Daily Thoughts

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) from "Vanity Fair", issue 812, April 1884. Signed by caricaturist "Ape" (i.e. "Bee", pseudoname of Carlo Pellegrini 1839-1889).

Daily Thoughts

I took a short walk to my local library. The computers were completely filled up so I could not sit down at them. I returned two books and took out a few more, Ferguson Career Building Skills Library Teamwork Skills, Second Edition and a science fiction novel by Andy Remic, War Machine A Combat-K Novel.

The walk to the library was rather pleasant. It was a little drizzly outside. Walking regularly, doing a bit of yoga, and changing my diet has helped me a lose a pant size. It is quite comfortable to be a bit smaller. I am hoping to be even smaller in February.

Today has been a quiet day, more so than other days.

After realizing my blog traffic has fallen off a little bit, I decided to add a top commenters widget for blogger. This lists the bloggers who have made the most recent comments on this blog. I found the widget at: http://www.corpseofattic.com/2008/05/top-commenter-widget-for-blogger-with.html . I also put in the blogger followers widget. This was to show who from blogger was following me.

When you go through your site tracker you often find the strangest things. Apparently, my blog is a fantasy stock worth fantasy money. I was a little surprised. I thought I had to register my blog, but apparently, other people can. http://blogshares.com/blogs.php?checkid=11728918

Today is rather unplanned and a bit here and there.

Thoughts for Today

I went to the library today and dropped off a book. I really didn't stay like I usually do. Then I went to my local produce store and bought some watermelon and grapes. It was very nice out, cool and crisp. When I got back I wrote the essay on Deep Economy.

Last night I watched Duck Soup starring Grouch Marx. I have always liked Harpo Marx the most. I especially like his scissors. It is part of our 100 Essential Films collection. It was a nice break from blogs and reading.

I was invited to join http://www.bloggeries.com a couple days ago. It is a blog forum which reviews and comments on blogs. The title and logo make more sense than most traffic generating sites. Before I could ask for a blog review, I had to make ten comments on the forum. I did this dutifully.

All of the sites have some kind of gimmick you have to do. I'm glad it wasn't to put anything on my site. I requested a review of my site then. On Bloggeries suggestion, I stretched the banner out on top of my blog and changed the color of the words "Book Calendar."

There seem to be a million of these things available now. I was also invited to join Bloggers Showroom but I declined because I had to add a widget to my site. I already have too many widgets on my site. Every so often, I go through and erase widgets.

Every day, I get invited to join something new, the names are all very odd, Spott, Quasia, Squidoo, and various other things. Most of the names are nonsense words. Somehow, these things are supposed to increase my blog traffic. It is already almost too much to keep track of all the different traffic widgets on my site.

Thoughts On Selling Bookish Items Using Widgets...

Hello,
I have been following the dream of making money selling items using widgets. People make all sorts of wild claims. Make a $1000 a day online selling hair cream, make $10,000 a month with megabucks words. I checked my adsense for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised, I had earned 96 cents. I was expecting nothing. So, it is remotely possible after a year or two you could make a hundred dollars to two hundred a month with very high traffic from adsense. At least it is something.

At least adsense guarantees you make something when people look at your site. I have earned nothing from my widgets which attempt to sell things. However, I cannot give up hope. People have actually looked at the widgets. 17 people looked at my widget bucks site for comic books, and 17 people looked at my widgetbucks widget for bestsellers. Maybe, they even went back and supported their local bookstore. That is it. Please support your local bookstore.

They told the local bookstore worker, lets name him Bob.

Customer: "Hi Bob, I saw this wonderful graphic novel on this blog called V for Vendetta could you get it for me."

Bob, "Sure thing, we have it right here, that will be $17 dollars, cash, debit or credit."

Customer, "I have a twenty right here. One second." Customer fishes in his pocket and releases some lint, then pulls out a twenty dollar bill. "Oh and can I have that Harry Potter bookmark."

Bob, "Yes, that will be two dollars more for a total of $19. Here is your change." Bob hands the customer $1.

Customer, "Thankyou."

Bob, "No, thank you for coming by, have a wonderful day."

Customer leaves.


I think five people looked at my audiobooks widget. Also, a number of people looked at the Powells store site, but nobody bought anything. Maybe, they came back later to purchase it, or maybe they went to Amazon to purchase it. Once again, if you can go to Bob, your local hypothetical bookstore owner if you can. Support independent bookstores. They are part of your community and many of them are struggling to survive. I take the time to read the American Booksellers Association website. It is the site for independent booksellers.

