Captain Underpants goes digital

At last, after six long years ...

NEW YORK (AP) — The author of "Captain Underpants" is joining the digital age and bringing back his million-selling series after a six-year hiatus.

Scholastic Inc. announced Thursday that e-editions of two graphic novels by Dav Pilkey, "The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby" and "Super Diaper Baby 2," will come out at the end of January. The releases will include deleted scenes and material about the making of the books, spinoffs of the "Captain Underpants" stories.

The proliferation of iPads, Nooks, Kindle Fires and other color devices have made publishers and authors increasingly willing to put illustrated works in electronic format.

Scholastic also announced that two new "Captain Underpants" books are arriving, the first since 2006 and continuing the adventures of schoolmates George Beard and Harold Hutchins and the principal they turn into an underdressed superhero.

eBooks with added content

Tablet vs. Simple Touch

I've been having a fascinating conversation with eNovelist Shayne Parkinson about reading books on tablets, which offer all those enticing (and very distracting) apps. 

She loves her tablet, she says, and when she reads, she just reads (more self-control than I have, I strongly suspect).  When she is not reading, she can use her tablet for a multitude of extras -- writing notes to herself, checking e-mail, updating a grocery shopping list, or just as a plain old phone.

Now I find on bookcatcher.com that a publishing company has held a survey of readers asking if they would be prepared to pay more, just to be able to read a book on a gadget that offers all those extras listed by Shayne.  The company is Cathedral Rock Publishing.  It's a small survey, but surprisingly positive.  And yes, eBook readers strongly support gadgets with additionals, such as audio and video, and are willing to pay more to get what they want.

Word for the Weekend: Menhaden

Menhaden

It's a fish, a very small American fish.  Also known as moss bunker, bunker, and pogy, it has been harvested for fertilizer since time immemorial.

Indeed, the name comes from the Algonquin word munnawhat, which means fertilizer.

Despite someone having fun in the food section of the Wikipedia entry, it is not generally considered to be edible, though it was once experimentally canned as "Ocean Trout."  Instead, it is harvested by the million for fertilizer and fish meal -- and the Omega fish oil that you swallow in capsule form for your health.  It's greatest importance, however, is its place in the food chain.  Like krill for giant whales, it is a necessary part of the diet of larger species.  Removing menhaden from the sea is another step in the wrecking of our planet.

This message is explored in a very well-reviewed book about this little fish, called The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America,  by H. Bruce Franklin.  It is worth hunting up the entry on Amazon, if only just to read the extremely well-written review by Mark McDonough.

In fact, whales played a surprisingly important part in the history of menhaden. As the great whales were "fished" out, reducing huge catches of menhaden as an alternative for lubricant oil became quite an industry, and schooners called "moss bunkers" became quite a common sight on the eastern coasts of America. As there was no refrigeration, the menhaden were just allowed to rot, so the moss bunkers could be smelled quite a long time before they came into sight. Working on them could not have been fun.

From maritime historian Bill Bunting:

There is a tale of a certain 3-masted schooner which loaded a cargo of "fish scrap" -- putrified processed pogy, pogy being an oily industrial fish once unsuccessfully canned as "Ocean Trout" -- at Promised Land, on Eastern Long Island, for Norfolk, where the maggoty scrap was to became a component of fertilizer. Initially the stench was all but overpowering to the schooner's people, but evidently the human olfactory system is designed to shut down in self-defense when confronted with an extreme situation, and by the time port was made the stench did not seem all that bad. But this proved to be an illusion when the captain, wife, and daughter boarded a street car only to have the other occupants depart post haste.

Rejected Names

The whaling wives of New England would be amazed

List of rejected babies' names released in New Zealand

There are some very odd names around these days, but no odder than they were back in the nineteenth century in whaling New England.  Undoubtedly because of the stern Old Testament background of many of the prominent families, names like Elijah, Uriah, Obed and Gideon abounded, while girls called Asenath and Azubah were common (though Mary was hugely popular, as was Sarah).

Well, those whaling mothers would have blinked at the list of names that were not allowed to be used in New Zealand, rejected because (a) the name is considered "undesiarable in the public interest" (b) it may cause offence (c) is too long -- meaning more than 100 characters (d) is an official title.

The most popular rejected name was Justice (or any spelling of the word)

Next came "Royal" and "Prince."

