Writing about Reading: Oyster and Scribd

The Oyster Whoopie Pie Truck in NYC outside BookExpo

Because I spend a lot of time reading online publishing news, I kind of thought everyone's heard about Oyster and Scribd, the two main ebook subscription services.  I was recently reminded that most people don't have their head stuck in digital publishing news the way I do, so I thought I'd talk about them here.  I have a subscription to Oyster, so that's the main one I can talk about.  I've actually spoken with the founders of Scribd - a colleague of mine in our ebook project was on a panel with one of them, and they had questions about how librarians handle metadata.  But Oyster gave me free iced coffee and whoopie pies at BookExpo this year, so there my loyalties lie.

So both of these competing services are like Spotify for ebooks (leading me to wonder what the spotify of spotify is...man, that's deep....).  For $9.99 or $8.99/month for Oyster and Scribd respectively, you get access to a huge catalog of 500k or 400k books (again, respectively) that you can read.  You can read one a month, or 20 a month, or 100 a month.  Still the same price.

Oyster first launched last fall, and I used it when I was pumping in the middle of the night.  At the time they just had an iphone app, which I used on my ipad, which wasn't the greatest, but it was ok.  Now they have an ipad app, and they just launched on android and the kindle fire.

Neither one of them has the most current bestsellers from the big 5 publishers, though Oyster just announced a deal with Simon & Schuster (though it's for their backlist mostly, it appears).  The publishers are all wary that these kinds of services are going to cost them sales, so they're dipping their toes in.  That being said, they have great stuff from HarperCollins, Workman, Smashwords, and lots of others.  There's a lot of discoverability in these services with personalized recommendations, and the ability to share lists and the social aspect of reading and sharing  your reading with your friends (though you can opt to read in private mode if you're reading something smutty that you don't want people to know about!).

Oyster's reader is totally wonky, which I kind of hate, especially now because I'm used to it, and so I wind up trying to do the same actions when I'm reading on my kindle app, and it's all very confusing.  You scroll up, which is just weird.  Rather than across.  Like you're reading a scroll or something.  Maybe that was the plan.  Tie it all to medieval scrolls and Gutenberg or something.

There aren't a ton of variations to choose from in terms of font size, etc., though they did just add the option to have night mode with your favorite font.  In a previous version, night mode had its own font, which I didn't like.  Now I can keep my favorite font, and just switch it to night mode so the screen is dark.  You can download up to 10 titles at a time to read offline, which is good for when you're away from home and wifi, like on a long flight.  And there are all the normal highlight, notes, etc., buttons.

What I really love about these services is how I can read books I would never usually try otherwise because it doesn't cost anything more than the subscription fee.  It's much the same affect as being at the library.  The thing is, the ebook library services don't provide that same experience because the main vendors have a one-checkout-at-a-time model replicating the physical world (even our ebook platform does that; it's what the publishers want and understand, with the exception of Workman who are interested in trying unlimited simultaneous use models, and are doing so in North Carolina on a platform there, but that's a different story), so there are waiting lists for most titles.  With Oyster, I see something I like and I can start reading it without putting it on hold.  It provides instant gratification.

I'm definitely getting my money's worth from Oyster, and I've discovered several new authors that I wouldn't have tried otherwise.  If you're a bookworm, these kinds of services are worth a try.  I can't speak to Scribd as much, but I'm sure they offer the same features (if not more - they've actually been around longer, but only just launched their consumer service).  Sure, they don't have the big bestsellers right now, but they have great stuff (I've had the experience several times of buying a book - like Bernard Cornwell - from Amazon, only to see it show up on Oyster - new note to self...always check Amazon wishlist against Oyster first!).

And while you don't own the books, you don't "own" any ebooks, unless you break the DRM, which is illegal.  Amazon can your ebooks back at any time if they find you violated the terms of service or something.  It's a philosophical sort of question, but I'm much more getting into having access to something, even if it means paying each month for that access, than having ownership of it.  $9.99/month for access to millions of songs or 500k books doesn't seem that bad a deal.  Sure, it's often free at the library (and I'm biased and need to put that in there) but again...instant gratification.

