Storyboard

Why Publishers Don't Like Apps By the time Apple released the iPad in April of 2010, only four months after Steve Jobs first announced his “magical and revolutionary” new machines, traditional publishers were gripped by a collective delusion. They had convinced themselves that tablet computers and smart phones would allow them to unwind their unhappy histories with the Internet. For publishers whose businesses had evolved during the long day of print newspapers and magazines, the expansion of the Internet was terribly disorienting. Things Reviewed:Technology Review iPad app version 2.0 The Daily iPad-only newspaper Financial Times html5 website www.ft.com Smart phones and tablets seemed to promise a return to simpler days. For traditional publishers, the scheme was alluring. Publishers also expected to revive the old print advertising economy. People lost their heads. Unpacked in this fashion, the delusion is clear enough, but I succumbed myself—at least a little. We launched the platforms in January of 2011.

Les (Really) Miserables - I dreamed a dream UK Lectures! - The UK Lectures at St. Andrews, Warwick, Cambridge and Queen Mary were a success! Thanks to everyone who came out, it was great to meet you! More info here! New shirt! Order it here Need a last minute gift? Click Here! THESIS FUEL MUG BACK IN STOCK! Now shipping! 2014 PHD Calendar - is here! The Best of PHD - I'm happy to announce that we'll be publishing a run of the "Best PHD Comics" on Tapastic! The feed will be curated by me (Jorge), and will feature behind-the-scene commentary on why each comic is special to me. Tapastic is a pretty cool platform for webcomics. PHD Lectures - I'll be speaking at Penn State and Washington College this Tuesday and Wednesday (9/17, 9/18)! GOOGLE+ - Hey, PHD Comics is now on Google+! Need a Graduation Gift? UK Spring Tour - Jorge will be speaking at 4 UK Universities April 15-19!

3 Ways to Visualize Text with Infomous Now that artsy sites like Pinterest and Instagram are reaching critical mass, even writers need a way to make their stories pop. Recently, publishers like The Economist, The Washington Post, and Entertainment Weekly have turned to a text visualization tool called Infomous to give readers a fresh perspective on current events. Reminiscent of comic strip dialogue and brainstorming models, Infomous turns keywords from articles and Twitter feeds into clickable bubbles that link to other content within your site. The more often a word appears, the larger it looks in the cloud. 1. In August 2011, The Washington Post asked its readers to write about their struggles with unemployment to “show the real impact of joblessness” in America. Of the people who visited the “Help Wanted: Stories of Unemployment” page, 10.5% clicked on at least one word in the cloud and 50% of engaged users clicked through to an article, staying seven times longer than other readers. 2. 3.

Re:Sound Bottle One of the coolest object I’ve seen in 2013 so far is this. Re: Sound Bottle is an automatic remixing object that can record all given sounds and then automatically remix them into a music beat. Just pull the cork off the bottle, make or find some sounds to record, and this magical little bottle turns it into music! Though the bottle is simple to use, the technical insides of the design is insanely complex and relies heavily on software to handle the recording, storing, and playback of audio tracks and the model is still a prototype. The creater, Jun Fujiwara from Tama Art University comments: ”I felt something missing in the habitual use of music reproduction media, so I thought to create an interactive music medium that changes. With this seriously rad device I do believe we can!

3 frequent mistakes to be avoided during the creation of your digital publication 0inShare0inShare We often use this blog to give helpful tips and pointers for users of digital magazine software. We thought it might be useful to highlight some common mistakes that are made when creating these digital magazines and how to avoid them. Online digital versions have so many benefits for both your end reader and your business so make sure you avoid these mistakes in order to gain maximum effectiveness. 1. File size to high Is your online publication taking too long to load? The Image resolution controls the size of the zoomed-in pages that are created. These settings will determine the size of the digital edition and the speed at which pages are loaded. 2. Here is an example of how an online publication is listed in Google: Note that there are keywords present in the Page Title, a meaningful and useful page description that helps the searcher understand what the ebook is about and finally keywords in the url (taken from the name of the project folder.) 3. By 3D Issue

Transparency and the First Generation Faculty Member Submitted by syntaxfactory on February 19, 2013 - 11:15am I've been reflecting on my spectacularly unsuccessful ethos as a professional within my department. I'm saying "within my department" because I think that the ethos that carries me far enough in the field is one I'm thinking doesn't work well in a departmental context. And to be clear, I've been a faculty member in two departments, so I'm not complaining about my department; this is generalizable reflection across an "N" of "2." A colleague-friend once pointed out that I'm basically a puppy dog in my local professional interactions -- eager to be liked. Context: like many of my colleagues and friend in rhetorical studies, I am a first-gen student. Anyway, growing up, I recognized three things. (1) My ability to answer Jeopardy questions before anyone else in the family quickly went from being cute to being annoying. (2) Being smart was something my family could be proud of, but I could never be proud of it. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. --db

Kindle Direct Publishing: Help Professional translation services are available to publishers who are interested in translating their KDP work into other languages, further widening their global audience. Finding a Translator for Your Desired Language This site lists several associations in Europe that may help you find freelancers to translate your work. You may need to use an online translation site or browser plugin to navigate the freelancers' websites, since they're generally displayed in their native language. Some Things to Consider Here are a few questions you may want to ask a freelancer to help make a decision: • How long will the translation take? Words from Authors Who've Translated Their Work Here are some testimonials from KDP authors who have had their works translated: My Spanish translation of Area 51 is selling well on Amazon ES and also in the United States. -Bob Mayer, best-selling KDP author In the digital era, non-English readers are just a button-click away. -Scott Nicholson, best-selling KDP author

