablet looks better, but you mainly get things like HD video and netflix streaming. (oooooh. I do want that.)

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Compare-NOOKs/379003181

The Nook Tablet is like the Nook Color, but adds:
- Same size screen
- faster processor (it's never seemed slow)
- double the RAM
- HD video, better battery life while playing video
- A bit more battery life while reading, but not enough for me to care. (11h vs 8h)
- Hulu/Netflix integration.

The greyscale Nook (Touch) doesn't have the bells and whistles, but for READING is likely better. It's lighter, and has a six month battery life, which is practically forever compared to the Color/Tablet. If someone in your family really likes reading, and not so much on the other stuff (or already has a laptop), you might get them the cheaper reader.

I mainly use my Nook Color for Sudoku right now, as I really like their app for it (bundled with it for free), and do most of my reading in the dark, so I am glad I got the Color last year.

The Nook Color can be found for $149 Pre-Owned and $79 for Nook B&W Simple Touch @ Barnes and Noble. At those prices I had to buy both. Color: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/cert-pre-owned-nook-color-barnes-noble/1100666155 B&W: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/cpo-nook-simple-touch-barnes-noble/1102471846

The Nook Color can be found for $149 Pre-Owned and $79 for Nook B&W Simple Touch @ Barnes and Noble. At those prices I had to buy both. Color: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/cert-pre-owned-nook-color-barnes-noble/1100666155 B&W: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/cpo-nook-simple-touch-barnes-noble/1102471846

... the already-exisitng, easily-hackable previous Nook Color is now $50 less--just US$199. Nice! Very tempted...

Although to be fair, you can do all of those things with the latest Android tablets too. And I fear answering the question "which tablet should I get for my elderly relative" with "any of the best selling tablets" might be less helpful.

I wonder idly at the OPs "not too expensive" comment. An iPad is far from cheap (and all the other high-end tablets are no better). I mean you can get a Dell Streak or BlackBerry Playbook for not very much, but I doubt anyone would recommend it.

One slightly different suggestion might be to go with a Kindle or a Nook. Both are dirt cheap compared to other tablets, both are very easy to use, and (aside from the obvious reading content), both the Kindle and the Nook Colour have games and other apps. A Kindle is only $139, and the Nook Colour is only $249 (I don't think the basic Nook has "app" content).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=kindle%20games&tag=kindlegames-20&index=digital-text&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nookcolor-apps/379002750

Here is one of my bi-annual posts reminding all about Thomas Gold's theory about the abiological origin of natural gas, oil and/or coal (which we call "fossil" fuels, perhaps erroneously). He published a book about this: The Deep Hot Biosphere

One part of this theory has apparently become commonly accepted: "extremophiles" extend deep throughout the earth's crust. Cosmic hydrocarbons had already been observed in nebula, this new result appears to be another pointer in the same direction.

There's a certain kind of conservative that likes this theory-- see, we're not Running Out of Oil! The peakies are wrong!-- but there's no particular reason this would be good news for environmentalists. There may be enough hydrocarbons in the crust to completely combine with all the earth's oxygen...

They are pulling them from shelves, but not from their online shelves. You can go to barnesandnoble.com and get Watchmen today.

All they're doing is screwing their brick and mortar stores.

On a 99 cent book, the author gets 35 cents.

Depends on the sales system the author uses.

One of the biggest is Barnes and Noble. Their PubIt service gives the author 60%.

Amazon's Self Publish program gives 70% royalties to the author in certain markets, (List price minus delivery price of around 15 cents per megabyte).

Ebooks sold thru the major publishing houses usually yield far less than 35%, because they amortize the entire publishing process and some authors report they ding you for lost dead tree book sales due to ebook sales bases on a formula, which the author is contractually precluded from making public.

Grunge? Rap?? Hippie rock??? No, the rot started with the waltz.

Does B&N have an app store? I thought the nook (out of the box) was a reader only.

