Daily Archives: December 16, 2009

e-maginings: e-Publishing Update by Lyndi Lamont

A couple of things have happened in the e-book world this month. For one, the new Barnes and Nobel nook reader made its debut to a less than stellar review in the New York Times. Reviewer David Pogue states that “Every one of the Nook’s vaunted distinctions comes fraught with buzz kill footnotes.” He blames B&N’s impatience to bring the nook to the public prematurely. He found the device slow and balky and concludes: “To use the technical term, it’s slower than an anesthetized slug in winter.”

However, it might be a good gift for the hacker in your life. Wired.com reports that the nook has already been “torn open, hacked and rooted”. I’m not a hacker, so I don’t understand all the details, but apparently doing this lets you hook the nook, with its Google Android operating system and a free cellular connection to the internet directly to your computer. I’m sure B&N didn’t foresee this development.

In the area of digital rights, Random House is playing hardball by insisting that all their contracts, no matter how old, inherently include digital rights, no matter how vaguely worded (or perhaps nonexistent) the contract language may have been. They tried this some years ago with Rosetta Books and lost twice in court. Yesterday the Authors Guild protested their action. Click here to read the statement.

I’m being featured this month (as Lyndi Lamont) at the Rainbow Studio of TRS. Stop by and read the interview if you have a moment.

Happy Holidays to all.

Linda / Lyndi