So I'm an Oyster fan.  Sometime I'm going to have to try Scribd, just so I can compare easily.  Until then, if you ever want an Oyster invite, get one from me so I get a free month!  Shameless plug, but there you go.

The Week in Books

I try to switch up my reading to keep things fresh, and have recently started having multiple books going at once (something I never did before, but I also haven't read this much with such regularity before - a side effect of the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendations on Screen Time).  So at any given time I am reading:
- something scholarly and intelligent, which I can use to make myself sound smarter than I really am.
- something fun and kind of guilty - the equivalent to a sitcom.  I can read it before bed when I'm ready to pass out, and it doesn't really matter if I don't digest it all at once.
- some kind of self-improvement book - right now it's How to Be A Productivity Ninja.  I can read these in quick breaks when I get 10 minutes, or in little bites at lunch.
- an audiobook for the car and my baby-free walks.  I used to be pretty good at keeping up with the news via NPR in the car, but I've pretty much stopped caring.  I turned on Weekend Edition during our Saturday Morning Faff Around The Kitchen Time, and in the first five minutes I heard about Russia invading the Ukraine, and a former Olympian's murder trial starting.  Same shit, different day.  I went back to my audiobook.

So my guilty pleasure/sitcom book last week was Hollywood Forever by Christopher Herz.  It's a novel about an out of work actor who flips out at a DMV, which sets in motion a whole bunch of dystopian stuff, ending in him starring in a reality tv show that actually does turn into reality.  It reminded me a lot of Arthur Neresian, whom I loved about 10 years ago.  Where Neresian captures the angst of NYC so perfectly, Herz gets all the fake-Hollywood-obsessed-with-image-and-twitter-followers stuff.

There were also two pretty steamy sex scenes, which, despite the fact that they were written by a man, were still pretty good and better than anything in 50 Shades.  But we all know how I feel about that, and I won't go down that road again.

Happy New Year's!

Well, I guess you all thought I disappeared off the face of the earth there for a while, huh?  Nope, I'm still here. And, in Reproductive News, I'm still not pregnant.

But on to other topics.

First, November was NaNoWriMo, which necessitated me spending all my writing time on my novel, which, incidentally, I really love.  I've taken a month away from it now, but I'm going to go back to it with a fresh view this month to start the editing process.  This is the fourth year I've done NaNoWriMo, and this is the first time I have really loved my book.

Then came Thanksgiving, with maternal visits, and lots of turkey.  Same thing you did, probably.

THEN I was up in San Francisco for a week.

And FINALLY the good stuff:  we've been in London since mid December.  Back in September my boss agreed to let me try out working here during a slow time of year, so that I could potentially spend a lot more time here, in the land that tickles my soul.  I work California hours, I transferred my phones over, and thanks to Skype, I see my boss more often now than I do when I'm at home.

With my work schedule I start work at about 4pm, which gives me my days to go exploring, wander on the Hampstead Heath, etc.  I had Christmas here, which was brilliant, and of course, New Year's.  The last time I celebrated Christmas in the UK was ten years ago.  It feels lovely to be back, with mince pies, and a full celebration of the 12 Days of Christmas (attention Target: if you're going to put up Christmas decorations on November 1, at least have the decency to leave them up the full Twelve Days of Christmas!  Oh, that's right, that interferes with your desire to start selling Valentine's.  Grrrr.).

I've been so busy living this amazing life, I haven't had much time to think about it, journal, blog, etc.  But I will try to do better, if for no other reason than to document the awesomeness that is my life right now.  I don't have a baby, but I do have England, so, you know, small victories.

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions?

I'm still working on mine, but they include:

1) Continuing to lose weight and get healthier.