Yes they do (for their device anyway). And no it isn't.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nookcolor-apps/379002750/

Was i really that hard to take 2 seconds to look before jumping to a conclusion?

based on this brief hands on, it sounds like it's squarely pointed at apple.
I like MG Siegler, yet despise techcrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/amazon-kindle-tablet/

Your own link says:

Yes, Amazon has been able to trim the cost of the device to half of the entry-level iPad. And it will be the same price as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color, which this will very obviously compete with directly. Both have 7-inch color touch screens. Both run Android.

You can hold it in one hand and still easily advance through pages without having to set your coffee down, for instance.

That's what I noticed in about the new B&N Simple Reader. Its light enough to hold one handed and a simple thumb-tap with the same hand will turn the pages. (It has buttons on the side, but I was using it for 10 minutes before I noticed them.)

Buttons are a point of failure. They are just not necessary any more.

If you're interested in the subject, I recommend reading the Daniel Domsheit-Berg book: "Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website". If D's account is any guide, erratic behavior from Assange shouldn't come as a surprise. And myself I would expect an Assange autobiography to be even less accurate than is the norm for such a thing, he's apparently into "self-mythologizing".

I've also been looking at Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by The "Guardian", which I'm afraid has a bit of trashy vibe to it, but has some interesting details here and there.

Note that the 3rd edition is already out also (The Amazon link and picture is to the second edition): http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Digital-Evidence-and-Computer-Crime/Eoghan-Casey/e/9780123742681?itm=1&usri=Digital%2BEvidence%2Band%2BComputer%2BCrime

For 600 fucking bucks, plus data plan?! Guess I'm an idiot, because I don't get it. That seems like paint-eating level of stupid to me.

Try more like "less than 150 bucks"; here's one.

I have a Nook, but I don't consider it a tablet; I know I could root it, but the e-ink is not really built for doing most stuff that a full tablet does. So really you're talking $250 for the Nook Color, which is a tablet. But yeah, even the ipad is $500 & no data plan for the best selling option.

I use a tablet for reading books/PDFs/newspapers, playing games and as a souped up todo list.

For 600 fucking bucks, plus data plan?! Guess I'm an idiot, because I don't get it. That seems like paint-eating level of stupid to me.

Try more like "less than 150 bucks"; here's one. Admittedly, you'll need to root it (and perhaps flash it) to unlock all the features you might desire in a full-on tablet, but it's also a quarter what you stated as a price.

What was that about eating paint?

I just thought I would mention Thomas Gold's book The Deep Hot Biosphere. Gold's thesis is that "fossil fuels" aren't, and have an abiological origin, much like the hydrocarbons we can see in interstellar nebulae. An essential part of the theory is that "extremophiles" aren't all that rare, and permeate the earth down to unsuspected depths... that explains why the oil coming up out of the ground looks biological in origin (handedness): it's been messed with by the deep bacteria.

So myself, what I learned from this abstract is that the "deep hot biosphere" has apparently become an accepted fact. (Needless to say, the "abiological origin of oil" is not (yet?) on the "mainstream science" list.)

It's really only an issue for the Kindle folks right now. Other readers (Nook, Kobo, ect) can use EPUB files, available from many different sources. If Amazon starts driving smaller stores out of business or the other stores start censoring as well, then it might be cause for concern. As it is, you can still find Yaoi from Barnes and Noble:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/King-of-Debt/Sanae-Rokuya/e/2940012508836/?itm=1&USRI=king+of+debt

This is why I purchased a nook, instead of a Kindle.

Well, not this specifically... I'm not a big fan of yaoi...

But, thus far, B&N has not been pulling the same kind of crap that Amazon has. They haven't been pulling questionable titles and deleting books off of ereaders. And even if they did, I can buy my books somewhere else as an EPUB or a PDF.

Part of that I attribute to the fact that B&N is an actual bookstore, while Amazon is just a generic online retailer. You won't be buying a new computer from B&N. And, while they do stock music and movies... The selection of books absolutely dwarfs the selection of music and movies. Real bookstores are generally opposed to censorship. They're generally opposed to banning and burning books.

