I Need to Read More

I just read this great list by Austin Kleon on reading books. So many that I need to adopt.

My favorites from the list:

2 . I will make an effort to carry a book with me at all times.

4 . I will read whatever the hell I feel like. No guilty pleasures.

14 . I will re-read favorite books the way I watch favorite movies and play favorite records over and over.

I've found it difficult to read as much as I'd like because there are so many other things taking up my time.

Playing with and caring for my kids, photo culling and processing, other reading...TV? Also, pretty overwhelming - We're in the first week of potty training a 9 week old puppy right now, which takes up most every free minute I have. I'm only writing at this moment because she's sleeping at my feet.

I'm usually guilty of half-assing multiple books simultaneously which is made even worse because they are all on my Kindle, so I'm always jumping back and forth and it takes way too long to finish anything. Current, non- finished stuff (and please don't take the non-finished status as a critique. I'm just a distracted and sporadic reader. These are all great so far!):

• A Beautiful Anarchy - David duChemin
• Speak: How Your Story Can Change the World by Nish Weiseth
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• Love Does by Bob Goff
• Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
• Moment Maker by Carlos Whittaker
• Tempest at Dawn by James D Best

I also have a handful of paper books I'm working on. All three were gifts. The first two are photography books with great images, so they are better as physical books.

• Vision Mongers by David duChemin
• Light Gesture and Color by Jay Maisel
• Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman

So, I should go read now...

The Book Business

I was recently talking with a friend about the evolution of books as he is still an avid Library user and I almost exlusively read on a Kindle.

Of course, I spoke of the future - how the actual content, which I think of as Books with a capital "B" doesn't need a container like the paper books of the past.

We got into the nostalgia of the paper books we both own. There are still a few I hang onto...and a few I can't get on Kindle.

I read this great article today, by Sid O'Neill on his site, Crate of Penguins. His post was prompted by the debate about Amazon's dispute with Hachette Books. This first one about the future of Books -

It helps if you look at the likely future of the author/reader relationship, and the machinations between those two entities. The thrust towards efficiency and speed is leading us away from the traditional publishing model of distribution.

and this one on the economics of publishing and the eventual demise of the traditional publisher -

We’re in this dissonant, dysfunctional relationship with the system that powers everything we do. We love Capitalism, but we hate its effects at the same time. It’s a grandiose case of the human proclivity for having ones cake whilst eating it.

As I read his words, I was immediately struck by the similarity to the evolution of the music business away from record companies and record stores as the sole distributors. I don't think anyone would argue that the old system of distributing music was better, more morale or more ethical.

We've just moved on.

It's better for both the artist and the listener. Easier to make an album and easier to buy it. The middle man has been made largely irrelevant.

I recorded an album back in 2001 and there was no decent way to sell it outside of printing up 1000 CDs and selling them directly or by mail. There were so many advantages to having a record company on board to foot the bill for producing and marketing a physical product. I had none of that. If I were doing it again today, it's likely I wouldn't ever press a CD. After all, even my old CD is on iTunes now.

Oh heck...shameless self promotion right? Here is the Rdio link and here is the Spotify link

It seems like we aren't far from it being as easy to publish your own book without a publisher. How a retailer like Amazon will be involved in this new system is still yet to be seen. I don't have any idea what it's like to sell your book through Amazon as an independent, self-publishing Author. I do know that having the ability to sell your music directly is pretty awesome and has been a game changer for music. I wonder if publishing will benefit in a similar way.

We'll find out soon enough. Progress does that.