News & Notes -- 7/27/13

News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, giveaways on this and other blogs, and other cool stuff.

Books & Ebooks in the News:

• Man Booker Prize announces the 2013 longlist
• "Chocolate Might Save Bookstores".  Well, the scent of it, anyway. (Tom Jacobs, Salon)
• "Slow Build for 'Cuckoo's' Print Sales" J. K. Rowling's pseudonymous crime novel is selling slowly in print but very well as an ebook, probably due to the dearth of print copies in bookstores.  (Publishers Weekly)  
• "Jane Austen to be face of the Bank of England £10 note" (BBC News)

Picture: AP

Worth Reading:

• "How  Booksellers Can Combat Showrooming" by matching online discounts.  Nice idea, but I'm not sure they can afford to. (Jason Boog, GalleyCat)
• "Three Steps to Reading Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger"  (Peter Damien, BookRiot)
• The New Yorker's James Surowiecki argues that Barnes & Noble isn't doomed.
• "If You Think Fake Geek Girls Are a Thing, The Doubleclicks (and John Scalzi) Would Like to Have a Word With You" (Leah Schnelbach, Tor.com).  Worth reading for geeks of whatever gender, and the video is definitely worth watching.  (And yes, I'm a geek and I'm proud of it!)
• And in case you're wondering who John Scalzi is and why he's putting in his oar, he's a bestselling SF author and current president of the SFWA, and he wrote this terrific piece defending anyone's right to be a geek: "Who Gets To Be a Geek? Anyone Who Wants to Be" (John Scalzi's blog)

For Writers & Bloggers:

• Novelist and professional book critic Janet Harayda offers Recipes for Success: 8 Tips for Writing Good Book Reviews over on NetGalley.
• "Early Jobs of Famous Authors: John Green, Hilary Mantel, and More".  A little inspiration for those holding down a day job while they write at night.  (Daniel Lefferts, Bookish.com)

Book Announcements:

• Macmillan's new ReaLITy program highlights realistic literary fiction for teens.

Free & Bargain books:

 

• Don't forget the free audiobook downloads from SYNC!  You will need to download the Overdrive Media Console to be able to download the audiobooks.  Here are this week's and next week's titles:
• July 25 to July 31: The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen (read by Charlie McWade; Scholastic Audiobooks) and The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain (read by Steve West; Blackstone Audio) 
• Aug 1 to Aug 7: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane (read by Dan Weyman; Macmillan Audio) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Ralph Cosham (Blackstone Audio) 
• The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com: 151 original SF & fantasy stories by authors like Ann Aguirre, Leigh Bardugo, Elizabeth Bear, Gregory Benford, Cory Doctorow, Mary Robinette Kowal, Garth Nix, Rudy Rucker, Charles Stross, Rachel Swirsky, Harry Turtledove, Catherynne M. Valente, Jo Walton, and more.  That's a huge amount of good SFF - over 4000 pages' worth.  You have to sign up as a registered user, but that's easy enough.  I've already downloaded it in both ePub and .mobi (Kindle) formats.

Awesome lists: 

• Steampunk 101: From Sci-Fi Sub-genre to Cultural Phenomenon.  A selected list of steampunk novels and earlier books which influenced the subgenre.  (Scott Laming, for Abe Books)
• This year's best science books for kids and teens, chosen by the National Science Teachers Association.
• 30 Things Librarians Love (Jessica Misener, Buzzfeed)

Really cool:

• Neil Gaiman has a game coming out!  Yes, you heard that right.  Gaiman has teamed with video game studio The Odd Gentlemen and mobile app developer Moonshark to create Wayward Manor, a game in which you play a ghost determined to rid a house of its rather quirky residents by scaring them away, using your wits and their own belongings.  The game is still in development, but you can pre-order a digital copy, or (for varying additional fees) support the development process and get additional cool stuff.  The game sounds like a lot of fun; I can hardly wait!

Just for fun:  

• How's this for literary fashion -- a dress made almost entirely from pages from a book!  (There's a smidgen of lace at the bottom of the bodice.)  The designer and model is Jorimoo, and her Imgur album has gotten over 86,000 views already.  Hop on over and check out the detail photos -- it's pretty impressive.  (Thanks to Jason Boog at GalleyCat for putting me on to this.)

That's it for this week!

I'm always on the lookout for interesting articles, lists, and links for News & Notes, so please let me know if you see (or write!) anything that might be good for this feature.  You can leave me a comment or send me an email -- my address is on the About/Review Policy/Contact page.