Amazon, on the other hand, is the on-line equivalent of Wal-Mart.

look at the cover of this manga and tell us they are kids:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/King-of-Debt/Sanae-Rokuya/e/2940012508836/?itm=1&USRI=king+of+debt

It's really only an issue for the Kindle folks right now. Other readers (Nook, Kobo, ect) can use EPUB files, available from many different sources. If Amazon starts driving smaller stores out of business or the other stores start censoring as well, then it might be cause for concern. As it is, you can still find Yaoi from Barnes and Noble:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/King-of-Debt/Sanae-Rokuya/e/2940012508836/?itm=1&USRI=king+of+debt

You could not have picked a worse business model, and Apple has nothing to do with it. First, you entered a crowded app market. Book readers for iOS are a dime (or less) a dozen, and nothing about yours particularly stood out from the crowd. Second, forget Apple; you're competing with Barnes & Noble and Amazon on their home turf. Are you insane? I could buy a book from you and read it on an iOS device, or jump through hoops involving Adobe (shudder) and read it on a desktop. Alternatively, I can buy a book through bn.com or from their Nook app and seamlessly read it on iOS, Android, PC, Mac, or BlackBerry. I'm hard pressed to think of a single reason why I'd want to use an unknown developer instead of one of the enormous, well-established booksellers.

It's easy to blame Apple for your failures. Realistically, though, you never had a chance against the other major players who are in a cut-throat competition right now.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/?cds2Pid=35700

Why would you disclude the Nook Color? It is a $250 7.5" Android tablet. 5gb internal storage, with up to 32 gb expansion, and the same horsepower as the iPad 1.

No 3G option, no Google apps (like Maps, Gmail, etc), no Android Market, etc. I guess you could say there are two markets for "tablets": the low-end and the high-end. At the low end, you have Nook, Viewsonic and Archos models (and dozens of other Chinese knockoffs). On the high end, where most of the margins and consumer interest is, you really don't have anyone cheaper than the iPad.

I know the Nook today got a huge boost, but it still doesn't come with any Google services or Market, though it does now have Froyo.

Heck, even $250: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/index.asp

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/?cds2Pid=35700

Why would you disclude the Nook Color? It is a $250 7.5" Android tablet. 5gb internal storage, with up to 32 gb expansion, and the same horsepower as the iPad 1.

I'd buy the first tab that lets me read book-quality text, Apple, Android, or whatever.

Have you looked at the Barnes and Noble Nook Color? Sure it has to be rooted to become the full tablet it was destined to be but the display is simply fantastic IMO. And at $199 on eBay right now it's definitely the lowest priced good quality tablet around. You don't get a camera or cellular data and you have to depend on XDA devs for blue-tooth and upgrades but I haven't regretted getting one.

Post a link to it, because I can't find it anywhere on their site. Unless you're talking about the print edition, in which case you're missing the point.

A subscription to the print edition includes access to the online version. What is hard to understand? I actually saw it in a brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble. But here it is from the Economist:

• The World in 2012, a special issue distributed to all paid subscribers active in December 2011
• Free access to The Economist in audio, with digital recordings of all print articles available as a subscribers-only weekly podcast
• Unrestricted access to The Economist online, including news, analysis, rankings, blogs, multimedia, online debates and a fully searchable archive dating back to 1997
• Regular in-depth industry and regional special reports, and The Economist Technology Quarterly
• Full access to The Economist on iPhone and iPad

And like I said B&N sells subscriptions.

Falcon

Well they are doing a fairly decent job already. In fact on the Nook Color the magazines are amazing and do not lack for photographic content. Of course I have to tether it to my phone when I'm not near a hotspot but I don't mind.

I'm not sure how Barnes and Noble's pricing structure works, but it's no better there for the end user. For example, here's most of a message I posted on B&N's Nook forum:

I was playing with the store on my Nook and was really impressed by the magazine prices. For example, I picked "National Review" at random and saw that it cost $3.95 an issue, or $4.95 for a subscription. "Wow," thought I. "These magazines are early adopters, expanding their readership through cheap subscriptions in a digital form that has approximately zero distribution costs. How clever of them!"

