Influx

Author Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections, Freedom) does not appear to have many positive things to say about technology, in fact, he’s something of a Luddite. In a recent talk given at the Hay Festival in Columbia, Franzen argues that e-books are bad for both the reader and the writer,...

Nick Carr has a great response to the buzz and attention surrounding Amazon’s new e-reader launches and points out a fact about the changed reading experience they want to bring about. “The video is something of a Rorschach test. A person of the web may see X-Ray as a glorious advance....

James Warner has written a great piece in McSweeney's on the Future of the Book. Loaded with a special flavor of cynicism, Warner examines what the book world will evolve from 2020 to 2080.Here's one of my favorite passages.2040: Authors Will Become Like Tamagotchi. "Having determined that what...

The NYT recently published an article on how independent bookstores, that now account for 10% of book sales, are coping with the changing and challenging environment. Most of the sellers interviewed talked about embracing online with more seriousness, getting into social media and finding...

Most of the time creative competitions follow the typical blue sky approach to issuing a challenge; they don't tend to define parameters or any kind of real brief. Creatives then have the huge task of narrowing their thinking down to something meaningful and strategic. You see this a lot with...

Brands can play the category game and do a reasonable job or they can go above and beyond the limits of the category and become thought leaders. Powells, a bookstore in Portland, has an ounce of the financial muscle of Borders, Amazon or Barnes and Noble, but ten times the creative firepower. The...

A few months back, I found myself included on an author list for the Age of Conversation. It's a brilliant concept hatched by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLelllan; 100 blogger authors each writing a chapter about conversation. At the time,  I wasn't sure what to think and what would become of it....

AAN is on a fast track to break out of the web and into mainstream stardom, the guys have just signed a six-figure book deal with Random House and there are rumors of a TV deal just around the corner.Kent Nichols of AAN will be a speaker at the Influx Ideas 07 conference in October.

Miranda July is true renaissance women; an actress, musician filmmaker, artist and storyteller. Miranda is best known for an independent film she wrote and directed, released in 2005, called “Me and You and Everyone I Know.” She has now written a book of stories and is promoting it on...

Yesterday, Gizmodo broke the news of a fireplace manufacturer installing iPod functionality into their latest line of luxury of fireplaces and at the same time, Harry Potter’s publishing house, Bloomsbury, announced that it would be looking to make acquisitions following a 74% drop in pre-tax...