Attack of the killer eBooks - part 2

Back in 2010 I posted on this blog that I didn't think that eBooks would take over the market. Well, I still believe that but I have to admit that my attitude towards eBooks have changed since I bought a Kindle.

The Kindle is easy to carry and because it stores so many books I don't have to lug a whole box of books around. This is especially important because I plan to go overseas later this year. I haven't yet used some of the more advanced features such as the news download or the annotation options, but it's so much easier to search for what you want and the page-turn speed is remarkable. Of course there are disadvantages. I can't read in the bath and if something goes wrong while I'm on holiday (my Kobo died while I was in South Africa – luckily I had brought over some real books too) I'm left without anything to read.

'How could you betray us?' I hear the bookshops screaming, but in truth I haven't. I still love my printed books and will head over to any library booksale in a flash. I often do the rounds of my local second-hand bookstores and I know that you definitely can't get an author to sign a book on your Kindle (even if you could it'd be rather impersonal.) I guess that my attitude has changed so that I now realise that sometimes you have to choose the tool that fits the situation you're in.

Image source: Hand with knife

Erasing David

I don't generally listen to newsradio except when I want to catch up on the headlines, but my radio happened to be tuned to BBC World Service on Saturday and I'm glad that it was because I stumbled across a very interesting program. It's called "Click" and it's about global technology, social media and the internet.

The topic for this week was digital privacy and online anonymity. The host Gareth Mitchell was talking to a man called David Bond who has created a documentary about how the difficulties of remaining anonymous thanks to all of the technology that can be used to track you. He did his best to erase all traces of himself from online media such as facebook, ebay, online phonebooks and even called the airlines to get them to remove him from their flight databases. Then he asked people from the top private investigator firm Cerberus to track him down and catch him within 30 days, using only his name.

Apart from making me want to really watch the documentary, listening to the program got me thinking about privacy and anonymity which are a really big deal in the world today. David was trying for anonymity which I don't think he would be able to achieve (and from what I saw of the online trailer, he ended up getting rather paranoid), but privacy is certainly something that we put our trust in when information about us is entered into any technological device.

How many of you read the terms and conditions when signing up to a website, a service or buying a computer program? How about when you buy an airline ticket or use your credit card? I know that I used to just skim through them, but if you think about it, terms and conditions are long enough for their developers to hide anything in them. Just imagine if, after installing your latest word processing program someone turned up at your door demanding your firstborn child because you agreed to it in the T&C? Not only that, some companies will turn your information over to others for "marketing" purposes and you can't sign up to them without having that happen.

For me, the problem isn't that this is happening (because it's unavoidable) but rather my own attitude towards it. Not that I've done anything to have private investigators tracking my down, but that I'm willing to blithely give away that information to get services. I used to joke that when I signed up to Amazon they could hunt me down and force me to sell my soul, but I'm not sure if that's too far from the truth nowadays.

Video source: Erasing David trailer

Print vs online

This being a course about issues in publication and design, it's inevitable that I'd be posting on here about the differences between online and print publishing—especially since a lot of print publications are making the move to the internet, phones and tablet devices. Sometimes people will want to read what you've written in hard-copy rather than online (or both). Because this is such a big subject, I'm not going to write an entire blog post on it- I'll just be looking at the issues of eye fatigue and partial page view.

1. Eye fatigue.

This is one of the major problems that I have when sitting at a computer for an extended period of time. If I want to read a story, article or document online that's more than a few pages long I get tired eyes and a headache. That's because when we look at a computer screen (or one on a mobile phone,  iPod or other tablet type) it projects light directly into our eyes—no wonder they get tired and sore! In contrast, when you're looking at a piece of paper you only get reflected light so your eyes don't get as tired. In fact, that's why I like reading eBooks on my Kindle instead of on the computer or an iPad.
Something else to keep in mind is that a computer screen refreshes itself really quickly (just like a TV), so your eyes are constantly having to adjust. I didn't notice this until I saw some computer screens in the background of the Channel 10 news. It seems as though TV cameras pick up on this flickering, so have a look and see the next time they show a computer on TV.

So, if you're writing for print you can afford to put long blocks of text on a page (although using white space and design is essential to stop the reader from getting bored and wandering off). However if you're putting text online, make sure to break it up with pictures and white space.

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2. Partial page view

Depending on what your screen size and resolution is, you may not be able to read this sentence without scrolling down the page. This is another problem with putting things online. When you have a piece of paper you generally skim-read from the top-left to bottom right with your eyes picking up anything interesting on the way (unless you are from somewhere where reading is done from right to left). You can also see how big the page is and get an idea of how much text there is for you to look at.

Unfortunately this doesn't work when you transfer written information to an online format. A printed page will most likely have a vertical page layout whilst a computer screen has a horizontal one. This means that if you don't put the most important information at the top of your screen, readers aren't going to be able to easily find it. That's why it's a good idea to use a table of contents or menu if you're going to put a lot of text on one screen, or use internal links (like I'm doing in this post). It is of course better make lots of smaller pages and then use the menu/sitemap to link to them. Oh, and finally, don't think that reducing font sizes will help. Making your fonts smaller will make it harder for readers, and some of them will have default font settings for their web browser which will confuse your website!