Looking at the bn.com page for the magazine, I found the catch: that's $4.95 per month.

Holy cow. First, that's $59.40 a year. I could subscribe to the physical version for $29.50 (and apparently get a free book as a gift). Second, I have never, anywhere, ever seen magazine subscriptions priced monthly. They are universally priced annually. Upon reviewing the Nook screen, sure enough, there it is at the top: "Monthly Subscription: $4.95". I missed that in favor of the large-font, glowing "Subscribe for $4.95" button on the touch screen. Tapping that button gives the prompt, 'Would you like to buy "National Review" for $4.95?", again with no indication that you're buying a monthly subscription.

I love my Nook, but I'd never pay for a small, electronic, black-and-white version of a magazine when I could get the colorful, ergonomic dead-tree version delivered for half the price. Their subscription model is miles away from making sense for me.

Hmmm, that's going to be harder for them to maintain, since both Barnes and Noble and Amazon have self publishing portals, (follow the links for how those work) and they account for a huge percentage of sales of both Print and ebooks in the US.

Sooner or later someone is bound to release something via those electronic self publish routes which rockets to the top of sales. Will they just pretend it didn't happen?

Or is it that ebook sales WITHOUT dead tree books would never amount to a best seller?
(TFA wanders around that particular point, as without numbers, it is impossible to tell whether ebooks simply follow print books in popularity.).

As good authors (Like Steven King) start releasing in ebook format first, using free-lance editor services, the print houses might not have their lock on the attention of the NYT.

Steven Kink kind of popularity will be hard to ignore even if it were self published.

Range voting is easier to understand for non-geek voters, and does a good job minimizing the regret metric.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Gaming-the-Vote/William-Poundstone/e/9780809048922/?itm=2&USRI=gaming+the+vote

It doesn't have to be new AND a best seller. Just one or the other is enough apparently.

Behold a $12.99 ebook of a novel written in 1968: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/True-Grit/Charles-Portis/e/9781590206508/?itm=4&USRI=true+grit

Note the paperback is $7.93. No one has to pay for Charles Portis' book signings or speaking engangements. I fail to see why ebook prices should be above paper book prices any time they might be popular. Should that be the selling point of ebook readers? That you can buy older books which aren't popular for slightly cheaper than their paper versions?

Take any popular book such as Steven Kings "Under the Dome" and compare prices. Ebook 10, Paperback 12, Hardcover 20).

Check out a current bestseller, "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follet. It's more expensive as an ebook than in hardcover!

Take any popular book such as Steven Kings "Under the Dome" and compare prices. Ebook 10, Paperback 12, Hardcover 20).

Check out a current bestseller, "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follet. It's more expensive as an ebook than in hardcover!

Well the argument is (I don't totally believe it myself) that the actual printing and distribution of paper books is so cheap these days that it makes up only a small percentage of the costs.

The cost of editing, ebook creation, and Author's Royalties account for the price of an Ebook. The difference in price between a hard cover (or paperback) and an ebook is the printing and distributional costs.

Take any popular book such as Steven Kings "Under the Dome" and compare prices. Ebook 10, Paperback 12, Hardcover 20).

If you wait a year or more the price diverges even more in favor of the ebook. Sometimes the prices are upside down, with ebooks being higher than print. Usually this does not last beyond 9 months after release.

Now what you pay for a second hand book is entirely another matter. The author gets none of that money, and neither does the publisher. You have arguably arrived at the social value of the underlying literary work as all profit has been paid previously and stripped off.

The reason one buys older books in ebook format is for convenience, and not having to line ones walls with shelves against the day you may want to re-read the work, or to avoid having to carry around a mountain of paperbacks.

For those who want to read once, and not retain anything, used paperbacks are the way to go. For those who think an author's work is worth paying for, paperbacks or ebooks make the most sense. For collectors: hard covers.

But in no case can you make the claim that an ebook has zero manufacturing costs.

