Recently BBC featured a few images in the upcoming exhibition of children’s poetry, nursery rhymes and song from 1603 to the present day. Curated by Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen, The British Library exhibits plenty of classics, including Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. For those of us living outside of London, now we too can see John Tenniel’s famous illustrations online at Sharing-Books. There are a total of 42 illustrations created in this 1865 version of the classic. One has only to view his Cheshire Cat on page 92 to see the predecessor to the Cheshire Cat in the Disney movie of 1951. And so the ancestry of a very famous cat was born.


Click here for more information about the exhibit at the British Library.

Rita Toews, one of the founders of Read an E-Book week, reported to us by email how the 2009 Read an E-book Week was a roaring success:

"The Read an E-Book website main page had 30,500 hits from March 1st to the 15th. The partners page with the promotional material had 15,900 hits. People are obviously interested in all aspects of e-books and electronic reading material. Web traffic came from the four corners of the globe, including:Korea, England, Russia, U.S.A., France, Spain, Argentina, Iceland, Mexico, Portugal, Egypt, China, India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates - to name a few."

Rita and her team put an enormous amount of effort in this endeavour and we salute their success. It was neat to see major media/tech sites like Wired.com and Forbes.com take notice and promote the week. We also read an excellent interview with Rita in the Children Books Insider March newsletter. With all this work in 2009 the stage is set for a great success in 2010.

Bravo!

Some of you may have noticed a brief interruption of the site this morning. This interruption was intentional this time! I am happy to report the following new additions and changes to the Sharing Books site:

1. The site now has the ability to list ISBN numbers on books. Over the next 48 hours expect to see ISBNs appearing on your book details pages. This is a manual process, so it will take some time to get all the books with ISBNs. Also note it can take up to 14 days for us to process a new book and get an ISBN for it, so if you have just uploaded work please be patient.
2. The 'Published Books' page on user profiles has been cleaned up, and should now give a better idea of the status of your book ( Approved, waiting approval, etc ).
3. The downloaded books count had a bug that was causing it to return false information on books that have been updated or changed. The bug caused the download count to only show the downloads for the most recent version of the book. We have corrected this, and the download count on the book details page now shows the full download history of a book, including all revisions. Anyone with a book that they have updated or made changes on should now see a download count number that is higher. In some cases significantly higher.
4. There have been a few minor adjustments to some back-end reporting tools for us site administrators, letting us do things like add ISBNs and resend Terms of Contribution emails on books which seem to be pending acceptance of the ToC. This should help streamline publishing, and ease the lag time on books with multiple creators involved.

As with any feature push, there may be bugs and problems. If you find any issues, do not hesitate to report them here.

Labels: features, news

From the hours of 9:00pm PST to 12:00am PST the Sharing Books site was down. The outage was due to server related problems at our host company. The problems have been resolved, and from what we can see there has been no loss of data. We apologize to our users who experienced an interruption in service, and we are looking further into what caused the problem so that we can prevent it in the future.

If anyone is missing data, or having problems with their user account please contact us at team@sharing-books.com

Labels: site outages, support

Here is a sneak peek at the back page that is going to start showing up as the last page on the books published through Sharing Books. This back page is going to enable readers to click on links in the PDF that will take them back to the donation page for that book. ISBN's, as they become available and registered for books on the site, will also appear on this back page. ( Currently not shown ). We will start adding these pages to our books over the next couple weeks.

Labels: children books, content

Digital publishing platforms allow authors and illustrators to explore contemporary issues as they are unfolding. Sometimes events happen that are so moving, so important to an individual that they feel the need to create work around it right away. Events that are horrific, like the bush fires that swept Australia this season. Events that are culturally significant, like the election of President Obama. Events that are joyous, like a new member to the family. These are events that unfold in real time.

Sharing Books offers a place for people to take these real-time events, the living situations of humanity, and put them in a format for children to read. Our book creators can tackle some of the most difficult subject matter in ways that help children understand what has happened, and is HAPPENING, around them.

A great example of this is the Poster Poem, "Survivors" by Jennifer Poulter and Arti Chauhan, which tackles the aftermath of something like the bush fires in Australia. A simple illustration and poem that talks of the mixed emotions that grip survivors, whether they are adult or child.

