Sunday News is Nearly No News

The Greenburgh Public Library closed this week after its heating unit broke and templates became unbearable.  Global warming is just getting sneaky and it knows basic A/C repair!

Miami Public Library statue is stolen in what can only be described as "a theft."  via LISNews

The Waterville Branch Library unveiled a glass mosaic this week.  The mosiac sizes in at thirteen feet by six feet, probably weighs more than a hundred points, and both floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

Heidi Hyre, 52, a school library assistant, was sentenced to two years for misconduct and boinking male students among other stuff.  This is a most disgusting violation of an adult on formative minds, and this librarian hopes they throw her in jail until she forgets what her lady bits feel like.

The New York Post is putting out its first ebook full of sex tips from a former prostitute.  Hooray?  

AskMen Going Into the eBook Biz

"AskMen.com, one of the top men-focused lifestyle sites on the Web with 20 million monthly unique visitors, is ramping-up its nascent ebook publishing program.
The site has published five ebooks so far, starting this past June, and has sold them on Amazon and other retailers for prices ranging from $0.99 to $9.99. The content has been mostly re-purposed but upcoming titles will be original content. The company plans on publishing around 20 ebooks next year."

We have no more need to look for proof that ebooks and ebook publishing are an unjustified medium than this story right here.  The context of the story is that AskMen is publishing ebooks, but they are not.  What they are doing is extending their brand to cover books that anyone can write and anyone can publish in a format that anyone can publish in.  This is not a "new thing."  Coca-Cola, if they had the inclination, could do the same thing.  Hell, I could do the same thing.  Just send me your ebook, I'll sign up for the account, format your book, sell the thing and give you the minuscule profits that come with selling books through Amazon's ebook market.  

The only way this has really become a legit enterprise is through sites like Pottermore, and that's only because Harry Potter fans are a little bit nuts.  And rightly so.  If Oprah decided she was going to extend her brand, she could dominate the ebook market by reaching out to small authors and give them an audience.  Then she could devour their souls, sucking out their chewy center.  But, if people are reading, more power to them.  I just hope the quality AskMen.com devotes to their articles continues into their ebooks.

AskMen.com Ramping-up Ebook Program - Digital Book World:

AskMen.com Ramping-up Ebook Program Digital Book World AskMen.com, one of the top men-focused lifestyle sites on the Web with 20 million monthly unique visitors, is ramping-up its nascent ebook publishing program. The site has published five ebooks so far, starting this past June, and has sold them on ...

Nirvana Lives On In eBook

Sub Pop founder He Who Shall Be Named In An Article Linked Below is releasing an ebook that will include rare pictures of the members of the band Nirvana.  Allow me to now speculate what the pictures will be of:

Guys dressed in grunge clothes and big sunglasses standing around. 

Coming soon, proto-punk hipsters.  Nice to see my generation is finally being marketed to.  You can laugh now.

Sub Pop Founder Releases Rare Nirvana Pictures in New eBook - Paste Magazine

MacMillan Finds eBook Lending Bandwagon, Jumps On

MacMillian, one of the two major publishing companies that does not offer ebook lending, has stated they are in development of an ebook lending program.  The company says they hope their new program will satisfy all involved with the books they offer, also adding that they value libraries.

Translation:  They are losing a butt load of money because of ebook self publishing and hope this new program will invigorate stagnant sales in the library demographic that they alienated.  Libraries are the only groups buying books in both bulk and consistency and by not offering lending the publishing giant is missing out on all that cash they could be getting.

Remember when drive-in movie theatres dominated the American landscape as the way to watch a film?  Neither do I.  I grew up in an age where I could sit in the air conditioning and watch a movie at any point in the day or night.  So as it is with the new generation, growing up getting their books on any and every device and if the stagnant publishing companies do not hurry up and get a move on they will be just another wistful memory.

MacMillan to Pilot E-Book Library Lending Program - Digital Book World

Alton Brown Getting Digital; Forgets the Matrix Ate People

TV Personality and chef Alton Brown says his next cook book will be and ebook.

"I want to go where nobody has gone before," Brown said Saturday during an interview at the New York City Wine and Food Festival. "I want to change the way we deal with information in the kitchen." cfnews13

Brown describes one part of the ebook that will have videos shot from many angles that the user can use to pan around him while he is cooking and see every part of the process.  He likened the process to the sci-fi movie The Matrix's special effects.

Kick ass Alton Brown cook book?  Hell yeah.  Comparing it to the Matrix, I get where you are coming from. The comparison does not work for me simply because the movie was about robots that ate people.  Well, not ate, "used as batteries", whatever, potato potato, but keep the movie about retarded kung fu folk fighting all slow mo out of your ebook cookbook workings, please.  The phrase "bullet-time cooking" would have been bad-ass all by itself.