2) Switch to mostly vegetarian foods.  Mostly because the cruelty to animals in the dairy industry, especially, simply horrifies me.  I feel like a hypocrite, saying I care about animals, and then supporting industries that force female cows to keep having calves so they continue to lactate, and then "dispose" of those calves. It makes me feel dirty when I think about it, and when I do eat dairy, I'm going to research it to make sure it's from a cruelty-free farm.

3) Practice transcendental meditation, which I was taught last week, at least once a day, regularly.

4) Read the entire King James Bible.  I missed doing it on the 400th anniversary year, but anyone who says they care about literature NEEDS to read the King James Bible, if only for the literary influences.  Even Christopher Hitchens (rest in peace) adored the King James Bible.  I'm ashamed that I've not read it completely.

5) Edit and self-publish my book.

Which leaves very little time for Skyrim, but I'm going to try to squeeze that in there, as I can...

And, the usual, complete the Damn Artists Way.

Seriously, I need to do it.  I'm driving myself crazy with my lame excuses for not.  Which leads me to my final one:

Give Up Being Lame.

Happy 2012...

PotterGeek

Happy Harry Potter Day everyone!  

Last night saw me chugging coffee at 11pm, and only half-wondering whether the nearly-full moon was significant for Harry and his search for Horcruxes.  

We joined the throngs of Gryffindor geeks at the Edwards Cinema at the Ontario Mills mall, arriving in what we assumed would be more than enough time (11:30 for a 12:10 show).  Man, did we underestimate the dedication and punctuality of Harry Potter fans.  Clearly a bit of Hermione had rubbed off on them.  The place was packed, and we had to park miles away (well, not really, but it seemed like it).  When we proudly presented our ticket to the ticket-taker, he told us that our auditorium had already been seated.  So it was the front row for us.  But that was ok, because we didn't have to hear many people talking, and it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

My favorite part of the night was seeing how excited everyone was.  At 12:05, the chanting started.  "haRRY.  haRRY."  When the movie started, the auditorium erupted in cheers.  And given that this was Part 2, and the action started nearly right away, the cheering only continued.  Harry gets the next Horcrux:  Massive Cheers.  Harry goes to Hogwarts: Massive Cheers.  The loudest cheering of the night, though, was reserved for the unlikely hero, Neville Longbottom.  Honestly, it was almost as if the audience didn't know exactly what was going to happen at every moment, and was actually caught off guard a time or two.  One movie-addition was the Hermione/Ron kiss in the Chamber of Secrets where they've gone off to retrieve a basilisk fang.  The screenwriter did well to add that.  

The battle scenes were epic.  When the professors all went outside to start putting up protective enchantments around the school, I got goosebumps.  When Voldemort's first attacks were repelled by the spells, we all forgot the story for a moment, and hoped against hope that the enchantments would hold him back, and somehow the school would remain unscathed.  And Alan Rickman's Severus Snape was amazing.  The whole thing was a feast for the senses, and I left supremely satisfied, which was a change after Part 1, which was just a disappointment.  I'm so glad to see the series go out on a high note.

It does make me sad that I won't ever go to a midnight Harry Potter opening again.  No more rushing home from the bookstore at 2am with my new copy in hand, ready to stay up all night reading.  No more waiting to see how the movie will translate the story.  

For now, though, I'm looking forward to Pottermore, JK Rowling's new site, launching this fall, which supposedly will include new Harry Potter fiction.  I remain hopeful that there are still some stories at Hogwarts still waiting to be told, and there might still be some 3am reading sessions yet to come.

Ode to Brand Loyalty to Borders

I'm a little bummed today because Borders filed for bankruptcy.  I am a creature of habit, and mostly I have brand loyalty, not out of an emotional connection to the brand itself, but simply because I'm lazy. With Borders, though, it's different.  I'm attached to the brand.  I have a history with Borders.  And I'm sad that the internet is wrecking it for them, even though I'm partly to blame for that, seeing as how I haven't gone into a Borders since September.

