Entries Tagged 'Books and eBooks' ↓

Wow, apparently half the bestselling works of fiction in Japan were written on mobile phones! It’s all about the "keitai shousetsu" apparently - those guys must be quicker at texting than me. They must also have seriously sore thumbs.

I think there’s something interesting in this. For me, books (and maybe newspapers) were going to be two of the last formats to go digital, mainly because accessing the digital version is so different from accessing the traditional one (unlike music where listening to an Ipod is not really any different from listening to a portable CD player).

Every time I mention ebooks I always get the same response. "But I like reading books - I hate reading screens". I don’t disagree of course, but I think that this area is going to take a huge step forward with items like Amazon’s Kindle, coming to the UK next year. It’s a portable reading device - I haven’t seen one yet but I understand that the screen is designed to mimic ink on paper and is very easy on the eye.

I can see myself using something like this. Not necessarily for novels, but the idea of having all my RSS feeds updated on it for me to read on the bus / tube / in bed is very cool.

I love books, and think I’ll always buy novels in the traditional format. But I like feeds too, and the idea of putting these together is going to be killer.

After posting about the Personal MBA last February, we started up a Birmingham group in March and have spent 2007 reading some great (and some not so great) books about business in all its forms. We’ve just had a summer break and will be re-starting in October.

Two highlights for me have been:

• The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun. A really great guide to management and leadership; well worth it as a complement to highly structured methodologies such as Prince.
• Getting Things Done by David Allen. If you’ve seen me in person at any point in 2007 I’ve proabably chewed your ear off about this one. It has genuinely transformed my working life.

I recommend giving the Personal MBA a go if you want to learn more about business but don’t have the time or the money to pay for a real MBA course (or if like me you think they’re over-rated and expensive).

Our group is pretty varied: we have amongst us an assistant head-teacher; three people involved in entrepreneurship education; an IT business owner; two digital consultants and a photographer.

The debates following each book’s discussion have been most interesting for me. It’s fascinating how people from such different disciplines can talk about a single subject from different, but empathetic and complementary perspectives. There’s a big gap between photography and IT but it works really well.

People are coming and going all the time so if you’re interested in getting involved let me know.

I’ve recently been reading the book Clear Blogging by Bob Walsh and must say it’s the first all round introduction to blogging (both personal and business) that I’ve come across so far.

It’s pretty comprehensive, covering both the whys and the hows. Clearly written, easy to implement into your daily life - exactly the kind of book I like. If you’re blogging, I recommend getting a copy.

technorati tags:Books, Blogging, ClearBlogging

Here’s an interesting one; Mills and Boon (obviously a favourite imprint of mine) are launching a series of books for your mobile. I don’t ever think the book will die but I do think E-books will be big news over the next few years. (Courtesy of Katie Ledger)

Also there was a great article by Nick Cohen in the Observer on Sunday about Blooks (a merger of "blog" and "book". He’s a judge on the 2007 Lulu Blooker awards and gives a pretty good run down as to where things are.

Lulu’s worth checking out if you’re into writing. It allows anyone to upload a book - if someone buys it they’ll print it out, send it and pass on a percentage of the profit to the writer.