Self-Published Author Amanda Hocking Makes Millions From eBook Sales

Unknown, living paycheck to paycheck in Austin, Minnesota, rejected by publishers all over New York, Amanda Hocking decided to self-publish on ebook platforms only. She sold 100,000 of her works in December, and over 10 months she's more than 900,000. She's 26 and is now making enough money to quit her day job and become a full time writer, in fact she's a millionaire. She's going to be featured in Elle Magazine's April issue, all without what everyone thought was essential to make it as a writer: a big New York publishing house.

Alexandra, Egypt Library one of most beautiful libraries in world

Wow! Check out this Library in Alexandra, Egypt. Between the ancient pyramids and the Bibliotheca Alexandria, Egypt now has the best of the old and new. Like a giant discus landed at an angle or an enormous light switch, Alexandria's oceanfront library is arguably the a great design of the new millennium. Completed in 2002, it's inspired by the original Alexandria Library, founded in the 3rd century BC and acclaimed as the greatest of all classical institutions. The building's sloped design represents a second sun rising beside the Mediterranean. The vast rotunda space can hold eight  million books.

LA Times blogs on Book Stores

Yeah, just what exactly is going on with Borders?What used to be a combo coffee hangout and bookstore with tons of lounging areas encouraging browsing and a great selection in dozens of categories now seems on the decline. Stores are closing (including the store in Westwood leaving only the UCLA bookstore in the area) left and right all across the country.  It seems the large bookstore is facing the same financial difficulties encountered by many of the independent bookstores around the country as more buyers explore e-books. Still most bibliophiles agree that browsing titles online is not the same satisfying tactile experience to be found spending a few hours at leisure amongst the stacks of the local bookshop.

Thankfully the Friends of the Corona Public Library still offer up this experience. Stop by the Corona Library and visit soon the Friends' BookShop. You're sure to find that special book you never knew you always wanted and at a bargain price too!


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/bookstores/

ALA presents Newberry and Caldecott Medals, others awarded too

The American Library Association announced winners and finalists of their Youth Media awards, including the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, at a ceremony Monday . The Newbery Medal honors a distinguished work of children's literature. The Caldecott Medal acknowledges excellence in illustration. The awards are presented annually.

The Newbery Medal was awarded to Clare Vanderpool's "Moon Over Manifest," which is the story 12-year-old Abileen Tucker and her adventures upon arriving in Manifest, Kansas in 1936.

The Caldecott Medal was awarded to "A Sick Day for Amos McGee" by Philip Christian Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead. The book tells the story of zookepper Amos McGee and the animals who visit him on a day he stays home with a cold.

"Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi, also a National Book Award finalist, was awarded the Printz Award at the ceremony, a prize for young adult fiction. Bacigalupi is previously the recipient of the Nebula science fiction writing award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for his adult novel "The Windup Girl."

Also presented at the ALA ceremony were the Coretta Scott King Awards, which acknowledge an African-American author and illustrator, to Rita Williams-Garcia for "One Crazy Summer" and to Bryan Collier for his illustrations in "Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave" by Laban Carrick Hill. Also presented to an author and an illustrator, the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Awards for New Talent were given to Victoria Bond for T.R. Simon for their jointly written "Zora and Me" and for Sonia Lynn Sadler's illustration of "Seeds of Change: Wangari's Gift to the World" by Jen Cullerton Johnson.

The winner of the Pura Belpré Award, presented to Latino writers whose children's books best "portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience," was Pam Muñoz Ryan, for her book "The Dreamer," a fictional biography of Pablo Neruda.

The winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was Tomie dePaola, author and illustrator of more than 200 books, including "26 Fairmont Avenue" (Putnam, 1999), "I Love You Sun, I Love You Moon" (Putnam, 1994) and "Strega Nona" (Simon & Schuster, 1975). The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honors a U.S.-published author or illustrator whose work has made a "substantial and lasting contribution" to literature for children.

Also at the ceremony was the Schneider Family Book Awards for work that depicts or promotes understanding of disabilities. The winners, by recommended reader age, were "The Pirate of Kindergarten" by George Ella Lyon, illustrated by Lynne Avril, "After Ever After" by Jordan Sonnenblick and "Five Flavors of Dumb" by Antony John.

A complete list of all award winners and finalists is available on the American Library Association Web site, ala.org.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tops best of lists for 2010

USA Today pegged Stieg Larson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series tops for 2010.
Here's a excerpt from their article by Anthony DeBarros and Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

Millennium trilogy unbeatable

Stieg Larsson's girl with the dragon tattoo might weigh all of 92 pounds, but she made the late Swedish author the year's ultimate sales heavyweight. His Millennium trilogy —The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest— outsold every other author in 2010.