Censorship in and of itself is not evil

Whether it is or is not depends on the particular definition at hand. The broadest definition of censorship is "government impendiment of the free flow of private sentiments between individuals", but you seem to be of the opinion that censorship also includes any self-imposed limiting of the senses, right? Well, you couldn't be more wrong.

I like that childrens books censor sexual content

That's not censorship, that's sensibility. How many a parent would buy his toddler a sexually explicit book ("look ma, it has pictures in it!")? And actually, I can remember a quite explicit (cartoon) movie from when I was about ten based on Peter Mayle's work.

I like that Google "censors" search results.

I don't. It is a third party to the communication between me and the supplier of the information I'm looking for, and "censorship" amounts to misrepresentation in this case. And before you play the think-of-the-children card again, "safe search" is not censorship just like "with a condom" is not abstinence.

I like that I can "Censor" who comes into my house

WTF? Would you still like it if the government decided that for you? Do you also decide who comes into your house to visit your wife/roommates/children?

who eats at my restaurant

I take it you don't own a restaurant?

who I do business with

I take it you are not a retailer?

who I am friends with

Do your "friends" have a say in that as well?

It is when the Government forces censorship on us all that it becomes bad

Incidentally, that also happens to be the only time when your definition of censorship matches the dictionary, with one single exception: a post-censorship society no longer has a need for government censorhip. They have been conditioned by their government in such a way that everyone applies preemptive censorship on their own thoughts. So thank you, but I do not wish to believe that Western society has gotten so bad that everyone limits their own senses out of a false sense of propriety.

So, please, stop diluting the issue by hand-waving and using your own twisted definitions: censorship is bad. Period.

Was there ever an America that truly valued individual freedom and where people thought, "stories about sex with your mother, gross, completely not interesting to me, I hope the store carries it and values individuals' rights to choose for themselves, the same way they do with content I want but most people don't like".

Apparently so, or maybe this store's purchasing agent missed something.

Getting Things Done, by David Allen takes an approach that sounds compatible with what you're saying.

His idea is to offload executive functioning to your reminder system, which dispenses atomic work units that don't have prerequisites. For example, the sort of task you'd put in your reminder system is not "do taxes" or even "do schedule A", it would be more like "find mileage records and add up volunteer mileage".

Then, don't think about all the other things you have to do while you're totaling up mileage records. You'll do the other things when you pop them off the queue in your reminder system. Total Zen flow state, living in the moment and doing addition without distraction.

Probably because I'm not over Amazon's de-listing debacle, I like to remind everyone that there other bookstores on the Internet.

Powell's
Indiebound
Barnes & Noble

A far better vision would be much more expansive than Space X's -- which in my opinion consists of nothing more than building well engineered reusable reliable rockets at affordable prices.

Some guidelines:
1. Never use a rocket for material you can hurl or lift into space (i.e. non-G sensitive "mass").
2. Never use humans when robots can do much of the work (i.e. systems assembly, parts replacement, etc.).
3. Minimize the risks that humans face (keep them out of space as much as possible or well sheltered from the hazards there).
4. Invest only once. Build the factories to use materials from space in space.

You would start with (1) by throwing out the idea of rockets that can lift increasingly larger payloads. Instead you would invest one or more times in building ocean-equatorial based rail/mass guns [7] (to launch fuel, H2O, O2, food, "station"/"factory" subunits using solar power. This would lead to the construction of orbiting sky hooks which could augment the mass guns and/or pick up astronauts from SpaceShip Two type "ferries". Then SpaceTugs pick the astronauts up from the hooks and relocate them to ships under construction in "Dry Dock" (@ L1|L2).

But before one wants to engage in a vision like this one needs to *seriously* have a discussion regarding when molecular nanotechnology, i.e. when can nanofactories build nanorobots, when can nanorobots build nanofactories (allowing exponential expansion either on the Earth or in space). Nanorobots and nanofactories significantly lower the costs of access to space as well as the development of space (because they eliminate the need for biological "human" environments, safety systems, resource supplies, etc.). So one has to face up to the question of whether we want "human" or "nanorobot" development of space (when one path is clearly less expensive and likely to be more efficient), though perhaps less emotionally fulfilling.