Ghostly underwater art gallery breathes new life to sunken ship It's not a ghostly apparition, but one of the photographs by Viennese artist Andreas Franke, which was displayed aboard sunken ship USNS General Hoyt S.Vandenberg and only accessible to competent divers. After four months sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the photos became discolored with salt stains and algae. "The sea life had created new images. It's very cool, they almost look like Polaroids," said Franke. The pictures have now been displayed in a gallery on land; the Studios of Key West. The 12 images all feature the Vandenberg, which was a U.S. military transport ship during World War Two. Sunk in 2009, the Vandenberg is now the second-largest artificial reef in the world, boasting a diverse range of marine animals and plant life. "If you're a diver and you see a gallery down there, it's absolutely unique, something you'd never expect. More than 10,000 divers visited the underwater gallery. Strike a pose Water works Packing a punch Time travel Brave new world Divers' paradise

Tablets Are Destroying Stories by Micah Baldwin I spend the majority of my day with creators, authors and publishers. The ability of storytellers to see a world that could exist and share it with words and pictures is amazing. When I am not chatting with storytellers, I am talking about how to distribute their stories digitally. Easy right? Turns out its not that easy, but thats a story for another day (or just go check out Graphicly, its what we do thousands of times a day). What is fascinating is that creators are beginning to take into account the delivery mechanism of their stories. That’s right. Think about it. But tablets are different. Every app on your tablet is screaming for attention. We accept it because we live in a world where distraction has become the norm, and we spend more time chasing shiny objects than on completion. Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself We pride ourselves on our ability to multi-task and swear it doesn’t take away from our ability to produce at a high level. People read more often digitally.

Whatever Back in the day — by which I mean the last millennium, y’all – Jen Larsen and I were part of a loose group of “online diarists” (what we called bloggers before blogs were called blogs) who chatted and sniped and busted each other up over the early Web, with Jen being one of the wittiest of us all. I never doubted that one day she’d be an author and write a terrific book, but I would not have expected that book would be the memoir, Stranger Here. But that’s all right, because as Larsen explains, it was a surprise to her as well. So the thing is, I was never supposed to be a memoir writer. Memoirs are for people who have things to memoir-ize. I was going to write fiction. The other thing: I was fat. That’s the first time I remember ever thinking something bad about my body, my size, my shape. You know where this is going, right? I didn’t write a weight loss memoir, though. I tried to lose weight. A year and a half later, I had lost about 180 pounds. But I bought it—so many people buy it.

Current Trends in the Digital Publishing World Hi, my name is D’vorah Lansky and I am excited to share this blog post, on the topic of Digital Publishing, with you. I’d like to thank Kathleen for hosting me during this virtual tour, in honor of Digital Publishing Virtual Summit, where we feature 20 world-renowned book marketing experts. Today I’ll be talking about current trends in the Digital Publishing world. Even authors who have a print version of their book will benefit greatly by also having their book available in digital format. Providing easy access to their books on eReaders will allow them to sell more books and reach more readers. Think about your own learning style. In addition to digital downloadable products, you can digitally produce audio CDs and video DVDs for your audience. By providing products that you ship to your customers, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with them. The fastest way to create content is to produce an audio recording. Here are just a few ideas: Click here to register.

Why Oz the Great and Powerful Is A Major Step Back For Witches and Women When it comes to adapting the wonderful world of Oz, Hollywood is, admittedly and regrettably, in a bit of a bind. All things Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City are so tightly linked to the 1939 “The Wizard of Oz” that trying to venture back into L. Frank Baum’s mythology is treading on the memories of millions of fans. The film is such a massive piece of film iconography that it has become the definitive version of this tale, and outstripped the Baum book itself. Yet Baum’s Oz mythology didn’t begin and end with Dorothy. In addition to Baum’s original 17 stories, there are dozens of canonical Oz tales by other authors, as well as a dizzying array of non-canonical/alternate Oz fantasies. And what does Hollywood do? Why is this sad and troubling? But most intriguing and revolutionary of them all is Princess Ozma, who actually makes her first appearance in “The Marvelous Land of Oz” as a young boy named Tip. The reason for this is simple: Baum was a feminist. Categories: Features

How to Promote Your Book Using the New Facebook Timeline Features [Note: this video was made for musicians who work with our sister company-- CD Baby-- but the same new Facebook Timeline features are available to authors, too.] ———————————————–Yep. Facebook has done it again—they’ve flipped the switch and made another drastic change: Your author Facebook page will soon be a Facebook Timeline. All Facebook Pages (including band, brand, author, and company Pages) will automatically update to Facebook Timeline on March 30th. Ok. For Facebook neophytes, the video above will walk you through all the new features. For the more experienced, here is a quick list of all of the new features and how to use them. Where do I begin? 1. This is a large, banner-style image that will be the first thing visitors see displayed at the very top of your timeline page. 2. Now that your Facebook timeline has a “cover photo,” you might want to update your profile pic. 3. 4. 6. 7. Pinning a post features it at the very top of your Page for up to 7 days. Have you made the switch?

12 Ways to Increase Your Readership Using Facebook Timeline Facebook Timeline’s new promotion tools for authors As many folks are finding out (to their horror), Facebook Timeline does not allow fancy landing pages that collect email addresses or that encourage likes in exchange for free downloads of eBook samples, chapters, etc. Facebook now forbids calls-to-action and other direct marketing jargon on the cover photo. So in lieu of customization, how can you increase Facebook likes? 1. 2. [Ahh, now we see one of the big reasons for this mandatory switch to Timeline. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. It’s almost Spring!