NPR Books
Libraries: Knitting Ban
Sarah from Springfield City Library writes:
Saw this and for a second all I could think of was "This can't be real. Someone must have read an Unshelved comic and misunderstood."Posted by Bill on 8/19/2008 10:11:00 AM
Cartooning: Little Dee goes to the Library
Check out the library sequence in Little Dee!
Posted by Bill on 8/19/2008 10:01:00 AM
Unshelved News: Pimp My Bookcart update
I hoped to announce by now that we have a page ready to accept your Pimp My Bookcart 2008 entries. Sorry, it's going to be a few weeks thanks to an unexpected pile of work. I know many of you are ready to go, and we're equally anxious to see them. Please keep your engines running!
Posted by Bill on 8/19/2008 9:56:00 AM
Sponsors: Tell Harlequin
They're back! Harlequin isn't done gathering participants for their Reader's Panel. They want readers of women's fiction with opinions about book ideas, book covers, and, of course, books. It's free and easy. Just sign up and start opining!
Posted by Bill on 8/18/2008 9:09:00 AM
Unshelved News: Brad Guigar, Guest Cartoonist
Thus Sunday's Unshelved Book Club is brought to us by guest cartoonist Brad Guigar. Besides being one of the funniest and most personable fellows you'll ever meet, and the seven-times winner of the "Laugh most likely to bring a corpse back to life" award (including one hair-splitting decision over Caesar Romero's Joker), Brad is also the cartoonist of not one, not two, but three regular comic strips: the local Philly flavor of Phables, the sex advice of Courting Disaster, and the supervillain humor of Evil, Inc., several of whose characters are the protagonists of today's strip. Brad is also co-author of How to Make Webcomics and co-host of Webcomics Weekly. Brad's impressive resume clearly reaches its pinnacle today with his first-ever Unshelved appearance. It's all downhill from here.
Posted by Bill on 8/16/2008 8:20:00 PM
Sponsors: Talia Ross the Fortune Teller
When it comes to which books will be popular, Macmillan's Talia Ross says she can see the future. Test her claim by inviting her to your library to meet with your selection and readers advisory staff. She also has scads of galleys to give away, so sign up today!
Posted by Bill on 8/16/2008 8:06:00 PM
Bill's life: Twitter Fad
I don't know where it started, but yesterday there was a fast moving fad on Twitter. Someone got an avatar from Face Your Manga, and then someone else did, and soon pretty much everyone on my follow list had one. And then there was the inevitable backlash. Dave Kellett chose a female avatar, showing his individuality. I replaced mine with Dave's portrait of me, and then the race away from manga avatars was on.
I suppose it all sounds very junior high school, and maybe it was, but it reinforced the sense of community I get from few other places. I still have trouble explaining Twitter to people. It's like blog aggregation, but the posts are a lot shorter. It's like a message board, but you have to opt in to each person you want to follow. It's like chat, but public and asynchronous. It's its own thing, it's increasingly addictive, and I invite you to follow me to join in the fun.
Posted by Bill on 8/15/2008 10:12:00 AM
Store: More unsolicited praise
From a happy customer:
I just received my order containing your newly-recolored What Happens in the Library Stays in the Library and What Happens in Storytime Stays in Storytime shirts. They are truly handsome, and a big improvement over the old versions. Thanks for giving us some new color choices!Honestly, we'd make all our shirts available in a dozen different color choices if it were economical to do so. Unfortunately my garage is only so big, so we have to have color "seasons". I happen to think this season is particularly attractive. Conversely, we've also received mail from folks complaining that we aren't selling the old colors (and many old designs) any more. I empathize, but it our defense we did sell those shirts for several years. Moral of the story: if you see a shirt you like, buy it!
Posted by Bill on 8/15/2008 9:39:00 AM
Sketchbook: Dave
In one of the quiet moments at ALA Dave Kellett strolled over to our table (about 3 feet from his, since we shared a booth) and drew this astonishingly accurate portrait of moi.
Posted by Bill on 8/14/2008 3:55:00 PM
Sketchbook: Arlo
Fellow cartoonist and Friend-of-Unshelved Brad Guigar writes:
I shared a couple of my "Unshelved" books with a family (both mom and dad are librarians) with two young boys. The older boy, a first-grader, took quite a shine to your work, and he made you some fan art:Posted by Bill on 8/14/2008 9:32:00 AM
Reviews: Self Publishing a Movie
There are some people who still don't understand why we don't want Unshelved to be syndicated, or our books published by someone else, and frankly I've stopped trying to explain that we simply don't need those middlemen to make a living. The economics of content have shifted, and we're happy to have come along just when that shift hit comic strips.
But the economics of movies and TV have remained stubbornly stuck in the last century. That's what the writers' strike was about last year. Simplistically, writers were receiving no royalties for the content they wrote for TV or the movies but that was now appearing on the Internet. One of the loudest voices during that strike was that of Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. While marching the picket lines he got it into his head that he should create some high-quality content that wasn't owned by a studio, cutting out a whole passel of middlemen.
He took a cue from Felicia Day, an actress who appeared on the last season of Buffy, who had written and produced a very clever web-based series called The Guild. The result was Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a funny and touching supervillain musical starting Day, Neil Patrick Harris (who has become one of my favorite actors thanks to his run on How I Met Your Mother), and Firefly's Nathan Fillion. Dr. Horrible absolutely stands on its own as a story and as a musical (I've been singing the songs in the shower for weeks now), but it has added significance in that the revenue (from iTunes sales and Hulu.com ads) goes straight into the pockets of the creators.
Felicia, Joss, and company, we longtime self-publishers welcome you.
Posted by Bill on 8/12/2008 11:24:00 AM
