Week 14: Writing on the Web

Our class is now using Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and Javascript by Jonathan Stark from O'Reilly Books. The book has not been printed yet. It's online on what's called The Open Feedback Publishing System. O'Reilly Books is experimenting with allowing people to comment on several titles before they're printed.

I hadn't heard of this before finding that iPhone title but several companies and sites are doing this (a few are listed at the second link). I find it amazing that at a time when companies are aggressively trying to stop pirating some are actually putting work out there were people can get to it without paying or even having to login. The other surprising part is that companies and authors are usually telling people that they can't take their ideas for legal reasons. I'd guess that they just make people agree that they can use their ideas when they login (you have to login to leave comments).

But perhaps none of this should be surprising. Perhaps it is simply the natural result of companies using social media.

What's not surprising are the number of sites for individual writers. National Novel Writing Month is a well known example. Each November writers from all over the world attempt to write a novel, at least 50,000 words, before the end of the month. NaNoWriMo participants can offer each other support, advice, and the site helps them connect to other participants who may be in their area or writing in similar genres. Critique Circle is a site where authors can put up parts of their stories to be reviewed by other authors. You get points by reviewing the work of others and get reviews by using those points.

Advances in technology have made on demand printing/publishing possible. Sites like Cafe Press allow people to have their books printed as they are ordered. Authors who self publish no longer have to pay a printer for many books they may not be able to sell. Any place with Espresso Book machine can print a book in minutes. Bookstores can use it to print out-of-print books.

Some people will find all of that a moot point with the advent of electronic books. I personally think that as long as people enjoy reading from physical material then there will be print media. I also wouldn't want to use an electronic book format for manuals like cooking or automotive books. Can you imagine taking a Kindle or Sony Reader with you underneath your car?

So there are several options for electronic books. In addition to the dedicated devices above anything that supports a program that can read pdfs can be a book reader (if the file is in that format). Sites like Lulu offer support for publishing a publication as an electronic book while sites like Scribd allow you to post material to the site itself (I only found out recently you can put a price on what's posted there).