According to Larsson's publisher, Knopf, the thriller series — set in Sweden and starring computer hacker Lisbeth Salander — has sold 12.5 million print copies and 2.5 million e-books.

This year is likely to be another big one for Larsson and Lisbeth, with David Fincher's film adaptation of Dragon Tattoodue in December.

How the series did on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list:

• It had a perfect week on June 3, taking the three top spots. (The third book, Hornet's Nest, hit stores in late May.)
• For all 52 weeks, at least one Larsson novel was in the top 50.
• Tattoo held the No. 1 spot for nine weeks; Hornet's Nest for one.
• Larsson's trilogy accounted for 5% of all sales tracked.

Read the entire article here.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2011-01-13-topbooks201013_ST_N.htm

Mr. Z - popular Corona Library storyteller, now School Board Member

From illiterate to role model

January 05, 2011 By Carla Rivera, (Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times) 

Once, John Zickefoose couldn't read to his children or order from a menu. Today, he's a school board member and Corona library advocate.

“I don’t want any child to go through what I went through,” says John…
 (photo credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The metamorphosis is as quick as the turn of a page: John Zickefoose is a hyperactive goose, a laid-back bear, a monkey, a tiger. The children at the Corona Public Library squeal with laughter as the man whose name rhymes with Seuss becomes louder and more animated.

There was a time when reading the simple words of a picture book would have proved impossible for Zickefoose. He spent years in school overwhelmed with sadness that nothing came as easily to him as it did for others. He would become rowdy, preferring to be kicked out of class than to be called on by the teacher.

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Jonathan Frazen's take on why novels will survive

Dan Winters for TIME

On the eve of his much lauded new release, "Freedom", Jonathan Frazen, author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Corrections (2001), waxes poetic about life, writing, and the pleasure - and need - of humans to sit down and become immersed in a good read in this cover article from TIME magazine. Here's an excerpt:

"There are any number of reasons to want novels to survive. The way Franzen thinks about it is that books can do things, socially useful things, that other media can't. He cites — as one does — the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and his idea of busyness: that state of constant distraction that allows people to avoid difficult realities and maintain self-deceptions. With the help of cell phones, e-mail and handheld games, it's easier to stay busy, in the Kierkegaardian sense, than it's ever been.

Reading, in its quietness and sustained concentration, is the opposite of busyness. "We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we've created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful," Franzen says. "The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world."

Read more: 

TIME magazine cover article on Jonathan Frazen: Great American Novelist, by Lev Grossman

Barnes & Noble on the sale block

More BookStore turmoil. After reporting huge losses last quarter, and indeed all last year, it's not surprising especially given the upsurge in online e-book purchases. Amazon recently reported that e-books are currently surpassing hard cover purchases and CEO Jeff Bezos is expecting sales of e-books to pass paperbacks within 18 months. Is the bricks and mortar bookstore dead? I hope not. I still like to browse amongst titles I'd not necessarily search for online.

More here:

The Most Amazing Bookstores in the World

Shakespere and Co. in Paris. This legendary English language bookstore has served as a haunt for literary greats such as Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. The store is generously stocked with both used and new books, and features an eclectic collection of not for sale books that can be enjoyed in the reading room upstairs. Often flooded with tourists, the bookstore still serves as go to spot for readers and writers alike.

We seen other pics of bookstores around the globe before but these take the prize.
It's a difficult time for bookstores. Online booksellers offer seductively low prices and the convenience of ordering from home. eBooks are poised to change the business of publishing as we know it, allowing readers to bypass printed material altogether. There are news stories almost every day telling us about another independent bookstore that has shut down, a casualty of the changing book business.

Hay-on-Wye in Wales is known through out the world as 'The Town of Books.' There are more then thirty bookstores in the town, and it has come to be known as a center for second hand and antiquarian books.

However, we hope that there will always be a place for physical bookstores. Below, we have gathered some of the most amazing bookstores in the world (slideshow at link)-- the places that would make any reader shut their laptop, put aside their eReader, and go out to buy a book. From New York to Portugal to China, we've picked the most beautiful, impressive, and inspiring. Let us know what you think!
Slideshow of other great bookstores.

Fox News Attacks Chicago Libraries

Gads!

Here's an excerpt: "They eat up millions of your hard earned tax dollars. It's money that could be used to keep your child's school running. So with the internet and e-books, do we really need millions for libraries?"