Many engineers 'dis molecular nanotechnology, but for people who understand genome biology, that genomes are "software", that enzymes, esp. DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase and the ribosome are "assemblers", and who may have read Drexler's 1981 PNAS paper in which biological systems were cited as existence proofs for molecular nanotechnology, and perhaps who have read Nanosystems as well, the only questions that remain are how and when we could engineer systems of such complexity.

Then the question becomes whether we spend billions of $ on 40-50 y.o. visions (rockets to the moon or Mars) or equivalent or even greater amounts on say a 11-29 y.o vision... [1]. It is clear, at least to me, that the 40-50 y.o. vision provides some great stories, improves our technologies and lets us go where we have never gone before. In contrast the 11-29 y.o. vision frees most individuals on the planet from having to ever work again to survive, may indefinitely extend their lifespans and enables the evolution of humanity from a pre-Kardashev Type I level civilization to a Kardashev Type II level civilization [6].

I know which vision I'd be inclined to vote for.

1. Drexler's PNAS paper was published in 1981 [2]. Engines of Creation (Vsn. 1 was published in 1986) and (Vsn 2.0 published in 2007) [3]. Nanosystems (Eric's MIT PhD thesis) was published in 1992 [4]. Nanomedicine Vol. 1 by Robert Freitas was published in 1999 [5]. Almost all other nanotechnology "literature" tends to be long on either speculation or technical details and short on "vision" and facts. Those are the references for "science "visifact"ion.

2. http://www.pnas.org/content/78/9/5275.abstract
3. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Engines-of-Creation/Eric-Drexler/e/9780385199735
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_Creation

I think you've got a typo there, last I checked, it's more like $100 cheaper.

Then you haven't checked. It was never that much cheaper. Amazon only lowered its prices to current levels when B&N began selling the Nook for $100 less than the Kindle.

So what? No one uses epub.

You apparently don't read e-books, either. Other than Amazon, pretty much everyone uses ePub, and the industry is heading in that direction.

You conveniently neglect to mention that Amazon allows authors to self-publish. Barnes and Noble? Nope.

Conveniently? Certainly, when self-publishing wasn't even the topic. Why would I even bring it up? But since you have brought it up, B&N's self publishing arm for e-books is called Pubit!.

I've used it, since they have them on display at the stores. You're wrong. The Nook display lags behind user input horribly. Plus it's incredibly finicky, ignoring at least half the touches to the screen, including all attempts to do the "swipe" thing to turn pages, although it was more than happy to occasionally dump me back to the home page when I tried.

I use it every day, and not some beat-up floor model, and I experience none of these problems. Your mileage may vary, of course. As far as the keyboard lag, that's a limitation of the display, not the UI. You can type on the keyboard about as fast as you want, and the Kindle uses the same display (however current models have worse screen contrast than the Nook for some reason, which will apparently be corrected in the forthcoming models).

Try using a good touch screen like an iPad and try saying with a straight face that the Nook's touch screen is even usable.

The Nook's touch screen is more than usable. It's one of my favorite features of the Nook, in fact. Having used it, I'd have serious reservations about buying an e-reader that didn't have a similar UI.

The touch screen that turns off when you read the book? Yeah, that sounds much better than a physical set of buttons that provide tactile feedback and never randomly vanish to conserve power.

The Nook also has physical buttons to let you turn the pages. If you'd really ever looked at one, you would know that. Or else you're purposefully being dense.

You're counting anything that can read epub, aren't you? Except you're leaving out the part where the Nook DRMs its books, making those apps useless for Nook content.

No. I'm talking about the Barnes & Noble e-reader software that's available for all of the platforms I mentioned and that supports B&N's DRM.

See, I've actually done research on eReaders, and I can tell you that the Kindle is clearly superior to the Nook.