Well, good heavens above -- those names also feature heavily in lists of whaling crews and captains, a prominent fellow being Captain Prince Sherman, who was popular in all the ports where he landed.  A relative of his, another Prince Sherman, did not have quite such a wonderful reputation.  In fact, he jumped ship, and settled in New Zealand.

Then there was Royal Sherman.  And that comes from looking at just one family.  (There was a Zoeth Sherman, too.)

And how about all the babies who named after the ship!  The first "Chelsea," in fact, was little Chelsea Smith, born on board the New London sealer/whaler Chelsea, in appalling weather in appalling seas in the sub-Antarctic south.

And guess where Helen Herschel Sherman was born.  No, it's not a ship; it's a place.


Top ten rejected names:

Justice
Princess
King
Prince
Royal
Duke
Bishop
Major
J
Lucifer

Well, I can think of quite a few little boys who could very aptly be called Lucifer ....

First Digital Book Conference for 2012

On Behalf of Publishers Lunch

Living In A Digital Book World

The first big digital conference of the year is just weeks away and, as the headlines confirm, there will be plenty to discuss and learn about.

The show opens with a CEO's view of the future from View of the Future Redux: 

John Ingram, Dominique Raccah at Sourcebooks. John Donatich at Yale University Press, and Ellen Archer at Hyperion (preview her thoughts here: http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/hyperion-ceo-ellen-archer-book-publishing-business-model-is-broken/) and closes at the now-traditional look at what we expect to happen within the next year with 

Evan Schnittman at Bloomsbury; Mark Allin at Wiley; Clare Peeters at Perseus; and Mike Shatzkin.

In between you'll hear individual presentations from the major etailers--Russ Grandinetti at Amazon; Theresa Horner at BN; Michael Tamblyn at Kobo--and the first conference presentation from new Bookish ceo Carolyn Marks.

There's futurist and author David Houle, and Oren Teicher from the ABA and booksellers from Politics and Prose and RJ Julia on The Bookstore Renaissance and new bookselling business model experiments underway. For original research, there will be new presentations from James Mcquivey at Forrester; Kelly Gallagher at Bowker PubTrack; Giovanni Bonfanti at A.T. Kearney; and Jack McKeown and Tom Thompson at Verso.

Plus five vertical tracks offer experts from throughout the publishing industry and beyond on technology, marketing, social media, ebook basics, the changing role of agents, global markets, illustrated books, libraries and more.

DBW has grown into a three-day extravaganza--beginning with our own Publishers Launch Conference going deep into the fast-growing digital children's market now that color devices have taken hold.

Best of all, since we are co-presenters of DBW, Publishers Lunch readers can still take advantage of a big discount on tickets--the best available price on the market. Use our code PUBLUNCH12 and you will save $470 off the full conference ticket price.

Enroll for Monday's Children's Publishing Goes Digital at the same time and you'll save another $135 on the bundle. 

There's always a big wave of registrations in January, and the show is headed towards a complete sellout, so click through now if you plan to join us.

Children's Goes Digital program

http://www.digitalbookworldconference.com/ehome/24240/childrenspublishing/?&

Full DBW program

http://www.digitalbookworldconference.com/ehome/24240/36095/?&

Register here

https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=24240&

UK bestsellers

Good lord, the Brits are as mad on cookbooks as New Zealanders

Bestselling books in the UK as of this moment ...

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever Kinney, Jeff

The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz Avey & Broomby

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (tie-in) Larsson, Stieg

Jamie's Great Britain Oliver, Jamie

Moshi Monsters: Official Annual 2012

Tick Tock Patterson and Ledwidge

The Fifth Witness Connelly, Michael

The Simpsons Annual -

Au Revoir Liverpool Lee, Maureen

Home Cooking Made Easy Pascale, Lorraine

Dare to Dream One Direction

River Cottage Veg Every Day! Fearnley-Whittingstall, H

Don't Blink Patterson and Roughan

Club Penguin: Official Annual -

Octonauts Annual:2012

Sanctus Toyne, Simon

A Father's Revenge Neale, Kitty

The World of Downton Abbey Fellowes, Jessica

Virals Reichs, Kathy

The Girl Who Played with Fire Larsson, Stieg

Nook tablet outsells Simple Touch

From Publishers Lunch

Barnes & Noble Reduces Expectations On Shortfall In Simple Touch Sales

It's already another fascinating year for Barnes & Noble, which surprised Wall Street with a number of post-holiday announcements. The success of their Nook Tablet, "which has exceeded expectations," came at some cost to their less expensive eInk device, "with a shortfall in the expected sales of NOOK Simple Touch." They say "the company over-anticipated the growth in consumer demand for single purpose black-and-white reading devices this holiday." Primarily as a result of that Simple Touch shortfall, BN reduced their guidance to investors, projecting fiscal year sales of between $7.0 billion and $7.2 billion, EBITDA of $150 to $180 million, and a loss per share of between $1.40 to $1.10 a share.