I tried to add an ebooks widget today, Ebooks.com, maybe someone will buy an ebook. I am really not sure about this though. Ebooks are the hardest bookstore type item to sell.

The next widget which I added was something called Cafe Press, a free store, which allows you to sell things with a logo you put on them. I put a logo on some items "Book Calender, A Blog About Books" in a hideous yellow on some mugs, a datebook, a few stickers, and other kitschy things.

I now have my widget bookstore, many items you would see in a bookstore in a little corner of a blog. I really don't expect you to buy anything. It is more an experiment than anything else at this point. I will be looking around and listening to the wonderful promises and glitter of monetizing your blog. Maybe, I will even reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and earn $20 in commissions by the end of next month. If I do, I'll buy myself a cup of coffee in celebration.

Wandering Through Blog Land, Virnor Vinge Ebook

I've been wandering through blogland looking at lots of different blogs. I find most library blogs to be pretty boring. They usually have a big picture of the library building on the outside. It would be much more interesting if they took a picture of the inside with the staff next to the bookshelves.

Most of the blogs I've looked at have been pretty incoherent. One of my pet peeves so far is the icon which people use to show their blog. If they put a little symbol of what they are writing about, it would help a lot better than a picture of themselves, or in the case of many book sites, their cat. There are so many blogs out there, that if you don't immediately give an idea of what your site is about, you lose people. This is especially true when you are looking at blog directories. Often there is no caption, just a picture in places like blogcatalog and bumpzee.

Looking at book blog sites has been very interesting. Mostly the book sites provide reviews of books and thoughts on writing. There is very little else. It is interesting when people put in videos of authors talking, news about books, and bits on new technology. Even a little bit on their experience in a bookstore or library might break up the endless reviews.

Some of the sites also include movie reviews and television show reviews in addition to book reviews. This is actually a good thing. Most libraries are media centers. Where I work more people check out dvds of movies and television shows than books. We even have a section for the greatest films, and a section on African films.

Of course there is often the ubiquitous picture of the cat curled up on the book in book blogs. Cats must read a lot.

I usually see a short biography as well. Quite often this is very cozy and sweet in nature. I haven't seen anything truly wicked yet. It would be nice to see something wicked. The Bookslut Blog is the one exception which is mildly risque. It is also kind of sexy. The site gets a lot of visitors and is very well done. http://www.bookslut.com/blog/

These are just some thoughts on visiting different blogs. I will write more as I think of more to write about. I am also seeing endless attempts to support a million different products everything from bookmarks to computers to advertising. If you are going to sell something, stay focused on selling what you are talking about.

People get turned off by advertising. Some people suggest that you should not have Adsense ads because people will leave your site if they see them. Almost every site has pictures of them. I am thinking of replacing one of my adsense ads with a cafepress button for a store. I know this sounds kind of silly. I just did, it contains a really basic logo and a few gift items. I found out about Cafe Press when I was looking at bookslut.

Every site I visit has social bookmarking tags. I am not even sure that these are particularly helpful. I think it is more important to go visit other peoples sites and make comments about what they are writing about. I've visited quite a few different peoples sites and done this. Everything from David Brin, Jeff Vandermeer, SpamPoetry, and others. I make it a point to visit your site if you post a comment on my site. I'll show you mine if you show me yours. This seems to be the best thing that works. Also posting in newsgroups discusing blogs seems to help as well.

Keywords, search engines, and little buttons which are spread across most of the sites which I visit don't seem to do a whole lot. Joining sites which discuss blogs like blog catalog, and fuelmyblog seems to help as well. Communities of people discussing different subjects tend to be interested in what you are writing about. My favorite site for discussing blogs and the site which seems to do the best job for blog promotion, blog searching, discussions, and exchanges is http://www.blogcatalog.com/ . My experience with them has been very good. I just put in a widget for blog catalog.

I've also spent a bit of time looking at various library blogs. It is not pretty, there is a lot of secret disgruntlement, or not so secret disgruntlement. People talk about things like unacceptable behavior in the library. Monitoring bathrooms and internet access in public buildings is an interesting experience...

An interesting topic which I see coming up repeatedly is the concept of Library 2.0 . Nobody really defines it, but every article I've seen seems to be talking about social networking tools and web gadgets in the library setting. Meebo is one of the gadgets I saw talked about. Also some librarians are talking about using http://www.librarything.com/ for certain very popular parts of their collections to improve circulation which is a very ineteresting idea. From my experience most librarians have no idea what to do with social data in the library setting.