You certainly can tell me that, yes. But honestly, you are the worst fanboy troll I've ever seen. For someone who has "done research," you certainly don't even seem to be trying to know what you're talking about.

Not that it really matters, since the iPad is superior to both, with the single exception of the Kindle's keyboard.

Ah, an Apple guy. That figures. No way would I want to read books on an iPad. The two don't even compare.

so in your idealized world, who does the marketing?

Interesting that you should mention this...

I don't check any newspaper's best seller list. I don't generally read any publications that really feature book reviews. I generally skip over the book reviews here on Slashdot. With the exception of a very few books that actually show up on TV commercials, I have basically no idea what books are out there.

So, I'd suggest that if publishers are currently responsible for marketing their books, they're doing a crappy job of it.

Generally I find the books I want to read through word of mouth (or word on blog) advertising.

I'll see somebody here on Slashdot mention something that sounds interesting, and I'll go look it up. Or somebody I know will tell me that they just finished reading something good, and I'll go look it up.

Ever since I bought my nook, I've been subscribed to the Barnes & Noble Unbound Blog RSS feed. That's their nook/ebook-centric blog. There's some genuine advertising for various ebooks... New releases and things like that... But they also give away an ebook every Friday. Frequently it's something I'm not very interested in. But I've picked up more than a few free ebooks and found them quite entertaining.

One such title was Already Dead. This is the first book in a series, and was being given away free for a while. I picked it up, read it, and wound up buying more of the series.

So, I'd suggest that if you're turning out halfway decent books, you don't really need a marketing department to help you sell them.

so in your idealized world, who does the marketing?

Interesting that you should mention this...

I don't check any newspaper's best seller list. I don't generally read any publications that really feature book reviews. I generally skip over the book reviews here on Slashdot. With the exception of a very few books that actually show up on TV commercials, I have basically no idea what books are out there.

So, I'd suggest that if publishers are currently responsible for marketing their books, they're doing a crappy job of it.

Generally I find the books I want to read through word of mouth (or word on blog) advertising.

I'll see somebody here on Slashdot mention something that sounds interesting, and I'll go look it up. Or somebody I know will tell me that they just finished reading something good, and I'll go look it up.

Ever since I bought my nook, I've been subscribed to the Barnes & Noble Unbound Blog RSS feed. That's their nook/ebook-centric blog. There's some genuine advertising for various ebooks... New releases and things like that... But they also give away an ebook every Friday. Frequently it's something I'm not very interested in. But I've picked up more than a few free ebooks and found them quite entertaining.

One such title was Already Dead. This is the first book in a series, and was being given away free for a while. I picked it up, read it, and wound up buying more of the series.

So, I'd suggest that if you're turning out halfway decent books, you don't really need a marketing department to help you sell them.

I was going to say build it too. I built a MAME cabinet as a project, and really you can get away with just building the joystick/button housing if you wanted. It isn't as cheap as some random USB joystick, but so much nicer (and better geek cred if you care). You need to order the controller to handle the input, two joysticks, and a few buttons. It plugs into the PS2 port of the computer I use for handling the MAME software.

This is the book I used for a guide: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780764556166&itm=2

I'd be thrilled to find a place here where small, independent businesses are actually thriving, but one doesn't exist.

Maybe where you live small businesses may be hard to find but not where I am. My sister runs her own business as do others I know or knew. I'm hoping to start my own small business. Now I know it's hard in some places, like Europe, but not in the US. Here's the small business stats from the US Census Bureau. The stats are a bit out of date, the latest numbers are from 2004 but I doubt the numbers have changed that much since then. One thing I find revealing is where it says "Since 1997, however, nonemployers have grown faster than employer firms." Nonemployers are the self-employed.

Also remember the vast majority of air travel is for business purposes, and those people are under the impression that they *don't* have a choice to just not fly.

Then they aren't paying attention. There's GoToMeeting as well as other ways to hold meeting online. Why businesses don't even need permanent offices now, they can rent temporary or shared office space now. Need to meet a client? Rent an office for a day. That is if meeting in a restaurant or cafe will not work. These offices even have broadband access, heck Barnes and Noble book stores have free wifi.

