Robin Sloan says the future of media — media that successfully captures both attention and money — may be in events, especially events that act as generative occasions for original creative work.

A specter is haunting the internet, and I think it’s even scarier than the chal­lenge of getting people to pay money. It’s the challenge of get ting them to pay attention. I think it’s only going to get worse—which is to say, better, because we as internet users and blog readers and tweet slingers will have more cool, weird, interesting stuff to look at all the time, and it will just keep coming faster and getting cooler and fragments and—ack!

Nick Bilton responds to plans by major publishers to delay ebook releases in order to boost hard cover sales:

I can tell you one thing: When I’m looking for a new book on my Kindle and told I have to wait four months for the e-book version, I won’t be heading to the bookstore. Instead, I’ll click the back button and buy one of the 360,000 other e-books available now.

Didn’t anyone at these publishing companies watch what happened to the music and newspaper industries over the last 10 years?

Also, a best-selling business writer has taken ebook rights away from his print publisher in an exclusive arrangement with Amazon.

I still get a lot of blank stares when I start rambling about how all online journals should have RSS feeds, so here’s a recent beginner’s guide to RSS for the uninitiated.

The best thing about being in an MFA program is the way it feeds your reading: friends stop you in the hall to cram a photocopy of their favorite new poem into your hands, books are passed around at parties in a kind of infinite borrowing circle so that the person giving you that wrinkled paperback is probably three steps removed from the person who actually bought it. This is particularly helpful for poetry, which is so marginalized compared to other genres that even hearing about new books (especially by new poets) is difficult.

This is what I want more of from the Internet — original poems bundled with a trusted recommendation. So much of what we do online is still commentary, still meta. I want more new source material online. I want the stuff itself.

Reading Radar is a new mashup that combines the best seller lists from The New York Times with reviews and sales data from Amazon. The result is a site that instantly places popular books in context. It is subtle and brilliant, and gives me an idea for two or three new poetry-related mashups.

Which is exactly what I need, don’t ya know — a few more ideas for web sites.

Update 5 p.m. This got me thinking about whether best seller information is even available for small press poetry books. Yea verily it is, from Small Press Distribution.

Update 5:08 p.m. You guys know what a mashup is, right?

Dan Brady of Barrelhouse asks which writers and publishers in the indie lit community are consistently pushing things forward, and nominates a few of his favorites in the process.

In my neck of the woods, Matt and Katy Henrichsen run a reading series that always brings together an eclectic mix of new and established poets. Their press, Cannibal Books, puts out beautiful handmade chapbooks and broadsides as well.

Interviewed in Guernica, poet and novelist Jesse Ball describes the difference between publishing his first book of poems (March Book) and publishing his first novel (Samedi the Deafness):

Yeah, it is pretty silly. I wrote that book of poems and then nothing happened at all. I was happy to have written it, and I wanted people to read it, but it didn’t help me to get a job or anything; nothing came of it. The novel, on the other hand, was this huge sort of fanfare.

(via Bookslut)

“I’m optimistic that electronic reading will bring more good than harm.” — Jacob Weisberg, Slate, 3/21/09

It’s not difficult to guess that we at Linebreak have some sizable bets out on the e-literature horse.

Confession: I’m a book hoarder.

My bookshelves runneth over. I keep books on side tables, on the floor, on the defunct entertainment center shoved into the corner. Books are what we’ve had to work with, sure, but I’ll admit I’ve got real affection for the dusty, crumbly things.

Why don’t I have a Kindle (or its shinier, brighter sibling Kindle 2)? I’m broke, but who isn’t? I like holding books. I like turning pages. Johnathon is likely glowering at what sound like a technophobe’s reservations.

It’s what we deal with daily when we consider what we do on this site. Will we be forgiven for not having a body? For our own part, I hope so. Is reading poetry in a digital format different than reading a novel in the same way? I think so. Poetry’s manageable. It’s not Moby-Dick.

I don’t know how to react to Jacob Weisberg’s recent Slate article: is the Kindle the future? How long until we embrace our digital overlords? I have a feeling we’ll see soon enough.

• I haven’t worked just one job since, well, never, but Tina Brown reports that now even the upper-middle class are finding themselves in the gig economy. (Do writers without tenure ever work just one job?) Favorite new economic phrase: “The Nut.”
• Note to self: learn to say no.
• As other magazines struggle to survive, Cook’s Illustrated is thriving. (via 37 Signals)
• A pulp fiction cover gallery from Hang Fire Books, including such classics as Love Addict and Gutter Girl. The Hang Fire Books blog describes the life an independent, specialty bookseller.
• The Book Cover Archive, a collection of cover designs and designers. (via Daring Fireball)
• Joe the Plumber (yes, that Joe the Plumber) files his first report as a war correspondent.
• And just for fun: “It comes at you in waves.” — Man eats world’s hottest pepper.