In the fall of 1993, the strip mall across the street from the big Park City Mall was rumored to be getting a Borders Book Store.  My mom had a friend in Delaware, who knew of a Borders in Newcastle, and she said they were awesome.  They had big comfy chairs, and you could read books without anyone yelling at you.  There would be lots of magazines, and even a coffee shop!  How freaking cool would that be!  I knew immediately that I needed to be a part of this entity.

I'd be like Becca, on Life Goes On, in the episodes where she worked at a used bookstore, wearing her super-cool little pixie booties and climbed up ladders to retrieve rare books while listening to jazz and drinking espresso.  I didn't even know what espresso was, but I knew I wanted some.

So for the next couple of months I watched and watched.  Every time I went to the mall, I would drive past the place where Borders was supposed to go.  I watched them put up the sign.  At that time it read simply, "Borders Book Shop."   There was none of this "Books and Music" stuff.  Just books.  Nothing fancy.

Eventually, Borders opened.

I went in, and was immediately overwhelmed.  There were so many books.  So many sections.  So many aisles.  So many chairs!  How to navigate a place like this?  And the coffee bar!  I didn't know how to order coffee, but man, was it trendy.  There were multiple roasts, and it was super-expensive, so I knew it had to be cool.  I grabbed a couple of magazines, and drank my first cup of French Vanilla, and was awake until 3am.

I asked at the customer service desk whether they were hiring.  I wanted to live in this magical place of books that smelled like hazelnut, that was for sure.  The woman told me they weren't, but I should ask at the cafe, because maybe they were there.  So I walked back over and asked Michelle if I could work there, and she let me fill out an application.  They weren't right then, but when the holidays came, they might be.

Two weeks later, Michelle calls me.  They're hiring for the holidays, and would I like to come in for an interview?  You bet your almond biscotti I would!

And thus began my almost-career as a foam-sculptor, and my love affair with vanilla lattes.  Coffee shops were still brand new then, so I would sometimes feel embarrassed charging my fellow country-bumpkins $4 for coffee and a muffin, but we were all so taken with our trendiness that mostly people didn't mind paying.  I got a 30% discount on books, and was able to borrow any book as long as I returned it in sale-able shape (which meant usually hardbacks).  I got free brewed coffee and soda, and a 50% discount on food and espresso drinks.

When I lived in England, I used to go to Borders all the time.  By this point they had music - those little listening booths where you could listen to CD's.  I was broke, but every few days I would pop into the Borders on Charing Cross Road and listen to CD's for a couple of hours after work.  The last time I was in the UK, all the Borders stores there were closed already, including the massive one in Cambridge, where I bought an Enigma CD a week before I moved back home, and listened to on repeat for a good six months.

Later, living in the US again, I would go to Borders to buy foreign papers like the Guardian, which would arrive a week late, but was still fun to look at, if only for the ads.

Other Notable Borders Moments:

- in 1996 I drove across the country on an ill-advised trip to chase an inappropriate guy I'd met on the internet.  I found myself in San Francisco with hardly any money, with no friends, and realized how stupid the whole guy-chasing scene was.  I spent most of the trip hanging out in the Borders in Pleasanton, where I displayed my pay stub and got free drinks and food.

- in 1998 I met Enya at the Borders on 57th street in NYC.

- in 1999 I had broken up with my boyfriend and was living alone in LA for the first time, totally broke.  But the bus would take me right to the Borders on Third Street across from the Beverly Center where I would listen to CDs and daydream about another inappropriate Englishman with whom I was infatuated and was getting to know on AOL Chat (damn internet).

- I spent most of 2000-2002 in the Borders on Charing Cross Road, brainstorming with my friend Stacey, in between naps, how we could start a holding company to take over the world.

- In 2002 I met Paulo Coehlo at the Borders on Oxford Street and he told me I should be a Warrior of Light with him.