The other topic that is coming up a lot is digitalization. The Google books project where they are scanning thousands of books every day into the internet is quite controversial among librarians. Also, there is a new project being spearheaded at MIT, the million books project for scanning huge amounts of free material into a giant library. It is called the Universal Digital Library. Supposedly when they are done with the initial batch there will be 1.5 million books in the library. This is a joint project of China, India, and the United States. Here is the link, http://www.ulib.org/ .

I think both social search and digitalization change the purpose of what a library is. Librarians are not keeping up with the changes. It shows in the slow decline of the number of librarians and the general unfocusedness throughout the profession.

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I found another free science fiction ebook, Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End.
http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html . I haven't started reading it yet. I think I'll review it for a change of pace.

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The "blog" image at the top of the post is something which I did with paint because I couldn't find a public domain image on wikipedia for blog.

Thoughts On Looking For Who Reads My Blog, Jack McDevitt Odyssey

I have a variety of thoughts on who might read my blog. I think first of all we have people who are interested in fantasy books, especially roleplaying games and books which might tie into them. I am thinking of authors like Glen Cook, Robin Hobb, Tad Williams, David Drake and other popular mainstream fantasy authors. Not so much serial fantasy writers like R.A. Salvatore or Margaret Weis who write the Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms paperbacks. I don't much care for these things.
This comes from posting about my blog on several threads about books on game sites.

The next obvious group of people are book gadget people, people interested in creating search engines or playing with widgets and ebooks. I had posted a number of ebooks earlier.

The next group would be readers of myth fantasy, people who like Neil Gaiman, Charles De Lint, or Jane Yolen. People who want their fantasy mixed with mythology and fairytales. People who probably have a copy of the complete tales of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault's fairytales lying around the house or maybe the Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, and other strange Dover editions.

The next group might be people who are interested in science fiction, especially literary science fiction, things like Jeff Vandermeer, Cory Doctorow, or Charles Stross. This is all of course conjecture.

I am hoping it is not the people who read all the Star Trek novels. Star Trek is kind of fun in a way, it is "The Lone Ranger In Space", or World War II u-boats in space. Captain fire the photon torpedos.

I have been looking at my hit counters and seeing a pretty varied crowd, so people look at this site from the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe, The United Kingdom, Australia, and other english speaking countries.

Their might be a few bibliophiles thrown in the mix, people who just like books, bookselling, places where you can get book reviews or hear odd things about books. Right now, I am writing from a pure expository, unedited style with no grammar or spell checker. It is just me and only me.

I have been looking at a lot of booksites. Most of these are very clean, they have a neat little picture of a book, then five or six paragraphs about the book in question. Then there is a little star next to the review with a one to five rating. Not exactly my style.

Of course, most sites are by women, mostly women read novels. This is a given fact. I am a man in a womans world in some ways. The thing which most women read are romances and classics. I see the classics, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, and other stuffy European authors being reviewed. I also see a lot of popular romantic comfort writing, Candace Camp, Eugenia Price, Barabara Taylor Bradford, Victoria Holt and other writers with sweet tales and beautiful flowery covers on their books.
I also think people might come here because I give my exact feeling of the moment on what I am reading. I try not to be too dry.

Another group which comes up is older men who are near retirement or retired who want to have a hobby, and that hobby usually involves books. They choose to write about more obscure literary works like Jack London's Iron Heel, or poets like Lillian Moore or Robert Frost. It seems that an awful lot of older people read poetry.

Some things which I have noticed when looking through book web sites is a real affection for knitting. Knitting is somehow a sign you read. We have a knitting group at our library, in fact two of our librarians teach knitting as part of the group. The other is the presence of cats. A lot of book people have pictures of their cats on their book blogs. Jeff Vandermeer even posted a picture of himself with his cat in the comments section. There aren't as many pictures of people with their dogs. A few are out there.

Many of the blogs have book challenges. The major challenge which people undertake is to read 52 books, a book week and review it by the end of the year. There are also things like graphic novel challenges. Read five or six different graphic novels. This can be almost anything-- books about Albert Einstein, the classics. This is an example of a book challenge sites. Lisers A-Z Challenge http://tint0rera.blogspot.com/ . Read books with titles that run the full gamut of the alphabet. I find this fascinating. Here is another site with a Candadian Book Challenge, read books from Canade. http://bookmineset.blogspot.com/2007/12/canadian-book-challenge-2nd-update.html



I am not a big reader of the classics. I find them to be a bit stuffy at times. Dickens turns me off with Oliver Twist. I liked a Tale of Two Cities however. I can stand the russian novelists like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but they are long, complex and heavy to read. This is the stuff I was forced to read in high school and college and it just got to me.

