Please redirect your call to Book Madam's new home: www.BookMadam.com.

xo

Within the next week or so, when you visit www.BookMadam.com and/or www.SeenReading.com, you'll be redirected to our new home. Kimberly Walsh (@aliasgrace) and I are throwing our hats into the ring of fire to create a new entity, and it begins with reorganizing (and monetizing) existing content and that to come.

A number of the Associates will make the trek with us— or as I like to call them, "Sister Wives"—some as new section Editors. (One such section will be dedicated to YA. Others to follow.)

Don't expect any big bang for no buck just yet. Some: "Oh, that's nice." The occasional: "Oh, I quite like that." A lot of: "Oh, I see where this is going." And one slammin' new logo.

Mostly, this is simply the next stage of an eventual project, one that will get some people paid, give Associates more freedom to really let their freak flags fly, and to send a signal to anyone reading that we're up for a seriously good time and we don't mind hanging our laundry in public. Yes, there will be gitchies and gotchies. (No, not really.) (Unless Hanes is reading this, in which case, we gotch your . . . I'm done.)

We'd like some players to show up. Play with us! Sponsors. Advertisers. Publishers. Authors. Consultants. Bookstores. Techies. Kitten Groomers. Talk to us in these *early* stages about how you can become involved, supporting us right at the start. julie[at]bookmadam[dot]com.

Will any of the goofy stuff come along for the ride? Hells, yeah. Music. Comics. Pet photos. We know you like some sweet with your snark. To that end, we'll also introduce a new weekly Twitter chat for bookish people with opinions. (Where will we find them???)

Until then . . .

What? The movie's over. Go home.

Julie Wilson (The (Damn) Madam)

Beautiful morning here in Vancouver. Spring seems imminent. It's a day of optimism and new beginnings. Cats on porches squinting happily in the sun.

What better way to celebrate than to check out The Pirate Bay Top 100 ebook list? I can't think of one, either.

Below is a screen capture of the top 19 files containing ebooks that are currently being shared by the online communities that are tracked by the Pirate Bay bit torrent tracker.

It's an interesting list and it contains a lot of information about what and how files are shared online. But what is it telling us? What might this information mean?

Remember: Pirate Bay is just one torrent tracking site of thousands online (if you want to good laugh check out their Legal Threats page). It is a public tracker, there are thousands of private torrent sites, as well - kind of gated sharing communities that don't communicate with Google or any other search engines. For more information about bit torrent trackers and how they work please go here.

Also included below is a screen captured detail of what the person who curated and uploaded the file containing 2500 Kindle ebooks (nice work with the DRM there guys!) has to say about how his particular torrent came to be.

What does this mean?

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That title quote from Tools of Change for Publishing 2011 (I don't remember the session -- that conference was 3 days long!!) reminded me of this amazingness that one of my profs showed us in an undergrad history of media class. You're welcome.

So, last night I started watching some episodes of the North American remake of the BBC series Being Human. Overall, I was feeling kind of meh about the adaptation when the show finally caught my full attention. Here's why:

Leave it to Books on the Radio to get me to watch this gloomy video about sour Canadian author responses to Bill C-32, which would allow schools to use more of authors' works in the classroom for free.

The central argument seems to be that teachers don't have to pay for paper and other school supplies (though I know many teachers do dip into their own pockets for extra materials when it's important to them... but that's another thing altogether) why should our writing be free?

I guess there are still some writers out there who actually earn a living from selling books? And if that was my experience, I'd probably want to hang on to that, too. But I get paid more for school visits than school use.

From my perspective, if schools have an easy way to use my novels for free, then I have a MUCH easier time creating curriculum links and encouraging teachers to hire me to come talk to kids (and adults too, since my books are also used in colleges) about the content of those books.

And a school visit where students have actually read my work is about a kajillion times easier, more fun, and of greater educational value than getting up in front of kids who have no idea who I am, but have been told to listen to me because I'm an author. If they've read my books, then we can delve into content, and subtext, and issues raised by the books, and the creative process. That's so much fun. That's a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Would it be nice not to have to tour like an Indie band, only with no booze, swearing, or groupies? Sure. Is that the reality? No. So if it makes the really hard part of my job-- public speaking: ew-- easier, I say bring on the free e-copies and photocopies. Let's brew up some learning and sharing instead of this boring obscurity thing that is the alternative.

I love an author who celebrates the launch of an ebook by revisiting one of the truck stops on her tour for the original paper version to ask which edition truckers prefer: p or e? Claire Cameron has done just this for her novel The Line Painter, which I devoured in one sitting. Maybe you should too?

Look here shortly for an interview with Claire. We talk about brainstorming, book trailers, and what it means for authors to put themselves on the line and at the centre of their own book promotion.

Look below for Claire's new trailer.

Buy The Line Painter at Kobo.

(As a complete aside, I flew in last night from Winnipeg and upon take-off the flight attendant approached two women reading side-by-side. She gestured to the woman reading from a pbook and said, "You can keep reading." Then she gestured to the woman reading on a Kobo ereader and said, "But you have to turn off your book.")

Dan Reetz is something like a genius*. He built the DIYBookscanner from materials that he found in a dumpster in Fargo, N.D.

Here are some choice nuggets from the article (after the break):

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