Opinionated Sheep?

The publishing industry: it’s a changing sphere at present, and one in which everyone seems to be strongly opinionated. Yesterday I even had a tyre manufacturer tell me what was happening to publishing. Interesting. Although he seemed to become sidetracked when I mentioned piracy and went on a tangent about pirates (the type with eye patches and peg legs)

Myself, I am finding it hard to hold a fixated opinion on what is happening in this fast-changing industry, because just as quickly as I feel up to date and informed, something else occurs.  iPad, Kindle, Amazon, ibooks… while we slumber in New Zealand and the rest of the world is at work, a lot goes on. I wake to newsfeeds, tweets and opinionated peers relaying publishing extravaganzas.

Big ups must go to us New Zealanders though – for we are actually far from slumbering. Copyright Licensing Limited, Digital Publishing New Zealand and the Publishers Association of New Zealand have some awesome initiatives to ensure New Zealand isn’t left behind. We may be a country dominated by white woolly mammals, but sheep we are not.

All this industry activity hasn’t left me with much time for reading however. In fact, I fear I may about to be evicted from book club. And I am financially propping up my local library with the amount of fines my unread books are incurring (wonder if my accountant will let me write this off as a donation?) They may have brought in user-pays at Tauranga Library, but all you Aucklanders can rest assured my fines are averting us from this course. Just doing my bit for the society of book-lovers.

Also jutting into my reading time are my valiant attempts to learn Arabic. I practiced some out on my Egyptian friend last week. I attempted “May I see the wine list please?” which apparently, and to his hilarity, came across as “I am a carnivore and need to eat!!”

New Zealand may be a great place for publishing innovation and libraries, even interesting tyre manufacturers -but perhaps not so much for learning another language.

festivity approaches

I know everyone’s saying it, but I want to say it with conviction: I can’t believe it is one month until Christmas. And it was a whole month ago that I was holidaying in Prague. (Cue forlorn and nostalgic sighs).
My Mum told me that once you’re past 21 the years go by faster. I haven’t told her, but for the last eight years I have been realising she’s quite right. There should be a book titled something like that “Things your parents were right about”. Or more correctly “Things your parents told you as a teenager that you thought would never happen and you should never admit that they did”. As well as years going by faster, they’d be other lines such as “one day you will listen to opera music”, “nose piercing really doesn’t suit you”, “you’ll look back and know we were right” and “one day you’ll care about your car being tidy”.
(Admittedly that last one is still a tad far off for me).
Speaking of things changing over time, I’ve just been reading up on Barnes & Noble new release the Nook. Apart from its cute name, it has some novel features such as being able to sample books and lend them out. Like a library between friends. More cuteness.
Am I warming to e-books? I seem to being dazzled by their glossy functions and promise of portability and eco-saving powers. Along with words link “E-Ink”. Yes, the incongruity of glossy consumerism and environmentalism seems to have me in a trance. Plus I like the idea of being at the forefront of a revolution in a (sometimes) stagnant industry. But I vow, (with more fervour than I vowed to my parents that I would never listen to opera music or take out my nose piercing at age 16) that I’ll be an infinite campaigner of the traditional book.
And with that promise, here’s the Media 7 coverage of our last book launch. Big thanks to Simon Pound for this.