I much prefer classical literature if I must read old literature in the sense of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages and Ancient China. Li Po's poetry is wonderful. The Song of Roland formed the base for Steven King's Dark Tower Trilogy as well as Gordon R. Dickson's Childe Cycle in science fiction. Gawain and The Green Night and the Pearl are fine examples of the chivalric age. I of course love the Odyssey which my father read to me when I was a small child. The Golden Ass of Apuleius is a great piece of fantasy, sometimes considered the first true fantasy novel.

I am hoping that there are at least a few people who love classical literature, in the sense of ancient literature.

The other group of people I hope are reading this blog are people who are interested in the issues facing libraries in the United States. Things like literacy, digital rights management, internet reference services, and other odds and ends around libraries.

I am hoping that a few people also have an appreciation for bookstores as well. Things like how to display books, proper lighting, bookstore cafes, book kiosks and other details.

This is a pure rant and I am writing it quickly. I write most of my posts in about a half an hour to an hour.

I will try to find interesting authors on video, add widgets which make an almost complete bookstore, build a list of very nice book review sites, set up a list of books I have read recently, write some reviews and generally try and keep this site as entertaining as possible.

Maybe, I am spending too much time trying to drag traffic from places like fuel my blog, newsgroup sites, or bumpzee and I should be trying to get people to visit from other book sites.

The whole SEO, search engine optimization thing is completely new to me and is a real eye opening learning experience.

Anyways good night. I will fill in some more things in the morning and edit this post a bit.

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I started on Jack McDevitt's Odyssey. I like Jack McDevitt's writing style. He is such a good writer that he doesn't have to use violence to create tension. He is very good at describing political intrigue, natural disasters, and accidents. His novels have been nominated for the nebula awards. I would call him a hard science fiction adventure story writer.

He describes things like alien archeology. Also the aliens which humans run into aren't smarter than we are. One alien group is stuck with technology that is from around 1918. Another alien group has to be rescued because their civilization has fallen apart. There are a few planets where civilizations have risen then collapsed completely.

We also aren't super successful colonizers of space. The earth has two marginal colognies. One is run by religious fanatics, the other is run by political wackos. Our lagrange point colonies have not worked out. The earth is in bad shape from global warming and global flooding.

At the beginning of each chapter in Odyssey, he uses the classic mechanism of the fake quote from someone in the future. Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov used to do this. It is a rather entertaining little detail. He also includes short newscasts inside his writing. This takes some skill to make them believable, but he manages to do it convincgly.

This is a novel of first contact with an alien race. Humans have spotted the aliens in space. So far, people are arguing whether they are a natural phenomena or a real alien presence. The Academy, a space exploration group sends out a group to follow the "moonriders" round ships that fly in formation and are sited at various locations.

The ship travels on an odyssey to a variety of worlds trying to track down the "moonriders." Then a young girl on the ship receives a telepathic message that the "moonriders" are going to destroy a supercollider that is being built in deep space.

The ending is marvelous. The Academy tries to rescue the scientists at the supercollider while it is being destroyed by the aliens. There is a subtheme about the supercollider that there is a possibility if it is fully developed it will tear a hole in space time and wipe out humanity. The "moonriders" although they are destroying the object are possibly saving the human race. We never get to actually meet any of the moonriders, they are an enigma to the end.

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I have been looking at a few different blogs in the blog review section of a newsgroup. I found one that surprised me. I usually don't see much good poetry. This is really really good, it has a very smooth and well written feel to it.

http://themusingsofmadness.blogspot.com/

Some Philosophy Books, And A Bit On Widgets

Marcus Aurelius Emperor of Rome

Today is Thursday, I am not quite sure what to write about. I was thinking of mentioning some religious or philosophy books which I have. My father gave me a copy of The Holy Bible designed and illustrated by Barry Moser. The woodcuts throughout are very beautiful. I occassionally like to the read the Psalms and Proverbs.

I used to work in the History, Biography, and Religion department of a large central library at one point. I would order the eastern religion books and mystical christianity books. I don't spend as much time as I used to focused on this type of writing.