 

 

I personally find this depressing, as it means that people want gadgets with distracting apps, which in my candid opinion is no way to read a book.  Most serious readers I know don't even want to be interrupted by an oldfashioned phone.

The good news is that B&N holiday print book sales rose by 4%.  Overall, however, it doesn't look good for traditional publishing on paper.  Print sales tracked by Nielsen Bookscan declined over 9% in 2011.

Trade paperback sales declined 6 percent. Hardcover sales were 7 percent lower. Mass market sales declined the most, down 24 percent.

Adult nonfiction declined only 3%, while adult fiction dropped 18%, reflecting the continuing growth of ebooks. Juvenile books declined 5% overall.

Death of documents?

iPad used as ID

I always make a point of scanning my passport before heading overseas, and keeping a copy on my laptop.  The same applies to any paper visas.

This isn't just because of the risk of theft or loss.  When China was first opened to Western tourists, we were in a group heading for the Tibetan border.  At the Canton Trade Fair, a man who was with our small party borrowed all our paper visa documents for photocopying on one of the display machines.  He gave us all a second copy, and sent a couple to officials back home. The rest of us thought he was being paranoid, but the copies turned out to be very useful indeed, when the originals were mislaid by the courier.

Anyway, a Canadian man has benefited from the same kind of precaution.

Before Christmas, he arrived at the US border to find he'd forgotten his passport.  Yet he managed to cross the border into the US using a copy that he had scanned on to his iPad.

Martin Reisch, from Montreal, said he told the official that he was heading to Vermont to deliver Christmas presents.

"I thought I'd at least give it a try," Mr Reisch said, the Associated Press reports.

"He took the iPad into the little border hut. He was in there a good five, six minutes. It seemed like an eternity. When he came back, he took a good long pause before wishing me a Merry Christmas."

Mr Reisch, who successfully managed to re-enter Canada later the same day, has said he will not forget his passport in the future.

I should add that he did have his driver's licence, so he did have one "real" document to help authenticate the electronic one.

Cookbook heroine Annabel Langbein to star in NZ Book Month

Creative New Zealand has made community grant funding available to hold at least 50 book/author events throughout the country, a key part of NZ Book Month’s community outreach.

Annabel Langbein (pictured right) is the new celebrity reading role model who joins noted film maker Sir Peter Jackson as one of the two named so far.

Bestselling cookbook author Annabel says she is delighted to be part of NZ Book Month. “The more time I spend promoting my books overseas the more I realise that the books we produce here in New Zealand are the equal of those from anywhere else on the planet.

"It's important to take this time to celebrate the richness they bring to our world,” she believes.

Booksellers New Zealand’s Project Manager Megan Dunn was delighted the popular Annabel will be a face of NZ Book Month. “Annabel’s involvement will highlight the diversity of New Zealand book genres,” she believes.

Debut authors dominate Costa

LONDON (Reuters) - Three of the five 2011 Costa Book Award categories were won by debut authors Tuesday, while Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes lost out to Andrew Miller for the best novel honor.

Poet and first-time biographer Matthew Hollis scooped the Costa biography award for "Now All Roads Leads to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas" about the war poet who died in action during World War One.

Christie Watson, a children's nurse, was named 2011 debut novelist for "Tiny Sunbirds Far Away" about a Nigerian family forced to leave a comfortable urban life for poverty in the countryside.

And Moira Young won the children's book category for her first novel "Blood Red Road" set in a lawless future land where Saba sets out to find her missing twin brother.

In the novel category, Andrew Miller won with his sixth novel "Pure," beating Barnes whose "The Sense of an Ending" was the Booker Prize winner in October.

And poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy picked up the poetry prize with her latest collection "The Bees."

The winner of each category receives a cheque for 5,000 pounds ($7,800). The overall winner, who earns a further 30,000 pounds, is announced on January 24