People live in real time, not the years lag time found in traditional children's publishing. Parents can find they need material to deal with issues in the now, not two, three, or ten years after an event when their children are fully grown. Digital publishing offers a space where authors, illustrators, and content consumers can meet to produce, consume, and share creative works centered on our real-time lives. Content can be published in days instead of years, hours instead of days. What a powerful thing it can be, that space where speed meets relevance.

Labels: business philosophy, publishing

Pierre passed a fascinating article from the CBC to me this morning on Sita Sings The Blues by Nina Paley. The reason I am doing a blog post on Sharing Books about this article is that it shows how absolutely powerful giving away your content can be. There is a fantastic quote in the article from Nina Paley:

'The more I let go, the more money seems to be heading back toward me. There's enormous untapped power in the audience. ' — Nina Paley, filmmaker.

This notion that giving your content away, that allowing your creative works to freely move and distribute rather then clamping down, is critical to the Sharing Books business model. It is also critical to the success of our book creators. By giving the work away you open yourself to tens of thousands of potential readers, far more then you would ever hope to get with traditional print and distribution. You have the ability to link to your own personal websites, where you can sell merchandise and grow your brand. Sharing Books offers a platform for authors and illustrators to publish their work, develop their work, and grow their brand.

As the world gets increasingly digital, and media content gets further separated from the media container the ability to let your work flow freely is going to become increasingly critical. Some of our creators get this already, developing Poster Poems ( one page books ) and mini-books ( six to 8 page teaser books ). These are works that a traditional publisher would never consider as viable, but in the world of container-less content these are the exact sort of user generated ideas that have so very much potential.

Labels: business philosophy, content, ebooks

Sometimes people ask what the significance of classic literature is. Why not just focus on the up and coming works?

Classic literature remains alive today, in part, because it touches on the universal themes that affect us all, no matter what part of the world we live in. A child in Australia can read about bullying in Tom Brown’s School Days set in 19th century England, and suddenly know that they are not alone in this experience. A pre-teen in India can read Persuasion by Jane Austen and may share in the lament of caring for someone outside of their caste. Whether we are experiencing love or dangerous times, classic literature gives us a safe place in which to understand the inner workings of humanity that are so often missed in the glare of the day. Of course classic literature is not all serious, as adults who recall Mother Goose rhymes can testify by their giggle upon review of a political cartoon in the morning’s paper.

Classic literature flavours our world, giving us quiet companionship and a safe place to explore worlds unknown. It allows us to transcend our daily experience, perhaps dream of traveling while teaching us of foreign peoples, real or imagined.

As a French Canadian illustrator, Michele Lemieux did not grow up with the English writer Edward Lear and his stories, but as a child at heart, she has no problem laughing over his zany fictitious characters. Over the weekend, we had a chance to catch up with Canadian illustrator who illustrated the 1994 edition of Edward Lear’s poetry in There Was An Old Man… A Collection of Limericks. She was one of the guest speakers for Serendipity 2009, an annual event hosted by the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable. Ms. Lemieux was delighted to see his original illustrations. Now, Sharing-Books readers too have a chance to share her delight in our recent re-release of his 1888 edition.

Here at Sharing-Books, you will find some of your favourite stories and discover new ones. This week, illustrator E.R. Stanton shares her wonderful watercolour that illustrates Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “To the Seaside.” Doesn’t it dispel a gray day and make you long for summer by the beach?

Labels: classics, ebooks, Lear, Lemieux, limericks

The Simone Wood Award, 2009

Sharing Books is pleased to announce the Simone Wood Award for Children’s Literature. Simone Wood was an avid supporter of dance and her family have launched this award on Simone’s birthday to honour her life-long passion that she gave to successive generations.

The Simone Wood Award is available to any book creators who publish their work through Sharing Books. Eligible works must be focused on dance, dance themes, and/or the history and development of dance. Any of the children's books published on Sharing Books from April 3rd 2009 to May 31st 2009, with dance as their primary focus, will be automatically entered in the contest for the Simone Wood Award for Children’s Literature. This is a juried award, and a jury of content reviewers will determine whether the works submitted fall within the content guidelines.