I also keep a copy of the Tao Te Ching, and the Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi which I read on occassion. They both have a certain poetry to them. Although, I don't keep a copy, Sun Tzu's The Art of War can teach you a lot as well.

If you are looking for a superb piece of esoterica with all kinds of beautiful illustrations throughout, you might want to look at Manly P. Hall Secret Teachings of All Ages. It is a very interesting book.

We get a lot of questions about religion, especially christianity where I work. One thing I can say about some of the christian books is that some of them have a positive attitude. Attitude can get you to the right places in life sometimes. Although many people do not consider it a christian book, Norman Vincent Peale -- The Power of Positive Thinking can help you get pointed in the right direction towards less negativity in your life.

A lot of people have lost their sense of the Greek and Roman philosophers takes on life. A little book which has helped many people keep focus is the Enchiridion by Epictetus, it is the stoics guide on how to live. Another book is the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius who was the emperor of Rome. These are both precursors to a large portion of St. Augustine's philosoophy. Stoicism teaches that the self denial is the highest pleasure.

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I have added a few widgets, namely a bestseller widget, a graphic novels widget, and an audiobook widget. I am still looking for an ebook widget. I haven't found a decent one yet.
I also put in a fish tank widget. It reminds me of fish tv, a popular show on cable, where people have simply put a camera in front of a fish tank the fish swim around.

Anyways, I am still reading A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin, I'll probably finish it today, maybe tomorrow. One of my favorite characters so far is Brienne the Maid of Tarth who is one ugly warrior woman. The writing is crisp and clean, it is very easy to read and enjoyable. The ironmen very much remind me of the vikings in their longships with their raiding, pillaging, and slave taking. This is really well worth reading.

Slow Day And The Independent Giant Bookstore.

Today will be a slow day. Both Steven Erikson's Bonehunters and George R.R. Martin's A Feast For Crows are giant books and will take quite a while to read. Now I understand why there are not as many reviews of these books. They are very long.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers used to have a used book annex in Manhattan, New York. It went out of business. I remember it as being mediocre compared to the Strand, the biggest bookstore in New York, which has become like a giant warehouse. Strand even sells used books by the foot as backdrops for movie, television, and plays. http://www.strandbookstore.com/. It is not uncommon to see people walking around Soho with Strand bookbags. It is a sign of literacy.

I go there sometimes to the basement to buy half price reviewers copies in hardcover. I used to go there before booksignings to pick up my half price copies to get signed.

They have an incredible variety of books. Almost anything you could want if you are a bibliofile. The shop is a tightly run union shop. Many of the people who work there, have worked there for years and have lots of experience in selecting books.

They have even opened an annex in the financial district and a downtown Manhattan kiosk.

I wish I had a chance to visit Powells books in Oregon. They are supposed to be the largest used bookstore in the world.

The other used bookstore I am going to mention which is massive is Logos books in Santa Cruz. For a while after the building was destroyed in the Santa Cruz earthquake, it was in a giant inflatable warehouse. It was actually kind of interesting to walk around in. I haven't seen the new store yet.

The common theme for these places is size and experience. They are putting many of the smaller independents in their areas out of business. The chains cannot complete with them in the used book business. Barnes and Noble really are focused on new books where a formula works.

It takes a certain amount of skill to sort through older books, identifying the collectible and rare books, the regular used books, the bargain books, and the unsalable garbage, then pricing and grading them appropriately.

If you are ever in Manhattan and feel nostalgic, I am going to recommend Roger's Time Tunnel, a very old school comic book shop. 207 W 14TH St Ste 2New York, NY 10011-7105Phone: (212) 691-0380 .

Ring the doorbell. They are on the second floor and will buzz you in. They don't have a website, but if you are looking for a place to find the very old, odd, or unusual comic book, it is a good place to go. They also have movie stills, magazines, paperbacks, pulps, posters, and a variety of other things. If you feel nostalgic and are into this kind of thing and like a fanboy atmosphere, it is a great place to visit. Their pricing and willingness to buy and sell is very good.

When there was still an outdoor flea market in New York around 20th avenue, I used to pick (search for bargains) at the flea markets and bring in comic books and other items for trade there.

Anyways, I added my first widget, http://www.fuelmyblog.com/ . They were nice enough to ask about my site.

I am looking for other widgets or links that aren't too complicated right now. I just added a fish tank. A lot of bookstores have a cat. So Book Calendar now has a fish tank...