Emergent Futures Tumblelog

This is the Tumblelog of Paul Higgins and Sandy Teagle - Futurists from Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia. Go to Emergent Futures to see more or follow on Twitter at FuturistPaul . If you right click on the pictures, titles or links in these posts you will be able to go to the original story on the web. If you click on comments for each post you can either read what others have said or add your own comment via Disqus. If you click on the date of a post it will take you to a single post view where you can copy the web link if you want to send it to someone else. If you click on the tags it will take you to other stories from Emergent Futures with the same tag.

May 27th 2012

Reblogged from kickstarter|26 notes |# Comments

Adele Bertei is making us misty-eyed this morning in the first project update for her memoir, No New York: Adventures in the Town of Empty. (via kickstarter)

Paul Higgins: I think that this is an interesting concept. My first reaction a(and therefore assumption) is that the solitary is important and that sharing and being social about it hurts the process (not referring to blogging, etc but the writing of books). I try to live by the rule “strong views, weakly held” (not always successfully).

Posted at 3:28pm and tagged with: publishing, crowdfunding,.

“
Writing is a solitary pursuit. Writers spend an indecent amount of time on their own, agonizing over the perfect word to turn a story while memoirists wrestle with not only words but the twists of memory; the good, the bad, and the lonely. I say this to tell you that you’ve not only given me money, you’ve given me company. You’ve elected me to be your personal storyteller of a time you are all intrigued by, a time you may very well have participated in. So you can bet I’m imagining you all here with me while I take this journey back to honor the place, and the time, in all it’s raging glory.

Solitude is overrated. Thank you. I’m honored.
”

May 26th 2012

14 notes |# Comments

Foreign E-Book Sales Increase 333% For U.S. Publishers in 2011

Sales of e-books by U.S. publishers to readers in other countries increased to $21.5 million in 2011 from $4.9 million in 2010, a 333% increase, according to a report released today from the Association of American Publishers. At the same time, print sales by U.S. publishers for foreign readers increased by 2.3% to $335.9 million. While growing significantly faster than print, e-book sales only accounted for 6% of overall sales.


Paul Higgins: I am surprised that is so low (given my purchases) - I wonder do they include Amazon US figures where those are sold to overseas or are they US sales?


Full Story: Digital Book World

Posted at 3:33pm and tagged with: USA, ebooks, publishing, trends, tech, technology,.

Foreign E-Book Sales Increase 333% For U.S. Publishers in 2011 Sales of e-books by U.S. publishers to readers in other countries increased to $21.5 million in 2011 from $4.9 million in 2010, a 333% increase, according to a report released today from the Association of American Publishers. At the same time, print sales by U.S. publishers for foreign readers increased by 2.3% to $335.9 million. While growing significantly faster than print, e-book sales only accounted for 6% of overall sales. Paul Higgins: I am surprised that is so low (given my purchases) - I wonder do they include Amazon US figures where those are sold to overseas or are they US sales? Full Story: Digital Book World

May 25th 2012

Readlists via Arc90 Lab

Reblogged from stoweboyd|7 notes |# Comments

stoweboyd:

Arc90 — the people behind Readability — have launched a new service called Readlists. Users can create a collation of links — of whatever sort — and bundle into an e-book that can be read on a Kindle, iPad, or iPhone.

I created one using the links I pulled together yesterday on Social Operating Systems, here. They are featuring a number on the www.readlists.com landing page, too.

This is what it looks like on my iPad in iBooks:

Note that it doesn’t seem to handle the ‘related posts’ javascript, so dynamic pages might be problematic, but still: very cool.

Posted at 3:41pm and tagged with: tech, technology, ebooks, publishing,.

May 14th 2012

11 notes |# Comments

Novelist Phyllis Campbell Illuminates the New World of E-Publishing for all Authors

Like many Smashwords authors, she has been publishing through traditional channels for many years.  

Unlike most writers, Phyllis has been blind since birth.  


Full Story: Smashwords

Posted at 10:10am and tagged with: publishing, ebooks, tech, technology, disruption, just because,.

Novelist Phyllis Campbell Illuminates the New World of E-Publishing for all Authors Like many Smashwords authors, she has been publishing through traditional channels for many years.  Unlike most writers, Phyllis has been blind since birth.   Full Story: Smashwords

May 14th 2012

In E-Reader Age of Writer’s Cramp, a Book a Year Is Slacking

Reblogged from infoneer-pulse|19 notes |# Comments

infoneer-pulse:

For years, it was a schedule as predictable as a calendar: novelists who specialized in mysteries, thrillers and romance would write one book a year, output that was considered not only sufficient, but productive.