The award will be given to the three most downloaded books on the Sharing Books site during the month of June, 2009 as follows:
• First Place award of $300 Canadian to the most downloaded book in June
• Second Place award of $200 Canadian to the second most downloaded book in June
• Third Place award of $100 Canadian to the third most downloaded book in June

Awards will be divided equally between the author and illustrator of illustrated works, or in granted in whole to the author in non-illustrated works.

Simone Wood Award, 2009 Eligibility Guidelines

1) The work must have a 'dance' focus. The work must contain content focused on dance, dance movements, dance culture, cultural dances, or dance history that forms the core or pivotal point of the work. There is no restriction on the type of dance, or the nature or approach to dance that is taken in the work.

Examples of eligible works would be:
• A story about a child going to their first ballet class.
• A mythological story about dance gods or goddesses.
• A story about a teacher running a dance pageant at her school.
• A picture book that shows a performance in visual and poetic form.

2) The work must be geared towards children.

3) Works must be submitted to Sharing Books between April 3rd 2009 and May 31st 2009. Works that are submitted, but not published and awaiting approval to go on the site by May 31st 2009 will still be eligible to enter the contest for the Simone Wood Award for Children’s Literature, 2009.

4) All submitted works will be chosen for eligibility by a team of jurors.

5) Winners are chosen based on the downloads of the books from 12:00am June 1st, 2009 to 11:59pm June 30th, 2009 PST.

Labels: awards, contest, news

We are pleased to note the 4,000th download of a Sharing-Books. We missed the exact screen capture and had to settle for 4,001 as things are happening faster. It took:

• 4 months to reach 1,000 downloads
• 2 months to reach 2,000 downloads
• 1 month to reach 3,000 downloads
• 15 days to reach 4,000 downloads

This momentum is rewarding as it demonstrates the value Sharing-Books' authors deliver to our readers. We thank all our contributors and all our visitors who enjoy our site, and who have taken the time to refer new visitors to Sharing-Books. We appreciate your support for this project.

Labels: children books, e-books

We know how important donations are to our book creators. This money is what lets them produce the books that we are distributing for free, so any time we can find a way to help our authors and illustrators get donations we will attempt to help them out. Their success is our success.

So to help maximize donations we are going to be adding, over time, a number of things to the books on our site. The first is going to be a back page to each book that explains how Sharing Books works, with links that take the users to the donation page for an individual book. That means that no matter how many times a book is emailed around, there is always a way for people to click a link and donate to our book creators.

This is the first of many new things coming to help our authors and illustrators find not only success in driving their brand and popularity, but also tap into alternative forms of revenue available to them.

Labels: features, marketing, money

So I was checking out the site analytics for the day and I noticed a significant spike in traffic yesterday. Being curious, I dug through to find out where the traffic was coming from. Turns out one of the bloggers over at the Wired GeekDad blog did a quick post about us. Check it out if you get a chance: GeekDad on Sharing Books

Last week we announced the winner of our first contest for book creators. We asked Andrea to share insights as to how she won the contest. This will be relevant to interested Sharing-Books authors as we will announce soon our next contest for book creators.

Tell us about yourself. When and why did you start writing?
I am a busy mom raising two young boys ages six and nine. I started writing poetry in my early teens as a creative outlet for my teenage angst. Over the years I have continued to write for fun and for friends. I usually combine humour and verse in my projects.

The Little Suitcase is an important book for you, and you had a special motivation to win this contest. Tell us why.
This story came as an answer to prayer, when I was at a loss for words. It's purpose was to comfort dear friends of mine after they lost their son, and now it can reach other families who may be grieving. Winning this contest was important because we wanted to donate the prize money to Sunny Hill Health Centre, in Dylan's memory.

What did you do to promote your book and encourage people to register, download the book and donate?
I wrote a letter explaining how The Little Suitcase and Sharing Books came to be and also about the contest. I asked everyone to read, vote and pass on the story to as many people as possible. I sent the letter by email of course, but also handed out the letter in person at every opportunity. People promoted the story on their websites and Facebook pages with a link to the Sharing Books site.