- In 2003 I was getting ready to leave NYC for Nashville, and was going to have my own place for the first time in years.  I was stoked to nest.  That fall I was at the California Library Association conference in Ontario, CA.  I rented a car and drove to LA to see friends after the exhibits closed each night.  On the way back to the hotel one night, I stopped at the Borders in Claremont, along the 10, and bought a bunch of Olivia magnets for the refrigerator I would have in a month or so.

- Two years later, I bought my now-hubby a Sudoku book at that very same Borders.  By this time I was living in LA again, and we had just started dating.  He was in class in Pomona, and I was hanging out at Borders waiting for him to get done so we could grab dinner and make out.  I thought I'd be romantic and get him a math puzzle book.

- In 2007 I bought the final Harry Potter book at the midnight party in the Glendale Borders.  I went in the morning and stood in line to get my number, so I was something like number 115 (I still have the bracelet in the book) and was able to get out of there and get home to start reading by about 2am.

- On September 24 2010, the week before I got sick, and 2 weeks before I lost Baby T, we had a mother/son night out (I was 19 weeks pregnant, and feeling good for the first time in a long time).  We went to the Borders in Rancho Cucamonga and I drank hot chocolate, and looked at children's books, and even read a few of them out loud to my tummy, which was beginning to pop.  This evening was one of my favorite times in my pregnancy, and I will always remember it.  

Borders, I hope you can pull your stuff together.  I promise to visit you more, and not use the internet for everything.  When you send me good coupons, I will use them, even if it's only to buy blank Paperchase notebooks and pens.   Because I don't like the idea of life without you, and if that means that I have to spend some money buying junk I don't really need, so be it.  I buy other junk I don't need that doesn't mean nearly as much to me as you do.

Out of Hibernation

So I've been blogging almost exclusively about my miscarriage for almost 7 weeks, and I'm getting tired of it.  I'm getting tired of being consumed by my miscarriage.  It's bad enough that I'm going to have to live with this hole in my heart for the rest of my life.  I don't need to blog about it exclusively forever as well.  I'm not, believe it or not, Miscarriage Girl.  Oh, I'm sure it will come up from time to time - there's no way it can't, and I'm not going to hide it.  I'm going to continue to talk about it and share with others who are going through it because the alternative is to keep it all hush-hush, which I hate, but I'm not going to start off every blog entry with something about my miscarriage.  It just doesn't work like that.

I've been hibernating, but I'm starting to come out of the cave.  I'm a different person now, that's for sure.  There's more grit, less giddy trusting in life, and I'm pretty much not hip with putting up with anything anymore.  I have less patience for some things that have always bothered me, but I've always stayed quiet about because I'm a Nice Girl.  But in other ways I'm more understanding, and in awe of the human spirit because people go through so much, and they are so resilient, and I'm amazed at that.  

In celebration of my shedding of the hibernatory cave, and entering the springtime (albeit in December), I'm making some early resolutions.  I will spend time doing the things I like to do, and not doing the things I think I ought to be doing because it will make somebody else happy (and my job does count as something that makes me happy, so that can stay).

1.  I will do a Renaissance English History podcast at least once every 6 weeks, starting this weekend.  Like, no kidding.  It's on my calendar.  I'm getting back on that train.

2.  I will figure out how to work my new d60 camera which I've had for nearly 6 months.

3.  I will also figure out how to photoshop my photos to make them look even more awesome.

4.  I will not be ashamed of the amount of Peter Cetera I listen to.

5.  I will really (and I mean really) read all the classics I've never read but always meant to.  At least one a month. 

6.  I will do NaNoWriMo in December.  It won't be the same as doing it in November, but I'm not going to wait until next November to write my book.

7.  I will not feel guilty because I don't send out Christmas cards.  Seriously, Christmas cards were only invented to get people to use the new Penny Post in Victorian England, so it's a bit of consumerism that I don't need to feel guilty for not being part of.  