But the e-book age has accelerated the metabolism of book publishing. Authors are now pulling the literary equivalent of a double shift, churning out short stories, novellas or even an extra full-length book each year.

They are trying to satisfy impatient readers who have become used to downloading any e-book they want at the touch of a button, and the publishers who are nudging them toward greater productivity in the belief that the more their authors’ names are out in public, the bigger stars they will become.

“It used to be that once a year was a big deal,” said Lisa Scottoline, a best-selling author of thrillers. “You could saturate the market. But today the culture is a great big hungry maw, and you have to feed it.”

» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)

Posted at 6:31am and tagged with: ebooks, tech, technology, disruption, publishing,.

April 29th 2012

5 notes |# Comments

Author Bill Dicksion On Telling True Stories of the West


Paul Higgins - Inspiring!!

“Bill Dicksion is 87-years-young, and the author of seven novels. He stands as an inspiration for anyone wanting to become an independent author. He’s been with Smashwords for almost two years, and his sales have been growing each quarter as readers discover his books (when we see strong organic growth like this, we know we’re looking at a future bestseller).  He and his wife, Millie, live in Hawaii, where he is hard at work on more books about the American West.”


Full Story: Smashwords

Posted at 12:00pm and tagged with: ebooks, demographics, technology, tech, publishing,.

Author Bill Dicksion On Telling True Stories of the West Paul Higgins - Inspiring!! “Bill Dicksion is 87-years-young, and the author of seven novels. He stands as an inspiration for anyone wanting to become an independent author. He’s been with Smashwords for almost two years, and his sales have been growing each quarter as readers discover his books (when we see strong organic growth like this, we know we’re looking at a future bestseller).  He and his wife, Millie, live in Hawaii, where he is hard at work on more books about the American West.” Full Story: Smashwords

April 25th 2012

22 notes |# Comments

Farewell, App Store? Netizine Turns Magazines Into Social Networks, Runs On HTML5

And what is Netizine offering? Only a fully functional, HTML5-based tablet application that turns digital magazines into social networks…networks that run outside the App Store, that is.


Full Story: TechCrunch

Posted at 12:01pm and tagged with: social media, attention, tech, technology, publishing,.

Farewell, App Store? Netizine Turns Magazines Into Social Networks, Runs On HTML5 And what is Netizine offering? Only a fully functional, HTML5-based tablet application that turns digital magazines into social networks…networks that run outside the App Store, that is. Full Story: TechCrunch

April 10th 2012

Shirky through Matthew Ingram: Publishing is no longer a job or an industry -- it's a button

Reblogged from futuramb|22 notes |# Comments

Paul Higgins : Absolutely. Where can value be added rather than value extracted

futuramb:

if traditional publishers — of all kinds, not just the book industry — want to maintain some of the value they have had in the past, they will have to stop thinking about controlling the process of distribution or the delivery platform, and think more about the services they can add for authors and readers.

This is really the only way to manage disruptive changes within a field or industry: 1) Assess the potential value you as a company can provide in the new situation 2) Identify those who are willing to pay for that value 3) Transform your company and business model to providing that value (1) to those identified in step (2)

Everything you do that will not fit in that new model is basically worthless and should be cut off as fast as possible.

Is that really so hard?

Posted at 8:31am and tagged with: tech, technology, disruption, publishing,.

March 20th 2012

4 notes |# Comments

Does The Australian’s Paywall Affect Link Sharing?

“The picture becomes even clearer when we focus only on retweets. More so than through original tweets linking to a given article, it is through retweets of those tweets that the article is circulated widely, and gains greater exposure and (potentially) impact – but if the link in the original tweet is paywalled, who (other than fellow paying subscribers to the Website) are likely to retweet it? Not many, as it turns out”


Paul Higgins: This certainly matches up with my experience of both tweeting out material from The Australian and re-tweeting those tweets that have content from The Australian. My broadcasting of material from this source has virtually gone to zero since they introduced the paywall


Full Story: MappingOnlinePublics

Posted at 8:20am and tagged with: paywall, publishing, technology, tech, social media,.

Does The Australian’s Paywall Affect Link Sharing? “The picture becomes even clearer when we focus only on retweets. More so than through original tweets linking to a given article, it is through retweets of those tweets that the article is circulated widely, and gains greater exposure and (potentially) impact – but if the link in the original tweet is paywalled, who (other than fellow paying subscribers to the Website) are likely to retweet it? Not many, as it turns out” Paul Higgins: This certainly matches up with my experience of both tweeting out material from The Australian and re-tweeting those tweets that have content from The Australian. My broadcasting of material from this source has virtually gone to zero since they introduced the paywall Full Story: MappingOnlinePublics