You shared an interesting anecdote that was reported to you about a business meeting and your book. Please repeat the story for our readers.
My husband sent the story out amongst his co-workers. During a fun warm-up exercise at a business meeting, when asked what was the last book they had read a colleague talked about The Little Suitcase. It reminds me to take every opportunity because something wonderfully unexpected can come from it!

What advice do you have for new authors?
If you have an idea or something you feel you need to express...just write it all down. It doesn't need to be eloquent or even make sense, but you need to get it on paper. As you keep writing, it will eventually become what you want it to be or something you never expected at all. The fun is seeing what you end up with!

Tell us about the purpose of Read an E-Book Week.

Read an E-Book Week is a not-for-profit week set aside to inform the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically. Authors, publishers, vendors, the media and readers world-wide are welcome to join in the effort. We encourage them to promote electronic reading with any event. These could include: public readings, library displays, reading challenges, school visits, newspaper and blog articles, chat show appearances, internet radio interviews, e-book give-ways, and banners on their website. 

The Read an E-Book website provides the latest information on e-books and acts as a collection point where publishers and authors can list their event or give-away.

You were recently quoted on wired.com about the development of e-reader devices. When do you think will we reach the tipping point when e-readers or multi-purpose devices with e-reading functions will be as much a part of our life as cell phones?

I see that day being about 2 years in the future - when colour becomes part of the device. There are some amazing devices being developed today that will merge seamlessly into our lives by becoming a part of things we already have.

Plastic Logic is developing a screen that is 8 1/2 x 11 inches capable of doing power point, graphs and charts. There's a small fexible display being developed that can unscroll out of the side of a phone to act as a reader that's larger than a phone screen.

Some day we'll be able to aim a reader at the computer and download a newspaper onto a device the size of a magazine. Each day the device will become a complete new newspaper. Science fiction is about to collide with our everyday world.

As an author you have published some books on paper, some as e-books and even an audio book, why such a diversity of formats?

There is really no rhyme or reason as to how the diversity developed. Serendipity, perhaps?

My writing partner's memoirs were accepted by Blackstone Audio after they won an award in electronic format. Audio was a good medium for the memoirs and we were delighted with the sale. We had published several award-winning e-books but they were niche market books. One day I challenged my writing partner that we should write a book for the mass market. Several weeks later he came up with the story line for Body Traffic! The book was accepted by the first print publisher we submitted to and went on to be short-listed for the Margaret Laurence Book Award. If it hadn't been accepted there it would have become an e-book.

With my children's books I wanted to do something that could teach children to use a computer. Kelly's Baby Brother incorporates large link buttons so a small child can navigate the book on their own as they learn to use a mouse. Christmas Stars showcases the ability of electronic books to use technology in a way that print books can't. When the mouse rests on an evergreen tree on one page of the story, the tree transforms into a decorated Christmas Tree.

I think the diversity simply grew out of a curiosity to explore the full range of possibility for books.

There is a big debate going on about Digital Rights Management for books. Some publishers choose to use DRM, others like us at Sharing-Books publish DRM-free books. In your opinion what is the future of DRM in e-books?

DRM will probably remain, but in a slightly different format. As a person who purchases e-books, I want to own that book and do with it as I choose - just as I do with a print book. If I purchase a new e-book reader I would like to transfer the book onto my new reader, or perhaps read it on my laptop. I hope that a compromise can be reached where any reading device I own can read books I've purchased. Otherwise, what I've really done is rent that book for the single device I purchased it with.

As an author, I feel that some control needs to be taken so my book isn't pirated and sold anywhere.

Now, if you don’t mind we’d like to know more about you as an author. When did you start writing?

I started writing when I was in my early twenties, but didn't get serious about it until I was in my late forties. At that point I took a few writing classes at the University of Winnipeg where I was introduced to my writing partner, Alex Domokos. His story drafts made writing with him a real joy.

What made you decide to write?

Like most people I felt I had something to say. My personal writing style tends toward humour and there's a lot of absolutely silly things that happen to me that I can share with people to make them laugh. Immediately the event is over I begin to think of how I can recount it in an even more humourous manner. Often people will look at me after an incident and say - "There's a story comming out about that, isn't there?"