8.  I will also not feel guilty about the fact that I listen to Christmas music all year long.  And I don't just mean classical Christmas music like the Messiah, but rather, I listen to schmaltzy stuff all year long.  And I don't care.  

9.  I will unsubscribe to my RSS feed of the New Yorker because I never read it, and it just makes me feel guilty for all of the intelligent conversation I'm missing out on.  Vanity Fair can stay, though.  It doesn't make me feel as guilty.

10.  I will listen to the Harmonia Early Music Podcast every week because it is awesome.

11.  I will drink more water and less soda.

And finally, I will figure out a way to do something with my grief that is productive.  Whether it's my camp/retreat idea, or something else, Baby Teysko will be honored, and his little life will have more meaning than he could ever imagine.   

So that's what you can count on me for ongoingly.  I might break down and lose it from time to time - that's to be expected - but I'm coming back into the world.  

It's the Internet's Fault

I know there's such a thing as pregnancy brain, but I think this is something different.  I have been reading (actually, listening to - I love me my audible subscription) The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.  I'm not all the way through with it yet, but frankly, what I've listened to so far is frightening enough.  Now I'm  not a luddite.  I embrace the internet more than your average person.  Heck, I had my first internet relationship in 1994 (he would send me .gif's of roses, which took three hours to download).  I met my husband on Craigslist (yep, seriously).  I learned html in 1998 and started a website which was the number one result on Yahoo for several years (at least, when you searched for Colonial America, that is).  I started blogging in 2002.  I'm not afraid of the internet.  Let me make that abundantly clear.  I'm not afraid of the internet.

Here's what I am afraid of.  I'm afraid of ADD.  I'm afraid that nobody's concentrating on anything anymore.  I'm afraid of this because I share a freeway with these people. 

For example, in The Shallows Carr gives evidence of university students at major Ivy League colleges not having to read entire books any longer.  What's worse is that they're English majors!  Apparently nobody under 25 is reading books any longer.  People are skimming, living life around the edges, never wading in beyond their knees.  Going in, googling, glancing at results, grabbing quotes, and leaving; moving on to the next assignment. 

To me, this means something more than just the idea that there are worlds of literary characters that these kids will never become friends with (Anne of Green Gables was my best friend throughout junior high).  It means that we're losing the ability to think deeply, to get our brains into that place of deep thought and concentration and creativity, being able to examine problems and issues from all angles and really dig into something deep.  This is rewarding on its own because you have a clearer picture of the issue, but it's also necessary for optimal physical health.  Look at all the people doing yoga and meditation.  Deep thought stimulates your brain in ways that floating around on the surface doesn't.

So now there's a movement called Slow Reading (this article from the Guardian introduces it).  Like the slow food movement before us (pretty self-explanatory - you need to take the time to really enjoy and digest what you're eating, as opposed to chowing down in your car while sitting on the freeway), the Slow Readers want us to connect to the words again, to really drink things in, to take the time to fully understand the message of the author, our interpretation of it, and any opinions about it that we might have.

Tracy Seeley, a slow-reading blogger, is quoted in the Guardian article, saying that slow reading should not, "just be the province of the intellectuals. Careful and slow reading, and deep attention, is a challenge for all of us." 

There are so many pulls for our attention at any given moment.  I find it ironic that things like yoga and meditation and chanting, etc., are all becoming so popular - like the Eat Pray Love phenomenon - we're all desperate to figure out a way to take time out and slow down, and yet we keep clicking, keep twittering, keep 4squaring, keep doing every new thing that comes around.  Me, I'm not into the 4square thing (I was, and then I got pranked at 7-11, so now I'm over it).  I rarely tweet.  In fact, I'm going to sit at my meditation altar in a second, and have 10 minutes of silence.

But maybe I should read this Wired article first - The Web is Dead.  Long live the Internet.  Perhaps the pendulum is moving back to the middle?