Falcon

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/features/techspecs/index.asp

No text on Nook

.txt is not supported by the Nook.

  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/features/techspecs/index.asp

Dumb I know...

Rice and a lot of breads and pasta actually have a higher glycemic index than sugar

That really depends. Are the grains refined or whole grain? Whole grains not only have a lower glycemic index but also contains fiber which helps moderate blood sugar. A few months ago I was at a Barnes and Noble and did a backstep to look at a book I caught a glimpse of, Healthy Eating Using the Glycemic Index for Optimal Health. I had an appointment with my personal care coordinator, my doc arranged my seeing her, later and asked her if she knew of the glycemic index and what she thought. She said I should look at the recipes in the book to see if I liked any, so when I did I went ahead and bought it. I then looked more into the index and found more recipes online. My favorite so far is Banana Bread, but I use one cup of whole wheat and one cup of rye and instead of baking a loaf of bread I bake some muffins. I may also add blueberries, another fruit, and or some nuts.

Falcon

According to this guy, the average person commits three felonies a day. I do not know how accurate that is, but here is another guy who says essentially the same thing.

All I can say is fuck. At worst Mr. Childs deserved to be fired. There was a lot of incompetence involved, and clearly not all of it his.

Thinking is a physical thing, it requires energy, and can tire you out. If your body isn't in good health, you're not going to be able to concentrate for long periods of time without getting exhausted. If you aren't feeding yourself properly, you aren't going to have enough nutrients to keep your brain going.

Now, being in good physical form doesn't mean being skinny: you can have terrible energy levels even if you are skinny, and you can have amazing levels even if you are fat. That said, the easiest way I've found to increase energy levels are first, to get enough nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, fruits and vegetables) so your body can rebuild itself, and second, running. If you can run far, you will be able to program 60 hours a week without a problem. If you want inspiration (ie, extra motivation beyond just high energy levels), check out this book (I've no relation to the author, just found it inspiring).

Whether you would want to program 60 hours a week is a different question.

Why are we concentrating on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel lists 12,381 results for VDM Verlag as a publisher. On the US Amazon, I see 25,127 for a similar search. The UK's Blackwell just sets it at an even five thou (but what's the real number?). You want infection, take a gander at Abe Books' hilarious 191,042 results on the same search (even putting it in quotes results in that)!

Now before you fall all over yourself to point in horror at the infected zombie Abe Books lumbering your way, lets engage in a simple mental exercise. We hate expensive books. Online retailers know this and they cater to us by giving us near wholesale prices. Good. Now, they shave a little bit off but in their strive to be number one, they rely on large volumes of sales with razor thin profits on each sale. This means that its in the company's (and your) best interest for them to automate book sales for publishers and remove the human element. But also remove the overhead cost that comes with it. And maybe even encourage several thousand books so their marketplace looks vibrant and full of sellers selling anything imaginable.

Enter VDM Verlag. All too happy to profit off of the above situation. They have freely available material to publish and they have end users ready to pay.

I'm not an expert in any of this but my gut tells me that this is what is going on. Go to Borders and note their 4 VDM "books". Now, if the lack of titles was a matter of principle and ethics, there would be zero titles. If they had a difficult to use process to register book sales with them then you would have few books (likely case) and if you were streamlined like Amazon, Abe Books or Blackwell then you hit the hilarious numbers. Everybody hates the big guy but in this case the One-Click-Demon is not really the culprit nor are they the lone retailer.

There's really no way to fix this except consumer awareness. Be aware that your paying an exorbitant fee for something that is just a few keystrokes away and a bit of link clicking.

Can someone help me out with an example of how they came to an author for each particular "book"? I'm having a hard time tracing these people. Some of them appear to be legit authors published through other publishers like (random example) Michael Sage. Other people appear to

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Annotated-Alice/Lewis-Carroll/e/9780393048476/?itm=1&USRI=annotated+alice

..."Customers who bought this also bought"