I also like to explore other genre. I really like to read mystery and thriller novels, so it's a challenge to be able to write that type of book. Perhaps the real reason I write is that I like to challenge myself to share stories in a variety of ways.

Any new writing project you’d like to tell us about?
Right now I have a manuscript entitled Checkmate! that I'd like to find a publisher for. Its the sequel to Body Traffic. Instead of being set in Winnipeg it takes place in Hungary where my RCMP hero has taken his wife for their honeymoon.

I'd also like to compile my humorous short stories into collection and offer then as a book. It's something I feel will happen one day.

Finally what words of wisdom do you have for new authors just starting to write?

Yes. Read, read, read. There's no better way to learn the craft of writing than by reading. Watch the way words are used by others. Learn from other authors. Also you need to cultivate a wild imagination. If you can't envision a scenario it is hard to convey it to a reader.

Vancouver B.C. (PRWEB) March 5, 2009 - Capitalizing on the significant expertise held in their respective fields, ParetoLogic Inc and Sharing-Books.com are teaming up to make Internet safety available to all children. Sharing-Books.com, a division of Shared Books Ltd, is bringing its comprehensive and well-trafficked web presence to the table while ParetoLogic supplies their award winning parental controls software, PGsurfer, and its companion website SafeSurfer.com. Available for download free of charge from the Sharing-Books website, PGsurfer is lauded by computer security professionals and child safety advocates alike. Benefiting children and families around the world, the alliance promises to combine the best of two B.C. companies that have been recognized as emerging corporate online powerhouses in Canada.

Creating a new approach to the publishing and distribution of children’s books, Sharing-Books offers writers and illustrators the opportunity to offer E-Books for children under 11 while making available those works to children and families free of charge. “The kids and families that access our website are firm and fast web users. Offering PGsurfer through the site is a fantastic opportunity for us to offer a powerful software tool and educational resource to keep our visitors safe while online,” Remarks Shared Books Ltd CEO, Pierre Lapointe. ParetoLogic’s Vice-President of Marketing, Barry Dodd is quick to point out that ParetoLogic developed PGsurfer with the needs of modern families foremost in mind. “PGsurfer enables filtering of different content for individual children within a family, making it the perfect solution for families with kids of disparate ages,” says Dodd, “We are confident that visitors to the Sharing-Books.com website are the kind of Internet users who recognize both the resources and the threats inherent in Internet use.”

About ParetoLogic, Inc.
In 2004 four brothers recognized that modern computer users need not rely on computer repair technicians to maintain their own PC's. Knowing that sophisticated technology married with a truly user-friendly interface would empower people to secure and optimize their own computers, the brothers researched the marketplace to define and develop the software products that would most benefit today's computer user.
ParetoLogic, www.paretologic.com , now employs 140 professionals to help them research, develop, and market software applications that will enable people to secure and enhance their computing experience. Available in eight languages in 192 countries around the world, ParetoLogic has established partnerships on a global scale to ensure that its products are available to all computer users, regardless of location, language, or computing experience.
Attention to the needs of the consumer coupled with a commitment to delivering exceptional software applications and resource-rich websites guarantee that our products will exceed your expectations.

About Sharing-Books:
Sharing-books, www.sharing-books.com , is an innovative business model combining private enterprise and social goals. Sharing-Books’ authors receive 1/3 of the revenues of the company as royalties. Another 1/3 of Sharing-Books’ revenues are given to Room to Read, a charity that equips developing nations with literacy resources. Sharing-Books operates an ultra lean virtual business model with the other 1/3 of its revenues.
Sharing-Books disrupts the traditional publishing cycle by giving new authors and new books an immediate publishing venue. The Sharing-Books model identifies promising books and characters for the paper publishing, gaming, movie and toy industries.

We are delighted to announce the winners of Sharing-Books first contest. You may have followed the race for downloads that heated up in the second half of the contest. Now the tally is completed and here is the winning book for the first category - Most Read (downloaded):

Labels: children books, contest, prize