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If you want to look at more problems and get tips on how to fix them, have a look at Looking Good In Print. This book will help you to make sure your readers have the best reading experience no matter which publishing format they choose.

Image source: Computer eye
Image source: Book and computer
Source: Parker, Roger C 2003, Looking Good In Print, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale Arizona

Blogging and quality control

Blogs, what would we do without them? Well we probably wouldn't be splashing our thoughts and personal lives over the internet as much (although Facebook and Twitter will also do that), but we also would have to search a lot less for good quality reading. Now I'm not saying that all blogs are bad (in fact, if you've continued to read my blog then I'm very grateful), but they have allowed anyone to publish themselves online, no matter how well they can or can't write. This has a major impact when you look at the quality of what we are reading online. 

 

Because I want to work in the editing and publishing industry it makes me very annoyed when I see books being published that really should have been through quality control first [1]. So when it comes to finding something good to read online I can get very frustrated when trawling through a lot of the rubbish out there. I was speaking to a journalist friend today who also gets upset about people publishing on blogs because they think that their writing is the best thing since sliced bread. She also feels that job opportunities are dwindling because blogs are taking over.

Of course there is a positive side to the prolificity of blogs, because somewhere, buried in the piles of slush are blogs that are worth reading. A friend of a friend wanted to write for a fashion magazine but couldn't get a job, so she decided to write a blog instead. She now collaborates with photographers from all over the world and her blog reads like a professional magazine. Quality blogs help you to get your name out into the big wide world so that, if employers like what they see, you can be headhunted.

I guess it all depends on whether or not you care to spend the time rooting through the garbage to find the gems inside.

[1] For example Eragon by Christopher Paolin was written when the author was sixteen - and it really shows. In fact, the only reason that it was published was because his parents decided to self-publish the book for him.

Image source: Quality control rejected

Blog blog blogging along

Blogs started out as places for people to post their thoughts on life, the universe and everything. They still do so, but I'm pretty sure that facebook has done it's best to shove the minutia of everyone's life in our face. So what are blogs used for these days? I use mine as a host for my book reviews, and I know that the site for the Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association is constructed in Wordpress, but what else is out there?

Well there are lots of blogging communities. They range from BlogHer (a women-only community) to MMO Social Network (where people share tips about making money). But according to Ink Rebels there are five types of blog:

1. Collaboration blogs: As the title suggests, this is one blog with a lot of authors. From what I can tell it's basically the same as a community blog.

2. How-to/tutorial blogs: I found these very useful because you can look at the comments to see if the tutorial is correct or worthwhile.

3. Travel/cultural blogs: These are full of people writing about their travel experiences. Because you can include pictures and videos from holidays, they're a lot more flexible than post cards. Plus other people can comment on their experiences of the same place and recommend it (or warn about it) to others.

4. Fashion/lifestyle blogs: Pretty much what the title says.

5. Personal blogs, which I've already talked about.

I already write for the collaborative blog A Writer Goes On A Journey, so I think that if I was forced at gunpoint to choose another blog to write I'd pick the community one because it feels like it would have more of a the direct connection with people than the other blog types do.

Image source: Blogging cloud

To GPS or not to GPS, that is the question!

To GPS or not to GPS – that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the myriad folds and tiny text of the printed map, or to take arms and listen to the directions of a disembodied voice.

I have been trying to decide whether or not to get myself a GPS. I’m not that great with maps because I tend to forget the directions and constantly have to pull over to remind myself of where I’m supposed to be going. I also have a lot of trouble reading maps when I’m a passenger because doing it while the car is moving makes me feel nauseous. These seem like perfect reasons to get a GPS but I’m a bit wary because of a rather bad experience that could have been avoided if I’d been using a road map.

Constitution Hill is located in Johannesburg, South Africa and is (as you can probably tell from the name) the seat of the Constitutional Court of the country. It’s an interesting place to visit because it used to be a prison during the years of the apartheid government. It has now been turned into a tourist attraction where you are shown what life was like for the prisoners during that time. The only problem is that, because it was a prison, Constitution Hill is located right next to the rather dangerous suburb of Joville. It is not exactly a place you’d want to wander into by accident—which is of course what happened.

My brother and I had just finished visiting the prison and were heading out to meet some of our friends when our GPS decided to play up. A new bypass had just been built but the GPS didn’t recognise where we were in time for us to use it. So we followed the instructions to turn into the next road on the right and repeat that twice to get us back to where we started. Big mistake. You see, we didn’t know anything about Joville at the time (and of course neither did the GPS – although it would have been a nice addition to the software for it to warn us about it) and so we innocently drove into the seedy underbelly of Johannesburg.

To cut a long story short we ended up being pulled over by a very angry black police officer who proceeded to verbally abuse us and then ended up giving my brother a pat-down search. I was shaking like crazy when we drove out and was even more upset when we were told that we had had a narrow escape for someone who had driven into the wrong part of town.

So can you blame me for being a bit worried about trusting a GPS?

Image created from: Hamlet and GPS